Star so Lucky it Shines...

Survival of the....out of shape?

2010-08-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

I know, I know.
I should get fit.

Life is strange right now.
I'm so happy and yet so worried about some things.
I think I expected True Love to save me--
from everything else in life.
But...ya know...ahem...SURPRISE SURPRISE, dumbass--it hasn't!
Well. Yeah.
I guess I shoulda known better.
Ha.
Finding a soul mate has been the end of a life long quest, and now I find myself casting about for a purpose.
Ya know?
Harumph.
S'weird.

Plus, he is mightily distracted right at the mo.
And I like his Adult A.D.D. to be all focused on me.
All 23 of his simultaneous trains of thought should be dominated by yours truly.
That is what makes me smile.
That is what makes my world turn.
I don't know.

Maybe I'm just losing my need to have my whole world filled with him, ya know?
Like...in a healthy way.
But it also sort of makes me uneasy, because I like how it feels to be all wrapped up in each other...
Sigh.

I have too many thoughts to churn through and this isn't the place.

But life is good.

Books have ruled my summer.

"The Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
All sorts of books by Christopher Moore--"A Dirty Job," "Practical Demonkeeping," "Bloodsucking Fiends," "You Suck,"
"The Passage" by Justin Cronin
"Until I Find You," by John Irving - love him!
Aaaaand....I think there were others, but I can't think of them right now!
I finally got a library card at my historic and beautiful little town library, so maybe I can stop spending so much money on books!!
But don't count on it.

Also, I met a woman who runs literary workshops and I am going to sign up to have her light fires under my butt. Cuz, goodness! I should be writing.

So.
Yeah.

Life rolls on, life is ever-changing, life is always the same.

peace out

I find it interesting...

2010-06-30T11:38:00.001-07:00

That I have wasted the past hour and half reading recipes...
when what I really should be doing is, oh I don't know--ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE!!
I have laundry to do.
I have writing I purportedly want to do.
I have a house that is...let's say...ummm...experiencing entropy in a rather distinct fashion.
Siiiigh.

But, ok.
Here I am.
Writing this, at least.
I'm just doing this so that I don't feel so badly when I give in and play Dope Wars.
No, it's not on frigging facebook or anything.
It's just this lame-yet-super-awesome little math game.
I like to call it a math game, so I don't feel so badly for LOVING a text-based game where you buy and sell illicit substances and borrow money from loan sharks and occasionally get chased by the cops.

My brown ...uh...that was supposed to be "brain".
And it serves to prove the point I was attempting to make with the sentence starting, "My brain..."
I was trying to say that my brain doesn't work right lately.
But it said it for me.
Kinda groovy.
If it weren't also a tad bit alarming.
But, eh, whatever.
I hate alarm clocks anyway.

I thought I had a funny story...
Oh yeah.
Last night Oldest Step-son had us watch a claymation video that he discovered online.
It was a beautiful little story, a bit dark but also adorable.
"Harvey Krumpet" is the name and there were lots of big names in the voice overs.
Super groovy.
So the title character learns a bunch of "fakts," as his mother spells it, and one of them he shares with us is my new favorite slogan.
"The people who believed the earth was flat are the people who wrote the Bible."
I posted that as my facebook status, and got a rebuttal from a painfully Christian friend (of a friend, really).
She said something like, "Everyone believed the earth was flat then and only the Creator knows..." uh...something. Can't remember what she ended with.
But I couldn't help but reply!!
Uh...that's the whole point: the Bible was written by and for people who didn't truly understand the world around them, so they made up reasons why things happened. I think it's super funny that modern day religious-types think that they are so obviously more correct than the ancient Greeks or Romans, or Native Americans! The older I get, the more surprised I am that anyone else still believes the fairy tales of their youth, because I have grown out of those closed-minded beliefs.
Which is not to say that I would EVER want to persuade anyone to change their beliefs; if you have religion and it works for you--AWESOME. Good for you, and happy yappy day. But I happen to be a skeptic these days; and to believe that if there is an omniscient being of some kind, he/she/it is far less involved in our little microcosm than we would like to believe.

OOps.
I got all...controversial and stuff.
I guess that's what happens when you think more than you dream.
Or when you're borderline depressed because life is harder than it used to be and yet you still can't find the inner drive to make something of yourself.
"You" being me, in this case. Heh.

Well, whatevs.
If this blog has proven anything, it is that I am about as unpredictable as the weather patterns of the coast of Maine.
(That is to say, right wicked unpredictable!)

Kayaking is not for sissies

2010-06-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Actually, it doesn't take guts to kayak, just will.
Such a fun day!
We floated with a pair of loons for several long, quiet minutes.
So close!
It was awesome.
We paddled all the way around a small island in the large lake; scoping it for some possible camping...
The sun wasn't too hot, the bugs weren't too thick.
And I didn't even get sucked away by a current today!
Super sweet.
Then we found a store with some of the most amazingly delicious peanut butter cookies in existence.
We played with the GPS and (I) talked non-stop the whole way home.
We had a great conversation about how lazy we are, and we're mostly ok with that, but we miiiight just wanna start using the kayaks and bikes more often.
Also, we listened to the Lady Gaga CD I just got...
I know, totally not my style!
But it's oooooh-so catchy.
Groovy.

This little laptop of mine has been malfunctioning lately, and one day last week it just flipped me the blue screen of death bird and refused to boot up again...
It was sucktastic.
I fretted a bit about the data I might lose...
but then I realized that I couldn't think of a single thing that might be on this computer, unbacked up.
Maybe some writing...but nothing I could call to mind.
So I figured, what the hell?
If I don't know what's missing, it's not so bad, right?
So.
Now I have my puter back.
Let's hope the Best Idea I Ever Had wasn't just lost to the ether...

Tonight I'll have dinner with my sister and our two cousins with whom we grew up.
Our Grammy lived on the corner and we lived to her right and they lived to her left.
I just thought that's how life was supposed to be...
I didn't realize how lucky I was.
We built a tree house, they all taught me to ride my bike (I'm the youngest by 1.5, 2.5, and 4.5 years), we played baseball and kickball and Red Rover and tag and freeze tag and tv tag; we played Monopoly and checkers and Clue watched Press Your Luck and The Price is Right; we dove into the thorny bramble of blackberry and raspberry bushes, coming out with stained faces and fingernails. We really had a beautiful and protected childhood. Our moms were always around and if they were busy picking crabmeat, our Grammy was right there, and we all sort of just wandered around the 'hood.
About the time our cousins launched into the social frenzy of jr. high, we moved to a house in another town, about 3 miles away. It was the end of an era. Everything was different. Still good, but...emptier, quieter. It was like two of my sisters had gone away to college or something. None of the devastation of a divorce, but just...a separating of worlds.
My sister and I eventually moved far away for college and marriage and each had two sons (all 4 in the last two weeks of July, weirdly enough), and they both built beautiful homes in that same town, married and raised dogs.
Very different lives in some ways.
Now that I live here again, I don't see them as much as I should, but I know they are here, and it feels good.
It'll be really great to hang out tonight.
To laugh and catch up.

Iron Pen Competition, SLC

2010-06-26T08:19:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine is participating, but I am not there this year.
She sent me the photo which is the only guideline the participants are given.
I couldn't help but respond to it...

Smoke stack rising in the distance
Your brothers teased you for years
(you saw it last, lost in thoughts amid the chaos of the long road trip with too many passengers)
but now you are gone
the tallest brother
the shortest (life).
And the youngest
(now the tallest, in your absence)
has filled his shoulder space with ink
of a scene of industry,
the smoke stack which you saw last
and exclaimed in surprise
at something the others had already discussed at length
"Look at that huge smokestack!"
They laughed and laughed...
They love you better now than they ever did then.

I love to write because--

2010-05-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

It makes me feel alive.
It makes me feel sexy and vital and REAL.
It makes me feel edgy and like I'm outside the rest of society--
and I like it there.
It is sometimes cold and dark, with distant stars less distant, because I am cradled by the arms of outer space.
Sometimes...
it is sizzling hot, so that my feet cannot land long in one place, and I move through the bed of coals that I chose with the delight of a child over discovering Willy Wonka's fabulous factory.
What I can't stand is when it feels like breathing beige and drinking unflavored gelatin.
But really?
What have I written that was gooood?
Besides all my thoughts on writing or life or whatever.
I have no reason to believe I can write a book or a screenplay that will be worth anyone's time.
But.
I still plan to.
(insert evil grin)

Once upon a time....
there was a girl
who thought her whole destiny rested in her ability to spin words
but really?
She has dishes to wash and kids to feed (so she can get them out the door on time for their baseball game)
she has to sit on a dock and smile and make small talk and hope that some of these darling people want to buy tickets to go for a 2 hour sail on an exquisite wooden schooner in the breathtakingly beautiful bay.
And she worries all the time about how she doesn't feel well enough to exercise and it's making her fatter and fatter and fatter and she still loves to bake and it's making her fatter and fatter and fatter and if it doesn't stop soon she will weigh as much as her husband and then she feels so sick that she doesn't want to eat and she hopes that will be enough to make her lose some weight, but really she has lost hope because apparently she has no control over whether or not she loses weight because in reality she has spent periods of several months at a time exercising fairly vigorously and changing her eating habits and only gained more weight and her doctor says it's because her intestines aren't doing their job but that just seems like a sick joke because if she has an intestinal disorder of some kind SHOULDN'T THAT MAKE HER LOSE WEIGHT, FOR CHRIST'S FUCKLESS SAKE?????????????????????????

yeah.
Well.
Riting is gud.
Let me tap back into my Malone-y/Bukowski-y vein o' endless writing that feels like it matters even if it doesn't.
Misery can't be the only thing that makes me creative.
Fuck.

Home, Sweetest home of all...

2010-05-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a month that in some ways has felt like an emotional roller coaster from here to the moon,
but
in other ways it feels more like a tidal wave that was quietly building and it has swept over me
now leaving me feeling clean, fresh, invigorated--alive!
Visiting Utah for the first time since moving away was just as emotional for me as I should have expected...but I didn't.
I was distracted by other things up until the very moment I arrived there.
Mostly, it was wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family who love me, and whom I've missed very much.
And partly, it was hard to be there without my sweet husband.
But really...it just brought a lot of realizations under the glaring stagelights on the theater in my mind.
It started a domino effect, setting into motion a jarring of my perspective as I was forced to examine my life and my choices.
I'm not gonna lie...it was scary.
I wouldn't say I ever regretted my decision to move with the kids to Maine, but I had to feel my way through it all over again, groping in the dark. I came out the other side with a smile on my face, though, and the sure knowledge that I have done the right thing. Like I said, it isn't so much that I regretted my choice, or even doubted it. It's just that...I don't know. Maine has been hard. Utah is easy. And I was feeling like it was all just too much. I realized, maybe for the first time, just how much I had given up in order to move here--and it made so many things make sense at once that I practically imploded.
So once that tidal wave passed, I spent a week at home and then hopped in the car with two friends from high school and we drove through 10 states to visit my best friend who is another friend of ours from high school. We had an amazing time--and most of that trip is another story for another post, but the part relevant to this post is that I finished this leg of my self-discovery journey. I realized that I have been sort of wallowing and stagnant. I reached a point where I am ready to press onward--including, but not limited to: exercise, writing, and a whole new course of study for my ever-elusive bachelor's degree!
See...my whole life, the only solid goal I had, and something I sought after with every cell in my being, was True Love. I know...I'm kinda pathetic. But that's just the reality: I didn't have anything else motivating me but finding my True Love. And now that I have found him, my entire being has had to realign itself. It has been a beautiful ride, although bumpy at times. The end result was this: without a life goal, without a driving force, I was somewhat depressed--lost. I am now rebuilding my outlook on life, and reconnecting with the person I was during that last era of my life, the one in which I was miserable but cool. Now I'm happy and frumpy. Heh. It has left me very off balance. Trying to form a new identity, not based on surviving a relationship that was painful and awkward-fitting. Now I get to just be myself and it is.....unfamiliar at times.

So......therapy with Lisa. Yipee.

I'm stoked for summer/spring to be here, and stoked to be spending time outside, moving my body.
I'm looking forward to carving out little slots of time for my Self--writing time and exercise time.

Here is the best part of that trip I just returned from last night: while I was gone, my boys were taken care of. I don't just mean someone was here with them and their needs were met. I mean my husband--my heart-meltingly wonderful husband--loved and nurtured them while I was gone. He is a pro at the parenting thing. I left lots of food and meal ideas, and that was it--he did everything else on his own. He took them to baseball practices, took them to get cleets, made sure their homework got done, and had such a good time with them that they hardly called or texted me. And when they did? There was no sense of urgency, no sense of panic, like when they spend time with their dad. When they come back to me from him, they are like wild animals--their behavior shows me all sorts of things about how they've been treated (and how they've been ignored). When I got home last night? They were happy to see me, but they were the same boys I left a week ago. They were happy and well-rested and clean and well-fed. Their behavior had...ahem...I'm embarassed to admit it...IMPROVED! I'm beaming right now. I married the best man who ever lived. I already knew that...and I already knew he was an awesome Dad. But my whole chest cavity is filled with warmth when I think of what I have just learned. I have learned that for the first time in my life as a mother, I am not alone as a parent. I have a partner who loves my kids and is not only committed to raising them well, he is able to do so in a way that works for me. I needed someone I could look to for guidance, someone I could trust to see the big picture when I'm blinded by immediacy.

I feel like I just found the fountain of youth or the secret of life.
I am so full of love for that man and joy that I can hardly contain it all.

Now I get to push the reset button on myself and let the universe carry me along on its swift current.

Two words

2010-03-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

Script
Frenzy
(dot org)

Well...

2010-03-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

My Mom called yesterday
from California
where she and my Dad are spending the winter
at her sister's home.
She said he wants to stay there
permanently.
I responded, then
in the solitude I found as she spoke,
I choked back tears.
They were still evident in my voice when she drew me back to the conversation with a question about my niece.
For 10 years, I longed to live near my parents again.
For one and a half years I have basked in the wonderfully close relationship that we have enjoyed here--dinners at each other's houses, making bread or jam or applesauce together, outings to the beach, hikes with the kids...
If they leave...this is so much less "home" to me.
The family that I am close to lives back there, in that place I hated.
I have family here, too, but the 15 years I lived away left a distance between us.
They feel like strangers;
I feel like an outsider.
Maybe it won't work out.
Maybe they will just continue to spend winters there, and summers here.
I know that my Dad always thinks every change is The Cure.
Not the band...
but the solution to Everything That's Wrong With Him.
The depression, the dizzy spells...the working 34% of his one remaining kidney?
Sigh.
I will roll with it.
But I am probably not done crying.
If they really don't come back
and we continue to have no relationship with younger stepson
and older stepson graduates
or not
and Sweetest Love's company continues to not hire him for an engineering position
then maybe it IS time to move.

Sigh.

Other than All That?
Life is grand.
Spring is here, love is all around, and I am going to tear up this summer!

Here I am

2009-10-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to have something to say,
or expecting to have something to say.
Or something.
And perhaps I do!
Mostly I'm just procrastinating.
I'm trying to do anything that will keep me from having to write a 5-7 page paper that sort of confounds me.
It is supposed to be a literary criticism, but I also need FIVE sources.
And biographical information about the authors.
I will not enjoy this paper.
The whole point of being an English major is that I am supposed to be able to bullshit my way through any and all papers.
There are times when I feel very strongly that I am not cut out to be an English teacher.
There are ways in which I feel it is my CALLING, but there are also ways in which I loathe the subject, as taught to me by others.
Maybe that's the whole point....maybe this struggle I'm having with the way English is taught will give me crucial insight into the ways that I need to approach teaching the subject myself.
Or maybe I'm just being revealed as the hardcore slacker that I am.
I'm a poet, man, not a professor!
I am just lucky to be a functioning member of society; am I pressing my luck by attempting to be an organized and motivated member of society??
Whatevs.
But that reminds me.......
It is nearly November and I would like to invite any and all who happen across this page to join me in the mad dash to 50,000 words called National Novel Writing Month!
I am sooooooo ready.

I am having a really hard time focusing on school this semester, though.
Being a working Mom has been a difficult enough adjustment for me after 7 years of stay-at-homeness, but throwing school on top of working momosity is just kind of frying my brain.
I want to be good at maintaining a clean and efficient household while excelling in my studies while showing up on time and focused at work.
But that, my friends, is just NOT gonna happen.
I am managing to juggle them in a pretty decent fashion now that the wedding dust has settled, because that was just sheer madness--who plans a wedding for three week into a new semester?? I really thought my heart was going to explode from the palpitations.
Still, I wish this essay would just write itself while I sleep.

Ok, enough whining.
Here are a few pictures of the wedding, for anyone interested.
I'm on facebook, too, so email me if you want to add me.

It was such a beautiful day.
I am so in love with this sweet man, I can't even breathe, sometimes!
He has such a kind heart, and such a patient, loving spirit.
I am home.

Wedded Bliss

2009-09-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm drownin' in it!

Here is the rundown, as written to a friend earlier today.
Well, in his world it was written sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Or something.

The wedding weekend was sweet perfection from start to finish.

At the rehearsal, Michael slipped a diamond ring onto my finger and won the
Most Romantic Gesture of All Times award. It was a complete surprise
and just took my breath away. We had wedding bands, but had decided to
wait on the diamond until we could better afford it. But he knew it
was important to me and he made it happen! It is a family heirloom,
his great grandmother's ring, and it is absolutely beautiful. Then we
went and had a fun and relaxing dinner with all the rehearsal
participants and family, and went our separate ways for Bachelor and
Bachelorette parties. My girls helped me put 52 miniature blueberry
pies into bakery boxes and tie ribbons around them, while enjoying a
drink or two, and then we headed to a bar with karaoke. My cousin
signed me up for "Like a Virgin" and I resisted, but we ended up
having a blast. She posted some pictures of me and of the wedding, so
if you go to my photos on facebook, you should be able to find them in
that section of "Photos other people posted of you" or whatever it's
called.

Then the big day! I woke up at 6am even though my alarm was set for
8:30...ugh....went to bed at 1:30, and could have used a few more
winks!! Oh well...I was excited! So, we scrambled around and got
tables set up and centerpieces arranged, and then I got my hair done.
I don't know why I bothered. I mean, it looked quite nice, but no one
else can make my hair look the way I want it to look. Oh well. Then
off to have my make up put on by beautiful Mary, who was the link
between Michael and I initially, and to collect the flowers that she
picked from her garden and arranged into bouquets and boutonnieres and
corsages and whatnot. And into the dress and off we went! It was a
whirlwind, and we were....aaallllmost late...And when I arrived at the
beach, my favorite brother was there to walk me through the woods--a
lush, green, winding path at the edge of the ocean--it felt like a
fairy tale! We were little white riding hood and her merry party--my
maid of honor and her two little sweet girls as flower girls. As we
began to walk, I heard distant music and I almost worried. I assumed
it was some jerk, drinking beer and listening to his boombox, but my
brother said, No, it's a party and they're pretty serious. This didn't
allay my fears, but when I rounded a bend, I saw long hair and flowing
robes and the flag of Israel! It was the Feast of Trumpets,
celebrating Rosh Hashanah! As I walked past the clearing where they
celebrated, they quieted and blew a horn, speaking to me--wishing me
peace and god's blessing! It was so unspeakably beautiful! I felt so
uplifted and like the universe was smiling down, giving me a big sign
of approval--as if I had any doubts. :) And then I arrived at the
edge of my wedding spot. I could see the crowd of people fanned out
across the rocks and it flooded me with peace and smiles! So many
people there, full of love for us! And then the bagpiper started up
and my brother escorted me across the unstable rocks and handed me off
to Max and Oliver, who each took one elbow and walked me down the
aisle, denoted by crepe paper held down by rocks. We walked across the
path of flower petals left by the darling girls ahead of us and then
the boys handed me off to Michael. We couldn't stop smiling. As the
officiant put his bagpipes away, we grinned at each other and nearly
bounced with anticipation. Ken spoke, words of wisdom in his rumbling
bass voice, and we had to resist kissing every time he said something
we particularly agreed with--somehow it didn't seem right to kiss
before he gave his pronouncement that we may, but we also are used to
kissing as punctuation for happy things, so it was an exercise in
restraint. And then we each pulled out our Blackberries and read from
them our vows. Afterward, everyone said how beautiful they were and
even the officiant said he had some more prepared material, but didn't
find it necessary as our words were so complete and well-done. Yay. :)
So then we exchanged rings, and kissed and walked back to the other
edge of the rocks where we greeted our guests as they filed past, and
then posed for pictures. The reception was fun and the food was
great--the cake was beyond amazing. So mouth-wateringly delicious that
I would crawl inside it and live there just so I could eat my way
out.... We got to visit briefly with each guest and there were
toasts--Abbey's was SO BEAUTIFUL! She talked about knowing me from
childhood and that she had watched me look for a love like Michael for
most of the 30 years we've known each other, and that she was so glad
that I had found him. Really sweet--I'll have to ask her if she wrote
it down, cuz I want a copy! We danced some and ate some and my Mom and
my sister worked SO HARD, and so many of our friends and family worked
so hard. I am humbly grateful to them.

We had a room reserved in Augusta, our state capital, which is about
45 minutes away from us, but we stuck around to help clean up (I
couldn't feel good about leaving the work to our friends and family
who had worked so hard all day to make it a beautiful day) and by the
time we got home, we were BEAT. We decided to pass on the drive to
just sleep in a bed that couldn't be as comfortable as ours. And then
we were able to get up in the morning and open presents with all the
kids and just be surrounded by the love and joy of our family! It was
AWESOME. So glad we did it that way. And my brother who was visiting
from Utah was still in town, so we went to my Mom's to have left over
wedding food (for me: crab alfredo and bread and salad and
caaaaaaaaaaaake!!!) and visit with him. SO glad I did that, too. And
Michael went to help his friends load up all the tables and chairs we
had rented and borrowed and returned them to their proper locations
and then we said goodbye to my boys (at my parents') and dropped his
boys at their Mom's and loaded up the car for our trip to Boston and
hit the road. At 4:45 I logged in to my school website to let my
professor know that I wasn't going to make the 5pm deadline for a
paper, only to discover that she has a bad (possibly H1N1) flu and our
assignment would be pushed off for a week!!!! Hooray for me!! (sucky
for her).

And on Monday we got up and rode the subway into the city, had amazing
delicious Indian and Thai food, then went to the New England Aquarium
and looked at all the swimmy things--sharks and seahorses and seals
and whatnot. Very nice. And then back to the hotel, naps, and on to
U2!!!! When we arrived at the ticket window, they couldn't find our
tickets, so I started looked through my email for the confirmation
letter and it said that I MUST print out my tickets and that this
email wouldn't grant me admission and I started to panic and Michael
almost scolded me, and they still couldn't find our tickets, but
thennnnn, the nice lady found my tickets and explained that I had paid
a dollar extra to save myself the trouble of coming to the ticket
window but voila, here are my tickets! PHEW. I almost peed my pants.
And then we found our seats and they were good enough, though not
close enough, never close enough. Snow Patrol was great, and U2 was
astounding! They put on such a great show and every song was beautiful
and we loved every second of it.

And then Tuesday we wandered through bookstores and a mall, enjoying
the time and another delicious meal and putting off our Return to
Reality, but looking forward to seeing the kids anyway.

Maybe I'll get to see some pictures soon and I can post those when I have them.
Yay fun!!

Weary...

2009-09-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today I am weary.
And overwhelmed.

My Dad is in the hospital, his last kidney has dropped from a functional level to a very low level.
His blood pressure is low, he is dehydrated.
He is doing ok, but I am worried and uncertain.

This, wedged between my wedding (10 days away) and my reentry into college.
August saw the stepsons move back in for our 6 months, September brought school for them, school for my boys, school for me and more hours at my job. Plus wedding planning.
I got through that first week and was feeling semi-sane, but now there is this.
And other stuff, making my heart break.

I want a time out.
Stop thinking, feeling.

One month..........

2009-08-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

In one month I will have a new last name.
Whoa.
And more important than that, I will have a new husband!
Wow....husband...
That'll be cool.

Sometimes I freak out a little, but I never stop believing that we belong together, like a sock and a shoe, like a spoon and a fork, like the stars and the moon, like cats and fleas.....hehehe.......

Have I mentioned how overly warm it is?
We have had the weirdest summer EVER.
Cold and rainy for all of June and all of July and now?
SuperMegafuckinHot.
I dunnot loik it.
I prefer the rain, and I'm pretty sure I said so at the time.
I wasn't bothered by it, but towards the end I started to at least be sympathetic when others complained about it, as well as feeling bad for my boss, whose business depends on good weather.

Wow...a post about the weather.
Yippity skippity.

I should write something reeeeeeeeeal.

Oh!
Well.
I meant I should write something fictional, but relevant.
And now, as I sit here contemplating, I remember something real, indeed.

I was walking to my car after work the other day.
Walking through this too-pretty-for-words little town where I sit, looking at the dear little harbor.
Smiling back at the great, empty isocoles triangles ascending above their lovely little boats, waiting for sails to fill them and give them meaning.
So I was there, with summer breeziness swooshing around me and sunkissed shoulders and cheeks and feet-tops feeling warm and glowy.
I was walking quickly because my family was at home and I was eager to see them.
I crossed the little foot bridge, inhaling the perfume of the flower box flowers, and glanced down at the ducks.
I saw a young woman approaching, talking on her cell phone.
She had a happy, glowy look to her--but her glow had a different source than mine.
She whispered urgently into her phone, trying to share her news with only the friend on the other end of the phone and not with the strangers she was passing in the coming twilight.
I heard her, but her friend did not, so she repeated herself, slightly louder, just as she passed me.
I smiled jubilantly, catching her drift and wanting to high-five her.
Our paths had now crossed and as she receded behind me, her impatience to share her news took precedence over her hope for privacy and she enuciated loudly, "I HAD SEX!"
I walked on, toward my car and my happy future and continued to smile, remembering my own moment of sharing with my best friend the news of my first time.

Happiness...

2009-07-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

I wear it like a dress...
sometimes it swirls around me in the winds of change,
sometimes it clings, awkwardly, showing the curves I don't find sexy.
Happiness is like a fog, changing my perception of everything around me...
dulling my senses.
I wouldn't say I miss the life of quiet misery resulting in a sharpness of vision,
but I miss the sharpness of vision sometimes.

I grow less and less afraid of myself every day.
Though I remain afraid of the shadow I cast...

Hello, hello!

2009-07-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful world it is!
We have been mired in rain and cloudy-fogginess for weeks upon weeks, and today the sun shone sweetly upon us!
Hooray!
I went kayaking with good friends,
had a delicious meal with my love,
and watched fireworks with my parents!
I was even smart/lucky enough to duck out slightly early and with a brisk walk through the cool summer air, I arrived at my car, slipped onto the miraculously empty road and zipped on home before the hordes of skywatchers even reached their vehicles.
Oh, happy, happy day!

And then I sat down to type this and tripped over an article written by some complete fucking moron about the "needless hysteria" surrounding nut allergies in elementary schools.
Hey, guess what?
Fuck you, Dr. Christakis!
Some of us actually have children with life-threatening reactions to ingestion of nuts.
I am NOT hysterical, nor are my precautions needless.
But when we entrust our children to the care of the school, we expect them to return in the same fashion we sent them off.

And....wow...I just wasted an hour reading the comments posted after the aforementioned article.
And writing my own, of course.
There are truly some insensitive assholes out there who are now even more smug in their ignorance.
Nuts can kill. The reasons they don't kill more often is because we take precautions.

FaaaaackOff.

Anywho, time for bed.
I'm sunburned and sleepy.

Home Sweet Home

2009-06-17T15:53:00.001-07:00

After a year, I am still happy that I chose to move home!
In fact, I feel more at peace than I have in many years. I love it here.
The other day, I saw one of my good friends walking along a main street of our Town (as in, "I'm going to town, do you need anything?" because...yes...this is country livin'!) and I stopped and chatted a bit and it was SO FREAKING COOL!
It's an adjustment, though, to be in a place again where everyone knows everyone.
Going to the store in my pajamas used to be acceptable, because, hey--no one'll ever see me again!
Buuuut...that's not exactly the case here, is it?
I love it, though.

A few days ago, I ran into my "first" at the toy store.
Haven't seen him in 13 years, haven't thought about him in...12 years and 11 and a half months.
Or so.
Poor fella.
(We dated all summer and were technically still "together" for the whole next school year while each of us returned to our respective universities, but that was just sort of a convenient way for me to explain my lack of dating while at school...god, I hated BYU!!!!!)
Anyway, it was nice to see him.
He was shopping with his super cute daughter and he looked like he was happy.
My Love was with me and I introduced them, asked fewer "what have you been up to" questions than I wanted answered, and we parted.
I felt oddly nervous and simultaneously oddly detached.
Shrug.
So then this morning when Love got home from work, he said, "So...wanna know yet another way in which we are connected?"
He went on to tell me that the aforementioned dude's name had sounded familiar and that last night while working the face attached to that name appeared in his head.
A teenaged face.
The face of an old girlfriend's younger brother!!!
Ha!
So....yeah.
We compared impressions of their parents and her smoking (bad breath) and his tobacco chewing (ew) and how we both felt like they were not our type at the time.
It was kiiiinda hilarious.
We lay in bed, faces inches apart, giggling.

...and have I mentioned yet today how completely, entirely, mind-blowingly in love I am with this fella???
yeah.
We're pretty damn happy.
And I am grateful to all the gods that be, for that.
The gods and Mary.
No...not the Virgin--ha!
She's no virgin!
But she introduced us, she was the gateway.
And that dear little schmoo is planting and harvesting and sharing flowers from her garden to deck the fuck out of our wedding!
Sheesh.
I'm going to have to thank her in a big way for contributing the flowers, the groom...
ya know, a couple of the more important ingredients in a good wedding.
Hehe!

I am SO excited for our wedding!!
Now...gods of generosity, could I ask one more favor?
Take away the extra weight I'm luggin' around.
I don't need it anymore!
That's right, universe, you can have it back.
Thanks for letting me borrow it--it came in real handy in surviving the tough winter and setting up a new home, and whatnot, but I'm all set.
Thanks bunches!

Funny ole weather today

2009-05-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

It was gorgeous and sunny and warm, (but not hot)
so we took the 4 boys and climbed up Mt. Battie--
ocean and islands and rolling small mountains,
stretching out on every side!
And then we had hot dogs and my boss drove by
and I wondered why the ship was not sailing in such perfect weather
but then I was tasting relish and relishing the taste
and our hands all pecked at the french fries
and we were piling back into the truck and dropping off the littles at baseball practice
and
ducking back into our house to watch Heroes until they finished practice and
then it started to rain!
And it rained through the sunshine all day long, rain and sun and rain and sun
and then we barbequed and it was
delectable.

It was a great day.

Tomorrow I'm driving out west with a friend, to see our other friend,
then Wednesday I'll drive East with my Love to see some other friends.

And still the weather and our schedules have not coincided properly to allow for a motorcycle ride with my New Jacket.
Bummer, dude!!

I think I had some deep thoughts, but now it's time for another episode of Heroes.
And I'm HOOOOOOKED!

Ciao.

And now, the rest of the story--

2009-05-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, not really....
but I did do a little editing to the first page and added another little dollop of story.
I am just going to be proud of myself for finding some time to write, amidst all the weekend activities:
baseball game and practice, art exhibit, dance exhibition, and throwing a BBQ!

She wasn't the only one there with tattoos and cut-offs, but she managed to look the sleaziest. Maybe it was the dark eye makeup, or the unexpectedness of so many lines on the childish face. She had a skinned knee and a hole just under the back pocket of her ill-fitting shorts, but there appeared to be knitting needles sticking out of the lumpy backpack she carried. She had something nondescript sprawled across her lower back, ink stains on skin, but the rose tattoo on her ankle was the final piece of the jumbled timeline. The rose was straight out of the 70s, but this girl's mother was probably too young for a tattoo in the 70s. Her name, obviously, was Crystal. What other name would a girl like this have? The dirt under her fingernails hinted at something, but the cigarette clasped between those fingers was what really drew the eye. She held it like a child holds a crayon, her fist curled around it, shoving it into her rotten, ragged-looking mouth.

The jukebox stopped and in the silence, other senses were sharpened--the grit on the floor could be felt inside shoes, while the scent of stale smoke and unwashed armpits was almost a taste, and made several patrons blink. The silence also left room for the Jimmy the bartender to notice this squalid presence, this aged child.

"You got some ID, junior?"

Crystal swatted the fly that had landed on the back of her cigarette hand. She looked into his grey, drooping eyes and said nothing.

"Look, I gotta see some ID or they'll shut me down. And I can't afford that shit again this month." He braced his hands against the bar, holding his ground.

She sighed and reached into her backpack. She tossed something hat looked like a receipt, or an invoice onto the polished wood stretched out before her.

After his eyes skimmed the paper, Jimmy cocked one eyebrow, smoothed his mustache with one large hand, and gave it back to her. Mostly to himself he said, "Well that explains a lot," shook his head slightly and met her eyes again. "What'll it be?"

She coughed from somewhere deep in her lungs and pointed to the Budweiser sign behind him. "Light," she amended.

"Three bucks." They completed the exchange in silence and she took the bottle to the far corner of the room. Sometime during that slow-motion exchange, the jukebox had started up again, same song as before. There was a dull buzz of conversation, but most people were edging away from Crystal's booth.

Crystal put the bottle to her lips and let the cool crispness wash through her mouth, her scattered thoughts each fighting for center stage. She didn't want to be here, in a crappy bar full of crappy drunks, each making some version of a crappy judgment of her. She could feel their disapproval, smell their loathing. But she didn't know how she must look to them. She didn't know they could see her life spelled out in the way she walked, the breaths she drew. She lived inside her own head and had very little use for anyone in the outside world. She needed something, though, and had decided that this might be a place she could find it, or get closer to finding it, at least.

The scene before her seemed convex, with all the people clustered at the center of the warped vision. She sipped at the brown, sweating bottle until the scene stabilized and she was able to see each person separately.

(and again, I'm met with bed time...we're watching Romeo and Juliet, that Leonardo diCaprio one...LOVE IT)

I'm too tired for this

2009-05-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

But sometimes that's a good thing

sometimes that makes the words flow
like chunky butter down the sides of a stack of flap
jacks
sometimes it stops up the dam like a beaver's wet dream
(wow...that was a triple entendre, AT LEAST!)
and sometimes I get distracted by the cracks and crevices in my mind, the gutters filling with sludge and DIRT and grease and grime--
I am a pervert.
Always have been, always will be.
But I think that the best part is that the insides of my brain are not throbbing
nor are they shimmering in the the desert mirage of unreal world I've created there.
My cats seem to think I speak their language.
But I don't.
They talk and talk and talk, and all I hear is "meow."

My arms feel like cement
my eyes have lost focus
typing is an effort
why am i tired?
why am i not alert?
I will go crawl into my bed now.
but I will will liwll

Oh, what a day!

2009-05-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today was a Friday for the books, a Friday to REMEMBER.
We slept late (after I sent the kids to school).
Then we lost our clothes and found each other; there followed some inappropriate touching. Wink Wink.
And theeeennn...
We melted into the motorcycle and wound our way down the long fingers of the coastline and ate delicious seafood in Port Clyde, which is nearly the end of the earth.
I guess I always feel like we're on the edge of the earth because we ARE.
--the Atlantic claws its way into our land, around every corner!
It was a FUCKING gorgeous day, with little patches of fog in pockets but mostly sunny and spring-turns-to-summer-y!
It was luscious, for every sense.
My Love passed a couple of cars and slid carefully between them and an oncoming car.
...after which I flicked him on the thigh to show my displeasure.
Which he acknowledged with a quick duck of the head.
He's so fucking cute!
So then we came home and ran in 3 different directions to get kids and redistribute them in various locations, like baseball practice and hosting a dance as a fundraiser.
And then.
THEN!!!
We sauntered off to the Farnsw0rth for a Jam!e Wy.eth exhibit.
Holy shit, peeps.
Can I just share with you how frigging great this place is?
Maine, my home town, THIS PLACE!
Fucking love it.
Anyway...
We have a family of incredible artists who originated around here and have left a far-reaching mark.
So this particular artist had a frigging cool exhibition tonight, a series of paintings each depicting one of the 7 Deadly Sins.
They were incredible!
But one thing I learned was that it's not just in big cities that gallery evenings are...shall we say...filled with pretention and shallowness?
It was almost a caricature, but no, more like a stereotype embodied.
The space was congested, over-filled with eager patrons, leaving Love and I over-stimulated and under-able to appreciate the paintings on the wall.
So we dashed across the street and around a corner and into C@fe Mir@nd@ for some super-duper fabulous mediteranean cuisine...uh...did I just spell that wrong?
Mediterranean...Mediteranean...shit, I'm really slipping.
Well, you get the idea.
Heh.
That reminds me...
I was getting kinda grouchy last night and sweetest Love slyly steered the conversation toward apostrophe usage in plurals vs. possessive and maaaaaaaaaaaaan, did that cheer me up quick!!!!
It was SO funny...we giggled and giggled.

Aaaaand....
then I got online and ordered myself a little motorcycle jacket....
yay!!!
Because I've been wearing Love's XL Men's jacket and it's a bit laaaar-ger than I need it to be.
I'm pretty stoked about that.

Today I got my financial aid award letter, so it looks like college is a sure thing for the fall semester!!!!
What a relief! I'm so excited!
Hopefully I'll graduate some year soon.

Another 8:30am baseball game tomorrow....
ugh.
Who came up with that????
Blurgh.
So, then, tomorrow night is a dance performance thingy which should be pretty spectacular, and maybe I'll report upon it....
But, hopefully I'll figure out what to do with Crystal and write some more of that story before the weekend is up.
Huzzah!

Thtory Thursday (hey, I like aliteration, ok??? Even if I have to force it!)

2009-05-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

She wasn't the only one there with tattoos and cut-offs, but she managed to look the sleaziest. Maybe it was the dark eye makeup, or the unexpectedness of so many lines on the childish face. She had a skinned knee and a hole just under the back pocket of her ill-fitting shorts, but there appeared to be knitting needles sticking out of the lumpy backpack she carried. She had something non-descript sprawled across her lower back, ink stains on skin, but the rose tattoo on her ankle was the final piece of the jumbled timeline. The rose was straight out of the 70s, but this girl's mother was probably too young for a tattoo in the 70s. Her name, obviously, was Crystal. What other name would a girl like this have? The dirt under her fingernails hinted at something, but the cigarette clasped between those fingers was what really drew the eye. She held it like a child holds a crayon, her fist curled around it, shoving it into her rotten, ragged-looking mouth.

The jukebox stopped and in the silence, other senses were sharpened--the grit on the floor could be felt inside shoes, while the scent of stale smoke and unwashed armpits was almost a taste, and made several patrons blink. The silence also left room for the Jimmy the bartender to notice this squalid presence, this aged child.

"You got some ID, junior?"

Crystal swatted the fly that had landed on the back of her cigarette hand. She looked into his grey, drooping eyes and said nothing.

"Look, we gotta see some ID or they'll shut me down. And I can't afford that shit again this month." He braced his hands against the bar, holding his ground.

She sighed and reached into her backpack. She tossed something onto the polished wood stretched out before her that looked like a receipt, or an invoice.

Jimmy cocked one eyebrow, smoothed his moustache with one large hand, and gave it back to her. Mostly to himself he said, "Well that explains a lot," shook his head slightly and met her eyes again. "What'll it be?"

She coughed from somewhere deep in her lungs and pointed to the Budweiser sign behind him. "Light," she ammended.

"Three bucks." They made the exchange with more silence and she took the bottle to the far corner of the room. Sometime in all that slow-motion exchange, the jukebox had started up again, same song as before. There was a dull buzz of conversation, but most people were edging away from Crystal's booth.

(and now it's bed time...dammmmmit. I vow to finish this story!!!)

Sideways Rain

2009-05-07T07:44:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite kinds!
I love the hard, needle-like rain slamming down on the skylight.
I watch the curtains of hazy, flashing water crash against the once-glassy surface of the pond.
The trees are silent today, calm and stoic.
They allow the abuse from above to slide down their bark and seep into the ground below where their thirsty roots are ready to gulp it down.
The rain slows, driving sideways, almost like snow, gently falling, but on a current of invisible wind.

Also, rain means I get to stomp around in my green, turtle-speckled galoshes and duck into my purple rain-proof hooded jacket.

Rain...it makes the flowers grow, or so sang...uh...the chick who was Cosette's foster sister but falls in love with the same guy later and dies in his arms....? Fack. I reviewed this play!! I memorized every song when I was a teenager. Why? Oh why hast thou failed me, memory? Ah. Google, the All-Knowing, tells me it is Eponine...Of course it is. Why couldn't I think of that?

Ok, well, I'm off to see the wizard.
Or...to do a couple of errands in the rain!
With my Loooove...

Well........

2009-05-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure this place is a sealed forum--no leaks. :)
So, I'm going to talk candidly about what's on my mind.
Not too many people stop by anyway, and I'm 99% sure that my Ex doesn't have access to this site.
If he does, oh well.
He sure wasn't invited here and if I want to vent my thoughts and feelings on my own god damned blog, I think I am allowed!!

I am carrying around a ball of a tension in my chest.
It is heavy and kind of fuzzy--more like one of those fuzzy-looking cacti than a teddy bear though.
I have a job, starting next week.
I have tickets for the kids and I to fly to Utah so they can spend 2 weeks with their father.
My day care needs are so irregular that I have no formal plan in place and it is making me want to hyperventilate.
My parents are awesome and will step in when they can, but my Mom's on jury duty and then starts her own full time job a couple of weeks after I start.
My Love is super awesome and has assured me that whenever he's not at work he will be happy to be in charge of my little ones. (who am I kidding? They're 8...and not very small, at that! Size 12 pants...size 6 men's shoes...)
But even those two generous offers leave a few random holes in the coverage--a day here, a half a day there.
I am grateful for Love's strange, rotating schedule because it decreases my need for paying someone to watch the kids, but it makes it harder to figure out what to do with them.
I know...I'm a huge pussy.
Just don't forget my housewifely origins--I'm kinda spoiled, AND I've never had to arrange actual daycare for my kids before.
So I'm fortunate there.
But it doesn't stop me from feeling positively FRANTIC about the fact that I'm going to be working almost full time this summer and leaving them in the care of others!
I want to sob.
...already did that. Didn't help.
So where does my Ex come into this?
Well, it's a separate issue, but it pairs up with this one quite nicely. :)
(Like a crisp white wine with....eh...something it would taste good with...I don't know wines!)
So the Ex said he could have them come visit for 2 weeks this summer and he told me which dates he was available and I bought tickets.
They are too young to fly alone, unless it's a non-stop flight, but these days those flights are double the cost of one with connections, or more.
So...I bought myself a ticket, too.
This was after I knew I was informally hired for my summer job, but long before I knew what kind of schedule he would have me on.
I said I could work 20-30 hours, but I should have said 20.
He has me at 30, but with the mandatory breaks and longish drive to and from, that puts me at being away from home for 40 hours, easily. At least I have weekends off this time. I am very grateful for that!
But I digress...
So after I got my schedule from the boss-to-be, I told him about my trip to Utah and he said he really couldn't do without me for 2 weeks and was very kind about offering to work with me on it, but I agreed to look into alternate solutions, since the main priority was having someone fly with the kids. I didn't "need" to visit Utah, just needed to not send my kids on a flight alone.
So......I have spen the last few weeks tracking down any and all people who might have a connection to Utah (people I grew up with, at church) and who might be able or willing to use my ticket--a free ticket, in exchange for accompanying my kiddos.
A fair deal, right?
Well, I haven't had any luck.
And I thought if that failed, I could just fly the kids out, come back after a couple of days and the Ex and I could share the cost of another ticket--for someone in Utah to fly back here with the kids.
He had even agreed to this, earlier in discussions, knowing that I might have trouble getting 2 weeks off--and losing 2 weeks of pay; I don't exactly get PTO!
Well, Senor Ex and I spoke the day before yesterday and he said that he is definitely not willing to pay for half of another ticket (aobut $200 for each of us) and that he can really only spare a week.
He is already sick of having to use up all of his vacation time to see his kids.
While that makes me sick, I can also sympathize--if the kids lived there he wouldn't have to use vacation time, he would just have them every other weekend.
But ya know what?
I don't really have any sympathy for him because he seems to choose not to spend time with them whenever it's a matter of convenience.
If he doesn't want to spend time with his kids badly enough to be inconvenienced now and then (and this dates back to when we were still married, as well as when we lived in Utah and he weekend visits) then he can just live with that.
He is the one missing out on some awesome kids and I can only do so much to foster that relationship. He has to at least TRY!
He even had the fucking NERVE to suggest that if I couldn't work out this visit to his satisfaction that we should just "push it off til winter".

Speechless.
That left me fucking speechless.
You'd be ok with not seeing your kids for A WHOLE YEAR????
When you're allowed two visits during the school year and HALF of their summer vacation????
Yes, I think they're too young to spend 6 weeks with him, and 3 visits a year is a little more cashola than I can afford, but shit.
To say 2 weeks and then downgrade it to ONE?
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
And "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr".
My Mom gently reminds me that men don't always have the same bond with their kids as women do, but she's from, like, a generation and a half away, so it's different.
Men now are so much more involved in their children's lives and I know plenty of men who are great fathers and would have never agreed to let us move to Maine without a fight--over more than just money, that is.
And as sucky as that would have been, I would have welcomed it.
I wish he was a good enough father that I could ever consider letting him have the school year with the kids while I get summers.
As painful as that would be, I could do it if they had a father who treated them with love and kindness and who wanted to teach them stuff and who loved spending time with them.
But that's not who he is. He never has been, probably never will be. But the fucking retard is having another baby so maybe this time he'll get it right. (my tongue hurts from how heavy THAT sarcasm was)
So whatever.
My Mom did get me to realize that I can't force him to have a relationship with our children.
It fucking KILLS me that he doesn't crave a relationship with them himself, but I guess I'll just be glad I don't have to share them.
Cuz I happen to enjoy the little buggers.

Well. I feel marginally better, but I still haven't solved any of my dilemmas.
I need to call Southwest and find out how much they'll charge me to change all of our flights for an earlier return date, then call my boss and make sure he can't spare me for 2 weeks--which frustrates me to no end, because I will lose half a month's pay just to make sure that fucker sees his kids when he won't even pay an extra $200 (which equals, like...3 hours of work for him!) so that his kids can stay 2 weeks and I don't have to lose 2 weeks of income. Why the fuck am I the only one willing to make sacrifices here????? And yet he still brands me the selfish one. I hate him. (in case that was unclear)

Ok.
So.
1. call SWA
2. call boss
3. map out the whole summer's daycare days
-call the school-based summer camp that offers day rates rather than just weekly to see if I can just take the kids there once a week or so, in a semi-random pattern...(they're doing all sorts of awesome field trips, too, so that's cool, and maybe some of their school friends will be there)

Now, that's not so bad...

On my agenda for today is make super-awesome wholewheat bread and clean out the breezeway...it is embarassingly full of empty cardboard boxes right now...embarassing because they are the proof (the milk moustache) that I have done a LOT of online shopping.

Ok.
Well.
If anyone was brave or foolish enough to read all that, I commend you.
At least I sorted through my thoughts.....even if I don't feel better yet.

Center Cafe, Boothbay Maine

2009-04-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

I can still taste the raspberry frosted coconut cupcake that capped off my incredible meal at The Center Cafe in Boothbay, Maine.
I am thoroughly satisfied, every tastebud in my mouth is still singing with joy, thanking me for the pleasures I just bestowed upon them.
We shared a bowl of delectable fish chowder, then I had a turkey sandwich on soft, grainy wheat bread. This was not just an ordinary turkey sandwich, it was one of those with cranberry sauce and stuffing on it....oh...yummmmmm!
Anyway, I'm just saying: if you're within driving distance, you owe it to your mouth (and stomach) to GO THERE.
Everything we've ever ordered there has been mouth-wateringly scrumptious!

And....we're back to chilly temps again

2009-04-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

I knew that weekend of summer-like weather couldn't last!
That's ok.
Ups and downs.........that's life.

I have nothing to say.

But I'm trying to stick with my commitment to blog for 2 weeks straight, every day.
I have already missed some, but I need to keep going until it feels natural again.

Already I am coming alive again, that place that connects my brain to the keyboard is sparking to life, just a bit.
I have written the beginning of a story and the beginning of an essay...
it's all beginnings with me.
I never seem to finish anything.
But I guess I can choose to change that, eh?
Just gotta keep on pushing through. I'll learn to find the end of stories, I will.

Last night I couldn't sleep.
I had something on my mind that I wanted to work through on my own, but I ended up needing to talk about it instead.
So I did. And all is well.
But I tossed and turned for a long while, and then when I had only been asleep about an hour, the kids came in and dredged me up from the depths of dreamless sleep which I had somehow found so soon, and told me that the power was out....
When I'm asleep, I don't care about anything except sleep.
I told them to go back to bed, but they stayed in our room for a while.
Then the power came back on and they left...and it was then that I realized they have battery-operated reading lights they could have used.
Oh well.
It was sometime after that incident that I dreamed of flying.
I flew easily and heroically--I was Dorothy Gale, or some version thereof.
We were in a house, a big country manner..? Maybe an in-town Victorian. Yes, that's it.
And there was a baby somewhere, I forget its relevance to the story.
I was running away, but there were bad guys closing in and then I leapt into the air and was flying away, out of reach of the chilling, frightening men.
I was in and out of danger several times and then I went back to that house and grabbed hands with the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Tin Man, but at the last minute I decided not to attempt flight-for-four off the roof of a tall house, and we hurried down the stairs and then I was in jail, but I was assured that all would be well, and I was calculating the odds of survival based on sleeping with my back to the crowd of inmates, or to the wall....
Hm.
Weird dream.

If I could experience the sensation of flying by writing about it, I would devote myself to that endeavor.
But instead, I feel like Ally McBeal, wishing I could stay asleep because my dreams are so potent and pleasant.
I would not, however, trade this happy (waking) life I have for the power to fly in my dreams.

Ha! I must have Oz on the brain, because I was just downloading some U2 and when I went to the folder to play some back, I instead chose the Israel Komo....etc version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World"! Didn't even connect it to Judy Garland...this version of the song has special meaning for me, personal meaning separate from the movie where it originated.
Not even the modern movie where this version of the song appears.
I think I just plain old LOVE this song...it feels like a dream, a wish, a floating place of joy up in the clouds, but yet completely grounded.

Have a happy day, anyone out there reading this!

Building a Brownie Monopoly, a beginner's guide to western expansion

2009-04-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so that title is just for silliness.
But...it gives some rather obvious hints as to how I've spent this beautiful, faux-summer day!
Baking brownies with the kids
And
Playing Monopoly with them.
That game takes forever, but we really had a great time.

I am now attempting to read the great and powerful tome, "Atlas Shrugged," by Ayn Rand.
I have always felt a responsibility to read her works, but just haven't gotten around to it. I'm on the second page and am enjoying it so far.

I have 3 weeks left til my spring/summer job starts, and I have not yet started writing a novel. I'm ok with that. I've been flexing my writing muscles a little and that is a good thing.

I just keep looking into my future and seeing a vast meadow full of question marks. Oh, I know I'll be with Michael, but it's everything else that seems unknown...what job will I have? What degree will I earn?

I guess I'll have to keep on moving forward, and then I'll know. :)

Love, rain, and blue jays

2009-04-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

Today was a groovy day.
A grey-rainy day, dotted with splattering rain,
splashed with the colors of birds.
Blue jays
green mallards
red robins.
So lovely.

I feel like I slept the entire day away.
But I did not.
I did dishes, thrice.
I fed children...twice.
(pumpkin cookies were their self-serve breakfast...but that's ok, because, hey--pumpkin!)

That big ole (as opposed to "old") cat of ours is a sweetheart.
He is a good kitty.
He has learned not to rip us to shreds when we piss him off.
And I appreciate that.
However, just now, that great, lumbering-yet-lithe beast attempted to gain purchase on my lap and missed.
Instead, he tore a small hole in my jammies and left a large fistful of claw marks down my thigh.
Jerk.
Then, when I helped him settled so cozily on my chest, lying back in my chair so he was level, I reached up to stroke his head and he cuffed at me.
Jerk.
However...
watching that lean, mean, mousin' machine float across the air and land on the bed is pretty magnificent, I must say.

Friday night we get to go dancing, to celebrate the anniversary of the dance studio run by Love's best friend.
We went to it last year, when I was visiting.
Then, next Friday will be a formal event at a gorgeous resort a bit north of here...in Northport, ironically.
We will get all decked out and do some more dancing--hoooray!

I settle more and more into myself every day.
I am relaxing more and more about life in general and it is a beautiful thing.
I have been under so much stress of so many different kinds (mostly emotional) for so long that I had totally forgotten what it was like to just be me.
To just...LIVE.
To be the best of me, and give the most to those I love.
I am not saying I'm there yet, nor maybe ever will be, but I am so much closer to that state of mind.
I knew when I met my Love that with him I would be able to become the best Me possible, but I lost touch with that as the stresses of moving and starting our life together took the forefront in my consciousness.
Now, the dust has settled--figuratively, at least; this house seems to generate a metric ton of dust on a bi-weekly basis--and I am so excited to take on my life with this new, calmer demeanor.

Now, to follow through with all my greatest plans!
*apply for financial aid
*register for classes for the fall
*publish something

Yup.
I should be able to manage those.

Rain

2009-04-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Beating down on the cold, hard earth.
Rain,
driving into brown, matted down fields.
Rain will make this place beautiful again,
rain will put on the summer clothes of this winter town.

Meanwhile, I will eat cookies and wish to be thin.

Spring Fever

2009-04-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

...or maybe it's just a cold.
But I liked the sound of that.
I have been doing some random spring cleaning, and I am just totally ready for this season.
I am excitedly looking forward to the way my life could be in constant flux if I keep my winter job at the Snow Bowl and my summer job with the schooner...
I'll always have some time off between jobs and then I get to do be actively involved in the outdoor recreation of each season.
Hells yeah!
Now...if I could only find a way to Get Rich at this pace...
Hmmm.....

Sweetest and I went kayaking today, at Shirttail.
He had so much fun smashing through some remaining ice patches!!

We danced with a pair of loons...
when they dove under to seek fish, when we would glide quietly closer to where they had last been seen, trying for closer glimpses.
We got pretty close, but my phone's camera isn't that great on zoom, so this is all I got:

Here's what a loon actually looks like, for anyone unfamiliar:

We had a wonderful time, all bundled up with the sun shining!
I had some poetic, nice words come to mind while I was out there, but of course I've forgotten them now.
Oh well.
I was dying to pull out my blackberry and jot them down while I was out there, but it seemed irreverant, or disrespectful somehow.

Here's hoping my sniffly, stuffy headed self will be replaced with a less cold or allergy infested version of me pretty soon!

Goals are for soccer, or hockey--

2009-04-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

But.
I still made one.
I know, I know--
I'm hilarious.
Like, not only was that a Fozzy Bear "wucka-wucka" kinda joke,
but also, if you've known me for more than 5 minutes you probably won't take me seriously when I say I've made a goal.
It's like saying, "I'm going to lose weight!"
yeah. Sure you are, tubby.
(talking to myself, don't mind me...)
But I would like to think that this goal is important enough to my personal health and emotional well-being that I will keep it.
What is this great mystery goal?
To write.
Every day.
At least here, and if writing here opens the door for actual creative thought and I find myself with the urge to write something useful, productive, entertaining, or in any way MARKETABLE, then I shall most certainly do that, too.
It's not about writing if or when I feel like it anymore.
That's bullshit and, frankly, it's NOT WORKING.
I am shying away from the keyboard like a cat from a waterfall.
And that's just not going to work for me any longer.
No more hiding from that part of myself!!
No more keeping the door closed on my old life and everything it entailed--
why?
Because there was same damn good stuff that came from the person I was then.
Just because I was ridiculously unhappy in a lot of ways, and just because I am so thoroughly saturated with satisfaction in those areas now, does not mean that I have to be so black and white about it.
I have worried for too long that "my writing" came from a place of aching sadness and so now that I'm joy-filled I will have nothing to say, nothing meaningful or interesting at least.
But that's just poppycock.
(god, I love that word!)
I am ready to embrace again the quirky, wild, sexy, weird side of me.
I am ready to once again vomit my thoughts and worries and wonderings out onto this page.
If I write every day for the next 2 weeks, I will reward myself with...er...something.
Also, I think I closed myself off from the interactive side of blogging, but that's half the fun of this whole thing, so hopefully I can start wandering around reading blogs again.

I have been reading again lately, and that has the effect of infusing my life with color--it's like putting my flabby old imagination on a treadmill, ya know?
I am reading 3 books right now, technically.
I am working my through Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series for the second time,
which marks the first time in my life that I have re-read a book at all, let alone a whole series.
Ok, not quite true: when I was 8 or 9 I read The Chronicles of Narnia, and then I read a few of the books again when I was in my 20s somewhere...probably 23 or 24, cuz I'm pretty sure it was post marriage, pre kids. Irrelevant.
The point is, this is saying a LOT for the series of books.
I also am reading the third book in the Wicked series, by Gregory Maguire.
I have a hard time with those books...they are gorgeously written--such heavy vocabulary, thick and rich! Yum.
But...
After each book, I end up feeling like I have more unanswered questions than insight into any character or story line.
Maybe I'm a little thick, myself, heh, but it sure does frustrate me!
And still I soldier on.
Give me another volume of consternation, please, Mr. Maguire, I relish furrowing my brow yet again!
The third book, and I'm chuckling now, because I am working on three sci-fi/fantasy type series! That's kinda funny.
The third book is one I'm reading to my boys, but I'm just as enchanted with it.
And this series also marks a ground-breaking re-reading!
The Harry Potter books, of course.
I tried to read them to the boys when they were probably...5? But they were completely uninterested.
This time they are just as riveted as I am, which makes my heart burst with joy!
I have feared that my uber-active boys would not cherish a good book the way that I do, but we may have turned a corner.
I even got them little reading lights so that they can read in bed after I turn out the light.
I will stop comparing my parenting to my mother's, or my kids to myself as a child, or whatever...because it would be easy to think about the fact that at their age I would have been reading Harry Potter to myself.
I think they would get hung up on a lot of the words; in 3rd grade they are reading fine and dandy, but I have dropped the ball a bit on encouraging better reading from them than their age group requires. They have been taught to sight-read and have very little patience for, or interest in, sounding out words. That drives me NUTS.
But, then I realize, it's not the school's fault, it's my fault because I could have worked harder on that with them from home--and I am now, but it's a little late. They have formed bad habits.
I don't know.
I always thought parenting would be a breeze, because my Mom made it look so easy!
I assumed I would just naturally follow her lead, but then I had twins and it threw me for a loop...I still wonder sometimes how different I would have been as a mother and how different my boys would have been if I had started with just one, and had some time to get used to that and to teach that child some things before a new baby came to join us. Cuz I don't really feel like I did as well at this as I would have liked. I guess most parents can say they wish they did better in some area or other, and I'm not going to wallow in self-pity or anything, I just wonder stuff sometimes...

See?
It's not good for me to go so long without writing!
I have so many thoughts to express on a daily basis anyway, and if I don't let them out they tend to sort of gum up the works.

Hum, ho.
What else?

Well, spring seems to have arrived, which is exciting news indeed!
It has been cold and windy for a while now, but this week the sun is shining and the wind has relaxed into gentle breeze mode, and the temperatures are finally rising.
The kids will start baseball next week.
I'm excited, but nervous.

Meanwhile...
sometimes I wonder if I'll survive a relationship where I love a man with my whole soul.
One thing about being married to the "wrong" guy, you don't often worry about losing him.
Now,
as I march toward a new, fresh, intricately beautiful set of wedding vows,
I occassionally find my feet stuck in mud as the deepest parts of my primal being wail and weep with fear of loss.
The longer I know the happiness of true companionship, the more I doubt that I could live without it, without him.
My rational mind still knows that I would carry on, that I could even (with luck) see myself as having been blessed for knowing him and look at it as a learning experience.
But...my heart is not so rational and it has known great loss.
I have realized something very recently, and that is this: no matter how loved we feel, we can still be blindsided by loss. Whether the one we love chooses to leave or is taken from us by death or senility or something else selfish and unconcerned.
So no matter what I do now to try to insure against loss, there is no way to know what tomorrow brings.
So....crazy, sad girl--
stop letting the fear in, when it knocks on the door.
Stop answering its calls, replying to its emails, forwarding its rueful messages.
Fear is not the state I choose to live in!
I thought we covered this?
I choose Maine, duh.
So all of that is well and good, and I feel victorious and blah blah pep talk yay.
But.
What will I really do when fear comes a' prowling again?
I will pull a Stuart Smally, and remind myself how fucking fantastic I am!
yes, good idea, Lisa.
I will say, "I'm a badass. I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm sexy and any man would be lucky to have me, but this man is so awesome that I am truly the lucky one."
Yeah.
That's the ticket.
Cuz I know those things. I know them like the vocabulary words I had to memorize in
8th grade.
And there is no where else on earth I want to be.
And there is no reason for me to worry about some of the stupid shit that gets caught in my brain spokes.
Which reminds me....
I'm going to go for a ride on my bike today with my MOM!
Hooooooooooooo
raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Well, this little bit of therapy was very useful.
Thank you, blogger.
Day one, down; 13 to go.

Blogging. Hm, what a novel idea...

2009-04-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

I am currently between jobs--
ha!
I mean that literally, since my winter job ended and my summer job has not begun, but I do have a summer job lined up.
Anywho.
I am hoping that this little space will give me the breathing room to commit to writing again, but who knows.

In any case, spring is here.
Muddy, grey, cold spring.
It is a very different season than a Utah spring, but I love it.
I love an excuse to wear my green, turtle-covered rain boots!
And I love watching the pond melt.
I am plotting and planning an article for a magazine, even though I should be writing crappy, faux articles for that company I worked for last year.
Blah.
Just can't find the motivation.
So maybe I won't.
I have ideas, man, ok?
I have ideas for cool articles and I have this super-amazing photographer right handy, by my side.
Soooo....that works out kinda neato.

Tomorrow I'm headin' to the big city (Portland) to try on wedding dresses with one of my very best friends.
We'll be dragging along her 2 little girls (sooooooo cute!) and baby boy (also cute, but less excited by the shopping theme) but I think it'll still be fun.
They are such good kids--so sweet and funny!

Saturday, martini night at another friend's house.
Should be good times.

Ok, seriously, would someone slap me?
Or punch me in the kidney?
Cuz...writing here, every day, is WHAT I NEED.
This feels so good I could just cry.
I've been sticking to my workout routine for the past couple of weeks, so maybe it's time to add another goal: write daily.
I think I can, I think I can...
And then, maybe sometime next year, I'll be able to go to the bathroom by myself, fer chrissakes!
I'm pathetic.
Why is it so hard for me to do such simple things???
Oh well.
I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself.
It is complicated, after all.
I poured my soul out onto this page for so many years, and I am afraid to become that person again...the person driven by her passions instead of by her reality.
I am finding a balance for the two, but I remain cautious.
I have such joy in my every day life now, that I fear anything which would lead me to lose that.

I need to remember to do my taxes.
I haven't had to do taxes in 10 years.
Damn divorces.
Hehe.

I guess I can write about everything here--even my moments of fear or doubt or sadness...I was vulnerable once, I can do it again.
But I do fear the neurotic overtone of writing incessantly about one's own thoughts and feelings.
So maybe I'll try to keep it mixed up--a bit of a journaling, a bit of story-writing or poetry....
Yes...it just...might...work! I can see the genius of it!

Yup: still weird.
...but what did you expect??

Happy April, my dears.

There isn't a story left untold

2009-03-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

but I'll tell one anyway.

I won't tell the story of the snowman, melting sadly away as the sun touches his frosty curving silhouette.
I won't tell the story of redemption, when a woman is freed from the slavery of her choices.
I can't tell the story of the way my life will find its ending, but I can sleep sweetly in the glow of how it found its happy ending...
My life has just started.
That other part, it was just the warm-up, the practice run.
That wasn't even really real, in some ways.
That was a story I told while I waited for my prince...that story had a tragic and painful ending, but it was just a story and now I'm charging forward into the crisp and perfect reality of dreams coming true.
The sun setting over the ocean...well, technically that doesn't happen here, since we face east, but it sets, and there is ocean, and sometimes if you're positioned just right, on an island or at the tip of a finger of land reaching out into the sea, then
you can sometimes catch the sun sinking down below water.
Or maybe it's just my imagination...

I'm not telling much of a story, am I?
Well, I never was one for meeting expectations, whether I set them for myself or not.
Ha.

There are worries, sometimes, that claw away at the inside of my ribcage.
They pull the breath out of my lungs and jab a dull knife at my gut from the inside.
These worries come rarely and stay briefly; they know they're not welcome, not needed.
They are uninvited guests, but sometimes a door is opened and they leap through it before it even finishes opening.
They poke at me and growl and I narrow my eyes and spit them out; they are nothing.

The big boys are watching skateboarding videos of San Diego and Albuquerque right now and it's reminding me of Utah...
I still haven't been able to categorize it but it was my home for 15 years, so I guess it's not surprising that I miss it a little.
Only in the way that you miss something that is absent; not in a sentimental way.
Not much, at least.
I have plenty of fond memories there, but it seems strange that I'm finally back Home.
Good thing I have blog-therapy at my disposal...

I love this planet.

Thoughts thick as gravy

2009-03-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Lately I'm tired all the time...probably just fighting off some flu or whatnot, but I'm sick of being...tired or sick or whatever it is.

I feel like my brain needs to blow its nose, sneeze, hack up a loogy (how the hell do you spell that?).

I look forward to the summer, and all the new adventures on my wide horizon.

I am surrounded by motherless sons while I work, and plagued by worries about my own sons going unmothered because I work, though it's not the same...

Sometimes I think that what I crave isn't to write a book, but just to read a really
really
good one.

I have a hangnail.

I got to leave work very early today, and instead of feeling better because of that, I almost feel worse--more tired.

(She said, as she yawned).

Q: Why am I so afraid to let him love anyone but me, when I know that I can give love without taking it away from him?

A: Baggage. Enough to stock the Charles de Gaul airport in Paris on its busiest day.

But all is well, and will continue improving.

Finding my place in this new/old world of mine is taking longer than I would like, but not longer than I expected...talk about a mindfuck! I knew I had idealized this place, and now I'm struggling to find the balance between that dream and reality, my memories and my present. It remains great to be here, but I think I tread so lightly my toes are getting calluses.

Picking a wedding date is, like, WAAAY harder than picking a nose.
Unless it's not your own nose, and the lights are out and the nose's owner is a hyper-active monkey with ninja skills and assorted weaponry.
Cuz...that would be almost as hard as picking a wedding date.

Are you as glad as I am to see that I haven't gotten any less weird?
yeah, it's cool.

Took the kids to the skate park to ride bikes and skateboards today at the height of my lethargy.
They had fun; I blinked a lot and yawned.

Good thing I have the most patient and loving boyfriend/fiance on the whole planet.
He is way too good to me.
He even lets me lecture him on the evils of soda consumption without getting surly.
I know! How awesome is that??
(He thinks that because he is skinny he doesn't have to eat healthily. Wrong, bucko!)

Ok, that is enough for tonight.
Random, gunk-encrusted thoughts look better on a page than they do inside my cranial cavity.
And shit-damn, it feels good to type on a full-sized keyboard!!
Huzzah!

Winter

2009-03-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

The great walls of snow, melting now
The grass is revealed again
Patches of brown with the barest hint of green
Sad, mashed down under the weight of
snowstorm after snowstorm after snowstorm.
Parking lots ringed by heaps of brown-peaked white snow, the inverse
of the mountains I have gazed upon for the last 15 springs.
Great stands of skeletal trees--
Dingy, bland, easy to ignore if there weren't so many of them,
like gaunt soldiers marching slowly home from defeat.
The pine trees stand tall and proud--smiling
As if to say Look at me! I'm still beautiful, ever
Green.
Their glory is steady--a straight line across the horizon,
never reaching the breathtaking heights of fluttery spring blossoms or rich,
fall foliage.
Four complete seasons, each one remarkable and cherished for what it offers, what it withholds.

****

Just some thoughts I had today while I was driving.

Last night in a dream I came upon myself mid-novel.
I had written about half a novel and
it
was
marvelous!!!
What a rush that was!
My Love called it a premonition.
I'll take it!!

Hope you're all well, anyone out there still stopping by.
I miss blogging.

If I were a blog post, I would be...

2009-02-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

missing
from this page
because that's where all my blog posts are.
I can't believe how long it has been since I've written.
It makes me a little sad...slightly morose, wistful perhaps.
I do love to share my thoughts, my experiences.
I've been busy.
Ha.
What a deliciously broad excuse, eh?
It kind of makes me giggle.
The truth is, I've been so busy living--
and more importantly, SHIFTING MY LIFE--
that I haven't had time to talk about it all, let alone write about it all.
I have morphed back into the best parts of who I used to be, pre-first-marriage.
I have taken back my SELF, I have returned to the softer side of Sears--
the softer side of ME.
I have returned home, and boy oh fucking boy, can I just tell you?
Home is where my heart always was, no matter what I tried to tell myself or you or anyone else.
I never really left this place.
Although, I'm glad I did.
I really was a fish flopping around on the desert sand out there.
An octopus trapped on top of a mountain.
...a mermaid with nary a sailor to sing to!
But I found my sailor...my submarine seaman, my scuba diving sweetheart!
And he found me.
And he wrapped his wet arms around me and I breathed in long gulps of salt water until at last we reached the sea!
And here we are.
I am a fish, once again, in water.
And it feels as good as one might expect.
It feels right.
I feel normal again, one among peers rather than the steady buzz under my skin--
whispers from every molecule around me of, "You do not belong" have died away and the silence is blissful.

I sold my house.
My first house, my third house--
the one to which I brought my two tiny babies home from the hospital,
the one in which I decided not to end my marriage,
the one to which I returned when we did, in fact, end our marriage,
the one in which I then found comfort and serenity--and sitting, looking out the same window I looked out when I started my very first Bored and Housewifely blog, I then found my truest love who brought me home.
Talk about full-fuckin-circle, eh???
I am complete.
So the house is as good as gone, tomorrow at 2pm MST will be the final moment, but so far so good.
My stuff's all signed, their ducks are (supposedly) in a row.
Quack.
It feels good, but weird, but good, and kinda sad.
Good bye, little house with a gorgeous view.
Good bye, little house with a wacky floor plan.
Good bye sunsets and mountains and sunrises--

I might have finally settled on the date that my Truest Love and I will wed.
I'm having a hard time deciding.
But I don't have a single doubt.
This man.....
he is the reason I exist.
I knew he was out there, I just knew it.
But I didn't really believe it...
He loves me in this fluid, full way, his love holds me gently--loosely, even.
We hunger for each other always, and are satisfied in all ways.
I just can't figure out what the "right" day to get married is.
That's all.
I have a feeling I'm waiting until I can be sure I'll lose some weight...
packed on a few over the summer, and they're not meandering off down the yellow brick road just yet, if ya catch my drift.
Jeeeeeeeeee
zus.
Eh, whatever.
I just don't want to be a chunky bride.
(does that remind anyone else of "The Bride of Chucky"?)

Hmm...what else is new?
I am addicted to Facebook, so that's cool.
Why didn't anyone ever tell me it was so frigging awesome????
I love that it's real--real names, so no funny business.
Maybe I wasn't interested in something like that before...
I used to dig the funny business, if ya know what I mean. Wink wink.

I have a rather pleasant job.
I work in the rental shop of a small ski hill (I feel as though I may have mentioned this...?)
I love the cheerful customer service aspect of it--people who come to ski are usually there to have fun, and if I can send them out on their adventure with a smile, and greet them after a harrowing day on the icy, coastal slopes with enough cheer to soften the blow of their defeat, then I have succeeded!
Not that people come back frustrated or defeated very often, but I will proudly say that I am skilled at turning frowns upside down. Heh.
I have also discovered that I am adept at wrangling teenage boys into cooperation--I'm not technically their manager, but I can get them to do what needs to be done and we all have a good time.
We have a great team and I have learned a TON about myself as an employee.
I like what I see.
Heh.
Seriously, though, let's not forget that I've hardly had what you'd call a "real job" in almost 9 years!
Yes, I wrote some last year, but that was incredibly flexible and non-interactive and then I wrote for the newspaper a couple of years back, but it was non-traditional as well--this is the first time I've had to show up on time and stay a predetermined number of hours (which often runs over) and am expected to interact positively with customers, while carrying out specific duties. Whoa. It's like I have a JOB or something!
I enjoy the customer interaction a lot, but the best part is setting bindings.
I read the customer's information and apply it to my little chart and come up with their unique setting then I fit their boot into the binding and grab a big ole honkin' screwdriver and twist each binding until the dial reads the number I need.
Probably sounds boring, but I love it!

Hm...
I guess that's all for now.
Dinner's cooking, almost ready.
Kids just came in from playing in the snow.

Abstracts in oil

2009-01-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Or was that extracts and shortening?

My reflection smiles back at me from just above the front porch railing--the glass is dirty, and double-paned, and maybe that's why, but I look younger and thinner and I don't mind looking at myself there.
I am slightly blurred, and I think to myself, "Yes, life is not as clear as I had expected it to be," but then I remember that I never expected anything from life but happiness.
The future was always very vague on the rare occassions it entered my mind at all, though the past would gurgle to the surface fairly often, and the present feels like a magical combination of both.
Everything I am is a product of my past, but I revel in the way it all feels around me in the air I breathe.
Right now, more than ever, I am caught in this web of past, present and future, feeling confused sometimes and feeling like I've warped through time somehow--grabbing pieces of each segment of my time line (past, present, and future) and jumbling them all up like a bowl full of marbles.
Living in the location of my past while embarking on a very unexpected future is only part of the vertigo.

Glancing back up to the reflection of me, I see...headlights approaching the driveway, through the distortion of a clear glass bottle on the windowsill.
Far away, tiny.
But my breath quickens--
He is home!
My heart thuds in my chest, my fingers dance across this keyboard, a mere shadow of the dancing my heart is doing.
That smile, that long stride coming swiftly across the kitchen to scoop me into a "Hi-honey-I'm-home" embrace!

Twenty minutes later, we have stopped embracing and smiling and touching.
I have rubbed down his tired back and sent him to shower.
We are going to a dinner party and my blueberry pie is almost done.
I should freshen up, get dressed, but my feet are tired from holding me up all day at the rental shop on the mountain.
Such a beautiful spot...the lake is finally frozen and the top of the mountain has almost enough snow to open!
I love my job.
I love helping people.

I miss my kids.
They'll be back from their Christmas visit to their father in a few short days, and I can hardly stand the wait!!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.
Welcome, 2009!

I could fill an ocean if each word I want to say were a drop of water...

2008-12-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

But lucky for me (and global warming)
they're not.

nevermind........I am drowning in all the unuttered utterances.
And frankly, my uterus hurts.
(not really, but I couldn't write all those u's and t's and not be compelled to write "uterus"...)

I'm weird, and suddenly tongue tied.

Here's something I came across, that I wrote once.
I like it.

I am surprised to hear that Hollywood was willing to let you go...I imagine it, a cavernous, black maw open wide, with jungly vines sweeping all around, yawning open to engulf you—it would have been lucky to have you, pressed onto celluloid, captured in 2-D, flashing through a projector onto a screen. I know, you went for the music, but that face of yours...man, you're just lucky they didn't suck out your soul and toss it aside so they could put you on film, that's all I'm sayin'.

Mixed Emotions

2008-12-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

Today started out early for me.
With my sweetest love standing over me in the dark, leaning down for a kiss.
He said, "I love kissing you."
I smiled and mumbled something similar and then, in the same soft, calm voice he said, "Would you give me a ride to work? I just totalled my truck."
I struggled to reach consciousness faster than usual, his calm manner preventing me from achieving an adrenaline assisted wake-up.
He told me the details: warm morning, black ice, telephone pole wrestling.
The telephone pole lost hard, round one.
But the truck didn't make it out with its dignity either.
The pole was completely severed.
Air bags deployed, frame crushed.
The speed limit is 45 on our road, where the accident happened, so he is very lucky that he fared so well.
I got the kids all ready for school and took his kids to school, then we headed for the emergency room for a doctor's opinion on his getting-sorer-by-the-second neck.
But not without a stop at a dear friend's house.
You see, I've spent the last couple of weeks helping out a little with my best friend's grandmother.
My best friend lives out of state and when she was here for Thanksgiving she hired me to help out a bit with her dying grandmother.
I loved every second of it!
I would pop by in the morning and make sure she'd had her pills, and see if she was ready for a snack (these old timer Mainers are crazy-early risers!).
We talked some, but she slept a lot and doesn't use her hearing aids anymore, so conversation was minimal.
I've known her for years.
She has been a huge part of my best friend's life and she isn't very old--only 3 or 4 years older than my mother, actually.
But she had fought many rounds against various kinds of cancer over the years, and it was finally taking its toll.
So, I am happy I was able to spend so much time with her over the past weeks as well as the times we stopped by with random casseroles and desserts over the past months.
She raised 3 fine daughters and was a dear soul.
She gave me a week at the cabin by the water for my honeymoon.
So, we stopped in this morning and headed off to the hospital (her daughter was here, so I wasn't needed today).
The wait was short and the doctor was efficient and knowledgeable; a good mark on a very long black list for that hospital.
He prescribed a muscle relaxant and a few days of rest for what appears to be pretty harsh whiplash.
All day I continued to be grateful that my sweetest love had been damaged so little.

My friend spent today driving here, having heard the end was in sight for her grandmother.
I knew she wouldn't be here until near midnight, and when we got a call around 9, my first tears were for my friend, who hadn't made it in time for a last good bye.
I know she will be ok.
She has said good bye before, and she has said goodbye to her grandmother before, but I ache for the regret she may feel at having not left last night but then I remember that she would not waste time with something as useless as regret.

So today has been a somber day, from start to finish.
And the day after tomorrow my little boys head back to Utah to spend nearly 3 weeks with their Dad.
I will miss them so much!
But mostly I will silently worry that he will try to keep them.

I end this day somberly, but with so much gratitude in my heart that I need a TUMS.

I am, I am, I said I wanna get next to you--

2008-12-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

I have had such a busy Thanksgiving week!
How 'bout you fellas?
Damn, I'm tired.
We had lots of great meals and times with family and friends and friends who are like family and family who are like friends....etcetera!
Twas awesome.
We are as happy and in love as ever...probably moreso, in fact.
We continue to make everyone around us nauseous with our sappy-happy lovey dover behavior
And I LOVE it!!
It rocks.

In just two weeks and 2 days, my kids will be heading off to Utah to spend the holidays with their Dad.
I have mixed emotions about it, but that is to be expected.
I'm going to have a great time with my new job and I will just try to stay busy, etc.
I will stay after work and go night skiing every day while they're gone!
I CAN'T WAIT for the skiing part!!
I will try not to worry about them...they are big boys now and I know they'll have fun.

My Sweet Love and I are ready to set a date for our wedding. He is as excited as I am, which makes it even more fun.
We have been tossing around ideas...Feb 14 sounded kinda fun for a minute...until we remembered that we live in MAINE! Brrrrr! So then we talked about summer again and then he suggested New Year's Day and I said what about New Year's Eve at midnight? And we got very excited about that, but then we remembered my kids won't be here--not to mention the whole Maine-in-winter issue. Another concern is that I have quite a large chunk of family and friends who will have to travel quite a distance to attend and I want to make sure they have enough time to get here and that they get to come during a nicer season than cold, cruel WINTER!!

Also.
I think I'm ready to start writing The Novel.
Don't hold your breath...or, on second thought, maybe you should because it will probably STINK! Hahaha!
But seriously. :)

Ok...
I have a sleeping, purring kitten on my lap.
And that is usually a good thing, but she keeps passing gas, which is encroaching on the whole pleasantness factor.

It's been a while...

2008-11-20T19:24:00.000-08:00

but here I am again.
Lots to say, but somehow...not feeling the need to say any of it.
That has probably been on of THE strangest parts of this whole transition for me:
losing the drive to write, write, write!
It's like everything just feels good and right and normal.
And to recreate the bond I once had with this medium, this social network would be impossible.
Because I'm not the same person anymore.
I don't feel like I even know the person I was then, the person who was in a constant state of surviving.
I wasn't really there.
I was here, all the time.
I am so deeply, so truly HOME that there isn't even a need to express myself most of the time--
I simply AM.
I didn't just want to come home because Utah was feckin' WEIRD.
I didn't just miss the ocean and seafood.
I missed my family and the familiar faces that fill this little pocket of the coast, the familiar names and places.

I got a job today.
The one I wanted.
It's seasonal...at a small ski hill about 15 minutes from here.
I am truly ecstatic.
I will get to ski free and my kids can have free rentals and discounted lessons and lift passes.
My heart is leaping forward in anticipation of the first day...
probably the day after Xmas.
Oh, and not only do I get all those cool benefits, but I don't even have to work outside on the FREEEEEZING-COLD lifts to do it! I will be a cashier in the rental shop, and will learn to fit boot, etc.
I have been wanting that exact kind of job, and I was planning to do a lot of skiing anyway, so what a friggin win-win, eh???
I'm so stoked.
In the meantime, I will plod along on my freelance stuff and maaaaybe even begin a novel, so that by the time the season ends, in March, I will have other sources of income ready to go.
(no, I don't consider the novel thing a plausible source of income, don't worry!)

Anyway.
I have so many stories...
I just spent a week in Arizona, as a bridesmaid for a dear friend.
I also wrote the ceremony and married them!
It was really friggin cool.
It was also a hell of a lot of fun.
We partied the whole time, just hanging out with old friends and new friends and really feeling like family.
There were guests in attendence from all across the globe (though they now live in America, they have all come here only in the last few years): Armenia, Russia, Peru and Zimbabwe!
Quite a few exotic regions represented, eh?
Wowza.
I felt right at home, though.
We taught a Russian and an Armenian how to bowl and box on the Wii and they were funny.
We stayed with a local artist, whose painting hangs in my living room.
She is such a gracious host and such a good friend.
When she left for the Farmer's Market one morning we made good use of the cabana out by the pool...and got busted, just after the fact.
She took us hiking out in the REAL desert--cacti everywhere, and sand, sand, sand.
It was beautiful, though nothing compares (in my eyes) to my ocean swept Maine!
There were some spectacular sunsets--one night the moon came out, fat and low while the sun was still streaking the sky with pinks and purples--it was a breathtaking sight.
The wedding itself was so tasteful and beautiful and went off without a hitch--except that they GOT hitched...heh...

Ok, my dear one is waiting for me in bed.
Oh, and today he said he would marry me ANYTIME I choose.
Bestill my heart!!
We may have to find another date as cool as 10-10-10.

Misty Morning

2008-10-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

It is a beautiful, misty morning here, the grey surrounding our bright bedroom on all sides--
we have large windows all around the room and it makes me feel like I'm outside!
I love it.
The thick, wet air clings to the tall dark trees--not unlike a drunk debutante and her escort...

I think I am finally settling in here, to this house, to this life.
It has been a very strange few months--
I have felt instensely happy, satisfied, passionate, and sure of my decisions, and yet...
yet...I have been under so much stress over outside concerns and stress from adjusting to this new life that I have been almost in a depression.
It is very odd, when I think about it.
I have been the happiest I've ever been with an underlying sadness.
The stress and adjustment period seem to be ending.
I am here, I am here, I am here!!!

There are so many things about this whole adventure that are hard to wrap my head around.
I am coming back to the place I grew up, and it is much the same, but...I think mostly I see it differently now, although it has undoubtedly changed some as well.
I am changed, so it looks different, feels different.
The way I remember it as a "grown up" is not at all how it feels to me now, for those were the college years and I was a wild and hungry little thing.
Always searching, always working so hard, and playing just as hard.
I would waitress 12 hour shifts then prance off on grand or silly adventures, my number one goal being to "meet hot guys".
I had no responsibilities, except to show up to work, which I always did, but it was definitely a very selfish, very self-indulgent existence.
Honestly those are the strongest memories I have of this place, because that person I was--the non-Mormon, the grown-up--that person is the closest to who I am today.
The girl I was in high school has been discarded and the the child I was before that.
They had their moments in the sun but as I followed the path from childhood into adulthood, they have faded as they should.
I still remember my childhood fondly, but from the same distance I did when I lived across the country.
I have already driven on so many roads that are new to me, and this place is taking on a whole new shape for me.
If I force myself, I can briefly touch on the memories I have of this road from childhood--we would drive down the road I now live on to pick up my twin nieces from their grandmother's house, where they lived at the time.
The woman still lives there, my Dad's first wife (well, second, actually, but the first one doesn't really count...) and I see her sometimes at the post office or the compact little grocery store in town.
I think my Dad built the house she lives in.
She has leukemia now, but is doing well.
She still looks the same--a tiny bird of a woman, very exotic looking for these parts, dark-ish, but no discernible ethnic origins.
Those twins are young women now, 23 years old and pursing education and marriage with the fervor one might expect.
They are good girls.

This is good for me...thanks for humoring me.

I would like to get back to the point, for a moment, and that is that my stress level is dying down and I am feeling settled, finally.
I have been holding my sweetest Love at bay just bit, on the inside, and I think it was because I was afraid--afraid that this wouldn't actually work out, somehow, that he would not continue to find me adorable and dear and cherishable once he had to see my bedhead every morning and watch me gain weight at ridiculous speed.
But guess what?
He does.
He loves me so much it kind of makes me giggle nervously, like I'm about to get caught impersonating someone worth loving...
A poem, perhaps?

My love loves me so much it makes me giggle
nervously
like I'm about to get caught
impersonating someone worth loving.
But then I remember I'm not a very good actress
and he isn't that gullible
(and then I wonder if that word was really taken out of the dictionary
because if not, I'd like to look it up to see if I spelled it right.)
And I continue to ponder,
and now I am blushing
because...
he loves me from the inside out and the outside in,
just
the
way
that I love him.

He worked form 6 last night until 6 this morning,
so he is zonked out in our lusciously cozy bed right now,
but I will send him that poem so that when he turns on his phone and checks his messages he will read it.

That reminds me...
I have a wedding reading to write.
One of my DEAREST friends in all the world and in all the directions that time runs, is getting married 3 weeks from today and I am a bridesmaid and I am invited to write something lovely to read in honor of their love.
I am...to be redundant, honored.
But I am also very nervous.
I gotta just git to it.
Hehe.

Oh my gaaaaaaawd, I can't wait to be there, with all of the dear friends and with my Love, meeting them!!!!!!

I still haven't found a job, but I know that I will.
I just hope it's The Right One.
I believe that it will be.
Because this is MY year!!!

The kids are flourishing, by the way.
I knew that they would, I knew it.
They are so happy and silly and GOOD.
They haven't been this obedient....maybe EVER.
We are all very close and very happy here.
They are spending 3 weeks with their father at Xmas, and I hope they enjoy it.
I know I will!
Actually, I was struggling with it at first, realizing how lonely christmas might feel to me with my Mom and my kids all the way out there in Utah (my Mom is flying with them so they don't have to take the triple expensive direct flight) and my Love working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...
But then I remembered:
My best friend will be home for the holidays and my other best friend lives near one of the best ski resorts in Maine!!!
Hooooooray!!!

Yes, life is good.
But it oughta be, cuz I have crawled uphill on my hands and knees for ten years to get here.
I have given up a lot to be here recently too, and I have had to acknowledge that, even though I feel like it is worth every bit of loss, to the 439th power!
It just makes me appreciate what I have all the more.

Oh, hey, also...
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maine Coon Cat!!

2008-10-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

We just got back from driving to Lewiston to pick up our FREE Maine Coon Cat!
These are $700 cats...he needed a new home, so we adopted him.
He is so beautiful, I can hardly stand it.
Grey, long hair and SO BIG!
I will post a picture tomorrow.
He is so sweet.
And we just realized that he was born right around the time we met (online).
Aaaaaw! How cute is that??
And the name his owners gave him was Rocko, which we like just fine and will keep.
With a slight alteration...see, my wit still surfaces once in a while and here's what tumbled out of my mouth, "B. Rocko Bama"!!!!!

Photo by Michael Whitman
And I just read that they don't stop growing until they are 3 or 4 years old!!
He's 10 months old and already bigger than our full grown cats...can't wait to see how big he gets.
He's so beautiful!!

Happy Pre-Anniversary to Me!

2008-10-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Two years from today, Love and I will marry,
and every year after that we will marry again.
Partly because it is romantic to renew those ole vows
and partly because we can't narrow it down to just one place--
there are so many beautiful places that are special to us!
I finally uploaded pictures from my Blackberry so I will share them with you now.

This is my AWESOME bike (well, cheapish bike with nice gel seat and clip-in pedals, not pictured)

This is about 1/3 of the total blueberries we picked that afternoon. It was one of the truly golden days of this spectacular summer!

Check out that TREEEE!! Isn't it gorgeous?
I live in paradise, I really do. I took this picture yesterday while out riding my bike.

This is Pemaquid Lighthouse, the picture was taken in early summer when we were riding the motorcycle up the coast and we stopped here for lunch.

A Gem of a different sparkle--

2008-10-09T06:06:00.001-07:00

I can't stop myself from sharing this with you...
I was explaining to my kids why I wouldn't buy them some particular, extravagent toy (can't even remember which one) and growing exasperated.
"Because you don't take care of your crap!" I said.
Hilarious little O said, "You don't care of yours either, Mom, you just flush it down the toilet!"
I'm laughing, but kind of embarassed.
I mean, I have a better vocabulary than THAT!

********

In light of our shitty economy (see? much better word choice! ha!) I have agreed to having a renter in my house until it sells.
If they pay on time I will be happy to have them there until it sells, and if not, I will be happy to evict them!
What I really hope is that I get an offer on the house before they move in.
And hey, did anyone notice the delicious direction gas prices are heading???
Around here, they have dipped below the $3 mark for the first time in months!
Sure, I'm talking just a few cents under $3, but I'll take it!!
This is more than a dollar less than the gas we were buying at the beginning of summer.
I'm pretty sure I paid $4.50-something per gallon for the moving truck in August.
That kind of makes me want to vomit.

In related news....
I might be starting work again for that software company on Monday--the one for whom I wrote marketing crap.
I mean "marketing shit"...

At the soccer game the other night there was a policeman watching his son in the game and his phone rang....
it was the opening song from Law & Order!!
I couldn't stop giggling.

Lots of big plans for enjoying this lovely 4 day weekend, including:
--watching all 3 Indiana Jones movies
--hiking with my Mom (and the kids and Love)
--picking apples with all of the above
--sailing
--kayaking
--bike rides
--wishing I would buckle down and get this house organized, including having a lawn sale to get rid of all the extra crap/shit that we have

Oh, I don't know if I mentioned it, cuz I haven't been blogging much, but I had to send my new laptop in to get repaired and I am ecstatic to note that it has been returned and is working well!
I got it in March, used it a little bit through May, then got here and didn't use it at all until about July first, at which point it worked for about two hours then the battery died and wouldn't recharge. I was under the impression that I needed to ahve my warranty in hand in order to arrange for its repair so I grew frustrated and packed the computer away until my return from Utah in August...where I still didn't have the warranty. So I waited another month and then called the place where I bought it and after a 15 minute phone call there was a box being sent to me for shipping it in to the repair center! I'm a dope. I should have called them in July. Ooooooh well.........

Also, I heard through the grapevine that my Ex is getting married in November.
The kids don't even know yet, so I imagine he's not inviting them.
Whatevs.
He's an idiot.
I wish the poor girl luck.
He has proclaimed his hatred for and fear of marriage very loudly for the past year, but I guess his little Jesus freak girlfriend wouldn't permit them to stay unmarried any longer.
I scoff at him and pity her, but I don't actually care.
What I do worry about is that if he was so easy to persuade to do this, how easy will it be for her to persuade him to reverse his vasectomy?
Cuz...I'm all for babies, but that man is the SHITTIEST father ever.
Self-professed.
He knows he's bad at it and admits to NOT ENJOYING fatherhood.
So will he think the third time's the charm???
Has he decided that the blame lays with both of the mothers of his children and not with himself??
Ok, ok, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
It's just that he was an adament atheist the whole time I knew him, then he meets this chick and BAM--Jesus is our savior and the Bible is the word of god and he's getting the kids bibles for christmas and taking them to church when they visit him and--aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!
Save me.
So my point is, two of his very solid convictions have changed in the last year and I wouldn't be surprised that his new, childless wife would have the power to convince him that god wants them to have babies.
If it's god they love, then god help them.
Don't let me treat her as horribly as he treated me, and don't let her convince him to have more kids.

Thanks for listening....
But now that I've said all that, I think it's highly unlikely that they WON'T have kids so I better just deal with it.

Ok, time to go shave my hoo-hoo.
Have a fabulous day--

Check out this little gem...

2008-10-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

I found this, tucked away on the old blog.

My heart nearly burst reading it...

I have found him!!

Friday, March 21, 2003
Sometimes, with all my romantic notions and silly daydreaming habits of yesteryear, I try to imagine the "perfect match" for me. I want someone whose heart will swell at the coming of spring like mine does and whose eyes will sparkle as we plan an impromptu weekend to the dessert for hiking and biking. Someone who will laugh from the very core of himself at the silliness of life and who will profess to me that the world would be dark without the light I provide, would be empty without the sound of my voice and would be cold without the warmth of my heart beating next to his. I want someone who makes me feel like a goddess even when we both know I’m still carrying around baby fat. Someone who will kiss me like it’s the last scene of a black and white movie and make my knees shake. sigh. but then I remember (and I went on to say I should be happy with what I have)

I'll give you a penny if you read my thoughts...

2008-10-05T19:19:00.001-07:00

Ok, not really.
I should have titled this, "A penny's worth of thoughts"...
But I didn't.

Ok, in any case, some thoughts.

First of all, I must get something off my chest.
It has been bothering me ever since I saw it.
There was a bumper sticker on someone's car today that said, "Thank you President Bush".
I am still speechless.
I am truly jaw-drop, mind blank, dumbfounded.
After sputtering with my eyes popping out of my head for several long minutes I did come up with ONE possibility, albeit a snarky one.
The ONLY possible reason someone could feel gratitude for that piece of shit is if they own substatial stock in an oil company.
That's it.
That's the only possiblity.
I mean, I get it, they're Republicans and they'll stand behind their nation's president.
Hats off to ya, whatever, you're allowed to feel that way.
But to go so far as to announce to the world that you're GRATEFUL to the man???
FOR WHAT??
Dear god, I'd like to know for what.
Cuz..I don't generally get into politics, and I'm a fairly non-partisan person but I hate being reminded that there are so many people out there who are not just ignorant but are actively believing in some big, false fairytale world where our president isn't a completely evil idiot.
I'd like to hear a rational argument for what he has done FOR us.

Ahem.

Sorry...

Today it rained on soccer practice and on our rocket launch and we had birthday cake with family and I saw some great old friends and
my heart is full.
I am home.
Home, home, home.
And I am happy.
Autumn is exquisite.

I have great plans for this week--
* finish unpacking this house
* walk into a locally based magazine and invite them to take the gift of Me onto their staff
* if said invitation isn't accepted, start other, less cool, job pursuits
* pick apples and turn into sauce (already did that once this fall...awesome...need more)

Last night was an awesome girls night out at the home of a friend.
I have so much more to say, but it's time for bed.
I'm diggin this blogging thing..........

Leaves are falling all around....

2008-10-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

but it's not time to ramble ON.
It is always time to ramble, just not feeling the need to depart.
Ya know?

Speaking of songs...
I have had that friggggggggin song from "Hustle & Flow" stuck in my head for days.
So many days it feels like a permanet fixture, like I've been wandering through the desert looking for water and that song was my treasure map, my compass and christ on acid, I can hardly type anymore.
I don't know what the fucking malunction is, but it's like I think a word and suddenly a different word is appearing on the screen.
We're not talking run-of-the-mill typos here, people, we're talking miss-fired neurons!
Shit, damn, motherfuckers.

Also, I feel about as sexy as a cat fart right now, but yet, somehow, my Love still loves, lusts, and likes me.
So that's somethin'.
(somethin' big and ridiculously awesome)
What a bizarre coincidence!!! HOly shit.
As I was typing that parenthetical aside, what wafted to my nose but SKUNK SPRAY.
I followed my nose to the front porch and there was the strongest skunk odor I've ever experienced.
We've seen one around, etc, so it's no surprise.
All the cats were inside so we're safe there.
But then I sat down and read "cat fart" and had a little chuckle...skunk spray/cat fart....heh.
It's like I conjured it or something.

We were invited out for a sail today but when we got to the dock there was a problem with the skiff so we went to lunch instead.
It was so weird, as I stood there in the beautiful sunshine I had so much I wanted to blog about, but I can't seem to conjure any of it.
I guess that comes from having too much going on in my mind that is unbloggable or something.
And don't worry, it's nothing too exciting, but it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about here.

I guess the biggest problem with my ability to blog right now is that I'm redefining myself, as I hinted at with my last post.
That stuff is all so mind-numbingly self-indulgent that I will try not to put you through it.
But you just never quite know what you're going to get from this girl, so who knows.

Finding my voice again

2008-10-01T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am trying to find my voice again, but it seems to be ever out of reach.
Sometimes I hear it whispering, while I'm driving or washing dishes or as the pleasure passes after making love.
But when I sit down here the words all scurry into the shadows and dodge me completely.
Today I had some thoughts, thoughts on this new life of mine and and thoughts on finding my voice again.
Thoughts on letting the delicate, winged creature inside of me have her moment in the sun--
a moment that will last a lifetime, if I'm lucky.
I have shed the outer layers, the hard shell that protected me for so long.
And now I am just Me.
I am whole, and happy, but...
new.
I am hesitantly growing accustomed to this being, this Self.
It feels so good, and only a little bit scary.
I know that I am safe.
I know that I will not have to live in such fear and in a constant state of survival
ever
again.
The strength of it surges through me leaving tracks conspicuously all over my bones.

I thought a lot today about coming home.
I don't feel like I'm here yet.
I don't have a rhythm here...I don't fit into the heartbeat of this place yet, because I spent so much time being forced into that other pattern...that foreign place, that far place...it feels like it was a dream.
I have been asleep for 15 years?
Yes; sort of.
I am here, and things haven't changed much, but they have changed so much.
The place is crowded with ghosts and memories.
The woman bagging my groceries...she was a dishwasher at my summer job.
The cop patrolling the parked cars was in my Algebra class.
The parents picking up their kids were at my high school, in another district, but yet here we all are.
I don't feel like I really live here.
I am exisiting in some sort of cheerful Purgatory.

Bah.
I will be back with more thoughts soon.
But I have to go now.
We will celebrate with good friends tonight.
And soon...this house will be unpacked and I will have some job somewhere and I will drive a car with a Maine license plate and I will say...some day...unexpetedly, "Ah....yes. I am home."
(but hey, at least in the interim, I am so well loved that I can hardly see straight and I am so happy I can hardly remember the pain.)

Autumn's sweet, I call it fall...

2008-09-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of celebrations!
Today the man who held a gun to my friend's head will be sentenced for that crime.
I will jump up and down with joy, laugh with glee, and dance an Irish jig!
I know he won't stay in long enough to suit me, but just the fact that he will be behind bars is enough.
He is such scum.

Also, one year ago today I had been living on my own for 3 days.
That was such a joyful time--such a time of relief and of peace for me.

Meanwhile, the forests that line every road I travel are splattered with red, orange and yellow.
The trees are participating in a harvest dance, wearing their finest silk dresses.
The air is crisp, and so are the apples.
Soccer games and practices litter the calendar every afternoon.

Now if only I could shake this cold/flu thingy....

Still processing...

2008-09-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

Slowly churning through all these changes in my life, but doing well.
I haven't fully grasped the reality of having moved HOME, but I'll keep ya posted.

So this post is about one characteristic of mine...
one of which I am most certainly not proud.
It's not something I know how to change--but I am working on it.
It is a physiological element of myself, and I have always been this way.
Let me see if I can explain it.
I don't sleep particularly soundly, but not lightly either--I would say I just sleep...average.
However.
I do not wake in any average way.
I am considered by all who know me to me "grouchy" in the morning.
Ha!
Both when I wake in the morning or when I am awakened in the night time, I am...truly feral.
I am in my reptile mind, I am a caveman's bratty daughter.
One of the ways this is manifested is that I can't respond to simple questions--
I feel like I am trapped inside my own mind, able only to comprehend the question and not reason out an answer, let alone convey it to my interrogator.
It is the strangest feeling I ever experience.
The reason this is on my mind is that this Love--this beautiful man with whom I am blessed to be sharing my life, my bed--this man is a morning talker.
He is, as always, sweet and tender and always defers to my known-orneriness.
But I have never had so much demand for mid-sleep conversation as I have during the past few months!!!
Oh my!
He knows I can't communicate when I first wake up.
He knows that I am not really awake until I've been "awake" for quite a few minutes (I would guess it's in the 10-15 minute range, usually).
And I think it annoys me that I am unable to join him in that place of sleepy bliss and full-consciousness at the same time!
I don't know how people DO that!
How can you be coherant and still drowsy?
God, how I wish I could change this!!!!
He says that I have made significant progress on the morning grouchiness, and I feel like he is right.
Instead of feeling compelled to join his level of cognizance, I just smile and kiss him back and keep my eyes closed until I'm ready to talk.
Because he knows that I have no words for him just yet and so he has learned not to expect any (or many).
However...
last night, as occasionally happens, he woke me after I'd been asleep for 2 or 3 hours.
He made the mistake of apologizing for waking me and asking if I wanted him to turn off the movie he was starting.
This was too much for Reptilian Me to grasp.
Of course I didn't want him to turn off the movie (he had it on because HE couldn't sleep--so the sweetness in me wanted him to have his movie) but I also couldn't sleep with so much light, sound, and incidentally, HEAT.
Suddenly I was boiling hot, and awake enough that I couldn't just go back to sleep.
So I went and sat in the kitchen.
In the dark.
With my terribly sore back.
Long story short, I couldn't fully wake up, and in my half-asleep state I was fuming.
I just didn't know why.
I couldn't figure it out, but I tried.
And I tried and I tried and I tried.
And then I was awake.
So I went back to bed and he asked if I was mad at him for waking me up.
I said, "No, I'm mad at you for talking to me!" Breaking into a laugh at the end.
I think the underlying problem was that I am semi-sick and my back is killing me and I had had an emotionally draining conversation with the X earlier in the day that I hadn't had a quiet moment to think or talk about and it was still haunting me.
But most of all, I hated that he was awake and I wasn't...I wanted to be with him and I was mad at myself for falling asleep.
I'm such a freak.

I love my life

2008-09-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

I really, really, REALLY do.
I'm never alone...
I have this AWESOME, sweet, funny, adorable boyfriend who craves me as much as I crave him.
And then he has these two totally cool teenagers who are just plain ole GOOD kids and they keep me company whenever he's not around.
I never knew how FRIGGIN great it would be to have a big family.
I know 4 kids isn't that big of a family, but it is double what I'm used to.
And I looove it!
Not only does having more people around contribute to my feeling of not being alone, but so does having a man at my side who is always at my side--whether it be in body or just in conviction.

See?
This is why I don't blog much anymore...
Spewing this kind of joy and contentment is kinda gag-reflex-inducing.
I can't type worth a shit anymore, either.
And maybe he's all the audience I need...
I think I needed blogging before because I was lonely--
which is not to say that's the only reason people blog, but for me it was a big part of it.
I needed adult interaction.
And maybe I will blog again someday, but it will never be the same.
I guess for now, I will continue to seek a new voice, a new style, a new format.
And maybe.............
this lack of need for an "outlet" will give me more time to actually write fiction........
we can only hope.
Heh.

This weather is divine.
Cool, crisp, fall weather!
Warm sunshine, changing leaves.
Today we went for a motorcycle ride.
It was delicious!!
Oh and there was this woman.....
did I dream it?
No...I didn't.
We flashed past her, and for one long moment all was still.
A figure stepped through the bushes, a specter in broad daylight.
She had a smudge of shortish, reddish hair;
her overalls were the color of bone, the shirt underneath a nameless shade of grey.
She paused there, framed by green and it was as though she was me, from ten years ago, wishing to be where I am now.
Oh, god, How I Wished!!!!!!!!!!
With all of my soul I yearned for this love and these trees and this ocean and my parents and
my heart is so full of all of it that I can hardly breathe.
I need to write a love song to my love.
If only I could sing.....

Why??

2008-09-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sigh.
No outlet, still.
Will I keep blocking my own outlets?
Will I keep losing myself?
I think Blogging is lost to me.
That incarnation of me, the one that existed here, feels like it will never resurface.
But that could just be for today.
Maybe another day I will be charged with spunk
but today I am sick, which makes me tired.
And today I am still able to have my mood soured by the stupidest, least logical things.
I simply MUST find a way to reign that shit in.
Also, it would be cool to remember how to express myself in print.

fuck this all.
Maybe I'll get a job and join the rest of the world...

I did it.

2008-07-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

I am officially moving!
It still sort of feels like a dream, or a non-reality at the very least.
But it is official.
I have notified the Ex,
I have bought return tickets,
I have reserved a portion of a semi from a handy-dandy moving company,
I have...I have...oh, shit, the trampoline! I hope it fits.
I have reserved a rental car for the week we are there, since my car is here
and the distance between there and here is...about 2700 miles which at these prices cost me about $700 in gas just to get out here and flying 3 people costs 800 so why not skip the 4 days of hellish torment, plus hotels and food which would drive the total past $1000 without any trouble??
That's what I thought.
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
That was a mixture of relief and exhaustion, in case you're wondering.
This summer has flown by at mach speed and it's not getting any less busy anytime soon.
We have just over two weeks left until the week in Utah and then we'll have another 2 weeks until school starts but as we adults all know, that kinda time is going to pass in the slow blink of two happy eyes.

Happy...
That's an emotion I was pretty far out of touch with for a while.
But I've found it again and even if it is buried beneath a heap of stress and planning right now there is just nooooo frickin way that I'll be taking it for granted any time soon.
I have a second chance at happiness and I will not squander it.
I will not, I will not!

Hoe
Lee
Shit.

Maybe if I say it enough it will begin to sink in:
I am moving HOME.
I get to move home....
finally.
Oh, god, finally!
After all these years of aching for the ocean, yearning for a comprehensible social structure, keening for good seafood and hardworking people where the majority of the people aren't obsessed with appearances and my kids will not face ostracism just for our religious beliefs (or lack thereof...).
Praise jesus, I am HOME!!!

And with this return to New England comes my ability to be near family and friends again who once defined me--who helped shape the best parts of me--and maybe, just maybe, I will find myself again in their reflections.

I have so much to do it's not even funny...
I am so loved it's not even funny.
I am getting in shape again so fast it's not even funny.
And yet...I sure do seem to laugh a lot...hmm...funny.

Sounds like a plan!

2008-06-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Blackberry Bloggin'

2008-05-30T15:51:00.001-07:00

Is this the coolest gadget I've ever owned? Yes, yes it is! More later.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Mobile blogging

2008-05-30T15:44:00.001-07:00

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I am not a blogger anymore

2008-05-11T00:29:00.001-07:00

I don't know who I think I'm kidding.
I write once a month, if that.
But I think I will let go of the guilt...
or try to.
Because I am really carrying far too much of that shit around and all I really want is to move forward and to
keep
on
writing.
Cuz...
once upon a time
it was a big part of my life.

I just need to BE.
Or is that not to be?

I am choking on my own future right now.
I have so much freedom
so much control
that I can hardly breathe.
While I have never felt more Right about a choice in my life,
it has also never been as difficult to choose something so good.

I am scared and tired and I just want Him to be here, holding me, but I don't really want him to see my weakness, I don't want him to see my fear.
I want to bolt.
I want to run far away from all of it.
But that would just be pure silliness; my heart is more full and more settled than I ever dreamed possible.
I just need to weather the storm of the outside world.
Because we are one, we are not in peril.
He is my safe harbor, my cool spot in the shade, my place to curl up beside a fire on a grey winter afternoon.
How will I do this?
How will I decide between my kids staying near their father and starting my new life with a man who will be the best step father I could ask for?
3000 miles.
That is my home, but this has become my home finally and I balk at the consideration of leaving it.
I want to cry, but my sunkissed cheeks and great hair day won't permit it.
Not true.
Mostly it's my stubborn heart stopping the tears.
I refuse to let the EX put a damper on my exuberance!!!

I am thirsty.
And tired.
I have a wretched headache, and my neck is cramped.
I have a list of very important, crucial tasks to complete and it's not even a complete list.
Nor is it completed.
ha.
fudgesicles.

SON OF A WHORE!
save me, K!llf@ce...

Thoughts from 20,000 feet cruising altitude...

2008-05-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

How is it that everything feels so settled, so right?
I spent so long walking around in someone else's shoes, living someone else's life,
yet I recognized this life instantly.
I know it is mine.
One thing I have not rediscovered is my voice, the clarity of thought I am convinced I had not too long ago.
I will not push the words out of my soul, but I will let them filter out, through all this joy and all this contentment and I will hope that they do start to flow again, that they flow beautifully and smoothly, sometimes ruggedly or harshly.
ah...maybe this is it....yes, now I remember.
The words aren't always there, they only come once the gates are open.
They wait for me to commit my fingers to the keyboard,
they let me clear away a few cobwebs, but then they will gush out.
Oh, this feels good.
So why have I fought it, or ignored it for so long?
I am afraid of the power of the my own words, of the words that charge through me at the will of my Muse.
But I have no reason to be afraid anymore.
I am free.
And I am loved As I Am.
Yes, first I love me, but second...
HE loves me.
We will have a good life together; the best.
I know he is fully committed to me and to our family and I enjoy his company so much--
I admire him and appreciate all the quirks he has and all the strengths.
I hope to hold his interest for a good long time...perhaps for life, as he plans.
I just can't imagine it--
being married to someone who sees life the way I do, who values the things I do, and best yet, I love the idea of spending my life with someone who not only has the ability to love as deeply as I do, but who does in fact love ME as deeply as I love him!!!
It is a miracle to me.
I adore this dear fellow.
I will retain my sense of self, my self confidence.
I shall finish meeting all the skeletons when I return.
I will carry on with confidence, no matter what.
I love this man and all that he is.
I will write about him and be sexy for him--
I will keep him interested so that he will want to take pictures of me.
He leaves me so satisfied, so whole.
I could probably get by with seeing him only one week every month if I had to, but hopefully I don't have to.
Where does this leave my future?
With him.
But what about financial stability?
I must finish college.
I must sell my house and move here,
I must write.
Write, write, write.
Take it seriously, it is a job.
Write everyday.
Learn something new about writing or publishing every day.

There was an orange moon, behind thick fog

2008-04-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

And I wanted to find it--
I imagined that if I held out my hand,
the trees would bow down
to clear my view,
but as I rounded the bend (one of the many)
I saw that the still-bare branches didn't distort my vision as much as
the fog
did.
And that was probably more symbolic than I can conceive of at this moment.
But it was beautiful,
that smudge of orange so tauntingly out of reach.
I wanted to see that moon, but it was not mine.

I was afraid I might drown
but instead
it seems I am learning the butterfly stroke
which sounds prettier than it looks,
and is stronger than its name implies.
I am stronger than its name implies, too.
...although, somehow...it seems that I protest too much,
like Shakespeare said that one time.
To declare my strength is shouting it to my own deaf ears,
shouting it to a world with only four senses.
I am lost, and I am found.
But I can't stop spinning as I sit so still
hoping no one notices the way my smile has slipped
from the grip
in which I held it so tightly
for so long.
Remind me...
whisper into that part of my mind that holds memories
and tell me that I don't have to prove anything
and I don't have to be
any
one
other than myself.
I am still shedding the baggage I acquired during that ten year stint up the river.
In shackles,
behind bars,
or in pubs, or what have you....
You get the idea, you hear me, you smell what the Rock is Cookin'
...and yes, it might be lobster. :)
Tonight I am home in more ways than I can count.
I am content in more ways than I've ever imagined.
But.
I am, most definitely, at a place called Vertigo--
I know which way is up, but I can't seem to find it;
I know where I am, but I can't find the light switch.
My heart is still so full it aches, but there are moments when I can't breathe--
moments when it all turns upside down and I wonder where I fit in,
wonder how this will play out over a lifetime.
Wonder if I'm enough,
And in all of this wondering...
I forget to remember the most important part:
We are a perfect match,
like two halves of the same whole,
like one plus one equals one
like my heart in his chest
and his thoughts in my head
and I chide myself for forgetting to remember those (most important) things.
Those things which are all that I have sought,
for all the years I've been aware of my heart's design.
Silly girl...
did you also forget, so soon?
Did you forget how much your soul craves a pure outlet?
Ah.
Yes.
Time for a new blog, eh?
Time for a new blog.
Will you ever stick with any blog with the determination and love that you rode like a surfer's paradise on the last blog?
Prolly not.
But that's ok.