Saturday, March 06, 2004
Is it the wind, or just me?
Restless. Up, down, here, there. It was hard to force myself to sit through the movie and that was Mr. Depp for god's sakes. Laundrey. Bath. Shopping again. In. Out. Dog bath. Cup of tea. Smoothie. A walk. Dinner. Another bath.And nothing to say. I think I've talked myself out, into a corner, closed a door. No words. No thoughts. I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of these things I've been needing to say. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be anywhere else but here. I want to be with you. I want to be anywhere but with you.
Trying to write something that makes sense. Some other sense than what's to be had by all this pseudo-cathartic purging. Normal, everyday sense. But I've lost the meaning of the words. The true meaning. Meaning disappears in this fidgety place - sentences are jumbles of words. Nothing more. Nothing less.
One start. Like this....
In the best childhood myth / Rockwellian tradition, he was the boy next door. I fell in love with him the first day I saw him, the day after they moved in. I was nine. He was ten. I jogged over to the fence and landed a beauty on his shoulder. But it was not as hard as I originally intended, because just before my fist connected I saw him properly and my heart gave a great thud. He was *beautiful*. And I fell in love.
Another. That ends like this...
'They' say we fall in love to re-inforce our own self-image. Perhaps we sleep around to do the opposite. To remind ourselves that others see us differently, or can do. That we all have other faces and the possibility of alternate lives within us.
And so, in the end, something by someone else. Because she's got some of the words that I don't.
We are afraid of failing.
We are afraid that we will have nothing to say.
We are afraid that what we do say will be banal and boring.
We are afraid it will endanger us.
We are afraid it may be a lie.
We are afraid that what we say will be the truth.
We are afraid of succeeding.
We are afraid that no one will notice.
We are afraid someone will learn what we've said - and it may be ourselves.
We are afraid there will be consequences.
We are afraid we won't be able to change.
We are most afraid that we will.
Deena Metzger
quiescent
Hidalgo came out yesterday and I was thinking about walking over to see it but brrr, the wind is bitter and blowing...and although I appreciate the flash blowdrying of the hairs, I don't want to wander about in it. So I shall clean the house instead.I just had an interesting conversation about love and life and dogs with a stranger who stopped us on our walk to envelop Lacey in hugs.
I've been informed by email that I will absolutely be staying a night with Les. I think it's been about 10 years since I've actually seen her and although she's been through some pretty rough times in the interim, she seems quite good now. She's overly excited that I am coming to visit, all exclamation points and virtual tail wagging, it makes me smile. So, I must call her in a little while and work all that out.
Otherwise, I have nothing else of interest, sorry.
lyric at post:
..everybody knows that the war is over,
everybody know that the good guys lost..
Friday, March 05, 2004
classic
If you haven't seen Blit Wizbot do "I Will Survive", I suggest you go here posthaste and forthwith to download it. Classic.and...speaking of classics....
lyric at post:
..I have just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind..
Promises made and appointments broken
No review today. Can you give me 15? ..later.. an hour? ..later.. Monday? 10 am?. The constant 'work up' to the review is adrenaline hyping, the repeated postponements a little depressing.Someone at work was telling me about the ritzy lunch and learn they were at yesterday regarding marketing to teens. And going down the inevitable 'let's use bloggers' alley (cause you know it's coming, don't you?), some young girl with an inappropriately naked big fat belly and low cut jeans got up and proceeded to regale them all with the tale of how, like all her friends are soooo into the blogging thing, cause you know, like it's soooo fun and easy to do?
And then he just stops, and looks at me, you know, like, with *that look*. The offensive thing is, he's about 4 years bloody younger than I am. An intelligent human being, but unable to think of me as anything other than one of them, those bloggers. I came pretty close to jamming a fork in his eye.
But only because I missed his jugular.
They said he'll be fine. Should be fine. And I'm feeling much better now.
Mostly because I'm leaving when I finish this post to grocery shop - it's a heartbreakingly warm 6 degrees chinook day (warm wind up from -14 only 8 hours ago). Then I've promised Herself I will not spend the evening on the internet like the last two...three...four nights and instead curl up on the couch for some intense TV watching and a bottle of wine.
Cheers. Salut. Other witty toast sayings.
lyric at post:
..It's simple, confusing, the truth is I'm winning but I'm losing
And pulling and pushing, won't do me any good..
Thursday, March 04, 2004
a day
gah--ack--*sigh*--work--hiss--beweep--eat--bemoan--cancel--berate--work--meh--screech--blahI cancelled everything. Rebooked a new car, a flight, another car, a longer hotel stay.
N - I'm not coming to see you. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't think I can drive for 24+ hours this time. Flying negates the impulse (as Donna says) to postpone the end because then I can't take her with me. Flying allows me two extra days I didn't have yesterday, two days where I don't actually have to see anyone. Because there's so many people I have to see, especially if I'm saying goodbye. Even if I may not be today, I may be moving that way by the time I go and so I have to think of it as if I am, then I'll have no regrets later. And I just couldn't imagine waking up on the last morning, facing a 14 hour journey to get back home to the emptiest house on the planet.
To me, maturity doesn't necessarily mean you act like the idea of an adult, it just means that you finally, fully realize the things you can and cannot do and rather than trying to convince yourself you'll do something you know inside you won't, instead you just accept and do your best to work around them. To be honest and kind and gentler to yourself. And, in the end, this is what this (I can't call it a vacation) trip is all about.
Tommorrow afternoon I have my performance review. How fun. I can't say anything until after I find out whether the words 'yearly raise' and 'promotion' mean the same thing to them, or not. I imagine it'll be pretty brief.
I'm not mad or sad or anything - I'm just tired and frustrated and wishing all this were already over.
I'll be cheerier tomorrow. It's a cycle. Promise.
lyric at post:
..days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
when I want to run away, I drive off in my car
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are..
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
how awfully rude of me
I just realized, in updating the Tombs, that all my links went back to my old ISP page (which sits there patiently waiting to morph into a version of this site that my boss can see) and which was last updated back in October or something. (apologies to Jen, also - who I think is trying to catch up, the biggest changes would be the Tombs, Incidental Archives and Listmaking) *much feet shuffling and head ducking*I was talking to someone at work today about the Munchkin and I realized that one of the myriad terrible facets of this whole thing is that she loves to go to the vet. And that led to the thought that she trusts me completely. Implicity. No questions asked. With her life. And in 26 days, I will lead her trusting little soul into that office so that I can kill her. Fuck, that's terrible. I've been good with this, but that one little thought has tears running down my face. 'Scuse me, you're all blurry. BRB.
........
huh, okay. Just blindsides me, that does. Treacherous and crafty mind.
After that little epiphany, I checked out the "may not be able to come back from vacation after just a week" contingency plan.
I 'booked' a few get-togethers this aft but since I'll only be in the hometown proper four days, it seems like there will be no time to be with myself and see all the places that were my private places when I was growing up there. There's just never enough time, but this time it may be in my best interest to make the time. Especially since I'll know by then if I'm putting in effect the plan to achieve escape velocity.
I'm glad you let me have the lj-ness. There were some things I wanted to especially say I liked, but will do that in an email. I'm still sure that TG must mean something less flattering - Tank Girl? Tainted? Terrible? Therapy? Tortured? Touchy? Turpitude? Turbulent? Toothless?
Oh fine, I'll just have to take your word for it.
Where are those drugs?
lyric at post:
..So here we lie against each other
These four walls can never hold us..
mmm, that looks like a nummy little pill
I gave up the "I *will* sleep tonight" attitude, which frankly, just hasn't been working, and pilled myself last night. I'm just not a big fan of taking pills, what can I say? But, I figured, hell the dog's stoned alla time these days, and in not allowing her to suffer, somehow... I still am.I slept well though. Till 9 am. oops. And apart from that pasty mouthy thingy, I feel pretty good. I may even pop another pill tonight. Train myself to actually fall asleep, as it were. Or, catch up on the last two months without sleep.
Or, of course, I could be innocently starting on that slippery slope to becoming an addict and eventually slowly selling off my possessions to fuel my Sleep-Eze habit, finally losing my home and begging on the streets to get enough pennies to buy the cheapie travel sickness pills and ending up overdosing alone and unloved in a dirty alley that smells like wee from the massive amount of Over-the-Counter non-prescription pills I have to take to one-up my ever increasing tolerance.
Whew. Did I mention I didn't like to take pills? Well, except for the vitamins, that is.
Seagull names..... Clifford makes me think of that big red dog, you know the one. Belmonte is too much like the name of my high school, and I'm not so sure he's really got the Viggo hair going on. Gotta have the Viggo hair. So, Kipling it is.
Everyone, say hi to "Kipling" our seagully host. Kipling? "CAW, CAW, ARK" Or, for those of you that've seen "Finding Nemo" lately.... 'mine, mine, mine, mine". (ohhh, that makes me *snort* every time)
lyric at post:
..hold out your heart and on it let the sun shine down..
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
new do
I don't think I've ever had the cute little back 'flip' thing going on, especially in conjunction with the flat front look that seems so popular with the young 'uns these days. I'm trendy. Go figure.Of course, I'm no longer 24. So, I had to make the front bits messy too. Here's some pics. The first one is from February 7th for contrast. Someone actually told me I had an infectious smile, at least I think that's what they said. Could have been 'infected'... I wasn't really paying attention.
gahh, pictures.....
lyric at post:
..as the sun goes down on the arizona plain
and the wind whistles by like a runaway train..
I may be cheating on you
I have to confess. I've been contemplating seeing someone else.It's not that it hasn't been a fantastic six years, it has. Some of the best years of my life and I don't regret sharing them with you.
It's not you, honey, it's me.
Okay, maybe it is you, but that doesn't matter right now, not when we're both hurting.
You may need to sit down for this next bit - - - it's a woman. And she's only 19. I think I just need someone fresh and bold to make me feel alive again.
Alright, already, I'm not just contemplating, I've made plans to meet her this afternoon at four.
It's only one haircut, sweetheart, don't cry. I'll be back. I just have to get this out of my system, then I'll come home to you and you can cut my hair again.
Man, I feel bad about it though. It could be all the beers or the whiskey, but frankly the last couple times the cuts have not been up to the usual standard. In fact, the time before last, as I was sitting and having my after-cut shot of Jamieson's he looked at me funny and made me get back in the chair. He had to recut the entire thing. Which is not good when you're trying to grow it out, especially when it grows about as fast as grass under snow at the best of times. And lord knows I've had some seriously baaaad experiences with hairstylists but sometimes you just have to break free and give someone else a chance.
It's long enough at this point to revert to it's flat boyish state on my head and somehow I've never been able to make Stevie understand the girlie funk cut. Something about all different lengths just freaks him out and he can't bring himself to do it.
There is always, of course, the fallback position if it turns out badly today....
"Well, hon, I was on vacation and needed it cut pretty badly - but look what they did!! Can you fix it?"
I dreamt an entire novel last night. A vampire novel. And it was quite good, if I do say so myself. In fact I woke up at 4 am and thought about at least writing the premise down but I was too tired. And, so, the last great vampire novel will not be written. By me.
But it could have been.
I just promised T1 I'd have his project done for him to read on the plane tomorrow, but although I've compiled the hard copy info, I have verra much to do today and so I'm off.
lyric at post:
..don't even have pictures, just memories to hold
that grow sweeter each season, as we slowly grow old..
Monday, March 01, 2004
up again, mulling it over
Laying in bed just now, not sleeping (of course), I was thinking about what BW and R/R were saying about the personas that they are here in blogland. I remember thinking at the time that I wasn't anything here but me.And I guess that's kind of true, except for one or two things that make me wonder where the persona qualification starts and ends. The first thought I had about that was that the person I am here is the absolute best and worst of me. The person who questions everything, sometimes to her own detriment (and frankly, sometimes to the loss of some of the people who come here, known and unknown). The person who agonizes over seemingly simple things. Who looks back into the past as much as she looks around her at the present. Who gets screamingly pissed off and maudlin and then flips over into hilarity quick as a 'how-do-you-do'. The girl/woman/child who finds joy in the simpest things and sorrow in the inconsequential.
I'm not saying that I'm not slightly quirky/ messy/ strange in real life but somehow, in here, it all seems amplified somehow.
The person I am in the world I live in is the quiet one who is animated only around people she trusts. The girl that strangers talk to on the street because she just 'has that kind of face'. The woman that's easy to be around, quick to smile and to laugh, who stays in if she doesn't feel so much like smiling and laughing. But, mostly, the things I say in here, are things that very few people hear.
Being a blogger assumes that some sort of effort is made to be interesting. To crank it up a notch to get the point across and although all that I write is true in the moment it's written, sometimes it seems a bit surreal to go back and try to read it through someone else's eyes and think...."wow, did I ever think that?" and "jeeeez, did I just tell 40 or 50 other people that?"
I told T3 in an email that my blog is like that internal conversation you have with yourself that maybe shouldn't be shared. That I tend to blabber on, rant or whatever and then walk away and completely forget about it and then not realize that other people see it as something more permanent than it is.
That sort of mindless, heedless expelling of words and thoughts that people who don't blog this way (or at all) maybe don't quite grasp in the sense that they've probably never sat still and really listened to what's going on inside their heads.
And, so this particular internal conversation with myself has just managed to loop right back around to that niggling blogging question that periodically, we all ask ourselves...
But, yet, much like life outside, there are no easy answers here... either.
lyric at post:
..feels like you made a mistake, you made somebody's heart break..
mundanity and countdowns
I'm not avoiding work....per se, I just sort of changed my priorities around for the day. I had the worst dreams last night - ghosts in the barbershop, someone's high school pedophile dad cooking me lunch, T3 doing something terrible. My dreams are always full of people I haven't seen in at least 10 years or people who are below the radar. Maybe because I don't give them too much thought, the wraiths in my subconscious that represent them become agitated and, sensing a break, clamor for recognition.I changed the car reservation around to allow for an extra day so that I can take Lacey to the vet myself. It's only about 20 blocks - I'm sure I can handle that far after .... well, after.
I decided to avoid the sympathy/ you did the right thing/ lets try to make you feel better/ witnessing of the grief thing. I love my friends and I appreciate that they would be there for me, but really, it's been me and her for 12 years and it feels more right for me to do this alone.
I was thinking about today being March 1st in the shower this morning. It feels very much like the beginning of a countdown that may change everything forever. There are a few little yet important things on the way to the end of March, but the biggies are these . . . 14 - 19 days for the work thing, 28 days to the dog thing, 29 days until I leave town in an attempt to outrun the dog thing. Not that I think it'll be all that bad once I'm driving west - it'll actually be the return east that will be the hardest part.
I sketched out a trip plan. I also booked a hotel. Again, I love my friends but I just don't want to be trapped by their schedules while I'm in town. Tony gets up at 4:30 in the morning and goes to bed at, like, 8:30 (which is clearly a crime against humanity and something I've been aggressively lobbying against for years) - my brother has a family, you'd have to drug me to get me to spend a night with the in-town parental units -so I'd rather stay on the waterfront and come and go as I please. Especially if I just don't feel like making nice. The less expectations for that entire week, the better.
Due to the fact that only about three people out there have a computer, I've been contemplating taking the floater laptop from work so I can write while I'm away. Not necessarily to blog but I've become ultra lazy about writing. Those pen holding muscles have gone to jelly and it actually hurts to write more than a paragraph. Pathetic really, the computer age, no? And sadly, I am not savvy enough to do what BW did on her trip. Or maybe I just can't be bothered to figure it out. No matter.
Now, I just have to coordinate with fireboy .. er.. man and SteveM in Vancouver and make sure MaJen will be around so I can spend a day with the out-of-town parental unit - and walk the flats of the beach there when the tide goes out - one of my favorite things to do.
But, hey, an extra bed in the hotel. Anyone want to come on a road trip? I know I know, obviously everyone wants to, cause I sound like so much fun to hang out with for that week. hey? hey?
The guy in the office over there is looking at me every time I look up. I have an irrational urge to find a mirror and make sure I don't have a bug crawling up my face. Maybe it helps him think, I don't think he realizes he's doing it. Or maybe, some people have a thing for redheads/brunettes and suddenly, I'm more attractive than I was last week as a blonde. Riiiiiight.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
5 cents a minute
You called this morning and I reached out from the cocoon made by the comforter and a snoring dog to grab the phone, waking to the sound of your voice because you always were the early riser to my stayinbed ways. I told you that last night I missed you so much I couldn't breathe and we laughed about that, because we both know that if it were more than a passing thought, I'd be there and not here. That, in fact, I wouldn't have left you at all eight years ago.It's a little hard to grasp, the idea that it's over between us. I thought it would work out and sometimes I forget that it did. That this is how it worked out. And that time and distance have made us both okay with that because we're still each other's best friend, and for some reason, we like it better that way.
And next month, circumstances aside, I get to visit. It's been far too long since I've seen you and maybe that's why I missed you.
lyric at post:
..and something somewhere that you said goes ricochet all through my head..
afternoon
Someone found me today by doing a search "man around a cheeseboard". That's just...strange.I just reread yesterday and didn't like it. That, too, is strange, but it felt all mad or sad. Which I most assuredly wasn't. So, I've relegated it to draft. Cause I can. Go, me, arbitrarily deciding what I can and can't do.
Going out to play in the sunshine.
