Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Rainy days and Mondays.
It is freezing here.
Freezing and pouring rain.
And I am missing you
It's been a cold and rainy couple of days here actually. The desert is all soupy and cold, and I'm not entirely convinced that the rain isn't secretly ice.
I've been surviving sans-car thanks to my very sweet father who lent me his car for the weekend and gave me a ride home today since the storm rolled back in. My dad is amazing at all things, and I would be lost without him.
We are going to look at a car tomorrow. Hopefully it will pass muster and I will again be able to drive out into the wilderness. The lack of mountains in my life is making me restless. I miss the desert so much.
My sweet dog is pathetic and whine-y since she's mostly relegated to the inside places. It's far too cold for long walks and the both of us are restless. Mittens continues to dart outside every time the door is opened, but she loathes the rain and mostly runs back to me, terrified and mewing. Oscar continues to be lazy and oblivious.
Those are all of the things Dear Friend. All of the things I know. I miss you terribly, as always. I hope things up there are improving, and that you're feeling better rather than worse.
Sending all my love.
Me.
Freezing and pouring rain.
And I am missing you
It's been a cold and rainy couple of days here actually. The desert is all soupy and cold, and I'm not entirely convinced that the rain isn't secretly ice.
I've been surviving sans-car thanks to my very sweet father who lent me his car for the weekend and gave me a ride home today since the storm rolled back in. My dad is amazing at all things, and I would be lost without him.
We are going to look at a car tomorrow. Hopefully it will pass muster and I will again be able to drive out into the wilderness. The lack of mountains in my life is making me restless. I miss the desert so much.
My sweet dog is pathetic and whine-y since she's mostly relegated to the inside places. It's far too cold for long walks and the both of us are restless. Mittens continues to dart outside every time the door is opened, but she loathes the rain and mostly runs back to me, terrified and mewing. Oscar continues to be lazy and oblivious.
Those are all of the things Dear Friend. All of the things I know. I miss you terribly, as always. I hope things up there are improving, and that you're feeling better rather than worse.
Sending all my love.
Me.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Dear Friend,
I am sorry that things are so dark up there in the land of trees and fog. I wish with all I have that I could somehow make it better, but I have no idea where to begin.
As a tiny consolation prize, I feel like I should mention that this time of year is the time that people in general are at their most depressed. The winter cold, the short hours of sunlight, and the always stressful holiday season tends to make for a miserable January. I know, offering you statistics is less than helpful, but when all else fails me I always turn to data.
I miss having you here fiercely. Even if I rarely got to see you, knowing you were here when my world fell apart always made me feel better. Now when I get lost in my own dark thoughts I just loop on your absence.
I'm so sorry for all that you're mourning. I do know how hard you worked to claw yourself up from those two suitcases, and I am sorry that you feel as though all the sand is just slipping through your fingers. I don't know how to fix that, but I will at least commiserate with you all of the days. I will always write you mush-mouthy best friend love letters and post them to the interwebs. I will always rummage through my memory boxes of all the notes you've written me over the years. I will always miss our shenanigans. And I will always look forward to days when we get to roll around in our own awesomeness again.
You're my world, Dear Friend. The one person who keeps me tethered to my sense of self, to my personal history, and who gives me hope for my future. Hope because the two of us always manage to battle on feverishly against the night. Swearing and spitting at the obstacles in front of us as we smash our way around or through them. And even when we are forced to surrender, it's never for long. I don't know anyone else like that, that meets my intensity and stubbornness. I don't know that I ever will.
So for now lets just scream into the night like wild children. You wail up at your moon and I'll wail up at mine, and (for now at least) we'll forget how many things we've lost, and how much things have changed over the past two years, okay?
I carry you in my heart always, but I promise to do so even more this week.
Keep your chin up, love. You'll always be my favorite.
One day things will be better.
What's past is prologue.
Here's a sad, bitter song for sad bitter days:
Well morning came
And it dressed the sky
In a lovely yellow gown
Now the shops they are
All opening
In that narrow hallway of downtown
Filled with people who
Are shopping for
Their lovers and their friends
So they won't ever be lonely again
Well a forest fenced
becomes backyards
Like songs are born from sound
And the apple fell
And it taught us all
We are chained here to the ground
So here we go
But there ain't no escape
Yeah, these streets they're just dead ends
So I won't ever be happy again
Well, it seems you too
See a painful blue
When you stare into the sky
You could never understand
The motion of a hand waving you goodbye
"Bye bye"
But as the story goes
or it is often told
A new day will arise
And all the dance halls will
Be full of skeletons
That are coming back to life
And on a grassy hill
the lion will
lay down with the lamb
And I won't ever be lonely again
No, no, no, no, no
But until that time
I think I had better find
some disbelief to suspend
Cause I don't want to feel like this again.
Sending all my love.
LittleFoot.
As a tiny consolation prize, I feel like I should mention that this time of year is the time that people in general are at their most depressed. The winter cold, the short hours of sunlight, and the always stressful holiday season tends to make for a miserable January. I know, offering you statistics is less than helpful, but when all else fails me I always turn to data.
I miss having you here fiercely. Even if I rarely got to see you, knowing you were here when my world fell apart always made me feel better. Now when I get lost in my own dark thoughts I just loop on your absence.
I'm so sorry for all that you're mourning. I do know how hard you worked to claw yourself up from those two suitcases, and I am sorry that you feel as though all the sand is just slipping through your fingers. I don't know how to fix that, but I will at least commiserate with you all of the days. I will always write you mush-mouthy best friend love letters and post them to the interwebs. I will always rummage through my memory boxes of all the notes you've written me over the years. I will always miss our shenanigans. And I will always look forward to days when we get to roll around in our own awesomeness again.
You're my world, Dear Friend. The one person who keeps me tethered to my sense of self, to my personal history, and who gives me hope for my future. Hope because the two of us always manage to battle on feverishly against the night. Swearing and spitting at the obstacles in front of us as we smash our way around or through them. And even when we are forced to surrender, it's never for long. I don't know anyone else like that, that meets my intensity and stubbornness. I don't know that I ever will.
So for now lets just scream into the night like wild children. You wail up at your moon and I'll wail up at mine, and (for now at least) we'll forget how many things we've lost, and how much things have changed over the past two years, okay?
I carry you in my heart always, but I promise to do so even more this week.
Keep your chin up, love. You'll always be my favorite.
One day things will be better.
What's past is prologue.
Here's a sad, bitter song for sad bitter days:
Well morning came
And it dressed the sky
In a lovely yellow gown
Now the shops they are
All opening
In that narrow hallway of downtown
Filled with people who
Are shopping for
Their lovers and their friends
So they won't ever be lonely again
Well a forest fenced
becomes backyards
Like songs are born from sound
And the apple fell
And it taught us all
We are chained here to the ground
So here we go
But there ain't no escape
Yeah, these streets they're just dead ends
So I won't ever be happy again
Well, it seems you too
See a painful blue
When you stare into the sky
You could never understand
The motion of a hand waving you goodbye
"Bye bye"
But as the story goes
or it is often told
A new day will arise
And all the dance halls will
Be full of skeletons
That are coming back to life
And on a grassy hill
the lion will
lay down with the lamb
And I won't ever be lonely again
No, no, no, no, no
But until that time
I think I had better find
some disbelief to suspend
Cause I don't want to feel like this again.
Sending all my love.
LittleFoot.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Lapochka.
Ah Dear Friend, I'm in the winter doldrums now.
It's been...actually I'm not really sure how long it's been...it's been some time now since my car died. I miss it terribly, but I am actively car hunting, now that I have amassed enough of the moneys to purchase something better than decent.
Part of me is happy that the car is gone. It was a good car. It served me well, and I have fond memories of all the places we went together. However, it was also a stark reminder of all the ways in which I allowed SWSNBN to fire bomb my life. With it gone, I have officially obliterated her, and all the things tainted by her memory, from my life.
This is a huge relief.
Actually, a much bigger one than I anticipated. I even threw away my sentimental box of things I thought I might want in the future. Sentiment be damned. I don't need those memories.
I know that is a strange thing for me to say. Particularly given my sort-of inherently pack-ratty nature, and my obsessive need to keep all the things. But you know, my life has changed so dramatically over the past year or so, and at this point I accept that some things just don't need to be held onto.
At any rate, it was very cleansing, and I feel light and happy.
In other news, I finally saw Les Mis, and as predicted I cried literally the entire time. It wasn't nearly as good as the stage version. There was less power in the words, and less feeling in the singing ((the exception of course was Anne Hathaway, who was amazing)) (which was at times, particularly bad). But you know, the bad singing lent itself well to the story, and it was visually striking. The whole thing was just a very different experience, and I love it in a totally different way. That being said, Norm Lewis will always be Javert in my mind.
I wandered around in the dark with Lapochka for hours, mostly rambling on an on about me and the state of things. You know, like I do. I rode my bike home in the dark way too late, and didn't get nearly enough sleep, but I'm totally okay with that. My head has been in the clouds all day. Possibly due to sleep deprivation. Possibly due to other distractions.
Now I am up, yet again, way past my bed time. But I miss you terribly. And writing makes me feel better. I hope your week gets better. Lots of lov.e
It's been...actually I'm not really sure how long it's been...it's been some time now since my car died. I miss it terribly, but I am actively car hunting, now that I have amassed enough of the moneys to purchase something better than decent.
Part of me is happy that the car is gone. It was a good car. It served me well, and I have fond memories of all the places we went together. However, it was also a stark reminder of all the ways in which I allowed SWSNBN to fire bomb my life. With it gone, I have officially obliterated her, and all the things tainted by her memory, from my life.
This is a huge relief.
Actually, a much bigger one than I anticipated. I even threw away my sentimental box of things I thought I might want in the future. Sentiment be damned. I don't need those memories.
I know that is a strange thing for me to say. Particularly given my sort-of inherently pack-ratty nature, and my obsessive need to keep all the things. But you know, my life has changed so dramatically over the past year or so, and at this point I accept that some things just don't need to be held onto.
At any rate, it was very cleansing, and I feel light and happy.
In other news, I finally saw Les Mis, and as predicted I cried literally the entire time. It wasn't nearly as good as the stage version. There was less power in the words, and less feeling in the singing ((the exception of course was Anne Hathaway, who was amazing)) (which was at times, particularly bad). But you know, the bad singing lent itself well to the story, and it was visually striking. The whole thing was just a very different experience, and I love it in a totally different way. That being said, Norm Lewis will always be Javert in my mind.
I wandered around in the dark with Lapochka for hours, mostly rambling on an on about me and the state of things. You know, like I do. I rode my bike home in the dark way too late, and didn't get nearly enough sleep, but I'm totally okay with that. My head has been in the clouds all day. Possibly due to sleep deprivation. Possibly due to other distractions.
Now I am up, yet again, way past my bed time. But I miss you terribly. And writing makes me feel better. I hope your week gets better. Lots of lov.e
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Whaaaa???
Oh, Dear Friend, the things the internet does....
Do you know what I learned today? My blog has a youtube channel? Or something. Whatever it's called. There is a page on youtube that just shows my song of the day posts since...since this whole thing started. Since you moved away and I have been writing to you and posting you songs.
(http://www.youtube.com/blogs/this-desert-life)
So strange!
But also, so awesome, because it is much more efficient than trying to remember what I posted and when. :P
It should also help me cut down on duplicate song posts, which I am VERY excited about.
In other news, I still miss your dirty face, all of the days.
I still wish you were here with a sort of frantic kind of mania that only you and I are capable of, and I am still terribly jealous of your crochet work. You dirty little hooker.
All the love in the world.
Me.
Also, This:
Do you know what I learned today? My blog has a youtube channel? Or something. Whatever it's called. There is a page on youtube that just shows my song of the day posts since...since this whole thing started. Since you moved away and I have been writing to you and posting you songs.
(http://www.youtube.com/blogs/this-desert-life)
So strange!
But also, so awesome, because it is much more efficient than trying to remember what I posted and when. :P
It should also help me cut down on duplicate song posts, which I am VERY excited about.
In other news, I still miss your dirty face, all of the days.
I still wish you were here with a sort of frantic kind of mania that only you and I are capable of, and I am still terribly jealous of your crochet work. You dirty little hooker.
All the love in the world.
Me.
Also, This:
I don't like that.
Words.
I have a problem with words.
I have a problem with words that I wasn't really very aware of until recently.
Or more accurately, I have a problem with the way other people use words vs. the way that I use words. Or the way that other people use and interpret words vs. the way that I use and interpret words.
And the disconnect between two sometimes causes issues that I am not always aware of.
I don't like (insert thing here), is a prime example.
A couple of months ago I spent a day with my dad, which I may have mentioned here at some point, and we had a lovely time talking about things. At some point, at the end of the day he mentioned that I am (at times) 'profoundly negative', which sent me reeling, as I think I am (particularly at this point in my life) the most positive/happy/joyful that I've ever been.
(He did later clarify that what he meant was that I spend a lot of time saying that I 'don't like' things, instead of talking about things that I do 'like'.)
Over the past couple of months I've been more and more aware of when other people are interpreting me as negative. I've been spending a lot of time trying to decode why they are getting this perception. Analyzing, and perhaps over analyzing they way that people describe things.
It is now my belief that the issue is one of semantics.
I use the phrase, 'I don't like that' a lot. And it's not because I dislike things. It's because I simply don't like them. Hence, my use of the phrase "don't like" instead of "dislike". I'm in the fuzzy area between like and dislike, emotionally neutral, I suppose, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to express that.
"I have no opinion on that" or "I have nothing to say about that" is generally not received well by other people. This is in fact, usually received even less well than the simple "I don't like that" which is why I prefer that phrase. It's concise, and I don't come off as nearly the arrogant/elitist/aloof A-hole that I would with either o the other two phrases (or any of the slew of others that I come up with when trying to describe this place).
Now however, I am aware of the issue. Acutely aware. And my brain keeps looping on the issue. I now find myself compelled to try and explain that when I say I don't like something I don't mean that I dislike it, and the result is a long, often times ramble-y explanation that seems totally superfluous and leaves people staring back blankly at me.
I know that the literal use/interpretation of words is and ASD issue, and that it's a common reason for a lot of the communication issues I have with other people. What I can't figure out is how the neurotypical world expresses these sort of things. How on earth to you describe things that you simply don't like, but don't dislike? How do you express being neutral, neither here nor there in a way that is concise? Because I just can't seem to figure it out! I mean, I don't mind people thinking I'm negative, I guess. I don't really care one way or the other, honestly. But I am currently baffled by the thought that I've been expressing myself in an abnormal way and in doing so am encouraging some sort of miscommunication between myself and the world outside my brain.
It's a strange thing to realize.
That the words you use have a totally different meaning to other people.
That your carefully chosen words take on a totally different connotation once they leave your mouth.
Now all I want to do is play with word choice.
To figure out how other people do things, and to discover by what rules people decode subtext.
Anyway.
Tonight, after catching myself doing it yet again, I called my dad to ask his opinion. I tried my best to explain what the issue was with this phrase in particular, and instead of being helpful he was just puzzled.
He was intrigued by my explanation, and said it made a lot of sense now, in hindsight, but that he was unable to tell me how he would approach a similar situation. He is going to sleep on it and see if that offers any clarity, but I think that maybe it is just something that people do naturally, and trying to articulate it may prove impossible.
*facepalm*
That is not the answer I was looking for. But I suppose, I am pleased that Dad at least has some insight into what I mean when I use that phrase. I don't want dad thinking that my not liking things is somehow evidence of my disdain for life (of which I certainly have plenty, but I express in a different fashion).
I also like that he can now at least understand that I'm not expressing any sort of inherent dislike of said things, just a sort of apathetic neutrality. Which in truth, is how I feel about most things. Neither here nor there.
I get frustrated sometimes, when I talk.
When I am trying to explain things to other people.
Because I feel like the words that I am using are not making sense to them in the way that I want them to.
This is a perfect example of that.
Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking Spanish to a person who only understands Russian and relying on Google Translate to convey the message correctly between the two of us. All of the words sort of lose their initial meaning in the translation process, and all the subtext gets scrambled.
What's a girl to do? Lol.
I have a problem with words.
I have a problem with words that I wasn't really very aware of until recently.
Or more accurately, I have a problem with the way other people use words vs. the way that I use words. Or the way that other people use and interpret words vs. the way that I use and interpret words.
And the disconnect between two sometimes causes issues that I am not always aware of.
I don't like (insert thing here), is a prime example.
A couple of months ago I spent a day with my dad, which I may have mentioned here at some point, and we had a lovely time talking about things. At some point, at the end of the day he mentioned that I am (at times) 'profoundly negative', which sent me reeling, as I think I am (particularly at this point in my life) the most positive/happy/joyful that I've ever been.
(He did later clarify that what he meant was that I spend a lot of time saying that I 'don't like' things, instead of talking about things that I do 'like'.)
Over the past couple of months I've been more and more aware of when other people are interpreting me as negative. I've been spending a lot of time trying to decode why they are getting this perception. Analyzing, and perhaps over analyzing they way that people describe things.
It is now my belief that the issue is one of semantics.
I use the phrase, 'I don't like that' a lot. And it's not because I dislike things. It's because I simply don't like them. Hence, my use of the phrase "don't like" instead of "dislike". I'm in the fuzzy area between like and dislike, emotionally neutral, I suppose, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to express that.
"I have no opinion on that" or "I have nothing to say about that" is generally not received well by other people. This is in fact, usually received even less well than the simple "I don't like that" which is why I prefer that phrase. It's concise, and I don't come off as nearly the arrogant/elitist/aloof A-hole that I would with either o the other two phrases (or any of the slew of others that I come up with when trying to describe this place).
Now however, I am aware of the issue. Acutely aware. And my brain keeps looping on the issue. I now find myself compelled to try and explain that when I say I don't like something I don't mean that I dislike it, and the result is a long, often times ramble-y explanation that seems totally superfluous and leaves people staring back blankly at me.
I know that the literal use/interpretation of words is and ASD issue, and that it's a common reason for a lot of the communication issues I have with other people. What I can't figure out is how the neurotypical world expresses these sort of things. How on earth to you describe things that you simply don't like, but don't dislike? How do you express being neutral, neither here nor there in a way that is concise? Because I just can't seem to figure it out! I mean, I don't mind people thinking I'm negative, I guess. I don't really care one way or the other, honestly. But I am currently baffled by the thought that I've been expressing myself in an abnormal way and in doing so am encouraging some sort of miscommunication between myself and the world outside my brain.
It's a strange thing to realize.
That the words you use have a totally different meaning to other people.
That your carefully chosen words take on a totally different connotation once they leave your mouth.
Now all I want to do is play with word choice.
To figure out how other people do things, and to discover by what rules people decode subtext.
Anyway.
Tonight, after catching myself doing it yet again, I called my dad to ask his opinion. I tried my best to explain what the issue was with this phrase in particular, and instead of being helpful he was just puzzled.
He was intrigued by my explanation, and said it made a lot of sense now, in hindsight, but that he was unable to tell me how he would approach a similar situation. He is going to sleep on it and see if that offers any clarity, but I think that maybe it is just something that people do naturally, and trying to articulate it may prove impossible.
*facepalm*
That is not the answer I was looking for. But I suppose, I am pleased that Dad at least has some insight into what I mean when I use that phrase. I don't want dad thinking that my not liking things is somehow evidence of my disdain for life (of which I certainly have plenty, but I express in a different fashion).
I also like that he can now at least understand that I'm not expressing any sort of inherent dislike of said things, just a sort of apathetic neutrality. Which in truth, is how I feel about most things. Neither here nor there.
I get frustrated sometimes, when I talk.
When I am trying to explain things to other people.
Because I feel like the words that I am using are not making sense to them in the way that I want them to.
This is a perfect example of that.
Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking Spanish to a person who only understands Russian and relying on Google Translate to convey the message correctly between the two of us. All of the words sort of lose their initial meaning in the translation process, and all the subtext gets scrambled.
What's a girl to do? Lol.
Death of A Car.
My car began driving progressively worse last Saturday, which I think I mentioned. It sort of limped along, and begrudgingly shifted into gear, albeit not right away.
I spent Tuesday lamenting the state of things, trying to explain via text message, what I meant when I said 'my car is not running right'.
I failed miserably at this task.
It's hard, Dear Friend, to articulate something in a precise and coherent way when you lack the necessary verbage. I tried to explain the sounds and feelings coming from my car, but could not seem to bridge the language gap with my dear, sweet Father.
The man breathes engines. They are some inherent part of his body, an extension of his self, and the subtle difference between a whirring sound and a whining sound is painfully apparent in his world. In mine, they're all the same.
"It makes a high-pitched, breathy kind of vrrooooom-vrooom sound sometimes," is apparently not a highly accurate description.
It is important to note that the car issues have been going on for some time now, and during this time not once has my Father attempted to drive it. Instead we've been playing this fun game of tell-me-again-what-the-car-is-doing, each time asking that this time I be more accurate, or more specific. Something which I simply cannot do. He might as well be asking me to translate Arabic for him. I lack the necessary skill set.
Wednesday morning it took me 40 minutes to drive the seven-ish miles from my house to work. My car ran at a snail's pace and regularly refused to accelerate. I got to work and text Dad to report that the car was most certainly going to die. He said he was sorry about the car, and asked me to drive it clear across town when I got off work.
I laughed.
Out loud.
I text him back to let him know that I was uncomfortable driving it out there. We went in the usual circles. Why? What's your car doing? What kind of sound? I don't know what that means? What gear is it? Put it in Low Gear? It's the farthest one aft. AFT.
At some point I gave up. I surrendered. Watched my soul crumple under the weight of despair and frustration. I responded that I was too frustrated to continue the conversation, that I don't know how to articulate any of these issues as I lack the words or the knowledge to be able to do so and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to overcome that. This was followed by a million frown-y faces, which I know, was cheating, but sometimes a girl has to play on her Daddy's heartstrings.
Dad immediately switched gears.
This is due, mostly to the fact that my Dad is awesome and has learned how to react when I let him know that I am approaching my frustration threshold. He came and picked up my car. We tried to put some red goo in the transmission, but we both knew it was too far gone. He left me his car for the night so I could run my errands, and then nursed my car through the long drive out to his house.
He made it there, but it died upon arrival. It would no longer move in any direction, in any gear. RIP dear, sweet friend.
We abandoned the plot to fix the car. It wasn't worth it. It had served me well. It had survived fires and accidents, extended road trips, and hundreds of miles of driving on dirt roads/old wagon trails not designed for little cars like mine. It was just time to let it go.
Dad listed it on Craigslist and it sold within 10 hours.
It is now someone elses to love.
I spent Tuesday lamenting the state of things, trying to explain via text message, what I meant when I said 'my car is not running right'.
I failed miserably at this task.
It's hard, Dear Friend, to articulate something in a precise and coherent way when you lack the necessary verbage. I tried to explain the sounds and feelings coming from my car, but could not seem to bridge the language gap with my dear, sweet Father.
The man breathes engines. They are some inherent part of his body, an extension of his self, and the subtle difference between a whirring sound and a whining sound is painfully apparent in his world. In mine, they're all the same.
"It makes a high-pitched, breathy kind of vrrooooom-vrooom sound sometimes," is apparently not a highly accurate description.
It is important to note that the car issues have been going on for some time now, and during this time not once has my Father attempted to drive it. Instead we've been playing this fun game of tell-me-again-what-the-car-is-doing, each time asking that this time I be more accurate, or more specific. Something which I simply cannot do. He might as well be asking me to translate Arabic for him. I lack the necessary skill set.
Wednesday morning it took me 40 minutes to drive the seven-ish miles from my house to work. My car ran at a snail's pace and regularly refused to accelerate. I got to work and text Dad to report that the car was most certainly going to die. He said he was sorry about the car, and asked me to drive it clear across town when I got off work.
I laughed.
Out loud.
I text him back to let him know that I was uncomfortable driving it out there. We went in the usual circles. Why? What's your car doing? What kind of sound? I don't know what that means? What gear is it? Put it in Low Gear? It's the farthest one aft. AFT.
At some point I gave up. I surrendered. Watched my soul crumple under the weight of despair and frustration. I responded that I was too frustrated to continue the conversation, that I don't know how to articulate any of these issues as I lack the words or the knowledge to be able to do so and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to overcome that. This was followed by a million frown-y faces, which I know, was cheating, but sometimes a girl has to play on her Daddy's heartstrings.
Dad immediately switched gears.
This is due, mostly to the fact that my Dad is awesome and has learned how to react when I let him know that I am approaching my frustration threshold. He came and picked up my car. We tried to put some red goo in the transmission, but we both knew it was too far gone. He left me his car for the night so I could run my errands, and then nursed my car through the long drive out to his house.
He made it there, but it died upon arrival. It would no longer move in any direction, in any gear. RIP dear, sweet friend.
We abandoned the plot to fix the car. It wasn't worth it. It had served me well. It had survived fires and accidents, extended road trips, and hundreds of miles of driving on dirt roads/old wagon trails not designed for little cars like mine. It was just time to let it go.
Dad listed it on Craigslist and it sold within 10 hours.
It is now someone elses to love.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Still Sick.
Or, possibly a different kind of sick.
It's hard to say.
All the days of not feeling good seem to have mashed together into one endless, snot-colored blur.
Currently I'm feverish, on an off, which leads me to believe that I may have had a cold before, and now have the flu.
But maybe that's just the fever talking.
My car is sick again. The transmission is sticking, I'm sure that's what it is. It doesn't want to shift from second to third gear. It only does it intermittently, and seemingly only on Saturday mornings. Which vexes me.
We are now debating whether it is worth getting it fixed and then selling it, or selling it as-is.
I thought one of my goldfish died yesterday. I was so sure he was dead...but then Dagny nipped his tail and he came back to life. He's not feeling well still, but I changed the water and hand fed him some shelled peas. Hopefully that fixes the problem.
I also bought a dinosaur bichir (named Laurids) last week, something which I am still unsure about. I'm not even sure why I bought him. I went in to get some snails for the goldfish tank, and somehow decided that I needed him...we'll see how that one turns out.
Anyway, I didn't quarantine him like I should have, and now there's an ick outbreak in my catfish tank, which is problematic, since catfish are so sensitive to medication. For now I've cranked up the heat and added a tiny bit of salt. I'm hoping that's enough.
That's all I know Dear Friend. Life has been terribly uneventful these past couple of weeks. Work is super busy, I am super sick, and I miss you more than ever. For now, I'm taking more nyquil and going to bed. Maybe, just maybe, I'll wake up feeling better.
<3
It's hard to say.
All the days of not feeling good seem to have mashed together into one endless, snot-colored blur.
Currently I'm feverish, on an off, which leads me to believe that I may have had a cold before, and now have the flu.
But maybe that's just the fever talking.
My car is sick again. The transmission is sticking, I'm sure that's what it is. It doesn't want to shift from second to third gear. It only does it intermittently, and seemingly only on Saturday mornings. Which vexes me.
We are now debating whether it is worth getting it fixed and then selling it, or selling it as-is.
I thought one of my goldfish died yesterday. I was so sure he was dead...but then Dagny nipped his tail and he came back to life. He's not feeling well still, but I changed the water and hand fed him some shelled peas. Hopefully that fixes the problem.
I also bought a dinosaur bichir (named Laurids) last week, something which I am still unsure about. I'm not even sure why I bought him. I went in to get some snails for the goldfish tank, and somehow decided that I needed him...we'll see how that one turns out.
Anyway, I didn't quarantine him like I should have, and now there's an ick outbreak in my catfish tank, which is problematic, since catfish are so sensitive to medication. For now I've cranked up the heat and added a tiny bit of salt. I'm hoping that's enough.
That's all I know Dear Friend. Life has been terribly uneventful these past couple of weeks. Work is super busy, I am super sick, and I miss you more than ever. For now, I'm taking more nyquil and going to bed. Maybe, just maybe, I'll wake up feeling better.
<3
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
The Purse (Part 2)
This past semester was a source of extreme anxiety for me for many reasons. Among them was a growing sense of terror that after years of total silence, my mother was about to resurface.
I had been speaking to my maternal aunt at this point, and my maternal grandmother (though they were sworn to secrecy). This was high-risk for me, since the last year in particular had been soooooo good and I had so much to lose. In addition, I had also added a couple of my cousins on Facebook. I worried that I was starting to let my guard down.
My family laughs at me and my paranoia. They tell me, she's gotten the message. It's been years, she's accepted that our relationship is dead, but I know better. I know it. I know it like I know that the sun will rise. She's out there, and she's always up to something...
Anyway, there was a great deal of stress in my world regarding whether or not she would show up at my graduation. I was promised that she wouldn't, and I withheld the information regarding the ceremony specifics for as long as possible.
Thankfully graduation came and went without issue.
I was flooded with relief. For a while I felt as if everyone else was right after all. Perhaps she'd given up the weird passive aggressive behavior. Maybe now she was willing to just let it go.
In an unrelated event several months ago I lost my phone, and then a short time later my wallet. My dad attributes this to the fact that my purse is more or less a sack. It's made of cloth, it's got pictures of bones on it, and there is no means of closing it. Ever since then he has been on a mission to get me to upgrade to a grown-up lady-purse. Something that I am vehemently opposed to. (I begrudgingly upgraded to sack purses after dad continually expressed his displeasure with the manilla envelope I had been using prior).
Shopping trips with dad are often punctuated with him browsing through the purse section, him explaining the benefits of a real purse (i.e. it closes, and you won't constantly lose stuff - which would be a valid argument if we weren't talking about me here. I could lose an elephant in an empty closet.), and me desperately trying to distract him with anything else. So far I have been successful at avoiding having to upgrade to a real purse. Something which I am very proud of.
The weekend before last my car broke without warning. It was towed to the mechanics where it proceeded to run perfectly. At the end of the week Dad and I went to pick it up.
I opened the car door and sat down. Then I saw it.
A Macy's box.
I did not touch it. I looked at my dad and asked him what it was.
'It's from Agent X' he said.
I was pleased that he hadn't mentioned her name, or called her my mother, but displeased about the box.
As I stared at it, I said about a million I-told-you-so's in my mind. That box, it validated my constant state of hyper-vigilance. It was (to me at least) evidence that I was still right, and also perhaps that I had let my guard down a little too much.
'Don't get all twisted up' he said, lets just see what it is. I scowled at him as he opened it.
In the box of doom, was a purse. A grown-up Guess purse. With a zipper and everything. Just like the awful ones dad had wanted me to get. The clearance tags were still attached, but she had taken the time to cut out the actual prices for some reason. There was no note. Just me, my dad, a Macy's box, and a purse. Alone in the car.
Dad was thrilled. We'll just pretend it's from your grandmother he tried to reason. We don't know whose idea it actually was to buy it, maybe they all picked it out together. It's hard to say who it's really from...but he could see I was horrified. He changed tactics.
He looked me in the eyes and reminded me that he had just paid the mechanic for my car repairs. And then he told me that he expects me to carry the purse like an adult because I love him sooooo much.
I drove back to work. I went about my week. I pretended it didn't exist. But still it taunts me from the back seat of my car.
I am sure this was just coincidence. That the stars just happened to align in this most fateful sort of way. That my mother, inexplicably, after years of silence just decided at random to send me a purse. That it was all just chance that things happened the way that they did. But so many things about it nag at me. All the details that don't make sense. Why send it to my dad? Why not my sister who she actually has contact with. What was with the tags? Why take the time to cut out around each of the numbers on the price tags? Why not just cut that part off? Or remove the tags? Why now? Why a purse? The list goes on and on.
I know I'm giving her too much credit. I know that her plans are bizarre, chaotic, and poorly thought-out. I know that she's not clever enough to execute something half as sophisticated as this, and still, still it gnaws at me.
I look back at all the other just totally random and bizarre interactions we've had over the years and I just can't shake the feeling that she has some sort of hidden agenda.
For now the purse sits where dad left it, in the back seat of my car. My life continues to move forward, to be lovely and blessed, but the questions (for the time being at least) still haunt me.
And that Dear Friend, THAT is all I know. I'm still sick, possibly even sicker than before, and exhausted (hence the extra poor writing, lol), and I still miss your face. I hope things are well. Sending all my love.
Me.
I had been speaking to my maternal aunt at this point, and my maternal grandmother (though they were sworn to secrecy). This was high-risk for me, since the last year in particular had been soooooo good and I had so much to lose. In addition, I had also added a couple of my cousins on Facebook. I worried that I was starting to let my guard down.
My family laughs at me and my paranoia. They tell me, she's gotten the message. It's been years, she's accepted that our relationship is dead, but I know better. I know it. I know it like I know that the sun will rise. She's out there, and she's always up to something...
Anyway, there was a great deal of stress in my world regarding whether or not she would show up at my graduation. I was promised that she wouldn't, and I withheld the information regarding the ceremony specifics for as long as possible.
Thankfully graduation came and went without issue.
I was flooded with relief. For a while I felt as if everyone else was right after all. Perhaps she'd given up the weird passive aggressive behavior. Maybe now she was willing to just let it go.
In an unrelated event several months ago I lost my phone, and then a short time later my wallet. My dad attributes this to the fact that my purse is more or less a sack. It's made of cloth, it's got pictures of bones on it, and there is no means of closing it. Ever since then he has been on a mission to get me to upgrade to a grown-up lady-purse. Something that I am vehemently opposed to. (I begrudgingly upgraded to sack purses after dad continually expressed his displeasure with the manilla envelope I had been using prior).
Shopping trips with dad are often punctuated with him browsing through the purse section, him explaining the benefits of a real purse (i.e. it closes, and you won't constantly lose stuff - which would be a valid argument if we weren't talking about me here. I could lose an elephant in an empty closet.), and me desperately trying to distract him with anything else. So far I have been successful at avoiding having to upgrade to a real purse. Something which I am very proud of.
The weekend before last my car broke without warning. It was towed to the mechanics where it proceeded to run perfectly. At the end of the week Dad and I went to pick it up.
I opened the car door and sat down. Then I saw it.
A Macy's box.
I did not touch it. I looked at my dad and asked him what it was.
'It's from Agent X' he said.
I was pleased that he hadn't mentioned her name, or called her my mother, but displeased about the box.
As I stared at it, I said about a million I-told-you-so's in my mind. That box, it validated my constant state of hyper-vigilance. It was (to me at least) evidence that I was still right, and also perhaps that I had let my guard down a little too much.
'Don't get all twisted up' he said, lets just see what it is. I scowled at him as he opened it.
In the box of doom, was a purse. A grown-up Guess purse. With a zipper and everything. Just like the awful ones dad had wanted me to get. The clearance tags were still attached, but she had taken the time to cut out the actual prices for some reason. There was no note. Just me, my dad, a Macy's box, and a purse. Alone in the car.
Dad was thrilled. We'll just pretend it's from your grandmother he tried to reason. We don't know whose idea it actually was to buy it, maybe they all picked it out together. It's hard to say who it's really from...but he could see I was horrified. He changed tactics.
He looked me in the eyes and reminded me that he had just paid the mechanic for my car repairs. And then he told me that he expects me to carry the purse like an adult because I love him sooooo much.
I drove back to work. I went about my week. I pretended it didn't exist. But still it taunts me from the back seat of my car.
I am sure this was just coincidence. That the stars just happened to align in this most fateful sort of way. That my mother, inexplicably, after years of silence just decided at random to send me a purse. That it was all just chance that things happened the way that they did. But so many things about it nag at me. All the details that don't make sense. Why send it to my dad? Why not my sister who she actually has contact with. What was with the tags? Why take the time to cut out around each of the numbers on the price tags? Why not just cut that part off? Or remove the tags? Why now? Why a purse? The list goes on and on.
I know I'm giving her too much credit. I know that her plans are bizarre, chaotic, and poorly thought-out. I know that she's not clever enough to execute something half as sophisticated as this, and still, still it gnaws at me.
I look back at all the other just totally random and bizarre interactions we've had over the years and I just can't shake the feeling that she has some sort of hidden agenda.
For now the purse sits where dad left it, in the back seat of my car. My life continues to move forward, to be lovely and blessed, but the questions (for the time being at least) still haunt me.
And that Dear Friend, THAT is all I know. I'm still sick, possibly even sicker than before, and exhausted (hence the extra poor writing, lol), and I still miss your face. I hope things are well. Sending all my love.
Me.
The Purse (backstory).
My life has been punctuated by odd behaviors from my mother.
When I was in high school, and our relationship was at its most volatile (and miserable) my mother started dating her now husband (her first and only relationship since we got rid of her). For many months I was convinced he was made up. I lived with her at this point and had never seen him. She would just point new things out (books, necklaces, so on) and say in a teasing voice 'my boyfriend gave this to me'. One day she inexplicably changed the locks on her house while I was at school and refused to let me back in and told me I loved my dad more than her and that in doing so I forfeited my right to live there. Dad had to come beg to be allowed to pack up my things.
At one point there was a man's voice on her answering machine saying 'You have reached the (our last name) residence, please leave a message'. Which made me supremely angry as I felt she did not have a right to our last name any longer, and because even if she insisted on keeping it, why would this other mystery man be using it? Anyway, she brushed off my anger saying it was just a guy from church and she asked him to do it for 'safety reasons'. (To this day, I am certain this was but another one of her mind games, but that's neither here nor there.)
I was absolutely certain she had made up this boyfriend. No one, NO ONE could possibly love my mother. Of that I was certain. She was evil incarnate.
Apparently this was not the case, and she had somehow gotten a boyfriend.
About a week before my senior prom I got a card in the mail. It did not have a return address on it, and the card inside was a four panel cartoon entitled "how to fold a cat to fit in a sweater drawer". It then showed a man folding the cat up like a sweater and closing the drawer. Inside it simply said, 'I hope you'll be joining us this weekend. - J.'
I was puzzled. Totally bewildered. I thought, maybe it was some sort of bizarre prom thing, or possibly someone from school who was messing with me. I walked around for days with it in my bag, trying to make sense of the note. I attended my prom that weekend, and forgot all about the note.
Until my mother called. That card had apparently been her way of inviting me to her wedding. She was pissed that I had not attended. I was pissed that she had the audacity to be mad at me when I hadn't even been properly informed.
Strange events like this became common place.
I attempted to cut her out of my life the summer after high school. But she showed up at my work on my birthday and dropped off balloons and a large brown box. Inside of it was a very small box. It contained the book 5 People That You Meet In Heaven and a mothers day card I had made for her when I was four. Stuck to it was a post-it that read "What happened to you?"
When I started at ASU a year later she and dad agreed that I would not work and they would split the rent on my apartment in return for my attending university (instead of community college). The first month after my move in my mother demanded parent teacher conferences with my professors before she would hand over any rent money. She did not get a conference, and dad was left to pay the rent.
That semester my sister came home pregnant and I was left to break the news to my parents. My mother was furious that I was the one my sister came to and our relationship deteriorated from there. By the spring I'd had a massive nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, failed out of college, and totally and completely dedicated myself to severing contact with my mother.
This was a huge turning point for me, and the point where my life stopped being a sea on endless misery and started being a real life, one with happiness and joy and all the other wonderful things one misses out on when they have the devil clawing at their organs all the time.
At any rate, things went along pretty well. Then one Christmas my mother sent me a present. It was a Macy's box, as all 'gifts' from her are (which has now come to instil an intense sort of terror in me). In it were several shirts, one of which was metallic gold, and all of them were XL. Again, I sat baffled, as I was a tiny little thing, maybe 100 lbs and there was no way anyone could ever possibly think I would ever fit a shirt that big.
Other events like this have occurred. At one point she called me, about five years after we'd stopped talking and left me a message asking if she could 'borrow' a computer she had bought for me many years earlier. Occasionally she'd just leave taunting messages on my machine.
These things, they leave me rattled because I can never see them coming. She's not playing with a full deck, her games never follow any sort of coherent logic. Things are going along nicely, and then there she is. Looming somehow on the fringes of my life.
In the back of my mind I'm always just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know that she's out there. Plotting strange things to throw at me. Things that I will never understand. Things that won't make any sense at all. And much like a brain aneurism, she could strike silently at any moment.
To be continued...
When I was in high school, and our relationship was at its most volatile (and miserable) my mother started dating her now husband (her first and only relationship since we got rid of her). For many months I was convinced he was made up. I lived with her at this point and had never seen him. She would just point new things out (books, necklaces, so on) and say in a teasing voice 'my boyfriend gave this to me'. One day she inexplicably changed the locks on her house while I was at school and refused to let me back in and told me I loved my dad more than her and that in doing so I forfeited my right to live there. Dad had to come beg to be allowed to pack up my things.
At one point there was a man's voice on her answering machine saying 'You have reached the (our last name) residence, please leave a message'. Which made me supremely angry as I felt she did not have a right to our last name any longer, and because even if she insisted on keeping it, why would this other mystery man be using it? Anyway, she brushed off my anger saying it was just a guy from church and she asked him to do it for 'safety reasons'. (To this day, I am certain this was but another one of her mind games, but that's neither here nor there.)
I was absolutely certain she had made up this boyfriend. No one, NO ONE could possibly love my mother. Of that I was certain. She was evil incarnate.
Apparently this was not the case, and she had somehow gotten a boyfriend.
About a week before my senior prom I got a card in the mail. It did not have a return address on it, and the card inside was a four panel cartoon entitled "how to fold a cat to fit in a sweater drawer". It then showed a man folding the cat up like a sweater and closing the drawer. Inside it simply said, 'I hope you'll be joining us this weekend. - J.'
I was puzzled. Totally bewildered. I thought, maybe it was some sort of bizarre prom thing, or possibly someone from school who was messing with me. I walked around for days with it in my bag, trying to make sense of the note. I attended my prom that weekend, and forgot all about the note.
Until my mother called. That card had apparently been her way of inviting me to her wedding. She was pissed that I had not attended. I was pissed that she had the audacity to be mad at me when I hadn't even been properly informed.
Strange events like this became common place.
I attempted to cut her out of my life the summer after high school. But she showed up at my work on my birthday and dropped off balloons and a large brown box. Inside of it was a very small box. It contained the book 5 People That You Meet In Heaven and a mothers day card I had made for her when I was four. Stuck to it was a post-it that read "What happened to you?"
When I started at ASU a year later she and dad agreed that I would not work and they would split the rent on my apartment in return for my attending university (instead of community college). The first month after my move in my mother demanded parent teacher conferences with my professors before she would hand over any rent money. She did not get a conference, and dad was left to pay the rent.
That semester my sister came home pregnant and I was left to break the news to my parents. My mother was furious that I was the one my sister came to and our relationship deteriorated from there. By the spring I'd had a massive nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, failed out of college, and totally and completely dedicated myself to severing contact with my mother.
This was a huge turning point for me, and the point where my life stopped being a sea on endless misery and started being a real life, one with happiness and joy and all the other wonderful things one misses out on when they have the devil clawing at their organs all the time.
At any rate, things went along pretty well. Then one Christmas my mother sent me a present. It was a Macy's box, as all 'gifts' from her are (which has now come to instil an intense sort of terror in me). In it were several shirts, one of which was metallic gold, and all of them were XL. Again, I sat baffled, as I was a tiny little thing, maybe 100 lbs and there was no way anyone could ever possibly think I would ever fit a shirt that big.
Other events like this have occurred. At one point she called me, about five years after we'd stopped talking and left me a message asking if she could 'borrow' a computer she had bought for me many years earlier. Occasionally she'd just leave taunting messages on my machine.
These things, they leave me rattled because I can never see them coming. She's not playing with a full deck, her games never follow any sort of coherent logic. Things are going along nicely, and then there she is. Looming somehow on the fringes of my life.
In the back of my mind I'm always just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know that she's out there. Plotting strange things to throw at me. Things that I will never understand. Things that won't make any sense at all. And much like a brain aneurism, she could strike silently at any moment.
To be continued...
Friday, January 4, 2013
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