Channeling Joan Baez

"Our breath comes out white clouds mingles and hangs in the air."

Today it is bitter, bitter cold. I think that the white cloud of my breath actually froze in mid-air.

Silence

I think one of the most frustrating and confusing things to experience is someone choosing not to talk with you. Especially when you don't completely understand why. There is no recourse. You can't improve upon or change the situation if you don't know what the situation is.

The unknown leaves you wondering. What did I say? What did I do? You begin to question all your actions. You begin to second guess your motivations. It's a confusing place to be.

I don't believe in the silent treatment. It resolves nothing. If there is a situation where space is needed then request the space. "I need time to heal." "I need time to sort things out." "I need to take a break."

Silence is more than deafening.

Today

Today I am again proud of my country. It's been a struggle these past 8 years watching as we lost standing in the world. Feeling helpless as our leaders pushed forward in their arrogance with little regard to our history, our constitution, our integrity. Today I watched the video stream into my cube and listened to the speeches and saw the hundreds of thousands of people who so passionately look forward to reclaiming our country.

In my head I heard the lyrics of You've Got to Be Carefully Taught, from South Pacific and I realized that we can teach something different. We can teach that all are equal. That all are to be respected for what we bring to this nation, this world. That together we can accompish more than we can alone.

I'm finding my optimism growing and my cynisism diminishing. Know hope.

Meandering

This morning the sun painted the sky with impressionist hues of soft glowing orange, peach, pink, yellow, lavendar, blue, green. It made me think of Monet's haystacks in winter.

There was also a snowbow frozen in the cloudless sky. I think that minute crystals of ice were blowing around near the ground reflecting the sun through billions of tiny prisms.

Today I had a meeting and had to venture out. The snow crystals were blowing catching the sun and twinkling like stars. I felt like I was in a snow globe that someone had just shaken.

It's cold. Bitter cold but the sky is popsicle blue and the sun orange. It's really quite stunning. The trees are outlined in purple on the snow below.

The snow crunches when you walk on it. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Tonight my friend Lisa is getting married. It was a short romance. She loves to stage things. They'll be married in a small wooden church. A horse and sleigh will pick them up and take them to their little cabin in the woods. I imagine a roaring fire.

Ebb and flow

It's been an interesting week of emotional tides. I'm feeling a little bit more at ease today. Paxil and conversation the prescriptions.

I can be as protective as a mama bear when I see someone with little power being taken advantage of or hurt in any way. That's the way I've been feeling about my B. She is not nor has she ever been a "miserable kid." Rather, I think someone's own feelings of miserableness are projected onto B. We can't choose the family into which we are born. The only good thing to come out of my sister's marriage is this child who fills my heart completely.

Today she is ice skating with Aunti Loli. They had to call be to tell me what they were up to as I had taken B skating when I was in MA for Christmas. No one's fallen yet! Hearing her sweet little voice cheers me. My favorite part of arriving home for a visit is seeing her there waiting for me. Since she was a little toddler and could walk, out she'd come with her arms stretched. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to catch her when she comes down the street at a full run and jumps up into my arms, but you can bet, I'll do my damndest to make those moments last as long as I can.

Little man Oliver called me this morning too. He read to me from his new library book. He's three and a half. I don't think I read until the third grade! Mila, she just giggles until she has the phone in her possession and then all goes silent. It's the kids that make the world go around.

Sometimes my mind goes on overload. I think about too many things at one time causing my blood pressure to go up and the anxiety to surface. Makes me cranky when I don't realize that I'm about to run out of my happy pills and then miss a day or two. I'll cry at commercials or worry about all the world's problems. I have to remind myself that I can't solve them all. I've got to focus on the ones at hand.

Next week I go to the orthopeadic clinic and begin PT for my three disk issue. Hopefull my S1 nerve root will begin to behave. Sleep is a good thing and I'm looking forward to a full and comfortable night.

Focus...that's what I need to do. I think that will be my theme for 2009. Focus.

Out of my League

Today I feel out of my league. I've been working to address an issue and find resources based on training I had 24 years ago when I was in grad school and in a completely different field than the one I'm in now.

All I can say is there is a beautiful, loving, good-hearted, 8-year-old who is the love of my life and she needs an advocate and I'm determined to do everything in my power to show her that there are adults in her life who have their shit together and who can provide her the support she needs.

There is nothing I want more than to see that child grow up to be a healthy, happy adult. Lately, I feel that dream is at great risk.

Today, I began taking giant steps to help.

Makes me think of those ads that the Ad Counsil ran last year featuring situations in which people almost helped, but didn't.

My Phillips Screwdriver

I think I've actually come up with my AHA idea that will make me a millionaire. Of course I can't tell you about it in order to protect my potential patentable idea.

Hmmm. I seriously think I'm going to research this a bit. I mean products often come from simple ideas, right. Think about it...the Boppy pillow. How many baby showers have you attended lately that hasen't included at least one Boppy. All that a Boppy is is a moon shaped pillow. But quite a lucrative one.

Or what about the person who created those baby bottles with the hole in the middle to make it easier for the baby to hold their own bottle?

Or, I think this one is fantastic, heated windshield washer fluid. Brilliant.

Off I go to make my millions.

Crankiness

I'm cranky today. I know why. It's constantly dealing with the pain a disk in my back putting pressure on my S1 nerve root causes. This has been going on for three plus months. A constant burning that radiates down my right leg and cramps up the bottom of my right foot.

The worst thing you can do for this particular disk/root combo is sit on your behind, which I do most of the day in my cube at work. I get up frequently to stretch, walk around, and often to grab an ice pack out of the freezer. So here I sit freezing my arse off (well, technically my lower back off, but it's very close) hoping to numb the pain.

I go to the chiropractor. I do my back stretches and exercises using a big blue ball and a little yellow ball. I try not to do the things I've been told not to do. Vacuuming, for instance. You have no idea how hard that is when you've been raised in an anal retentive household that never had a spider web or dustball. I finally broke down and hired someone to shovel my walk and drive.

I've tried a little machine that shoots electrical impulses to the same general nerve area. I think the idea behind this is similar to accupuncture. You create so many nerve impulses at a high enough frequency that your brain is unable to process them all so you actually don't feel the pain. Nice thought. It didn't work but it sure felt weird.

I know I've been popping way too many Ibuprofens. I always think about how trying to address one health issue can actually create another. Heck...every night on TV we're bombarded with drug adds where the disclaimer is as long or longer than the supposed attributes of the drug being hawked. If I keep Ibuprofening at this rate my stomach or liver or something will rott.

I've been online reading about this issue. Apparently surgery, at least the most common one used, just transfers the stress from one area to another area of the spine. Not ideal.

At times I feel like a big baby. The pain isn't debilitating, it's just a chronic sense of significant discomfort. At times I stand up at my desk, put my keyboard on a brown box and try working that way. Driving or sitting on an airplane really aggravate the situation.

Spine problems run in the family. I've got degenerative and disk disease. So do my parents. In the words of my dad "you're screwed." Fun. Speaking of "screw"ing, I'll bet some aspects of that probably aggravate the disk/nerve as well. So, I'll try to focus on the positive and be thankful that there seems to be a lull in that area of my life right now.

Maybe meditation will help.

Half full, half full, half full, half full....

Marilyn Monroe

According to a Facebook quiz I just took, that's who I was in a past life.

OMG - I have no idea why that never dawned on me before. I mean, the resemblance is astounding! Don't you think?

;-)

A music intervention...

I seriously need a music intervention. Now my head is singing..."tell me when will you be mine. Tell me condo, condo, condo...."

I surely hope this condo comes to fruition!

Channeling Boy George

"Do you really wanna hurt me?"

I've actually been blocked as a friend on Facebook. Ouch! What a way to treat the "love of your life."

Turn, turn, turn

I remember when Prince's 1999 came out it seemed that 1999 was so far away. Now here we are ten years past. Kinda blows my mind.

I often think in songs. Just now my head said "time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future..." It does. And I often have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

When I was a kid I remember my mother often saying upon my declaring "I'm bored!" - "Enjoy your time now because the older you get the quicker it goes." I had no idea what she was talking about. Now I find myself channeling my mother when my niece declares her boredom.

In the past few years time slipping has made itself apparent in who the heavens reclaim. My Uncle Hank and Auntie Pat. Dr. and Mrs. Sonbay. Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Smolenski...

And I hear the clock ticking incessantly like the heart in Telltale Heart...It's not my own demise that causes concern, it's the day I lose my parents. I dread that day. I'm very close to my crazy family, especially my mom and dad.

I've reached the age where my friends are dealing with issues such as their parents alzheimers or broken hips. Topics of conversation include assisted living and long-term-care and nursing homes and senior meals.

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'...

I've reached the age where I long to be in a condo so that I don't have to spend my weekends investing sweat equity in my old house. Ideally I'd like to get into that new condo and plan to take one fabulous out of the country vacation each year. I worry that I started saving for retirement so late. Not because I wasn't thinking about it, but because I was making so little I wasn't even covering my monthly expenses. I had a master's degree and was making less than $20,000. I didn't get a "big girl job" until I was in my late 30s and then as a 39th birthday present, my position was eliminated and I was unemployed for more than two years. I have a feeling I'll be working until I'm in my 80s!

The other day I received my Social Security summary. When I was 16 I made just under a $1,000 in my first official job. Each year thereafter is represented with a new number. Some years the number would grow. Others it would stay the same. Some years the number would shrink or there would be no number at all.

If I work until I'm 67 at this current salary level, I'll get $1,300 a month in benefits. That's scary. But at least I'll get $1,300. I could be getting nothing.

I haven't seen the Benjamin Button film yet. But in some ways I think it would be more interesting to live your life backwards. Someone once forwarded me an email with that scenario. You're born with a lifetime of knowledge and wisdom and you die as a result of an orgasm. What a way to go!

I wish I could write like Barbara Kingsolver

I've never been to Africa but when I was reading The Poisonwood Bible, I felt that I could see Africa. When I read the words they painted a very vivid picture in my mind as if somewhere in the grey matter there was a canvas and each word added a color to it. I almost believed that if I closed my eyes I could smell the scents and feel the textures of the village in which the characters lived.

My cousin Vicki once told me I was "muy sensual". She's Spanish and didn't mean I was sensual but that I experienced life through my senses. I suppose in some ways, that does make me sensual. I love to feel the softness of skin against my cheek or it's warmth against my palm. I love to bury my nose in my lover's neck and breathe her in. If I close my eyes I can feel her coursing through my veins. And I love to experience the kalaidoscope of colors exploding in my mind like fireworks when making love.

What I'd like to be able to do is find expression for all the feelings and scents and colors and textures of life that careen through my mind every second of the day. I feel tongue tied when trying to speak them. I feel illiterate when trying to write about them. While I dabble in painting or drawing my strokes with the brush or charcoal fail me.
I feel mute and withdrawn and incapable of sharing all of me with others because what I manage to communicate is such a small fraction of what's within.

My dreams are big and my disappointments bigger. And I wonder what my purpose is because I really don't seem to know. Do I have a purpose here? Every time I think I'm coming to understand it something happens to cause doubt. At times I feel as if I'm not even a part of myself but rather that I exist outside of myself watching as I go through each day. Invisible in so many ways.

A Story I Wrote

An Evening with The Empress and Fool

A chorus of yapping erupted upon pressing the doorbell. I could hear her footsteps and then her voice commanding, “Back, back” as she opened the door.

There she was bent over, shoulders bare, one arm lying across her chest holding up her dress, the other shooing the trio of “beasts.” “Come on in, hurry,” she said. So I stepped across the threshold into the foyer.

She stood and with that simple movement all air that had been in my lungs withdrew, leaving me breathless. Stunning was she. Stunned was I.

The Empress and the Fool awakened; one in her smug knowingness
and the other in her desire.

“I could use some help with the hooks and zipper,” she said turning her back to me. The zipper of her black cocktail dress was undone halfway. I grasped the metal clasp, pulling upward, covering the bronze skin beneath.

The Fool was shaking, the Empress chuckling.

“Did you get the lower hooks? There are several hooks lower down the zipper,” she instructed. Still trying to recover my breath I undid the hook and pulled the zipper downward, revealing the curve of her spine and the top of her panties.

The Fool urged me to slide my hands in and rest them upon her hips then step forward, press up against her back and trace the curve of her neck to her shoulder with my lips, tasting and inhaling her.

The Empress immediately regained control forcing me to focus on the task at hand. I fastened one hook, then another, pulled the zipper upward, silencing the Fool with one last hook.

We left. The bickering began in my head. “Fool,” said the Empress. “Here you go again. When will you realize that Pinkerton lies, Romeo and Juliet die, and glass slippers will cut your feet?”

“Have you not heard of Cyrano? Have you never had Breakfast at Tiffany’s and why do you think that fairy tales end with ‘and they lived happily every after’,” replied the Fool. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

“Humph,” the Empress retorted, “And what about it takes two to tango? You never were very good at math.”

The Fool placed her fingers in her ears and began singing loudly, “I could have danced all night, now that I’m on the street where she lives, somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must’ve done something good, Maria, I just met a girl named Maria…”

“Ha,” shouted the Empress. “Her name is NOT Maria. You’re name however is Fool which according to Webster’s’ means idiot; stupid or ridiculous person.”

The Empress glanced at the Fool and saw the hurt in her eyes. “It’s all very well to be dreamy, creative, impulsive, and romantic but to be in control of one’s life one must remain alert, responsible and realistic. You just open yourself up like a book and risk your heart every time. When will you learn?”

“I’d rather risk my heart on the chance that I’ll find love than build walls and hide behind a façade of heartlessness.”

“Fine, suit yourself.”

“I will,” replied the fool glancing at the long, brown legs leading from here to eternity.

The beating of my heart increased with the RPMs of the engine as I tried to silence the duo within.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” muttered the Empress. I responded.

With the Fool leaving a trail of glitter, we entered the ballroom and found our seats. The Empress ensuring that manners were minded, greetings exchanged, and applause appropriate and polite.

The Fool kept glancing over my shoulder taking in every twinkle of her golden brown eyes, every soft word, and flash of smile. When she stood and crossed the room to say hello to old friends, the Fool followed with my eyes until the Empress intervened cautioning me not to be so obvious.

“But,” I thought, “She is the most beautiful woman in this ballroom.” I watched as she engaged in conversation, both men and women responding to her charm and wit.

I wondered, “How was it that fortune smiled upon me this evening, and allowed me to be her escort?”

“Because you listened to me,” whispered the Fool.

“Be careful whose counsel you follow,” countered the Empress.

“Both of you be quiet,” I demanded as she returned to her seat. I smiled and she smiled back.

The evening’s festivities soon concluded and we made our way outside, entered my car and began the journey back to where the evening had begun.

Images of freckled shoulders, the curve of her back, the fullness of her bosom, invaded my mind. I turned to the Fool and told her to stop. She reluctantly complied.

“Maybe she’ll need help undoing the hooks,” the Fool suggested. The Empress immediately reached over and slapped the Fool’s hand “enough!”

False logic crept into my head. “Well, maybe she does need help. Will it really hurt to ask to come in, just in case?” The Fool smiled. The Empress rolled her eyes.

She had removed her key from her bag as we pulled up the drive. “I told you,” said the Empress. “Hush,” I responded and then I turned and asked “May I come in for a while?”

“Sure,” she said. Hope sprung.

We entered her house and she headed off to change. “Do you need help with your dress,” I asked, playing the Fool.

“No,” she responded. “It’s a lot easier to get out of than into.”

And the Empress chuckled.

She came out of the bedroom and I wondered how it was possible for someone to look as ravishing in grey cotton jersey as she does in black silk.

She sat down upon the couch next to me and turned the television to CNN.

“Ha, I told you so,” mocked the Empress. And I knew the evening had ended.

Dishwashers and irony

Today my mind is all over the place. So...here goes.

While my mother still thinks of me as the 8-year-old who would push the clothes under the bed in order to "clean" my room, my friends think I'm quite anal when it comes to cleaning.

The past few days I've been a bit lax. Several reasons. My annual New Years Eve doldrums and the fact that the furnace was blowing like crazy but there was no heat, so, I was huddled under big blankets, a dog and two cats for the past few days.

Today I came down and decided to get my rear in gear. I had a few dishes in the sink (a boatload by my standards) that needed to go into the dishwasher. I opened the dishwasher and saw the most discombobulated mess of glasses and other items in the top rack. My roommate's style. Of course all I saw was wasted space and a challenge to rearrange everything in order to double the machine's capacity. A personal victory. I fit it all in.

Then I got to thinking about how one learns to load the dishwasher. It certainly wasn't a part of home ec. way back when. We washed the dishes by hand. And as my roommate is many years younger than I, I don't even think they required home ec. when she was in school. I'm pretty sure that my mother drilled me and my sister in the art of loading the dishwasher. But that was my mother. Do other people's mothers teach them this life skill?

Back to the furnace. After two days of barely 60 degree internal temperatures, I called the repair man today. About ten minutes later the furnace blower kicked in and I felt heat! Why is it that every time you call someone to fix something, the thing that needs fixing decides to work? You know damned well that as soon as the repair guy leaves, the item will stop working again. I think there is someone in the great beyond that controls these things. I'll bet in some ways he's like the Joker in Batman - manipulating machines everywhere for his own amusement all the while tormenting the owner.

I also think this is the same being that knows exactly when your car's warranty expires. At one second past midnight on the day it expires, he presses a big button that makes your car fall apart.

As I mentioned, I spent the past few days trying to stay warm. I rented season 5 of the L-Word as I don't get Showtime. Great eye-candy on that show. Watching those women got me to thinking about Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DiRossi.

I'm such a hopeless romantic. I've looked at their wedding photos about a million times. Portia looked just like a princess in her gown with the pink toile skirt. What a beautiful woman. And Ellen was looking damn good in her ivory ensemble. But what really get's to me each time I look at the video or pictures is the look in their eyes. Such encompassing love and happiness.

My Myers-Briggs and Tarot readings both describe me as having equally strong logical (Emperor) and dreamer (Fool) qualities. My Emperor and Fool are constantly fighting. My Fool dreaming of my princess and dancing with my dad at my wedding. My Emperor running around with a big pin to pop the bubble.

I wonder, in the end, who will win.