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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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Last night I asked my daughter how she had done on her summer reading. Usually, I don't have to ask about her and reading, but I knew she had been having trouble with the two books she was assigned. This House of Sky by Ivan Doig and An American Childhood by Anne Dillard were the two books. I haven't read either, but, she announced last night that trying to read either one was "like trying to read PBS."  She, like me, loves to read. We each read a book a day or more when we are in a groove. But, only books we like. She's like me in that if we are being MADE to read a book...blah, I'll read anything BUT the book I'm supposed to read. We enjoy fiction, not non-fiction. Dragons, demons, magic, wizards, warriors, kings, queens, vampires, werewolves, but no damsels in distress. We like our damsels to kick ass.  And no PBS. That just pisses us off. We read to be entertained, not bored. |
| I am stoked. Monilad goes back to school tomorrow. Woo Hoo! I didn't kill her this summer. Always a plus in the parenting column. My last day of summer is the 30th. I think maybe I'll go hiking this weekend. Not sure if I'll Little Red Hen it or take Hubby with. I suppose it depends on if he wants to go. I'm super stoked that the Follow the Leader journalling contest is starting again. I always blog faithfully during that. I think the varied content of the opening entries helps me blog about more than my boring life, too. It helps remind me that I have a mind and know how to use it. And that I CAN actually write on a variety of subjects.I've shifted jobs at my work because of school. I was a buyer, but I've spent the last two weeks training my replacement (we promoted her from within, so she already knew the basics). Since I'm going back full time, I'm only going to be working about 5-8 hours a week. So, all I'm going to be doing is our government bids. There is a website (www.fedbizopps.gov, it's open to anyone) where you can go and look at a bunch of stuff the government is putting out for bid. Hundreds of things a day go out for bid. In order to bid on them, you have to jump through a host of hoops-Tax ID, DUNS number, ten plus page internet sign-up. But once you are all signed up you can bid on all manner of things. One of the funniest things I keep finding on there is for gospel music minister. If you have the right qualifications, you can do that at military bases around the country. They really put that up for bid. I even saw a bid for a Catholic priest. I'm pretty sure if you apply to the Vatican, they'll just assign you one. That and Homeland Security wants a whole crapton of handgun and shotgun ammuntion.  Really? They can't just buy that at Walmart like everyone else? I love my new job. |
| With Emeril. Actually with the entire Food Network. Although Emeril is definitely in my top three list of favorites. I've started a recipe box over at FoodNetwork.com. I done nothing all summer but watch food shows, cook new stuff and gain weight.  My family loves the new stuff I'm cooking, but...seriously...I've gained 10 pounds!! (Want my Asian Chicken Salad recipe?) As I write this, I am watching Emeril teach me to make chocolate crepes. I'm allergic to chocolate and I am riveted.  Pathetic, isn't it. (Although, I think I could adapt the recipe....hmmm. I feel myself gaining more weight.) I'm going to add the recipe to my box, I'll be right back. It has brandy and rasberry liqueur in it, too. I could make it without those, right?I especially love Alton Brown. He teaches me the science behind cooking. Every time I watch Good Eats, it's like getting a little chemistry lesson along with my cooking lesson. It's fabulous! In two weeks, I'll be back in school. Also Fall TV will start and I'll have new reasons not to write. It's sad really that I've stopped writing as much. I hope this fall that I can start again. Yeah, yeah. Watching Alton Brown teach me how to make the perfect omlette isn't helping me write. Maybe my heroine can be a master chef. |
Special Kay  's blog today was about doing things for her marriage.It made me think about my week home alone with Hubby. Monilad is in CO with the in-laws. She left last Thursday and won't be back until Saturday late. It's been weird, usually I'm Jonesing for Monilad's company by now. Really missing her, being sick and sad and lonely. This time? Not so much. This time, Hubby and I have had lots of fun. We went to the Sweet Pea festival last weekend. It's a local arts festival they have every year. The arts aren't cheesy googly eyes on a popscicle stick kind of art either. This was quality stuff. We saw lots of what I would call "works of art." Glassblowers, jewelers, woodworkers, blacksmiths, ironsculptors, clockmakers, photographers, painters, and so much more. I think the coolest thing we saw was a man who built grandfather clocks out of wood. And I mean ALL out of wood. There was no metal in them. The gears and everything was wood! They were opensided so that you could see all the gears and inner workings. They were so cool! They were also VERY expensive because they were so labor intensive. $6400 each. We also watched Montana Shakespeare in the Park at Sweet Pea. They performed "The Tempest." If you have access to Shakespeare in the Park near where you live, I HIGHLY recommend going to see it. Ours is free and you can bring a picnic and lay out a blanket and just relax before the show. It was a wonderful production! We thoroughly enjoyed it. I had never seen "The Tempest" and discovered it to be one of my favorite of the Bard's.  Otherwise, Hubby and I have been having dinner together every night and just hanging out talking. When Hubby and I met, Monilad was two. He and I have never been just the two of us. We sort of don't know how to act around each other when she is subtracted from the equation. It's nice when we get to just talk and remember why we fell in love.I miss Monilad, but this is the first year that I haven't freaked out about her growing up and leaving us. In two years, she graduates high school and heads off to college. Whether she stays home and attends MSU or heads out in the world to go somewhere else; for the first time, I feel OK about our empty nest. |
| I like the summer. I really do. But, underneath my airy fairy exterior, I'm really a creature of habits and schedules. Summer is not really geared for schedules. I miss the school year and a regular schedule during the summer. Sure we have lots of fun and go do lots of things, but....after a while, I start missing the day to day routine. My work day doesn't really give me that. I try to arrive at the same time every day, but my daughter is home when I leave. I need her at school following her own schedule. I get discombobulated when my schedule is wonky. It makes me even more nutso than normal. I start school in three weeks. I'm really looking forward to it. I've had all the fun I want to this summer. I'm ready to hit the books and have my schedule back. |
| About 35 miles west of my house is Missouri Headwaters State Park. Today, I Little Red Hen'd a trip out there for some hiking and rock oogling. I had a lot of fun. The weather was beautiful, sunny and 86 degrees. The rocks were lovely. I won't go on about them...but Headwaters is mostly limestone, but I did find some great quartzite, too.The hiking was excellent. I met a nice couple from Chicago who were in the area so that she could attend a yoga retreat in nearby Helena. They kept talking about how serene and spacious the landscape was. I suppose coming from crowded Chicago, being in Big Sky country would be a bit different.I find it very serene, too. I get out there alone and I can think. I think about how back millions of years ago, the area was covered by inland sea. How tens of thousands of years ago, the area was covered by glaciers. You can see the striations on the rocks where the glaciers scraped them. Hubby has a history minor and he is especially interested in Native American History. Headwaters has some fascinating pictographs. There is one that is really clear. I got a pic of it, but unfortunately, I took it with my cell phone and I don't really understand my cell phone camera features. I want to go back soon and make more drawings of the various features. All in all, a great day! |
| Monday we flew back from a weekend in Texas. My 20th class reunion. My daughter met one of her sisters. A sister she didn't know she had until a month or so ago. It's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me. For the first time in my life, I returned home an adult. I've been home since I've grown up, but I always returned with the same baggage and the same mindset. This time, I went back and it was different. I was different. I saw things differently, I reacted differently. I didn't fall into the same patterns with my brother and my sister. It was all changed for me somehow. My brother in law(?), I don't know what to call him, so I'm calling him that, he's my daughter's uncle. Seventeen years ago I attended his and his wife's wedding pregnant with his brother's child. It was an open secret who her father was. He had walked away from me when he found out I was pregnant. The four of us had been very close. Family. The only time I've seen the two of them (brother-in-law and wife) since then was at my 10 year reunion. I said hello to him, nothing to her and that was it. He told me later they both cried about it. They missed me. They missed Monilad. I have just spent the last seventeen years so angry. I didn't know how to let it go. This weekend I realized that it didn't matter, somehow. It never did. All I did was deprive myself and my daughter of people that love us. People that we love. How stupid I was. When we saw them, BIL was so nervous that we were leaving again. It was hard to see them, but then it was so easy. It was like I was never gone. We sat and talked and laughed. And cried. We even talked about his brother. Monilad's father. He's in prison, still. According to BIL, he's turned his life around. When I think about how much better I felt after talking to BIL after all these years, I think that maybe I'm willing to talk to him. Seeing BIL and his wife and talking to them again was like having a dislocated joint put back in place. Like I had been going around in pain with something wrong and wasn't sure what I was missing, but now that it's fixed, a weight is lifted off of me. It's hard to carry a grudge for seventeen years. It gets heavy. I guess I'm just tired of carrying it. Sometimes growing feels good. |
I wrote a long, chatty update about what is going on with me, etc., yesterday and then the ether ate it.  So I got frustrated with it and said, "Screw it," and logged off. I'll hit the high points: I'm alive. Summer is busy. The end. |
| So today I went to the Lewis and Clark Caverns...all by myself. We have a running joke in our family. When you ask others in the family if they want to help do something or if they want to go along somewhere and you wind up having to do it alone, you tell them, "Fine, I'll Little Red Hen it." So today, I Little Red Hen'd the Caverns. I even bought myself a T-shirt to commemorate the deal. I would have pics to post, but it turns out I forgot to charge the camera after the last time I brought it back.  Maybe next time. It is about a 45 minute trip west to the L&C Caverns from my house. The drive is beautiful, all windswept, rolling prairie surrounded on all sides by high mountain ranges. As I sped along the interstate that winds through the landscape, I kept picturing the scene from "Dances With Wolves" where Kevin Costner is driving that wagon along and there is no one for hundreds of miles. I kept expecting millions of buffalo to come thundering over the next hill. I did see several herds of antelope who look up curiously when cars go whizzing by on the road. When I got to Three Forks, instead of a well-maintained golf course nestled next to the Jefferson River, I expected to see a summer camp of indians complete with horses and campfires. As I turned off the Interstate onto Highway 2/287 that heads to the Caverns, I kept passing old homestead sites. They are so primative looking. I can't imagine living though a Montana winter in one of those old log houses. How people lived in them boggles my mind. Once I arrived at the Caverns, I only had to wait about twenty minutes until the tour started. While I waited, I wandered around the Visitor's Center learning about the recent history of the caves. Once we started, there was only me and the tour guide to begin with. Then after she and I started down the path to the cave mouth (it's about a 3/4 mile hike before you get there) they radioed her and told her she had 18 more people catching up with us. Three groups joined at the last minute. It would have been cool to do it alone, but I still had fun.In the first third of the caves, you have to be really quiet, especially this time of year, because the Western long-eared bat uses L&C as a nursery. They are tiny (about 3 or 4 inches when they are all balled up) but big in the bat world because they have a wingspan of 9 or 10 inches. I could do a blow by blow of the caverns themselves, but, hey, they are caves. They are dark and they have stalagmites and stalagtites in them. If you like caves, they were cool. If you don't, you wouldn't like them. One thing about them is that there are a lot of narrow and short places in L&C. They were also significantly damaged by early tourists. The man who ran the early tours, Dan Morrison, would encourage them to chip off formations to take home with them. Sad, huh? Over 1/3 of the formations in one room are destroyed completely. He also encouraged visitors to touch the formations. The oils in human skin damage the rock and prevent them from growing. Once they have been touched enough, they die. They ask you NOT to touch the rock formations, even though they are often within reach and right beside the trail. The lady in front of me touched EVERYTHING. She also let her little girl touch everything. Dumbass. I asked the tour guide kind of pointedly, "Didn't you say it kills the formations to touch them?" She said, "Yes," and then asked us NOT to touch things again.One cool place in the caverns is called the Beaver Slide. It is a place where you have to get down on your butt and slide through or duck walk through if you don't want a wet butt. I said, "Screw it," and went with the wet butt.  Overall a fun day. I'm glad I went. Little Red Hen or not. |
| One of the things I've been talking to Hubby about is working on my Me Time. I've fallen into the bad habit of not leaving the house (except for school or work) unless he or Monilad are with me. I talked to my therapist about it, too. It's a bad habit. Or phobia. Or something. I take one of them with me every weekend when I go shopping. I take one of them with me when I go rock hounding. I just stopped going places alone and I'm not sure when or why it happened, I just know it did. It's been that way for several months. So I'm going to start working on having Me Time. This weekend, I have plans to go out to the Lewis and Clark Caverns alone. I'm really geting excited. I've been a couple of times (with Hubby and others along), but never by myself. I LOVE caves and caverns. We got to go to the Caverns of Sonora last summer and those were gorgeous, but I really enjoy our little local Caverns. I don't think I could be a spelunker or someone who explores caverns without all the modern conveniences (lighting and walkways), but I really enjoy touring caves that are set up already. I'm too claustrophobic to do much squeezing and crawling around in the pitch black. And, I like all the well lit rooms so that I can see all the formations. On our honeymoon, we went on a candle-lantern tour in Cave of the Winds in Colorado Springs. I enjoyed that because we got to see parts of the cave that you don't get to see on the regular tour, but a lot of the features were hard to discern in the wavering candlelight. Perhaps it would be better working at my own pace and with modern equipment, though. It's hard to really study things when dashing through at a tour pace. I have some other Me Dates set up over the summer, too. Maybe even a nice daytrip to Yellowstone alone. I have some short hikes down there I want to do and some hydrothermal features I want to study that I always feel a little rushed through when with the family. For some reason, they aren't as deeply fascinated by some of the intricacies of the geological bits as I am. I'll stand and stare at a metamorphosized rock outcropping on the side of a trail for ten or fifteen minutes wishing for more time to study it while they rush ahead wanting to get to the showy geysers or whatnot. Ah, well. |
| Monilad has been having some of the same trouble I have lately. But because we have been dealing with my crap, we didn't notice it. We found out today that she may fail biology this quarter. She's an honor roll student normally. We aren't sure exactly what the problem is with her, but I'm pretty sure it's med related. She said she feels alone all the time. Even when people are around her. Even when people are talking to her she feels isolated. See, that's a bipolar thing. That tells me it's a med problem. I'm feeling like a crappy mother because we didn't notice her problems earlier. She just sat quietly and felt bad because I was being crazy. I don't like that. I know that as a parent I can only do what I can do, but sometimes it feels like I should do better. I guess you do the best you can with what you got. |
| Last month when I went in to get one of my meds for my bipolar refilled, the pharmacy gave me what they (and I) thought was good news. My very expensive (even on insurance) med was now generic and would only be $8 a month. Yay! Right? For the last month I've been off kilter. Completely off kilter. I couldn't figure it out. Nothing suits me. I've been a raging bitch at home and work. I'm just off my stride. Finally hubby had me call my therapist. She and I talked for a while and she asked me about my meds, the generic thing came up and she asked me a few questions about it. Then she recommended I go see my psychiatrist. Did you know that when a drug goes generic, the generic only has to be 70% effective in order to meet FDA standards? Really? So a 30% margin of error is acceptable? I take a couple of generic meds. I don't mind finding out that my Prilosec substitute might only be 70% effective. It's heartburn, right? Meh. No big deal. I don't even mind finding out my allergy meds might only be 70%. It's allergies. But my crazy meds? That's significant. I count on those to live as normal a life as possible. 70% doesn't cut it for me. I need 90-95% on that kind of thing. So, after talking with my psychiatrist, she agrees that it's the generic meds causing my problems so she wrote me a script putting me on brand name meds only. Which means going back to the expensive kind. Which, while a pain in the pocketbook means I can go back to working more and leaving the house again. And I'll stop spending money like water.Hopefully. Stupid drug companies. Stupid FDA. Stupid government.  |
| It was extremely windy here today. I hate windy days. But for a strange reason. I work in a large warehouse type building. There is a small upstairs, only about twenty feet wide, that runs the width of the building that houses the offices of the store I work in. It's an open floor plan with all of our desks (all 6 of them) spread out along the space so that we all sort of work in the room together but with our own areas. Against one wall is a ladder that leads up to the roof. There is a trapdoor for access that just latches with a bolt. For some reason (that escapes me) it was designed so that it opens to the south. All of our wind comes from the south/southwest. So when the wind blows (especially in big gusts like today-45+ MPH) the wind catches on the lip of the access door and blows just right, it buzzes and sounds like a kid with a kazoo. It's maddening. All day long. Buzz, buzz, buzz. It varies in pitch according to how hard the wind gusts are. But it's like having that annoying kid from down the block that you can't send home standing over your shoulder all day long. Buzz, buzz, buzz. ARGH!!! At least it was sunny today. I am grateful for that.I just wish all this air wasn't in a hurry to be somewhere else. |
| I was in the Follow the Leader contest, but due to a minor crisis at our house, I'm not anymore. I should blog about the crisis and what I'm so angry about, but I'm afraid it would all just turn into one big hairball of a rant and I'm done ranting about it for now. OK, maybe I'm not. It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to. I just want to know why adults who are in postitions of authority over children feel the need to intimidate and/or harass them. My daughter is an honor student and a peer educator. She is polite and respectful even with adults who don't respect her. That's the way she was raised to be. But she has a hard enough row to hoe without being harassed about STUPID FUCKING dress code rules. Her shorts were 1/4" too short. REALLY?!? 1/8" of an inch of her stomach shows when she wears certain shirts AND SHE RAISES HER ARMS. SEROIUSLY?! You fuckers have nothing better to do with your day than go around measuring the amount of skin my child shows when she raises her arms?!? Why don't you go worry about the pot deals going down at lunch in your parking lot? Hunh?! Or the fact that over 15, yeah 15 girls in the school are pregnant right now. And that the kids are having sex in the parking lot at lunch. Worry about THAT. Let ME dress my child. Who dresses perfectly fine, thank you very little. This jerk SEEKS her out in the hallways to check her clothing. He has sent out an EMAIL to the teachers concerning my daughter's state of dress and that teachers need to be on the alert about it. Stalker much?! I told him that I was meeting him because he didn't want to meet with my husband. He assured me (in his smarmiest tone) that he'd LOVE to meet my husband. I assured him that I had been sent because any meeting he had with my husband would be short but brutal because Hubby sees this guy as harassing his only daughter. (It's a sad day when I've been sent to negotiate because I'M the voice of reason. )Hubby wants to walk in and punch the bastard. Have I ever mentioned that Hubby is a bodybuilder and benches around 380 pounds? I'm ready to get a lawyer. And told the guy so. He wanted to know how we could come to an understanding. I told him, "the only understanding we can have is that you have no further communication with my daughter. If her manner of dress is inappropriate, one of the other principals can deal with her. Period." He has been stopping her on the average of once a week to complain about her dress. She finally told me about it last week. I was hot. He told me she's always very respectful and goes and changes. I told him that she will be respectful, until the day she snaps and takes a swing at him, the whole time cursing like a dockworker. (He knows she's bipolar.) I told him to quit pushing her, to quit harassing her. To just leave her the hell alone. She's all riled up and out of sorts here at home, because she's like me. When we go out in public (school, work) we put on our game face and place nice for the straights. But inside...inside is a whole nother layer of crap churning away and building up like a pressure cooker. I don't want her pulling a Columbine because this fucker wouldn't leave her the hell alone when he was told to!! Not that I think she's going to, but I know, like me, she's got that in her. We've got the part of us that will allow us to climb the belltower and start picking people off the day we snap. I recognize that. I admit that. We are nice, librarian type people. Until we aren't. Until we aren't. |
Response to "Invalid Entry"  .Ghostranch talks about being upset because she didn't know how to react to a homeless man in this entry.I don't. Have a problem, that is. I look them dead in the eyes every time. The whole time I'm NOT giving them money. Make me a bitch? Maybe. I've got a real hard on for people who live their whole lives on government assistance, too. People who are able bodied and able minded and could otherwise be out having a job, but choose to live off of the government (taxpayers) because it PAYS MORE. That's just bullshit. So is expecting me to hand you money because you CHOOSE to sit on a street corner and beg instead of working. You can't work for whatever perfectly good reason? I got no problem with you. That's what government assistance is for. You CHOOSE to not work? I gotta BIG ass problem. I've been homeless. I've been on government assistance. I'm bipolar and could receive SSI because I have trouble holding a job. (I'm delusional some times.) But you know what? I got myself a place to live because I kept working. I pulled my ass up by my own fucking bootstraps while I had a 2 year old daughter to support with zero finanacial support from her biological father. I was on government support for two years in the form of WIC and Medicare. That's it. Oh, the good state of Colorado also helped me pay to divorce my ex because he tried to kill me. I am going to school, working and trying to get a degree in spite of the bipolar. (Try studying when you are manic and seeing fairies and dragons. ) Have some pride people. Pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off and get on with your fucking lives. It's doable. It sucks sometimes, but it's doable. If I can do it, anybody can. Yeah, I look the homeless in the eyes. And I don't smile. And I don't give a damn. And my heart doesn't break. Sue me. |
| Response to "be careful what you wish for" . The ole' trick wish gag. That one sucks. Every fantasy series has some version of this. Many fairy tales do, too. They all illustrate the power of speech. The power of words. I believe that to name a thing, that to SAY a thing is to give it power. If you walk around saying to yourself and others, "I never have any luck. I'm so unlucky." You won't have luck. You'll draw the bad luck to yourself. It's like telling the universe, "Send the bad luck my way, thanks! I welcome it!" People who go around enumerating their health woes are ALWAYS sick. People who go around enumerating their money woes? Perpetually poor. There is power in words. Whether you write them, say them, wish them, or speak them. Be careful with your words. Say what you want. Not what is right now. Maybe right now you are experiencing money problems. That's temporary. Don't make it permanent by pissing and moaning about it. Don't believe me? Try an experiment. Ask someone, a spouse or friend, what you bitch the most about. (Unless you already know what that is.) Now change how you speak about that for a week. Two if you can. Health bad? Instead of telling people constantly about it, the next time someone asks you how you are say, "I'm great! Never better." No matter what's wrong with you. And don't list your complaints to yourself either. Just note the problem, do what you can to physically eleviate the problem (take a pill, sit down, lie down, etc.) and move on with your day. But tell everyone else AND YOURSELF how good you feel. Or if you can't do good, tell yourself how much better you feel than yesterday. Do it with money, too. Instead of bitching about money, either do something to stop the outflow (don't buy that new Wii game. ) or do something to improve the inflow (get that second job stocking nights at WalMart.) Or just tell yourself if could be worse, at least you have a job. Or if you can't manage any of that then just say nothing. Period. Just say a thank you for what you do have and then shut the hell up to both yourself and others.The thank you is important. Be thankful for what you do have. Make a list if you have to. Make it daily until you can quit your negative ways. It won't matter if it's the same two or three items for a while. But try to expand it if you can. Hey, be thankful for beer and cable TV. It's your list. Just remember the power in your words. Good luck and  . |
| My response to "It’s a Dangerous and Powerful Universe" . It is a dangerous and powerful universe. Rogue black holes, comets, meteors, supernovas. Solar systems being born, dying. A lot to keep track of. A lot to ponder. I can't fathom it most days. It's just too big. Just too far outside my monkeysphere. For about an hour at a time, I can focus on giant things like the universe, but then my consciousness is pulled back in. I'm thinking of the day to day. Like today. Today, I'm thinking I'm glad my last final is over. No more school 'til September. Today I'm thinking about, holy CRAP it's May quit with the snow already. Today I'm thinking about, if I wash one more load of laundry tonight, that will make me not have to have too many loads to wash this weekend. Today I'm thinking about, I've got lead tomorrow, what will I blog about? Rogue black holes swallowing me? That's somewhere on page 45 of a 50 page list of things I am thinking about. I just can't sweat the giant stuff. I have to slog through the minutae of day to day living. It's fun to wonder about in that same way that I reserve for cloud watching, but it's stuff I just can't get worked up about. I equate it to the beer truck. Plan for tomorrow, but you never know when you might get hit by that beer truck. It's all stuff I can't clutter my mind with while I'm getting on with the clean laundry, the algebra finals, tomorrow's dinner plans and what time I need to go to work tomorrow. Cool entry, though. |
| I'm participating in "Follow the Leader" again. I encourage you to read the entries I reference here as well. There is always some really good stuff in those entries, folks. This is in response to "Invalid Entry" .I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy. So I'm familiar with the concept of knowing something's True Name and then having power over it in a given magic system. But it doesn't have to be fantasy to be true. In today's society, knowing someone's True Name gives power over them as well. I've been identity thefted twice. Someone took from me, had power over me because they knew my True Name. They knew things about me and turned that power against me. It causes a sense of loss of control. It causes a sense of a feeling of fear and a frightening sense of helplessness over the situation. We protect ourselves, our True selves from people every day. Never letting people into our inner circle of feelings, inside our circle of vulnerability. We are frightened of losing pieces of ourselves, pieces of our identity, pieces of our control. We hide, even from ourselves, our true natures. Look at how many people are in therapy trying to "find themselves." It's a lifelong pursuit, finding our True selves, our True names. In the meantime, we spend our energy hiding the small pieces we do have. Sad really. |
| That was the sound of my givashitter falling off. Finals are next week. All the last minute busy work is due tomorrow and...I. Just. Don't. Care. I have Chem homework due...lots and lots of Chem homework...I haven't started it. I LOOKED at it, but I haven't started it. I'm totally apathetic to it. I DID go to what is called a PASS session for Chem, though, so I'm not totally useless right now. It's an upperclassman who has taken your course who helps the group study and understand the course materials. They are actually very helpful. (Especially considering I ditched the last two classes. ) She filled in the blanks.I have some extra credit problems due tomorrow for Algebra, but I haven't started them. I could probably use the extra credit...maybe I'll do it before class tomorrow. Meh. I've given up on Biology, he already warned us he's making us watch some stupid movie tomorrow. It will be some Discovery Channel ecology thing. Like I have time for that! Whatever. I'll sit in the SUB and work on the Chem or Algebra maybe. As you can tell, neither the weather nor my mood has noticebly improved. Though they say the weather is supposed to get better by the weekend. I don't usually do this every year because I'm not really a "look at me" kind of person, but I think I need the boost right now. So, I'm going to confess ahead of time...Saturday is my birthday. (Probably another reason I'm a little down.) I turn 38 29 on Saturday. Heh...I'm going down kicking and screaming. When my daughter turns 29, I guess I'll up it, but not until then. I suppose I'd better go study something. Transmission ends.~ |
| No, this isn't the continuing saga of "Invalid Entry" , it's sort of a tangent. Some of you know my story, but I'll do a tiny recap for anyone else: When I was 21, I dated a real jerk of a guy who hit me. A lot. I thought I loved him, I thought he loved me. Yadda, yadda, etc. When I got pregnant with my daughter, he dropped me like a hot rock. Never tried to make good, never offered me so much as a plug nickel to help me out. Just walked away. Whatever. Lotta crap in between....THEN....I met Hubby. ~TA DA~ Hubby is fabulous. Yea Hubby!! When Monilad was 5, Hubby adopted her. Monilad knows she is adopted. The judge was really cool about it. She wore her prettiest dress, the judge had a special ceremony and then afterwards, he let her pick out this silly swim trophy with the nameplate pulled off it. He told her it was her special adoption trophy and to keep it always as a reminder that she got to CHOOSE her father. She was special. She keeps it in a special place on one of her bookshelves. (The judge told us he runs a special drive to get people to donate old trophies so he can give them away in little ceremonies like that. Cool, hunh?) He also told Hubby and Monilad that Monilad's birthday was MY special day. It was the day she came into my life. Hubby's special day was May 8th. That is their adoption day. Every year on May 8th, they go out (without me) on a special date. Hubby always takes her somewhere fancy and pulls her chair out for her and opens her car door for her. He also tells her that any boy who won't treat her like Hubby treats her on a date isn't worth dating. Since Lina and Hubby have started talking to each other, I worried that Monilad would come to me and ask me about her biological father. So, I emailed his brother (a friend of mine from high school). The brother and I have kept in touch over the years, but we never talk about Dipstick. I never want to go there and the brother has always respected that. He was surprised that I emailed him specifically about Dipstick, but to his credit he answered honestly. D finally got his national championship ring. He was a defensive end on MSU's football team the year they won the NCAA-II. MSU had the #1 ranked defense in the nation that year. Upon graduation from MSU, which he graduated as the cum de latta or whatever that is, he was offered jobs in MSU's English department and also a job as a defensive coach for the football team. He chose English and taught freshman english at MSU for about 3 years while he worked on his Doctors degree. During that time he also played semi-pro football for two seasons and acted in a few plays. Everything was going good for him until this point. About this time he found out that his wife had been cheating on him and they were having alot of trouble, they finally divorced. Then he had a car wreck and had to be put on pain killers. Then some guy that liked a girl that D waas seeing ran over him with an SUV which resulted in the need for more pain killers. That summer his summer school classes at MSU were cancelled. All of this, the pain killers, and the depression make for bad desisscions. He rented his house out to guys who were making drugs for extra cash since his wife had left with his daughter and he was the only one living there. They got busted and D was sentenced to three 15 year stints. He has been locked up for the past five years and will be out on parole in less than two years. Yeah. It's like that. I don't want to tell my daughter that her biological father is doing time for cooking meth. I mean, I suppose I don't have to because she hasn't asked yet, but how the hell do I say it when the time comes? He WAS an English professor, but now he's doing time?? When I first read it, I started crying because all I could think was, "that could have been mine and my daughter's life." Now, I just don't know what to do or think. Hubby says not to borrow trouble. He says we just deal with it as it comes. Maybe he's right. He usually is. |
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