Thursday, February 26, 2009

What I want. (Why I don't have it.)

-Burgundy walls in my kitchen. Well, at least ONE burgundy wall in my kitchen. (I rent, and repainting when I move seems like a serious pain in the ass. Not that I'm thinking of moving any time soon, so I don't know why the consequences have even occurred to me, so maybe I'll call my land lord and ask if painting's ok. Wait. I hate him. So maybe I'll just paint and deal with the fallout later. Because that's how I roll.)

-Blue walls in my bedroom. Like, a sage blue. It would match my blankets... I love my blankets. (My bedroom walls are kind of huge. I don't like to do stuff that makes me move at all, and I'd have to move a lot to paint my walls. I also don't like to do home-improvement kind of shit, but I've been feeling really homey lately, so maybe I'll take a whack at her. However, my bedroom is pretty good sized, and that would be a lot of work, and like I said: I'm lazy. OBV.)

-More pillows on my couch. (I haven't been to the store on my bi-yearly "Going to buy tons of shit I don't need for myself and the pets" spree, yet. Also, the store is like ALL THE WAY OVER THERE, and I'm right here, and GOD that means I have to get into my car and then fucking GO there, and that's a pain in the ass because then you have to deal with people, and I sort of hate people. I want pillows, not people. It's all a big cluster fuck of useless shit aimed at keeping me away from what I want! Maybe I'll order them on line. *gasp* Sweet Jesus, that's actually never occurred to me. I could do that right now! But if I do it, I can't procrastinate and whine about my uncomfortable couch anymore, and speaking of procrastination fuck I need to do my taxes. Whoa. Oops. Where am I? Where are my pants?)

-More pictures on the walls. (I would need to print them off, which means I'd need to take my memory stick in to the Walmarts to use that machine thing, and I don't know how to use it. Also, it looks kind of time consuming, and I have like 700 pictures on my stick because I've been putting this off for like, a WHILE. I don't like to do things I've been trying not to do, because it's the principal of the thing. I also don't like things I don't understand --like shady fucking picture machine things-- because I'm a small-minded bigot, or things that take up time. So I'm pretty sure I'd really HATE the whole process of actually getting pictures developed because hello, could it BE more time consuming or foreign to me? I don't think so. Not unless the machine spoke German and wanted to teach me how to knit, because holy shit, that's the stuff nightmares are made of.)

-A hair cut. (I work too much to keep regular appointments. Scratch that. I work so much that when I'm off, I'm DEAD, and so I am UNABLE to keep appointments on account of not being alive. Also, I really like what my hair is doing about every three days, where it looks all long and wild and shit. I look like a jungle person, and that's kind of totally cool by me. And one of the guys I work with is all, "Don't cut your hair. Long hair is sexy." And I was like, "I know, right. Especially when it gets stuck in your mouth, or your eyes, or in your underwear. Spank my ass and call me Jezebel.")

-New shoes. (I don't like shoes, and I don't know why people should have so many of them. At least, that is, until I get onto Zappo's and then I'm all, "Oh damn, I NEED those five-inch, electric TEAL stilettos, they'll go with everything I own! The gold filigree just makes them more versatile! I must have them right goddamn now!" Then I close the window because I come off as unstable enough without wearing those shoes with my jeans and hoodies and doing my pimp strut down the block thinking I look GOOD.)

-A cigarette. (I just quit. Because I obviously hate myself and everyone around me, and would like to see us all dead at the bottom of the icy, icy river. I could not have picked a more stupid time to quit. I'm constantly second-guessing myself because there isn't really a REASON behind me quitting, other than the fact that I've gotten to the point where doing something willfully ignorant that's really bad for my health makes me feel STUPID. Not that I have a problem being stupid - I rather like it. Much like I enjoy smoking. I REALLY enjoy smoking. It makes me happy, and I like to do it. I would like to do it right fucking now, in fact. Amen.)

-A cat. (I haven't adopted a cat because before oh, RIGHT NOW, it didn't seem like a good idea, because of my dog and how super excited she is about everything... I was kind of scared she'd try to love on a cat and accidentally break it's spine... Well, she's suddenly mellowed considerably, and I saw her with my sister's cat not too long ago and it was made pretty obvious that she's not going to screw with any self respecting puss. However, I haven't adopted one because right now I'm kind of concerned that I would neglect it. Not that you can neglect a cat unless you're really cruel, or headless, because they're so independent, and I wouldn't do that intentionally anyway. It's just that I suddenly find myself afraid that everything relying on me is going to DIE. Huh. I can't imagine where that fear has come from, Ihatemyfuckingdad, how very CURIOUS. Perhaps I should delve more deeply into this issue. And get a goddamn cat already.)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

I'm almost a dude.

Things I don't know how to do, which should apparently be instinctive because
I have a vagina:

1. Curl my hair. I can't do it, I don't know why I would do it, and I don't have any desire to learn how to do it. Me + Hot objects + Prolonged exposure to flammable material (like HAIR) = Greek fucking tragedy. I'm not positive, but I'm reasonably sure that my head would go up like a Tiki torch and this little carnival of horrors could only end in tears.

2. Shop for shoes. Why in the hell are we supposed to need so MANY of them...?

3. Bake. I'm not even kidding- I'm absolutely, stone-cold terrified of flour. I mean, I don't think it's going to hurt me (necessarily) but I'm not about to take my chances. It's a texture thing, and if you try to make me touch it I'll make you wish for death, I swear to god.

4. Sell or buy JUNK. Don't invite me to your Avon parties, don't try to sell me wicker fucking baskets. Don't bring your catalogs of cheap and worthless crap anywhere near me, or I'll use my flaming mane to ignite it. Fuck away off with that stuff. I have no use for lotion that costs $67.40 and uses goat placenta to burn my skin off, or nesting baskets that can tuck right under my couch. That's where my dog squeezes her big ass, you think I need her under there where I can't reach her, chewing up a hundred bucks worth of ugly ass baskets? I don't care if they wash my socks for me, I don't want them and they aren't worth it, so SHUT UP.

5. Laugh delicately. I sound like a trucker when I laugh. Don't judge me.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Writing, meet The Wall. Now get it on.

I will see the shadow behind his eyes, a darkness waiting to creep in and steal his breath away like a thief in the night. I know there is no light bright enough to keep it away, and yet I want to set the world on fire. I feel like failing to strike the match is failing to do my part to keep him alive, even though I know that in the end I would be left standing in a pile of rubble and ashes, and he would still be gone anyway.

I know there is nothing I can do.

Already, I'm frustrated at the idea of having to listen to the same stories I've heard a hundred times, the same anticdotes and tired jokes, the same intonations, the same questions. All of this was the soundtrack to my childhood, and while it seemed novel and indearing then, the older I get the more I realize that it is on a constant repeating loop, and I resent having to hear it all again. I want him to say something more, to delve deeper into himself and show it to me now because he may not have another chance. I want more from him than the same tired show I always get.

I feel guilty for my preemptive frustration because I know this may be the last time I hear these things. I know I should take this as an opportunity to revisit happier times, and yet all of the anger I feel toward his sickness and the fact that he's dying has to go somewhere, doesn't it? It has to be directed at something. Ideally, I would not feel this way. If I were the person I wish I was, I would not be frustrated or angry or anxious at all. I would stand against this wave that is coming, and I would hold my ground for myself and for him.

I'm not that person. I'm not calm or together, I'm not strong or independant or brave.

I'm angry that he's sick- he's done this to himself, to an extent, and it infuriates me. Did he never think ahead to what would happen? Did he never realize the gamble he was taking, and that eventually he was bound to lose? Did he not care enough about us to at least make a phoned-in effort to change the way he is and the things he does, did he not want to be here for us for longer? Did he not realize that he would orphan his daughters by constantly and consistently disregarding the advice of every medical professional to cross his path? I'm angry that I have to mourn him, that I have to be afraid to see him now, and that it's going to launch me right back to when my mother died.

I hate him for making me go back there. It fills me with the kind of anxiety and anger that I thought was well behind me. That wound is by no means fresh, it has healed over, but beneath the surface it festers. I do not want to see it torn open again, I would do anything in the world not to feel those things again, and yet there is nothing in the world I can do. I literally, physically shake at the thought of it- those weeks and months are a black, churning mass in my mind, bursts of pain radiating out and away. I don't want to go back there, I don't want to see him there with me.

I will see in him the ghost of the father I knew as a child. I will see the ghost he will become.

I'm not scared anymore; just resigned and tired. I don't want to see my father this way, yet I know that I will. I don't want to be frustrated with him, yet I can feel it bubbling inside of me, just a hint of the roiling, raging storm that is to come. I don't want to be angry, but it's easier than feeling my heart break.

I know that when I see him, I will be crushed. I know that these harder, more defensive emotions are my stupid way of trying to brace myself against the pain that is coming. Still, I feel so unprepared that it's almost laughable.

The only thing making it possible for me to attempt this trip down memory lane is that I won't be doing it alone. I will have someone to hold my hand, someone I care very much about, and he will help me hold it together when I feel my heart breaking again. He will calm me enough to listen. And there under all of this anger and pain and frustration and rage, there is a soft, silken, soothing voice.

Breathe, baby.

I'm trying. I am trying so hard.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

I shook me all night long.

Have you ever woken up from a dream where you were a roady for a metal band, only to find that you've been (and still are) playing your leg like an electric guitar in your sleep?

Yeah. Me either. That'd be weird.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Puff paint and Hanes MY way.

What in the hell is wrong with me, that I can't trust another person? Why do I always think I'm going to be tricked out onto a limb only to realize my company is tying himself to the trunk and sharpening his saw?

Jesus Christ. It's not that I'm being abandoned, it's that I'm shoving people away. Who the hell would want to be with someone that's figuratively wedging their foot into your crotch, shoving and whining, "Just gooooo then, GAAAAWD-UH!"

I need to make myself a T-shirt that says "Who the Hell Do I Think I Am?"

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

So Tired.

When a person asks you to get into a car and drive 7 hours with her, because her father is very sick and in a hospital in another state and she needs you, the ideal answer would be, "Absolutely. I love you. Let's go." Then the clouds would part, the sun would shine and you'd hold hands and skip down the road, knowing that the situation would be rendered tollerable by your mutual support and love. Bluebirds would serenade, squirrels would proceed, and everything would be a little bit closer to perfect.

The ideal answer would absolutely fucking not be, "I might have something to do that matters more, but I don't have a problem going along if it's convenient to me."

The above should most certainly be avoided if the one asking for help already has pride and control and trust issues. In fact, the above might cause the asker's stomach lining to become inflamed with acid and pure liquid rage. On top of the indigestion, uttering that phrase would beckon forth from the very bowels of hell every mutant demon known to man or mythology. Bats would swarm, skies would darken, children would shriek in horror, and everything in the world would shrivel, turn black and fucking DIE.

I'm just saying. Just making random, logical, very calm conversation over here.

Does anyone have some TUMS?

I'm just shocked. I'm shocked that I thought I could impose this kind of burden on a new relationship. I'm shocked that I didn't anticipate this kind of reaction. I'm shocked that I had the nerve/stupidity to ask this of him in the first place. They say that people and psyches morph under stress, and I can see that's true in this case. I need help and I know it, and something inside me has overridden my natural inclination to shut the fuck up and make due. I'm shocked that, while I haven't been turned down, it feels like I have and it's crushing me. I didn't think we were at the crushing stage of things just yet.

I just don't know how much plainer I can be right now. I don't know how to make myself more clear. I NEED FUCKING HELP. I need help. Help me, fucking HELP ME, for god's sake, HELP me. I am not even remotely able to deal with my father being sick right now, not even slightly. I haven't recovered from watching my mother die, I cannot DO this alone, and I don't know how else to ask for help. I don't know how to find my voice out there the way I can here, I don't know how to vocalize it. Here, it's easy. Here, I can say,

I'm traumatized. I'm so fucking broken. I admit it, I've been in serious denial since my mom died. No one was expecting the cancer, and then to watch her waste so quickly... it ate my soul. It killed me. She was only sick for 4 months, then she died and right after that I lost my baby. My body betrayed me and reacted to the stress of my mother's death by terminating the pretnancy. I lost everything at once. I never coped, I never had the courage to deal with any of it, and even though I'm doing better now and the echoing darkness inside of me is starting to fill up again, I sill don't know how to deal with any of what happened.

I know it doesn't usually seem like there's anything wrong. I know I seem independent and happy and like I'm doing well. I know that you'd never know anything was amiss to look at me. I know all of this, I kill myself trying to keep it all in the air, but I'm saying right now: it's all a lie. I need help, at least right now, please help me with this. It's too much, it's too big, and I need you.

I can't go down there and see him in the hospital, or out of the hospital but dying anyway. I know I'll look at him and see her;I can't do it alone and I need help. Please help me.

Out there, out in the real world? I can't say those things. They won't come out of my mouth. He has a good reason for needing to stay here, if he does. I know that. He's a good man, and I understand his motives. But I'm tired of being understanding, I'm tired of putting my head down and shouldering through because there's no other option, and I'm tired of being scared.

I'm so tired.

Monday, February 9, 2009

From whence I came....ish.

My father is sick. He's very sick and in the hospital an entire state away. I'm freaking my fucking shit. Of course I am, he's my father. Well... That is, I mean, I was raised with him as my father, but it's possible that he isn't. Biologically speaking. Because I wasn't born with flippers.

Err... Allow me to 'splain: My father was born a Thalidomide baby. Now, if your only reference for that term comes from "We Didn't Start the Fire," you may not be aware of what it actually means, so I'll tell you. I love to share.

Thalidomide is a sedative-hypnotic and multipe pyeloma medication. It was developed by a German pharmaceutical company and sold from 1957 to 1961 after inadequate tests were performed to assess safety. The drug is a potent teratogen in rabbits and (this will become important in just a second) PRIMATES including HUMANS: this means that severe birth defects may result if the drug is taken during pregnancy.

You see where I'm going with this. I know you do. Don't you? Fine, then let me quote from my good friend, Wikipedia, to spell it out:

Thalidomide was chiefly perscribed to pregnant women as a drug to combat morning sickness and help them sleep. Approximately 10,000 children in Africa and Europe were born with severe malformities, because their mothers had taken the drug while gestating. The impact of the drug was much smaller because FDA-approval was denied here, with approximately 17 babies born bearing its effects.

My father was one of thethose babies.

What the fuck are the odds, huh.

SO. When Thalidomide babies grow up into real people and have little squirts of their own, those babies are (GENERALLY) born with defects as well, because the genetic structure of the parent has been significantly compromised by the drug. For example: my father was born with a deformed right arm being his major defect. My older sister was born with severely clubbed legs, six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. Both of them were incredibly lucky, given the horrific extent of some defects children were born with (no faces, no spines, fused legs, appendages coming out of odd places, etc.)

Again, I'll mention: I was born without any physical defects. It is possible, of course, that my father's genes were not damaged enough to pass on to me in a noticable way; however, looking at my sister, that argument isn't worth the powder it'd take to blow it to hell because hello, extra toes, how are you?

Not that any of this REALLY matters even a LITTLE bit, because as I mentioned: He is my father. I was raised with him as my father, so it doesn't matter that my incredible sister may not be mine entirely, or that the drug his mother was given by a doctor without scruples may have served to further weaken his heart (on top of a long family history of heart disease and a number of other health problems and lifestyle choices,) or that he and I may not share genetic proof that we're related. What matters is that my father is sick and he's in a hospital in another state.

Oh yeah, and did I mention, I'm freaking my shit?

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Dude.

I just went to the door to pay the pizza man. I always inclue a handsome tip because hey, I was obviously too lazy to pull myself out of the ass groove in my couch to go and get the artery-clogging sexiness that you were so kind to ferry to my door, so here's a fiver, and you have a nice night, Sport.

I opened the door with a smile, and as we're exchanging food for money he goes, "Wow. You've got a huge apetite." And then he snickered.

Yeah. Thanks. I hope you enjoy never getting tipped at this address again, jerkwad.

Also, Mister I'm-middle-aged-and-passing-a-heaping-helping-of-judgement-to-help-your-greasy-food-go-down, let me remind you: You're middle aged and delivering pizza while wearing elasic-wasted sweat pants with a curious stain on the crotch. Additionally: I'm an angry stranger. I could have GUNS in here, for Christ's sake, people have been shot for less.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Watch out, the hyena got into the stash. Again.

I don’t trust myself. This is odd, given that I trust others quickly and completely, and am given to holding those around me to much lower standards than I hold myself. I’m probably very easy on others because I’d secretly like them to be easy on me. Conversely, I don’t believe I deserve a gentle hand. I generally believe that I deserve to feel pain.

(Not physical pain. I bruise like a peach. You’d have to hit me in the hairline so the marks wouldn’t show, and everyone knows that repeated injuries to your brain space cause damage to your thinking parts. My brain st-st-s-stutters enough as it is.)

Or, you know, the first paragraph up there could be complete psycho-babble bullshit. I might just treat others nicely because I’m trying to win their affections with good old-fashioned butt kissing, or because I’m a pansy and don’t have it in me to hold others accountable for their actions, or because I just don’t care enough to impose my standards on those around me because it’s none of my G.D business what they do or how they do it.

You see what I mean. I started this post with a statement about how I don’t trust myself. Then I go and second guess myself ABOUT myself right off the bat.

Why am I not chewing on padded walls? I’m starting to think it’s because the men in white coats have never caught me – so writing about my constant confusion on the internets in front of god and everybody should totally help me maintain my charade.

What’s gotten me going on all of this junk is that lately I’ve found myself faced with some serious aggravation. I’m aggravated because for the first time in my life, I’m happy. At least, my life is finally starting to resemble the picture I’ve always had in my head of what Happy is supposed to look like. The agitated, angry, frustrated feelings surface because now that I’m falling down the rabbit hole into a world I never thought would be available to me, people are popping out of the woodwork to yank me back out.

That’s enough to irk a girl’s tater. My tater? She is irked.

When I was miserable and depressed and having trouble finding the motivation to leave my apartment, everyone was fine with it. No one was overly concerned about me, even though I felt like I was constantly fighting for air and clinging to some last shred of myself by the skin of my teeth. Now that I’m happy it’s like there was a memo put out to every ex boyfriend, disgruntled acquaintance, old boss and angry family member, detailing my sudden lack of and need for MORE BAGGAGE. You got baggage? Bring it here, I’ll take it, my bones are no longer being crushed to dust under the weight of the world! Huzzah!

I’m about to start beating people about the head and face with the nearest blunt object. It’s very frustrating, very disappointing that instead of sharing in or even appreciating my new found happiness, instead people are trying to poke holes in the balloon that contains it.

It's not as if I'm not using the balloon for target practice myself. As I said before: I don't trust myself. I don't know how to be happy, or how to maintain it once I have a grasp on it, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to eff it all up. I don't have the slightest idea what I'm doing, and I don't believe I can keep my balance on the rope I've strung above the Pit of Dispair (Quick, name that movie!) for too long. The anger simmers on because I need all the help I can get. I simply do not know how to do this.

What I do know is that I deserve to be happy, I’ve worked my entire life for it, and I’m going to protect it.

SO! In order to protect my new found glee, I’ve decided to procure some hyenas and get them addicted to PCP. Then I will foster in them a taste for the blood of MINE ENEMIES, and fashion some mean looking body armor for them to clunk around in. Because no one’s going to mess with twacked out hyenas in chainmail, or their cheerfully grinning mistress.

Does anyone know where to find hyenas..?