improvements

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words yesterday. It was a particularly bad day until, finally, I made it to the baseball field at 7. I sat in the dying sunlight, cold beer in one hand, my husband's hand in the other, talking to friends and cheering on our team. I felt released. I realized while there it had been nearly a month since we'd gotten together with friends and was reminded how essential that is for my well-being.

That, and shoe shopping. I bought three pairs this afternoon... I couldn't help it! They were on sale at my favorite store. I can't remember the last pair I bought that wasn't from that store. I got some gold flip-flop sandals for $12, a pair of multi-hued green fabric flats, and a pair of pointy-toed brown leather flats that have cute orange tabs across the toes. Hard to explain, but super cute. Shoes are my number one indulgence. I'm going to try to find a way to wear the green ones tonight. We're going to our second game in the tournament. 

All that said, I did make myself an appointment for my headaches. I have another headache today, although the Aleve my mom gave me seems to be working pretty well. The appointment is with a neurologist who works specifically with migraines and headaches, so if anyone can help me, he can. I couldn't get in until June 17th, but that will be here before I know it. It's also in a town about an hour and a half from here (no neurologists here), but I know it will be worth the trip.

I found out earlier today an old friend of mine passed away. He had cancer as a child, a tumor on his spine, that eventually caused him to lose the use of his legs. I worked with him for a little over a year about 4 years ago. I saw him a few weeks ago, but just in passing, just got to say a quick hi, how are you. He was a cool guy, very nice, dry sense of humor, and very creative. He had a blog about handicap access to places in our town and other handicap issues. He was also a photographer, and he got married last year. Our town lost one of its great characters when it lost him. What else is a small Southern town but just a collection of characters, misplaced from their fictional stories? I think he would have liked that thought.

Makes me think about how I need to stop and smell the roses more often. Stop and say more than hi to people. Say what you need to say, right? Common theme lately. I guess that's why that song has been stuck in my head all week.

Just sitting on the couch with the Bubby right now, waiting for 3:30 to roll around so I can go get my husband and get to the field. Tomorrow begins the tiling adventure!

time to get going

I'm tired of being me. I don't hate myself and I'm not talking suicide here. I just mean I need a vacation from being myself. I'm tired of carrying around the same baggage, the same issues, ideas, stress, problems, quirks. I want to be someone else for a while. Even if their life is less happy than mine, I would find it refreshing. I'm dull and used and repetitive. 

I have another headache this morning. A dull ache running up the right side of my nose, looping around my eyebrow back down into my eye socket. I noticed on the drive in to work, and again right now, the pain makes me lean my head to the right a little, like the weight of it is pushing me down. There's a headache clinic about an hour from here. Or there's a neurologist here in my town. Might be time I saw a real doctor and not just a GP.

We were bored last night (what else is new) having run out of books and tv and finding our jigsaw puzzle a little too puzzling. We went into town to rent a movie. On the way back home, on the highway we passed a small yellow dog eating something and then shortly after a shepherd mix, obviously his buddy. People let their dogs roam too often on that busy two-lane high-speed road. Hardly a week passes where there's not some poor animal squished and pushed to the side. This morning it was a little yellow dog, not three feet from where we passed him. I swallowed sobs all the way to work. I used to be the kind of person that would stop and pick anything up-- could have been six dogs and I would have tried. I've become complacent, not wanting to upset my husband, not wanting to upset our life. I should have stopped.

I'm too hard on myself, I know. It's a really busy road, stopping in the dark would have been really dangerous. And it's been my experience that roving packs are wary of humans and will do anything, including running into traffic, to get away from one, even if they're just trying to help. But I wish I would've tried. I'd like to say I'll learn a lesson from this, but I won't. The truth is, picking them up makes me sad too, because I can't keep them. All I can do is turn them into the shelter and hope someone adopts them. 

My mom told me yesterday they're coming up to see me this weekend. They're tired of their town and need a break too. They want to get away from their phone for a bit too, I imagine. I still haven't talked to either of my brothers myself and I doubt I will for a long time. I'm too tired to care. Work has been so stressful lately, we're so broke waiting for this software to launch, yet for some reason my boss keeps talking about expanding, hiring more people. Working for a start-up like this carries its own special kind of worry, over whether or not it will last and if you'll still have a job next year. No worries about getting fired, just over my pay check not bouncing. 

I'm so tired of being me, tired of caring around all this recurring pain. It never goes away. I'm a pulsating ball of physical pain and mental torture this morning. I'm picturing myself on the beach at Destin, feeling the sun, listening to the waves and the children laugh, sipping on a fruity drink, closing my eyes and completely forgetting the rest of the world. I need about three days of that and nothing else. I need restoring, rebooting. I need to breathe, to stretch my limbs, to sigh heavily because I'm happy instead of just trying to calm myself down. I don't care about the money or the time lost, I just have to go.

Grateful Thursday

1) The new Thai restaurant in town. Pad Thai for lunch... yum yum.

2) The calming effect my husband has on me. I was freaking out a little this morning, having found out that my older brother's tuition (if he is in fact enrolled, have yet to confirm that) is actually $7000 when he told them and got a check from them last year for $12k. He scammed $5k from them. But I digress. I'm grateful that my husband is always able to calm me down and even make me laugh in those situations. He's a good guy to have around.

3) A beautiful weekend coming up and baseball games. It's the last home games, and I'm somewhat grateful for that as well. I love baseball season, but I'll be glad to have my weekends back too.

4) We got our tile in for our fireplace!! We have to polyurethane the wood before we can put out the mortar, so that will be the first step Sunday. Then next week at night we'll get to work cutting the mesh between the tiles so they will fit together (it's 1" glass tiles that come on sheets of 13" by 13"). Then comes the hard part of mortaring, applying, and grouting. But it's going to be beautiful!

5) Tom Petty, who can also make me happy no matter what. I dare you to listen to this and not be cheered up! Enjoy :)

the future common sense

"The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next." Matthew Arnold, 1875

Less than a hundred years ago, women couldn't vote. We didn't have the ability to choose our leaders, choose who would represent us in our own government, who would look out for ours and our children's well-being. I can't imagine it; can you? To be told that my voice doesn't count because of my gender, that I'm worth less than a man... for what reason? I am no less intelligent or capable of understanding than the average male. To us here in the 21st century, this is an antiquated idea, one so foreign to us that the 80 or so odd years that separate then from now might as well be an eternity. Of course the fight for equality for women isn't over yet, but we're nearly there.

Although African American and other races of men were technically allowed to vote after 1870, it wasn't until 1965, just over forty years ago, that many of them were actually registered and voting, especially here in my beloved South. I look around at the people with whom I work and at my friends... Asians, Indians, African Americans... and I wonder about a country which refused them the right to live freely for so many years and continued to try to deny them the right to vote until just forty years ago. Having only been born nearly thirty years ago myself, I wouldn't recognize a world in which people were denied such inalienable rights. Or would I?

While I understand that the courts overturning Proposition 8 in California yesterday would have set a dangerous precedent,  I question a society that would pass a proposition like that in the first place. Have we learned nothing from our own history? You cannot deny someone an essential right like the right to love and marry whomever one chooses. Not forever, anyway.

My husband and I are not religious people. We're good, honest, hard-working, and charitable people, but we do not participate in any organized religion and did not want God mentioned in our marriage ceremony. We had the hardest time finding someone to marry us! Even a judge turned us down, saying he was "up for deacon" in his church, and it wasn't right and would send the wrong signal to marry us without God. (We finally found a friend of my dad's who used to be a minister and was still ordained who read our beautiful ceremony the way it was written, by us for us.) 

Going through that ordeal, I have a small taste of what it's like for someone to tell you "No, your way of living, as normal and healthy as you think it is, is not right according to me, and therefore I say you can't have it that way." Who was that judge to tell me my way of loving and living wasn't as good as anyone else's? And who are we as a society to tell any two people in love that they aren't as good as us, that they don't deserve the same rights?

There should be a complete separation of church and state. It's the only way to ensure that those of us not involved in organized religion, or those of us in a minority religion, are treated with the same dignity and don't have purely Christian laws thrust on us, like this Prop 8. If that means that the government sanctions civil unions and churches sanction marriages, but all participants have the same equal rights, fine by me. I'll have a "civil union" with my husband. A rose by any other name, right?

If there is an "assault" on marriage right now, it comes not from the committed homosexual couples wanting to join their lives, but from all of us-- male, female, gay, straight, who get married without considering the consequences or commitment involved. The divorce rate, at nearly fifty percent, is what's really tearing American families apart, literally. But you don't see any so-called "defenders" of the "sanctity" of marriage running around trying to put restrictions on heterosexual marriages, apparently half of which should never have happened. They're too busy doing "God's work" keeping what could be happy, fruitful, and committed marriages from happening because the pair happens to be gay.

But it doesn't matter in the end, because in the end what is progressive and outrageous today will be perfectly normal and acceptable tomorrow. It's just a waiting game. I feel for people like my boss and his partner, who want nothing more than to move their eight year relationship into a marriage, but at least they have each other. I'm trying to be patient, as patient as they have been, waiting for the rest of America to catch up with what we already know.

say what you need to say/ headaches

I didn't send that letter. Which is funny because lately I've been thinking a lot about how important it is to say what you need to say to everyone in your life. I was too angry when I wrote it though, and I would have sent it out of anger, out of spite, which wouldn't help anything. So I'm leaving it alone for now, just playing the supporting role to my parents, trying to keep my father strong and my mother comforted.

But a part of me so wants him to know the pain he's caused. I don't know if he would care, but I still want to show him. 

I'm quite a shy person. Obviously-- I can't even invite people I know to read my blog. Not even my husband. He knows it exists but has no idea what's here because I won't show him. He's ok with it though, the same way he would be if I were keeping a paper diary. Is it really better to say too much than not enough? Is it better to make someone mad or upset than to keep your feelings bottled up, ready to explode? I feel like an agitated soft drink fairly often in my life, biting my tongue, keeping back the words I really want to say. But I think there's a line where words become, the truth becomes, just plain hurtful and not at all helpful. In my brother's case, I honestly don't care if I hurt him, but I do care if my words make an impact on him, and words spoken out of anger will only put him on the defensive and never make him think about their meaning. So I'm waiting until my anger goes a bit flat. If that will ever happen, I don't know.

Happy, joyous words, those I tend to say with no hesitation. The people I love know I love them. I try very hard to put out more positivity than negativity. 

In other news, I read an article last night (several, actually-- after the initial one I started searching) that said so-called "sinus" headaches are often migraines in disguise. I can watch the pointer on a barometer move and know I'm about to get a headache. I always thought it was the pressure changing in my sinuses as well that was making my face hurt, but apparently they've done studies that say that's not possible unless you also have a sinus infection, which I don't. I thought I did about a month ago (why else were my nose and eyebrows pulsing for days on end), but I just finished a two-week round of antibiotics only to begin a headache again on Sunday that has lasted to today so far. No way this is a sinus infection, I have no other symptoms. Just pain around my eyes and nose. 

So, great, now not only do I have hormone-related migraines with full-on auras, apparently I also have this other kind, brought on by weather, that last as long as the weather lasts. There's no way I'm taking those damned triptans three days in a row. I've lived with "sinus" headaches for a while now, I guess I'll just keep living with them. At least now I know no cold medicine in the world is going to help me and I can cut those out. Hey, looking on the bright side.

the end

It's time for a talk, it's time for some truth telling. It's time you know exactly what I think you are-- a liar, a manipulator, a cheat, and a lazy bastard. I will not mince my words anymore. I will not dance around my thoughts, trying to spare your precious feelings, your weak self-image. I am done. You have crossed the line of no return and dragged me with you. 

Mom and Dad are the best parents we could have asked for. No, don't start with the crying, the complaining. I'll get to that in a minute. They gave us all the opportunities in the world-- a good school, cars, whatever activities we wanted, money, college (in your case, several different tries at it). We all three had the same chances at life. They loved each other and they loved us. We had more than many of my friends ever had. 

Even if you feel you were mistreated, even if you think that they somehow did you wrong and that your childhood was torturous, even if that holds some truth for you, it's time to move on. It's time to stop blaming them. You're almost 30 years old, long ago an adult. Time to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and take responsibility for your own life. There is absolutely no reason you can't do this. Absolutely none. You are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, you just don't because it's easier for you to make them miserable, place all that guilt and blame on them, keep them hurting and feeling like they owe you. I'll just quit school, I won't be able to get that nice apartment, I'll have to sell my car. Boo freaking hoo. Get a loan for school, live in a basement apartment, take public transportation. There, problem solved. Take responsibility for yourself!

It's about time Dad cut you off, and I'm behind them every step of the way. They are good people, undeserving of the pain you're causing. They're too old for this-- you'll kill them. Dad went to bed at eight tonight because he's so tired. Mom cried on the phone with me. I can't fix them, I can't help them, and it's tearing me apart. You don't care though, do you? I'm trying to remember the last time that I saw you care about something other than yourself. I don't trust you. I see through you. I know you take their money and spend it however you want. I don't even believe that you're in school. I've seen the myspace photos, I know how you live.

I want you to know I know what you're doing, older brother, and I want you to know I will fight it until my last breath. You will not win, not this fight, not this time.

river of time

From our last fishing trip, the Little Red River, Heber Springs, Arkansas

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." ~ Carl Sandburg

I am in control of my life. I tell myself this though I'm not sure I believe it. I have high self-esteem, in the sense that I know who I am and I like myself, internally, the most a human can like themselves, flaws and all. I'm not afraid to be myself. (Physically I'm not as confident, physically I think I'm flat-chested, pear-shaped, and weak-jawed. I'm beautiful, but only from the right angles. We're all that way, though, aren't we, inside and out.)

There are people that I know that don't know themselves. They morph, they alter themselves depending on the situation, depending on to whom they are speaking. I hear the change in their voice, see it in the curvature of their spine, watch it like a cloud drift over their face. To live to be nearly 30, nearly 50, and not know oneself... tragedy. We are all we get, our one life, our one personality and face and soul. As much as I want to come back, in reincarnation style, it's not probable. So I'm trying to make sure that the life that I'm living is my own, for me, me alone as the captain of this flat-chested opinionated ship. 

I suppose it's optimistic to think we can handle the wheel our entire lives, never falling asleep, never getting bored or lazy and handing it over, never using autopilot. But the majority of the time we should be in control. Even when asking someone to join us on this journey, the way you would a spouse, you must retain an autonomous grasp on your wheel and steer it in your own direction, becoming who you want to become, doing what you need to do. If you've chosen correctly, they'll only love you more for it. 

Watching the crape myrtle leaves blowing in circles outside my window this morning, heavy clouds rolling in overhead, I'm reminded of how quickly life can change. A slight wind blows us off our course and we can't get it back, no matter how we struggle. That's ok though, I think, perhaps that puff was meant to happen. Meant to happen... what does that mean, who makes that decision? Fate, destiny, whatever you call it, do you believe in it? I struggle with it, maybe because I so want to retain possession of all my decisions, maybe because to believe in it is to believe in something higher than myself, cognizant being or not. 

It's Friday morning. I'm barely awake so I'm rambling, the words flowing down to my fingertips faster than my long size 4 and a half fingers can type them. My hair is still wet and my linen shirt is making my shoulder blades itch, so I slide back and forth against my chair, like a bear on a tree. I've got a Dr. Pepper to my right and my blackberry to my left, ready to work this morning, ready to make a difference in the lives of the coworkers I've come to admire and enjoy. But I am glad it's Friday, and this weekend I'm steering myself towards a hair cut, sushi with friends, my garage sale in the morning, my Dad's birthday celebration tomorrow, and a very lazy Sunday in the sun of my yard.

Grateful Thursday

1) Flowers, specifically my ice plant that survived the winter and is bigger and prettier than ever!

2) This grateful Thursday post I do. I was feeling kind of low this morning, already annoyed at 9 a.m., but thinking of all the things for which I am grateful has really lifted my spirits. If I had a Dr. Pepper I would be perfect.

3) Today is my Dad's 57th birthday. He's the best father I ever could have asked for, always encouraging me to be myself and do what I want to do, protecting me and watching over me yet giving me room to fly. He's created the best parts of me-- the writer, the artist, the thinker, they're all from him. He's not perfect, but he recognizes that as well, and he always owns up to his wrongs. He's a real man and has shown me, without knowing, what a real man is and how to look for one of my own. I need to call him before the work day really starts.

4) The recycling pick-up men finally found my office!! Hurray! I can't stand to throw away plastic bottles or cans or paper. So after a couple phone calls, they were convinced to come down our businesses-only street to pick ours up, and I just saw one of my office neighbors run out there and ask them where they can get some bins of their own. 

5) The birdseed bandit mystery is finally solved. It was a sneaky raccoon, which I suspected all along. The weird thing was he wasn't scared of us at all, even with me standing in the window taking pictures, and my husband banging on the window saying "Come here, little coon, come here," he continued to eat for a good five minutes. We eventually woke Bub up though, and he let the coon know who was boss, barking like a mad man, hair all on end. I wish the pictures had turned out better, but I couldn't use a flash through the window, and I wasn't going outside! I hate not knowing something, so I'm happy to have this solved. We're bringing the bird feeder in at night now, which makes me a little sad because I don't want him to go hungry, but I miss seeing the birds every day. As my husband says, though, the raccoon is resourceful enough, he'll find some other dupes to feed him. Look, you can see the seed at his feet in this first picture, where he's making himself a little pile.

I'm not the only one who forgets

I got my feelings hurt a few weeks ago, over something pretty silly. My father-in-law, step-mother-in-law, and little brother-in-law forgot my birthday. Completely. I saw them about a week before and no mention was made, and I saw them again about 4 days after, when they invited us to dinner (I was thinking surely they realized they had forgotten and were going to celebrate with me that night), but no one said a word.

I feel silly for caring. They aren't my family, and they're notorious for this. My father-in-law sent his own daughter's birthday card three months late last year, although he did call her the day of. Last year they remembered; he bought me an Arts and Crafts book. I'm not one to really celebrate my own birthday anyway. I'm much happier with a small gathering of friends, no singing or burning candles or presents, just us, as usual, which also means I'm not one to go about broadcasting upcoming events either, a la "Hey everyone, next Tuesday is my birthday, don't forget!!" My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law remembered, sent a card. My husband thinks it's funny, in a sad way, that they forgot... I don't broach the subject of his dad with him often, though. Who knows what memories lie there for him, perhaps forgotten birthdays of his own. I thought at least my brother-in-law would remember though. He's 20, really looks up to his big brother, and is over at our house all the time. 

I've been thinking more about how tired I am lately. I forgot to do something pretty important at work yesterday until just before 5, and as a result something that needed to happen today isn't going to. But I wasn't being lazy, just overwhelmed. I got a lot of other really good stuff done, but this one small but important everyday sort of activity just slipped my mind. The little things, they slide out unnoticed, like a friend leaving a party out the back door. I webmd-ed myself, but unless I've been hit in the head, am intoxicated, or am taking sleeping pills, the best they've got for me is MS, and I'm so not going down that road. You know, webmd is really a terrible thing. We're a nation full of hypochondriacs because of it.

tired

I feel like I'm out of things to say lately. I can't keep a thought very long. I come up with explosive and/or intriguing things to write, and think I'll remember this for sure....  Yet later, I can remember only that a thought occurred, maybe even where I was when the thought popped into and out of my head, but not what the actual thought was. 

Friday night I couldn't come up with an old friends name. Standing there, staring at her, knowing it was a double name, something kind of odd, but no, it wasn't there. It came to me randomly Saturday. And Saturday, in the car listening to the radio, I couldn't come up with the lead singer of Queen and had to call my husband to save me. Freddie Prince, Jr? Of course not. Freddy Mercury. Just today, I was emailing a proof of a brochure design and it took me five minutes to conjure up the word proof, a word I use every other day at least.

I'm just tired. When I sleep, I'm out the instant my cheek hits the pillowcase, and I sleep hard until the very last second, the alarm only waking me the moment it beeps. I hit the button and am gone again. Thank goodness my husband is still here at that time, banging around in the bathroom, running the water and playing with the cat, so I don't oversleep too long. Standing in the shower, my first coherent thought is usually I'm tired and shortly thereafter Why am I tired if I just had eight or more hours of hard sleep? Because my brain is so active all day, that's all I can come up with, that's why my brain is not keeping the information it needs, like names and words. Like a glass filled to the brim, another drop in makes three jump out. 

We're hiring an office assistant right now. The hiring process has just created more work, and the training process won't be much easier. I am glad the boss is back in the office starting tomorrow. Getting questions answered right away rather than waiting for that check-in call that may or may not happen makes things run a lot smoother.

I wish I had something more interesting to post, but you all will have to settle, as I have, for the randomness that is my thought pattern lately. I wish I saw an end in sight. That may help. What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. I will find and hire good help and in a couple months, things will settle down. Or it will have killed me-- one or the other.