Texas on my mind

Melissa

2005-11-22T10:58:00.000-06:00

Could you send me your e-mail address? I'd love to get in touch with you.

Forecast today

2005-11-15T09:41:00.000-06:00

It's supposed to snow today. SNOW! For someone who has lived the last five years at a steady 75-80 degrees, I am stoked.

There's sleet raining on my window at work right now. Low tonight is supposed to be in the mid 20s. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Tomorrow night is supposed to be in the mid teens.

This is so incredibly cool. (eh. I guess that goes without saying huh?)

Raw

2005-10-25T10:31:00.000-05:00

I feel so raw. I was flipping through pictures of the hurricane Wilma damage, and I am simply amazed. 98% of South Florida is without power, and they think it may be out for up to four weeks. A month with no power, which means - no lights, no air conditioning (yes, still quite necessary in S. Fla.), no gasoline (the pumps can't run without it), no hot water for most people's homes, no way to keep food cold - or to cook it (aside from a grill).

The street I worked on is littered with glass from broken windows from the high rises. The building next to it has close to 80% of the windows gone.

The building my husband worked at in downtown Ft. Lauderdale looks like a bomb went off.

Cell phone towers are down, so I can't get ahold of anyone to check in on them.

While I understand, and admit that the devastation is no where near that of Katrina as far as the loss of life - it's still horrific.

Fog

2005-10-20T12:36:00.000-05:00

It's so foggy that I can't see out of my window at work.

It sort of sums up how I feel today too.

Foggy, grey... and well just hanging around without a real purpose.

Bleh.

Wishing for a moment

2005-10-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

that today would end. I feel guilty, because I know how good I have it, but dear heaven am I exhausted.

Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton,
Oh Lordy, pick a bale of hay...

As long as their soda cans are red white and blue ones

2005-10-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

I am going to seriously beat the damn printer to death. I wish I had a baseball bat and an open field.

I'm having a "PC Load Letter" day, and it's only 10:15.

Ugh.

How Long, How Long Blues

2005-10-17T09:23:00.000-05:00

Another seizure surprised me over the weekend.

This time, I had no warning. This time the feeling of tenseness in my back, the way my vision tunnels before it happens was missing. Usually, that's how I prepare myself for it - giving me just precious moments to prepare for the inevitable. But it didn't happen, and that leaves me more frightened than anything.

Instead of a warning there was just blackness and the feeling that the ground was giving way beneath me. Afterward, it was the same metallic taste in my mouth and the unbelievable exhaustion.

I don't want to go through this anymore.

I am so tired. So tired.

And I know deep down that the doctor visits are going to have to start up again.

The drunk girl

2005-10-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

Sitting three rows in front of me today was the drunkest, most obnoxious, loudest person I've ever had to tolerate in a sporting event. She was perhaps 20 - maybe a few years older, but I doubt it.

She spent the entire game screaming at the top of her lungs and shaking her large - but not really attractive - chest at those of us unlucky enough to be sitting behind her (i.e. in the opposite direction from the field). She was so wasted that she spilled her entire beer not once, not twice, or even three times - but FOUR times on the fans sitting around her. She became belligerent, and wouldn't sit down and just generally was a complete pain in the ass.

I'm a very laid back person. It takes a lot to get under my skin.

So it was a bit surprising when I went up to the guy she was with and said that if he was going to bring her back, he was going to have to bring a muzzle for her.

And then I yelled at her to sit her drunk ass down, and I swear - she turned around and urinated on herself. And then she kept dancing.

I wish I was making this up. But trust me, I will never ever be drunk again. Seeing her make an ass of herself like that basically completely eliminated the possibility of that ever happening.

Vulnerable

2005-10-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

I have tired to ensure that I distanced myself as much as possible from as many people as I could.

I pushed away those closest to me. I kept secrets, even at times from myself. The truth about who I am, who I think I am - at least, was always hidden beneath a thin veil of secrecy. Little by little, I would let people in - slowly shedding the outer layers of protection. Inevitably the closeness became that which hurt me most. Inevitably my words were brought back - twisted and snarled. My misconstrued truths appeared pregnant with mendacity under the harsh light of criticism.

I had forgotten how precarious it is to be vulnerable. I forgot how simultaneously frightening and alluring it is to be raw - so open, allowing another to casually thumb through my pages, reading, interpreting as they see fit. To be disrobed of secrecy... my breath feels stolen. My heart pounds and my hands quiver.

Without anonyminity to cloak me, I am left defenseless.

With all my armor falling down, in a pile at my feet
And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep

Learning to trust is so difficult.

Weekend

2005-10-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

I'm an amateur photographer, and was hoping to get away this weekend to take pictures of the changing leaves in the Ozarks. Unfortunately, Mother Nature is running a little late this year, so my plans will likely be sidelined. A pity because the autumn sun is so beautiful for photographs, it seems to make everything take on a warm, golden glow.

We have a Chiefs game on Sunday against Washington (and growing up - as I did in Dallas you are taught from a very early age that the Redskins are mortal enemies) . And how offensive is that name anyway? I can deal with the Utah Utes or the Florida State Seminoles for mascots, because they are actually named after a tribe. My great grandfather lives on a reservation in Oklahoma and although upon looking at me you would have no doubt that I am anything but 100% Irish or German, they are my people too. But "redskins" is just a racial slur. It would be similar to calling a team the Niggers or the Wetbacks or Beaners. It makes my skin crawl.

I'm hoping to get the 400+ tulip and daffodil bulbs I have in the ground this weekend, and hopefully doing some more writing, and perhaps work some on a quilt top that I'm planning.

Sometimes, not having big plans is the best plan of all.

Fragments

2005-10-13T13:24:00.000-05:00

I love to write, and for the last fifteen years or so have been scrawling poetry into the margins of books, on errant receipts and airplane napkins. Most of it I never keep, although I wish I had.

My mother was a voracious reader, and taught me to read when I was in kindergarden. Incidentally, I also was taught to write in cursive before most of my classmates had conquered printing their name. I always asked for books instead of toys, reading and rereading the books until the spines literally split and the pages fluttered. In my basement are a stash of my favorites from childhood - Twiddlebugs at Work (a Seasame Street book), The Penguin Who Hated the Cold (a Goldenbook I think - but maybe Disney), The Dollhouse Murders, The Witch of Blackbird Pond - and perhaps fifty others from various ages that I hope someday to pass along to my own children.

I loved all sorts of books, and still do today. I wrote a lot - finding it cathartic to make up stories to escape the emptiness in my own life. Eventually I branched out into poetry, and occasionally I still find my earliest poems tucked into my grandmother's books. I've never been comfortable sharing my writing with people, as I am perhaps my own worst critic and tend to throw away most of the better pieces.

I was heavily moved by e e cummings, Marge Piercy, D. H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, Sylvia Plath and an untold number of other poets - their names not remembered, but their verses etched onto my heart.

In particular, I remember in seventh grade flipping through the poetry books in the musty public library and finding a poem about birches - their branches inextricably linked "at the ruined end of summer" or something similar. For the first time while reading I was moved to tears. I have been looking for a long time for the poem, as I only remember snippets of the lines, and those, I am afraid may have been warped by a faulty memory and the passage of time.

I wish somehow, these fragments of memories were larger - that I could sew them together and remember.

Why is the pineapple smoking?

2005-10-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening by the time I got around to making dinner I was beyond bushed. Pork chops were sizzling, the stuffing was nearly done and I thought I'd throw a loaf of french bread into the oven.

After a few minutes I noticed that it looked like a fresh pineapple I had sitting on top of the stove was smoking. Curious, I picked it up - smelling it - trying to find out why it was smoking.

Now mind you, I was really really tired. Too tired in fact to probably have been cooking dinner.

As I sat there smelling the pineapple, wondering what the hell was making it smoke, a realization hit me.

I had left the paper wrapper on the bread when I put it in the oven. I opened the oven door and smoke and fire billowed out. Instinctively, I grabbed the FLAMING bread with my bare hands and threw it on the counter. By this time the entire downstairs was covered in smoke, and the smoke alarm started howling. I was rushing to open doors and windows, and dancing like a crazy woman trying to fan the smoke out of the kitchen.

Michael walked in and said what the hell is on fire?!?! And I said I can't tell you. I really can't. This just goes beyond stupidity. I finally fessed up and he spent the entire night looking over at me and laughing, telling me that I'm adorable.

Apparently my husband, he has a thing for arsonists, or at least pyros.

The bread had curled into a U shape. And you know what - I still served part of it.

Pepto Fountains

2005-10-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

I live in the city of fountains. Seriously, this place is a hidden gem of beauty - nothing like the back woods cow town I imagined before I moved here. The only city in the entire world that has more fountains is Rome. They're beautiful (and I'm going to grieve when they're shut down for the winter. With temps dipping into the low 40s tonight I noticed one was turned off on the way into work this morning).

For the last few days the fountains in the city have all been spewing bright pepto pink water, and placards have been placed around the fountains to remind people to "think pink" and to get mammograms. I guess that October is breast cancer awareness month.

Now, I am a big supporter of breast cancer research - namely because well, I'm quite fond of my tatas, and can readily appreciate other peoples as well. I donate every year to the Susan G. Komen foundation, a very good family friend (who incidentally is a man) nearly died of breast cancer two years ago. Michael had a colleague pass away from breast cancer when she was only 26 or 27.

I was grousing on the way home that the fountains looked ridiculous - I just kept thinking of Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias ("Paaaaank is my signatuh colah"). This morning though, my check on the girls in the shower rendered up something that just didn't feel right.

I have fibrocystic breasts, so things there are always unforunately a little lumpy. Vitamin E seems to help sometimes, but with normal hormone fluctuations things start to feel like cream of wheat that has been cooked too long. But the spot I found was rock hard, and it didn't move like the normal cysts.

In the end, I am sure that it will turn out to be nothing. In the end, I am sure that everything will be o.k.

But right this very moment, things are a little worrisome to say the least.

I wouldn't have remembered to even check had it not been for the fountains last night. I usually never check because I always assume I'm too young to worry about it.

Half Baked

2005-10-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

They decided, (and who "they" is, I'm not really sure) that my office needed to be repainted today. Not this evening, but twenty minutes ago - when I am in the midst of writing a legal opinion letter regarding the tax qualified status of a multi-million dollar deal. Not really spectacular timing if you ask me, but then again, no one did.

Since I am forced to keep my door closed to concentrate (I'm at the end of a hall and all the noise tunnels directly into my office) I am also simultaneously concentrating toxic paint fumes.

Dude. I want some doritos.

Bile

2005-10-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last week that I was working in the early hours of the morning, and that as I was walking to the kitchen to make more coffee he was standing there in the shadows. At first I walked right past him. His face was foreign somehow, forgotten - a mere shadow of a memory, but yet there was an undeniable familiarity. But then I heard his voice, and my heart stopped.

And I knew it was him before I ever turned my head to see. And I knew, that it was too late to scream. Too late to get away.

I won't go into the minute details of the dream, how I ran screaming from him down a hallway, how I tripped on the beige carpet and slammed my entire weight into the door to lock it before he opened it. How he used a fire extinguisher to beat my office door down. I won't go into how people heard me screaming and went about their business like nothing was wrong, or how after all this time I woke up with a scream caught in my throat and my heart wildly - madly beating my mouth full of bile. After all this time, I am still afraid.

It had been nearly a year since I last had a nightmare about him. Old roommates complained that I used to scream every night - that they felt as if we were living in a haunted house. How do you explain that the haunting is in your own mind - hidden truths buried in your own heart? How do you explain that after the bruises fade that the scars still remain? When we were first married, Michael said I screamed every night- begging for someone to stop. Beseechingly crying out for mercy. Over time, I gradually felt safe in my new life and the dreams faded, only occasionally coming back to haunt me.

It had been nearly a year, but the fear was so tangible - so incredibly strong that I found comfort only after locking myself in my bathroom and rocking myself on the cold tile floor. After all this time, I am still that afraid.

I thought by now it would be over. I thought by now I would be healed.

But instead, now when I find a car coming up fast behind me on the street, I instinctively look in my rear view mirror to see if it's him. Instead, I find myself afraid to be alone in the house again, afraid to venture out in the dark. Instead, I find myself full of self-hate that I allowed it to happen. I find myself angry that I didn't stand up. I find myself utterly devoid of hope.

I hate being afraid. I hate that you did this to me. I hate that this fear will never go away.

I am still a prisoner to an unspeakable truth that bears down with greater force than you ever did. I just want it to go away.

Finally

2005-10-03T11:49:00.000-05:00

My house... is finally mine. For the first time since we've lived here - it's actually just the two of us here.

Well, aside from the last remnants of her stuff in the basement. We helped her move out on Saturday morning, and do you think we got even so much as a thank you for being the only ones to help her move out? Do you think we got one for housing her rent and bill free for over two months? Uh - not so much. Not even a simple "thanks."

But it's over. And that is cause for serious celebration.

Littering

2005-09-26T09:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we spent the day fishing at a handful of lakes in the area. They were beautiful pristine spots. The autumn afternoon sun was warm on my back, as the wind was lapping over the waters.

Geese were frolicking about the edges of the lake, their distinctive sound breaking the silence of solitude.

It was perfect. It was pristine... until

I noticed that people everywhere were throwing trash on the ground. Spent line, beer cans, broken tackle.

Michael and I spent an hour at dusk picking up after everyone else and throwing their refuse away in the garbage can that was ON THE WAY to the parking area.

Why are people such assholes?

Displaced

2005-09-25T20:18:00.000-05:00

Friday evening was our "date" night... something that we rarely do. Too often I think we get caught up in just existing, and forget that we are still lovers, still dating in a sense, even if we are married.

We went to a hole in the wall pub, ate fantastico chicken wings and the best BLT that ever existed, and then decided to go to the art fair. It's the 75th anniversary or something of the art fair, and we needed a rather strong piece for the transitional area between our living and dining rooms. We had a good time walking through, and I will say that the art fairs here put the Las Olas art fair to shame.

As we were walking back to the car, there was a group of men with placards standing on the streetcorner yelling at everyone that passed (via bullhorn) that they were damned to hell, and that they needed to accept Christ as their savior or they were going to burn in the fiery pits...

yada yada yada

Michael leaned over and said, "Well, I guess they got displaced from New Orleans as well."

I laughed so hard I nearly fell over.

And then my heart ached for our beautiful city of Orleans. And I worried about those that I know and love impacted by Rita.

Women are inherently rational

2005-09-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

I mean, how else could I justify that during a moment of extreme stress, that I went and had seven inches of my hair whacked off last night?

Don't all women do that during emotional upheaval?

No?

It's just me?

Ahh.

Well, some bit of good news today - I PASSED THE BAR EXAM! Results were posted at 11:00 this morning, and I will now officially be dual licensed.

The most important news of the week is still pending, so keep your fingers crossed for that.

Blast from the past

2005-09-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

From time to time I wonder what has happened to people I knew once upon a time. And no, not just people that I dated or crushed on - but for instance Amy and Kelli Hodges who were twins and my best friends in fourth grade whose dad used to go hot air ballooning, or Melissa Sobotka and Shana Metz my best friends in third grade who I lost track of some fifteen years or so ago. Or people from my highschool classes... although not necessarily the Cubs pitcher that I went to school with. I'm sure everyone else wants to be his best friend now that he's in the "show"- but not so much for me. Whatever happened to Bill Harding? Hillary? Sabrina? A million other people?

I wonder if other people other than him have made their big breaks. I wonder if they're content with their lives in suburbia shuttling kids to and from soccer practice.

True, I wonder about "those" people too. Not that I have any intention or desire to rekindle old flames, but I just want to see how they're doing, to see if they're happy with the lives that they have. Are they married, do they have kids, etc.? Are they happy with their career choices? Have they all turned into right wing nutjobs?

O.k. I admit, a small part of me wants to go "haha! look how much you screwed up" to a certain person or two, but for the most part my interest is completely innocent.

I got another random e-mail from someone I went to high school with the other day and hopped on to Cl.ass.mates to see if I could find out where a few other people were. To my disappointment, the majority of people that I wanted to find weren't on there.

I wonder if some of the people I'd like to find even would remember me.

Just don't.

2005-09-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

In the event you have a blister the size of a half dollar on your palm, from your sad attempts at converting the side of your yard into a tulip garden - without realizing that no, you don't have soil but really two feet of clay cleverly disguised with an inch of topsoil... it might be a good idea to just step away from the gel antibacterial cleanser in the bathroom because it will burn like a sum' o bitch.

In seven days

2005-09-18T20:58:00.000-05:00

All kinds of news, both extremely good or absolutely devastating could hit our house this week.

I'm literally ill with trepidation.

Friday apparently did not go well. Not at all. My heart is just sick with worry. No matter what, we will work through this together. I just hope he knows that I will stand by him through this.

Wednesday some incredibly important results come in for me.

Thursday we have an appointment with our last shot "miracle" doctor.

Saturday we had planned to go to the Ren Fest, but he looked at me and said - you know, I think that we should go get items to donate for Katrina. We went to Costco, loaded up on diapers, baby wipes (ironic really...), feminine hygiene products, water and toilet paper. Then we took Ms. Pants' lead and went to the dollar store and literally wiped out their stock of $1 shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, deodorant, and bought fresh clean new undies for men, women, and children in all sizes.

We drove to Manhattan to deliver it to the football semi-truck that is headed to Louisiana on Wed.

We didn't do it because we expect to find favor with the fates in exchange. However, if it helps, well - I certainly won't turn it down. Not right now.

We could use all the help in the world this week.

My knees are literally raw from begging for mercy.

An overwheling time

2005-09-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

too large of a bed
too large of beers had alone, sitting at the bar with googly eyed men pretending I was single. When all I wanted was you, here.

I wonder sometimes, what it's like to be on the other side.

but instead, I see that I am where I am. I am happy with that. For the first time in a long time.

I just hate the very minute that I'm in right now.

God I miss you.

Smiles verbotten

2005-09-15T15:14:00.000-05:00

Having been seriously attached to two men now of rather heavy German descent, the new law in Germany declaring that all future passport photos must be made without smiling strikes me as hilarious.

But will they be without tight white jeans too?

Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Nuggets with Almonds - I love you. Seriously. My ass doesn't... but I do.

Mice infected with black death are....

2005-09-15T14:52:00.000-05:00

Missing.

Fan-fucking-tastic. Three mice that were infected with bubonic plague are "missing."

How exactly does one lose the plague?

*sigh*

Empty bed

2005-09-15T13:38:00.000-05:00

In the three plus years that we've been married, Michael and I have only slept apart at most a smattering of days that can be counted with my fingers. Once, because we were fighting, and we both woke up alone in the middle of the night and met each other in the hallway asking for the other to come to bed. For my sister's high school graduation, for each of my bar exams, for the first day of his (I drove up the second day because I couldn't sleep without him) - and that's it.

I hated sleeping with another person before I met him. I hated the feel of another person's breath on my neck while I was trying to sleep. I hated the feel of another person's body generating warmth in the coolness of the cotton sheets. I couldn't sleep with someone else in the bed.

Tonight, he is out of town to deal with an incredibly uncomfortable situation that has been brewing for over a year. Tonight, I will sleep alone, in a house that creaks in the night. A house in a neighborhood that I am unfamiliar with, in an area where I feel foreign.

Actually, tonight I won't sleep. I can't sleep without him there.

I already miss him.

I sound pathetic.

Never underestimate the little guy

2005-09-13T12:08:00.000-05:00

Our street is lined with tall stately oaks that must be around thirty to forty feet high. Every morning and evening a plethora of squirrels scurry between the yards, stuffing acorns away for the winter. Yesterday morning when I went outside, there was a group of five squirrels or so in one patch of the yard that were foraging for acorns.

As I opened the front door, I startled them and they stood up on their haunches, their stash held in their front paws. As the door slammed behind me, one large squirrel dropped the acorn he was holding, and a chipmunk who was under the porch ran out and took it while the squirrel stood frozen. The chipmunk stopped a few yards away from the group of squirrels and chirped, something that I can only imagine is the chipmunspeak equivalent of "take that suckaaas!" and he took off up the downspout.

The 'robbed' squirrel who was easily three times larger than the chipmunk looked dumfounded and vocalized a rather angry sounding noise.

I couldn't help but laugh.

Just in case

2005-09-09T22:33:00.000-05:00

You ever visit Huntington, West Virginia and end up staying in the Ramada because all the other hotels are all booked up, beware of room 214. It apparently is directly above the electrical room and you will feel as if you have put in a quarter for the "massaging" bed in a seedy roadside motel. The walls vibrate, the mirror above the dresser vibrates, your eardrums will vibrate.

But don't worry about it... there are no other rooms in town.

It'll serve to settle your nerves since you flew in from Cleveland on an Embraer 145 which could handle a whopping 18 passengers on board.

The MG

2005-09-09T09:57:00.000-05:00

Michael's mom just gave us a little white convertible MG. It's got blue pinstriping, and is adorable. It still needs some restorative work, but my Dad is an absolute genius when it comes to fixing cars. He's going to come up and have the car shipped down on a trailer, and then fix it up and drive it back.

I am so incredibly excited.

Melted lipstick

2005-09-08T15:03:00.000-05:00

I'm an amazingly lazy person at times, and tend to put my makeup on in the car on the way to work. It had been unusually cool here, so I just left it in the frontseat. I wasn't expecting the heat wave of the last few days, and when I went to put lipstick on the contents of the tube just oozed into a giant melty mess.

I was amongst the last group of children that didn't have mandatory child safety seats and seat belts. I remember standing on the hump that cleaved the floorboard in the back of the car, bracing my stubby toddler arms between the front two bucket seats so I could see through the windshield. My mother always threw her arm in front of me to prevent me from barrelling through the window every time she stopped. I still do that now, with my husband in the passenger seat. It's instinctive.

On a blistering hot afternoon when I was about three years old, she left me in the front seat alone while she ran inside my grandmother's house. No trip to my grandmother's house is a quick one, to this day, and it must have taken longer than she had expected.

Bored, I decided to look through her purse to find something to entertain myself with. I found her crimson lipstick - the holy grail of entertainment. At first I tried to mimic her - sliding it over my lips - but my coordination was off and instead I ended up biting through it. I still remember how badly it tasted. I tried wiping it off, which only made things worse. As a child I hated to have my hands dirty... I wouldn't play in sand boxes, wouldn't play with birthday cakes... nada. Bright red melting lipstick was everywhere. It was all over my hands... and I got frustrated, and left it on the seat where it promptly oozed into the new seats. Angrily, I flung it a la Jackson Pollock around the front seat. I patty caked my red hands all over the windows. Streaks of crimson ran down the passenger window and across the dash.

About five minutes later my mother walked up to the car and saw the massacre of Mary Kay. I still remember how loud her screams were, I remember her yanking me out of the car... I remember her frantically looking me over, trying to see where I was hemorhaging from.

We had the car only a week tops, it's white leather interior looked like a mob hit.

I wonder if she still remembers.

streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttchhhhhhh

2005-09-08T11:44:00.000-05:00

I have been reading internal revenue regulations for the last four hours.

I am so sleepy.

Choices choices....

2005-09-07T18:26:00.000-05:00

Work? Pub?
Pub? Work?
Work? Pub?
Pub? Work?

Think I can squeeze in both?

Random teeth stuff

2005-09-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

Why is it every time I drink a diet coke (I'm from Texas - so"coke" means Dr. Pepper, Sprite, etc. - basically anything carbonated) that it feels like my enamel is dissolving off my teeth? I know it's an urban legend, but still....

I'm sort of a freak about teeth.

I carry floss with me at all times, I actually enjoy going to the dentist. I use Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste, but as a kid used only Crest (the blue gel). My sister was fascinated with Miss Piggy bubblegum toothpaste with silver glitter in it and to this day it makes me gag to smell artificial bubblegum flavoring.

When I was 14, I had very expensive liquid sealants that hardened into little enameled covered caps put into my back molars. I walked out of the dental office and chewed a piece of gum and they all immediately popped out. My family was not happy with me. The dentist had to redo them, twice. They still popped out.

I'm really bad about chewing on things - pens, ice, my nails... etc. or using my teeth to open things.

I'm horribly afraid of dentures (my great-grandmother used to be able to pop hers out at us with her tongue and I was petrified of them).

My next door neighbors had two sets of baby teeth come in and fall out. I thought that was incredibly cool.

I was one of the last kids in my class to lose a tooth. I lost my bottom two front teeth first, during the same weekend in first grade. One wasn't even really loose, but I wouldn't leave it alone until it fell out. I was so proud of my snaggletooth school pictures.

I lost a tooth in a Hostess chocolate pudding filled fried pie and haven't been able to eat them since.

I once left a letter for the tooth fairy to leave a picture of herself so I could know for sure she was real. I wasn't sure I believed, but I didn't want to be wrong and miss out.

My sisters all had braces. I didn't.

My teeth used to be fairly straight, but now - thanks to impacted wisdom teeth - they're kinda jumbled on the bottom. I'd like to get them now, but feel silly at my age about doing it.

I chipped a tooth last year and had to have the dentist file it down for me.

One of my front teeth has a flouride stain on it that makes it have an incredibly white stripe in it. It looks sort of like the little stars that cartoonists use to show that something is shiny. I used to hate it, but I've gotten used to it.

I had all four of my impacted wisdom teeth extracted at one time. So unlike normal adults who have 32 teeth, I have 28. I busted out all my stitches and got oreo crumbs stuck in the holes because I just couldn't take any more jello and mashed potatoes. I ended up with more stitches. Which I again promptly pulled out.

My tongue is just barely long enough to flip up and cover my upper teeth. My lingual frenulum should have been cut when I was a baby and it wasn't. My tongue is the shortest I've ever seen.

I dream about my teeth a lot... about them falling out or swallowing them. I have no idea what that means.

Sweeeeeeeeettttttttttt

2005-09-07T12:09:00.000-05:00

I got my deposit back today from the house that we were at in S. Fla. I am so relieved. $2,880+ back into our account, if only for a short time before it's sent of to bills and to help out some more in New Orleans.

In five weeks, we've now received a whopping one piece of forwarded mail from the old house. Thank GOD the landlord sent it to the new house. Considering that there is apparently already a new tenant in the old house, I doubt we'll see much of it. I'm going to drop a handwritten note in the mail to them today to see if I can find out if the mail is being delivered there. Who knows if they'll even open it or respond to it.

6 a.m. tailgating

2005-09-07T11:37:00.000-05:00

Michael and I are flying out to Huntington, West Virginia this weekend for a football game. He's pretty serious about college football. The game is televised on ESPN, but super early in the morning, so we'll be tailgating at around 6 a.m.

That's a little early for me...

Changing of the guard

2005-09-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

With Rhenquist gone, I shudder to think about the make up of the Supreme Court in the upcoming years. The thought of Roberts becoming the Chief Justice makes me green around the gills. The President may have confidence in him, but I do not. I shudder at the thought of having a Chief Justice who is so conservative. It doesn't matter if you call him "moderate." A spade is a spade. What really bothers me, though is the fact that Roberts is so young. As much as Scalia frightens me I would rather he be appointed to the position of Chief Justice.

I fear that we are rolling back the clock on all the freedoms we hold dear.

I am truly afraid.

Sometimes

2005-09-02T17:23:00.000-05:00

After all this time my heart still occasionally gets hung in my throat.

I was sitting on my bed this morning, leaning down to put on my stockings. As I looked down I gasped. My porcelain colored legs... marred by bruises, covered in varying shades of green and purple splotches. My breath caught in my throat and the sobs wracked my body, it had been so long. I had almost forgotten.

This time, it really was from my clumsiness. This time, I really did fall. I really did run into the sharp corner of a dresser. This time, I didn't have to say that as an excuse to cover up the truth.

This time it was just a memory floating into the present... not a horror I was trying to repress.

I am finally getting used to being safe. I am finally getting used to being able to sleep without one eye open...

I am finally not afraid.

But it still hurts. It will never go away.

Why does this make sense?!?!

2005-09-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

I finally have a secretary. Considering that I've been here now a month - it's about damn time.

I'm sharing her with two partners. What I do NOT understand, however is that my secretary is assisting three attorneys now who all work on THREE DIFFERENT FLOORS.

How is this efficient? What do you think the chances are that I will *ever* see her are?

Bah.

Some things simply never change

2005-09-01T18:26:00.000-05:00

I was heartened, at first to learn that people were opening their homes to those that lost theirs due to Katrina. I was pondering whether we would be able to help, and perusing the ads that people put up on craigslist and other places.

White Baptist family willing to house same.

I promise that I will stop talking about the hypocrisy of people who claim to be Christians. That is not what this blog is about... and it's not what I dwell on normally. But it bothers me. It REALLY bothers me.

All kinds of people, all faiths, all creeds, all colors, all sexual orientations, all races were affected by this disaster. I understand that it is (at least on a base level) gracious that someone would offer the intimacy of their home to someone. I realize that someone would perhaps, be a little uncomfortabe sharing their home with someone who did not share & respect their religious beliefs. But what better way to demonstrate your faith than by housing someone who is, shockingly enough, just a little different than you?

I did not, however, realize that as a nation we are still so fixated on race. I simply cannot comprehend how someone who claims to be a Chrisitan would refuse to provide a roof, or a meal for another human being because of the color of their skin...

Giving

2005-08-31T18:52:00.000-05:00

I've made passing reference to it in the past, but I want to bring it up because it's important to me.

When I was 11, I was being raised on a temporary basis by my great grandparents. My Pa-Paw was a mechanic with a sixth grade education and was essentially the sole breadwinner of the household. He passed away suddenly of advanced lymphoma with no savings, no insurance, nothing but around $1,000 in the checking account. We spiraled down in a matter of days from poor to I take it there will be no side items with our waffles tonight poor.

That Christmas, people who I had never met donated things so that we could have a "normal" Christmas. I got clothes, toys, jewelry from people who knew nothing more than my name. We survived the next few years on food stamps and church handouts. And every year, we spent our Christmas eve delivering food baskets to others because we knew what it was like to be hungry.

My experiences pale with what the people suffering from the Hurricane are going through. For those that were insured, the losses may be redeemed in part - but that will not replace family heirlooms, it will not put Shannon's graduation pictures and Aunt Meredith's antique christening gown back in their homes.

My concern though, is for those that weren't insured. Who, like us, were making it paycheck to paycheck when their world literally washed away. Those who no longer have even the luxury of a roof over their head or food to eat.

You may ask if you can be sure that your donations will go to someone who can use it... who will appreciate it. I can't obviously guarantee that, but I know that in my heart I'm greatful for everything that people did to help me out. To show me that there was hope, that there was a splinter of good left in the world.

My employer is matching all employee contributions to the Red Cross. I don't know who - or to what you would be comfortable donating money to, but I ask that you dig deep. And look at your life and see how lucky you really are. And remember, it could have happened to any of us.

Pay it forward.

T minus three days

2005-08-31T18:32:00.000-05:00

We are still in BOX mode. Yes, we have been here a month and we are STILL UNPACKING because we are such good little capitalists that we have more shit than we know what to do with.

Well, sort of - but mostly because we're both packrats.

My parents, my three younger sisters (20, 16 and 15) and my 4 year old cousin are driving up from Ft. Worth* this weekend to see the new digs. They're staying with us in our two bedroom house. It's going to be cozy to say the least.

We're going to be in Manhattan (the little apple - not the big one) for the FIU/K State game on Saturday, and then driving back home to meet them. Home. It hasn't quite sunk in yet. I'm used to seeing 'Canes and Seminoles on people's cars, not Tigers and Wildcats and Jayhawks. It still feels a little off.

*Michael always laughs because I say that I'm from Dallas and not Ft. Worth. Technically I'm from neither - but right smack in the middle. I remember being in high school and there was an Absolut Vodka ad that was an Absolut Dallas and Absolut Ft. Worth photo spread on opposite pages of a lot of magazines. The woman that was Dallas was refined, in dark clothes and diamonds. Ft. Worth was a cowgirl hat and turqouise.

Is this really what's important?

2005-08-31T18:22:00.000-05:00

There are close to 80,000 people in shelters along the Gulf Coast because of Katrina. There are BODIES floating in the flood waters. HUMAN BODIES.

Nearly 1,000 people died today when the rumor of a suicide bomber caused a human stampede.

The hunger crisis in Niger is getting worse by the moment.

So why should I give a fuck that Martha Stewart's getting her ankle bracelet off today?

Is this really news? Is this what's important?

*sigh* Sometimes... I just don't understand people.

Is it just me?

2005-08-31T16:12:00.000-05:00

So, the new town actually has an "alternative" station - granted it's The Buzz... but considering that Miami didn't have one at all, it's still an improvement.

Every. Single. Morning. on the way to work this past week I've heard the Jack Johnson song "Where'd All the Good People Go. " Given that I have a fifteen minute commute, I'm a little concerned about their playlist diversity. But whatever... the song is strangely hypnotic. I found myself humming along to it today standing in front of the printer while I was standing there obliterating acres of rainforest waiting for the longest document to ever cross the planet to finish before the toner just decided to up and quit.

His voice seemed so familiar, but I couldn't place it... then I realized that Jack's voice reminded me strangely of John Wozniak of Marcy Playground.

Alcohol and file clerks

2005-08-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

Seeing as how I' m infected with the plague, well sick.... I've tried to keep myself as quarantined as possible. I just opened my office door and a file clerk walked by with a stack of mail and was taking a swig from a beer bottle.

Once I roused myself from my sudafed induced stupor I realized that there was a happy hour for a departing partner going on down the hall. Nothing like employer sponsored alcohol at 4:00 in the afternoon.

Unfortunately I am too sick to go down there, but the noise is penetrating the four inch thick door like it was a dryer sheet.

Sigh.

And they even have margaritas and I'm not going.

You know I'm sick.

No I'm fine

2005-08-29T13:03:00.000-05:00

I just hab a weally bad cold.

I sound ridiculous, my sinuses are about to explode from pressure and all I want is to go home and lay down.

Topeka and Zealots

2005-08-29T11:43:00.000-05:00

This weekend we were in Topeka cleaning out the entire lifetime's worth of trinkets held by a family member now resigned to living in a nursing home.

We went through boxes and boxes of newspaper clippings, torn out recipes, expired prescriptions, costume jewelry, mismatched gloves. My heart was so heavy during this time. I shuddered to think about someone later going through my life - casually throwing out the artifacts that were precious to me, scrutinizing the value of tiny trinkets that I had tucked carefully into little boxes, their worth questionable - but nonetheless sentimentally important.

It was truly heartwrenching.

When I got home, weary from heavy labor moving 1960s furniture (wow furniture was heavier then than it is now), I thought I would relax a bit and read the news.

Apparently Fred Phelps, the psychotic zealot from westboro baptist "church " (and yes, I use that term very loosely - refusing even to acknowledge it as a proper noun), a person who has routinely advised his congregation that they should beat their wives and children, that AIDS was a plague caused when Truman Capote had an orgy with African tribesmen, passed it to JFK and Robert Fitzgerald by playing football with them, and they - during a menage a trois - passed it to Marilyn Monroe - and then the CIA was forced to assasinate all three of them to stop the spread of the disease. I mean doesn't this man sound like he's just a few cards short of a deck?!?!? Anyway, he has his zombies, er parishoners protesting at the funerals of National Guard members killed in the line of duty in Iraq. While these Guardsmen and women were being laid to rest, and their families were grieving openly alongside their caskets - the members of Phelp's church were screaming that they deserved to die... that G-d hates them and they are burning in hell.

What frightens me most about this situation is not that this one man is deranged. It's pitiful, and I honestly believe the man should be treated for mental illness. If it is not in fact mental illness that has spawned his unspeakable actions, I am confident that there will come a time where he is forced to answer for the atrocities that he has committed cloaked in the veil of false religion. What scares me is that he is merely a spokesman for a much larger population of people who utilize their "faith" to extol a community of hatred and bigotry. People who have traded in blind acceptance of their leadership in exchange for what they feel will be redemption and reward in the afterlife. People who point to scriptural references as validation for their hate, picking and chosing book and chapter based on their personal agenda, neglecting the very tenents of a religion supposed to be based on forgiveness, respect, and humbleness. Overlooking the verses of tolerance, carefully glossing over the admonitions that do not meet their personal goals.

I am not an overtly religious person, but I still consider myself a deeply spiritual person. I do not put my unyielding faith in the literal interpretation of a text that was written, and revised a number of times over hundreds of years - largely from oral history by human beings who by their very nature are fallible. Perhaps this is why Phelps and his progeny of hatemongerers disturb me most. They claim that they are in G-d's favor, they mock religion and place themselves in a position to cast judgment - including eternal damnation - on anyone whose beliefs deviate (even slightly) from their interpretation of Truth. I shudder to think that any person would be able to make such a judgment.

Living in America's heartland for the last month, I have seen a number of people profess that we will win in Iraq, because we are the chosen people - we are in God's favor. They say we should be on a spiritual journey to decimate Islam. We have our own holy war, and to fight, and die for it means you will be rewarded in the afterlife. I ask you, how is this rhetoric any different than the beliefs and propoganda of terrorists? Is it because we claim to act under the favor of our G-d that we are immediately absolved of any ethical or moral consequences?

Sigh. I'm not sure where this rambling is going other than to say that I don't profess to know all the answers. I think any human being who does is to be feared. And I pray every night for G-d to protect me from those people who are professing to be his followers.

Blown away

2005-08-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

The eye of Hurricane Katrina came onshore exactly 1 mile from the house we just moved from. Considering that the eye was 15 miles wide, it would have definitely passed our house.

I am so happy we are gone.

As much as I miss the beach, and the sun, and the warm weather - I am so thankful to be gone.

A sneaky suspicion

2005-08-25T14:11:00.000-05:00

I have a rather sneaky suspicion that my animal crackers are closet republicans hell bent on converting me.

I have a giant tub of them from Costco in my "stash" in my office. I just grabbed a handful (ah - lunch on the go) - and there were eight elephants and one donkey. No lions and tigers and bears oh my - nope just the animal cracker version of t&a (trunks & ass).

The donkey's head was missing.

It is all a vast right wing conspiracy. So help me God - if I find that donkey head in my bed tonight I think I'll have a heart attack.

Dear USPS

2005-08-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

It has now been 1 month since we put in our change of address. We have been at the new house for the same amount of time.

We have not received a single piece of mail. We have called three times now to check, and have been told that "someone will look into it and will call us back." Strange, no one has called.

I called back today and was told "it would be documented." WTF?

You officially suck.

Sell! Buy! Hold!

2005-08-23T12:29:00.000-05:00

Apparently I'm the last to know these sorts of things because I'm admittedly pretty technologically inept.

But apparently there are groups of people who are buying and selling "shares" of blogs on blogshares. And my two - they're on there.

How bizarre.

Seriously.

2005-08-23T12:06:00.000-05:00

Pat Robertson, you make me physically ill.

You are everything that someone who purports to be a Christian should NOT be - bigoted, inciting calls to violence, intolerant, unforgiving, spiteful, gossiping, and evil.

The fact that people turn to you for advice and guidance in their spiritual lives makes me even sicker.

May God have pity on your soul.

So sleepy

2005-08-22T15:46:00.000-05:00

I went to bed around 2.

I've been in the office since 6.

I am so sleepy.

I bought new fancy pants (as in nearly $100 a pillow) down pillows this weekend for the new bed. I rarely buy expensive items for myself, but I love to buy nice things for my "nest." I bought them "extra firm" because seriously how hard can down be right?

Uh. Wrong.

I have a WICKED knot in my neck from that damn pillow. I look vaguely Quasimodoesque slumped over at my desk because it's the only position that's comfortable.

Bad juju

2005-08-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

Apparently I am bad luck to my newly adopted teams.

Saturday, we went to a football game - and wow is it different here. People actually cared about a preseason game. The fans had decorated buses, vans and even a HEARSE. A hearse decked out in red and gold ... it was unbelievable. The starters played well, but by the second half when it was largely third and fourth stringers on the field it started to be a waste of time. We left at the end of the third quarter, but still had a good time even though the Cardinals summarily kicked their rear.

And boulevard unfiltered wheat is on tap at the game. Fantastic.

Yesterday we left the house around 7:30 a.m. to drive to St. Louis for the game. Once again - wow was it different than Miami. The fans were pretty polite (aside from the drunk 21 year old in front of us with his underage girlfriend), but sweet mother was it hot & humid.

As we were going to get something to eat at the game, my heart was torn into thousands of pieces.

There was a young marine watching the game, who at most was 22. He was unbelievably gorgeous - chiseled features and the most stunning crystal blue eyes. His gaze was stern - focused. Both of his legs were gone, amputated above the knees. I started crying... for him, for the ones who can't come home to their spouses and parents, for the children who will grow up without them, for the ones who will come home to find that their sacrifice was far greater than they signed up for. I wept for all of them.

This isn't right. We shouldn't be there. I am strongly against the war because I support our troops, not because I'm unpatriotic. Bring them home. NOW.

What she never had the courage to say

2005-08-19T21:26:00.000-05:00

I forgot to tell you.

Actually,
in all honesty, I didn't forget.
I never have in all this time,
I didn't have the courage,
I didn't have the chance.

The timing was off,
It wasn't proper.
I couldn't.
I shouldn't have.
But I did.

I do.
I always will,
and I think you understand.

But due to circumstances,
the words will not escape my lips.
It's changed too... more pure
more innocent, but just as much.

I'm afraid to see you, afraid
my eyes will deceive me....
pouring forth the emotion
that I have worked to restrain.

Written once,
on tearstained paper
after it was too late.
No return address.

Trust in your heart.

I cannot end the loneliness
or break you free,
but when the silence is too loud
remember, you are not alone.

You will never be alone.

Theory and Practice

2005-08-18T11:22:00.000-05:00

Now that I live somewhere that actually has seasons, I'm excited about purchasing real fall clothes. I'm horribly allergic to wool, which just means I get to splurge more on cashmere and other luxury items. Well, as much as my budget will allow - so probably more synthetics than cashmere, but hey - a girl can dream.

As I was shopping online today, I was looking at the fall trend report on a couple of sites. I'm not typically a fashionista, but I love the deep earthy and jewel tones, the rich tweeds, leather, suede and the pleated plaid school girl skirts and soft knit sweaters that to me evoke memories of "back to school" (odd - considering that I grew up in Texas where back to school in August certainly did not mean any of those things), football, and leaves changing (which also didn't really happen in Texas - but I'm able to manufacture mass produced memories from advertising damn it).

As I've gotten older, I've learned to buy clothing and shoes that I truly love, not just that looks good or is on sale. I've become very picky about what's comfortable and refuse to wear something that's trendy just for the sake of fitting in. I may not be on the cusp of what others have determined is "in style" but I have a pretty signature style of my own.

I prefer quality, tailored pieces that are going to last and that will fit me well. Other than a few select places, I couldn't imagine buying clothes without first trying them on - measuring tapes be damned. The designers of women's clothes are insane. I could wear anything from a 4 to an 18 depending on who the designer is - and how the item's cut. While a "true" 7 1/2 - 8 size shoe, I've worn anything from a 6 to a 9 1/2 depending on the shoe. So while buying online certainly opens up a plethora of options - who really can? I don't understand. Are there legions of women out there who are able to simply throw on any piece of clothing and have it fit beautifully?

A lot of places were coupling longish tweed wool skirts with fishnets, and I love fishnet tights. Very retro styled (which I heart something fierce). And I've bought them for myself a time or two, but I can never bring myself to wear them. Once they're on, I feel like other people look at me like I'm a street walker. I'm just not comfortable enough in them to do it.

But we'll see. I feel a little braver than usual...

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

2005-08-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

The briefcase landed with a solid thud at the foot of the stairs, but part of me wished it had been louder - more defiant. I unbuckled the black leather straps encircling my ankles and discarded the shoes haphazardly at the top of the landing. Clothes flung with frustration precariously balanced on towel racks and melted, dripping from the window sill and puddled onto the tile floor. Dusk and mingled twilight filtered through the blinds, as I stood there, still - quiet - naked, contemplating turning the lights on. It was too much effort to expose and confront the rawness. The soft embrace of darkness seemed safer.

Scalding water poured over me, mixing with the salt - baptising my fear, eroding the last bastion of hope. At first, the cool porcelain tile supported the weight. You should be used to this. It's your own fault - isn't it always? You're selfish to think it would be different this time. You don't know what's worse - that he doesn't or that you have no other options. You should have known better. Why would someone - why should someone? No one does - and no one ever will. It was too much.

No longer strong enough to stand, I knelt there, letting the water pour over me. Prone, I humbly begged for guidance. I cried out beseechingly for help, for hope, for strength. No one answered. No one ever does.

The water kept pouring forth, the temperature slipping from lukewarm to cold. It was more habit than intention, more reflex than passion. As it swirled in the drain, I let go and accepted the undeniable state of the truth. Fingers numb, I shakingly turned off the water wrapped up in a towel and climbed into bed. Alone.

I'm here!!!

2005-08-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

My new townhouse shares a narrow common driveway with three other townhouses that opens up in the back to a four car garage. From the front of the driveway, there are maybe two or three steps to the right up a small hill, and then a sidewalk leads to my door. There is, er was, a wrought iron guardrail up the side of the stairs. Granted, it wasn't incredibly secure, but it would have come in handy during the winter when the sidewalk will be an icefest.

Yesterday, a white van whipped back into the driveway and promptly plowed over the guardrail. The driver was backing up with such velocity that the guardrail went flying a good ten feet and smacked the side of the house with enough force to shatter a few bricks. The guardrail was around three feet higher than the driveway, so I'm still not really sure how it happened. The windows in the house were open, and the driver of the van hung his head out of the window and sang "I'm HERE!" in the most stereotypically gay voice you could imagine to no one in particular.

I was utterly speechless. It was so ridiculous I was beside myself with laughter. I bet it scared the bejesus out of the poor chipmunks that live under the porch.

Quiet.

2005-08-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

Doors slamming. Cold shoulders.

The lonely sound of dialtone.

Voices escalating and neighbors peering over the bushes

I'm not good at this. I don't want to be.

Happy Anniversary.

Laughing at myself

2005-08-15T15:41:00.000-05:00

I work with someone with the most grating laugh - it sounds like an enormous pack of dying hyenas. And she's a very bubbly person, so it's a sound that often bounces down the hallway startling me from the depths of concentration.

I've never been fond of the sound of my own laughter - or for that matter - the sound of my own voice. I hate listening to voice messages I've left for other people, they leave me appalled. I've always been teased about my voice, and I'm extremely self conscious about it. When I hear myself talking - it doesn't sound like that. I wonder sometimes what it sounds like to other people. Surely my own voice doesn't have that deep Texas twang. At least I hope it doesn't. Surely it doesn't sound that way. And it leaves me wondering, am I the person with the grating laugh that others are bitching about in their blogs?

A gentle reminder

2005-08-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

I know, on at least some fundamental level, that no matter how difficult the trials you are going through - there is someone out there who is going through so much more. I didn't want to call, but sucked it up and e-mailed her back, thinking that if nothing else - we had our joint memories to fall back on if the conversation lulled too much. I now feel so guilty for thinking my problems were of anyone's concern.

She e-mailed me back almost immediately, pouring out the heartache that was her life for the last few years. Another failed marriage that lasted only months and other relationships that left her no better off, losing her job, her car, making the decision to let her three oldest kids live with their father and the youngest with her mother because she had no means to support them, living in a homeless shelter - someone who was once like a sister to me lived in a homeless shelter - because she had no where else to go. Dealing with fluid around her heart, and other serious health ailments - with no emotional or financial support system.

She's still struggling, the youngest baby girl lives with her full time now - and she's in preschool. She's trying to straighten out her credit and saving up to buy a house. She's working, and trying to scrap together the rest of her life. She's 27 years old and dealing with more than most people do in a lifetime.

My heart was breaking because I couldn't even imagine going through what she did. And she was so upbeat - saying that being homeless was the best thing that ever happened to her. That she was changed because of it - a better person. I don't know if she's found religion, or just hope.

All I know is that I wish I could help her. I wish I could make it better. That I could take away the years of pain she's had and give her the happiness she's always wanted. That she deserves. That every person deserves.

I feel so humbled.

confessional ridiculousness

2005-08-15T10:28:00.000-05:00

At about four this morning, I woke up from a dream, and sat up startled, realizing I wasn't "home." The room was cold, the blankets damp from the morning breeze... and I couldn't stop shaking. I tossed and turned on the new mattress, silently cursing it's unbelievable firmness, and finally giving up and walking down the hall to the guest room. I curled up for a few minutes amongst the stacks of sheets and towels still waiting to be put in the linen closet. I have a very difficult time sleeping, as I fear the vulnerability that comes with the cover of night.

I have an especially hard time sleeping with someone else. Back in my earlier dating days, I hated the promise of sharing a bed with someone else - as I knew that I would be awake all night, never finding a way to be comfortable, never feeling "safe". I would fake sleep the way that other women faked orgasms, the deception necessary to avoid the uncomfortable reality of the truth.

I longed for the ability to curl up into someone's arms and feel safe, to feel home. To be able to lay my head into his nook, softly talking about everything and nothing at the same time, gently stroking his chest - and be warmed by his body as I slipped unaware into slumber. In reality, I never cared much for being held when I slept, but I loved the idea. Sophomoric as it may seem, I think it was just that the puzzle pieces didn't quite match. There was always something that was missing, or that was too much. Sleep seems like it should be so simple, and for other people I suppose it is. To me though, in some ways it was even more intimate than sex.

When I find myself in that strange place of being unable to sleep, my mind wanders. A habitual worrier, I think about children starving in Niger, of the decimation of the world's natural resources. And aside from the serious contemplative issues that clog my brain, there are other questions - other issues that have perpetually bothered me since childhood. This morning was one of those mornings.

When I look at a color, and proclaim it's blue - is it really? Or is it just that I have been conditioned to associate that hue with the named color? When you look at it - is it what I would think is green, only green is blue to you?

Alms for a former leper...

2005-08-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

I got an e-mail yesterday that disturbed me somewhat. Technically we still are under a lease in Florida, that was to be bought out by my new employer, so we are arguably still under the terms of the contract. We have a roughly $3,000 deposit that I am waiting to have returned to us on it as well.

My ex (er, whatever) landlord sent us an e-mail requesting a donation on her behalf for a charity. Now, I tend to be a rather generous person, and I spend a great deal of money on charity. Charity that I approve. I don't like being pressured for $$ from someone who has power over me, or who I might slight if I don't donate. If it was a friend or a family member, I would feel differently I think. But someone I don't socialize with, and who knows me only tangentially? Hmm.

My last boss used to ask for rather large donations to his favorite charity every year, and I felt it was inappropriate to NOT donate.

Charity should come from the heart, not from a desire to get your full deposit back, or to keep your job.

Please make the boxes stop

2005-08-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

I am so tired of unpacking.

I am drowning in a sea of cardboard boxes, packing tape and uninked newsprint.

Summer breezes

2005-08-14T17:47:00.000-05:00

It's unusually cool here today. The windows are all open, and the breeze is coming in, but it's damp, heavy and it clings to everything. I feel ungraceful as I trip through the cardboard maze, carefully stepping over the pictures left to hang, watchful not to tip over a glass of lemonade left on the stairs.

Everything feels off-kilter.

I got an e-mail from a girl I went to highschool with today. She and I were best friends for a long time, and I haven't heard from her in about five years. On my sixteenth birthday, she threw a surprise birthday party for me in her backyard. We used to go tubing together in the summer, in bikinis and cut off shorts, trying to pretend we were older than we were to get the attention of guys we had no business trying to talk to. We traded clothes, boyfriends, jokes, and got into more trouble than two teenage girls ever should have. We would each say that we were spending the night at the other's house and stay out all night together. She had a rough life, and got pregnant when she was only 17, and got married before graduation. She now has, from what I've heard through the grapevine, four kids. She's divorced, twice now I think. She never went to college after graduation, she was too busy rushing after kids and trying to make her marriage less miserable than it was.

She hated my first husband and begged me not to marry him. She said that I would never be happy, that I should follow my heart. I thought she was jealous, that she just wanted me to be unhappy like she was. When I married him, she refused to come to the wedding - she said she would object, that she would make sure that I didn't throw my life away. During the wedding, I hoped she, or someone else would come bursting through the church doors a la The Graduate, but no one did, and I wasn't brave enough to do it myself. She only called me one more time after that, and we talked maybe 20 minutes before she had to put the boys in the bath.

At Christmas, around five years ago or so, a few friends from middle and high school got together, and I saw her there. Her daughter was just a baby, and I held her most of the night as we caught up on where our lives were now. She was getting remarried, and asked me to be her maid of honor. I told her I would love to, but that I couldn't do it. She said I was stuck up, that I forgot where I came from, that I had no right to think that I was better than her because I had been in college for so long. She lit into me, yelling that because I drove a Lexus and had expensive clothes and jewelry did not make me better than her. I never thought it did.

I won't lie and say that I am not thankful that I got out of the 'trap' of being uneducated and living paycheck to paycheck. I won't say that I didn't wish she had done something more with her life. She sent me a scathing e-mail sometime later, that I never had the courage or the heart to respond to. I couldn't tell her that part of me would have given anything to be a mother... that she accomplished more by doing that than I did in three degrees.

I'm not sure how to respond to her, or if I will. I want her to be happy, and I would like to know how she is, but I don't know what we would talk about if I did call her.

Baby the lucky ones for a moment or two...

2005-08-12T09:31:00.000-05:00

Pat Green is going to be in town soon, and I would love to go - but last night when I asked if he would go with me, he gave a resounding "not a chance in hell." Guess that pretty much clears that up.

True, it's part of a tour with Kenny Chesney and Gretchen Wilson, neither of whom I'm really interested in seeing. And by not interested, I mean not even in the "we can still be friends kind of way." It's not going to be in a smaller venue, and I think that will take away from the dancehall charm. A huge arena is not exactly City Limits, you know? Given that he's a "special guest" and not the headline act, I'm wondering how many songs he'd actually sing. I'm also going to be driving back from St. Louis that day from a Cards game (one of the last in Busch stadium), so I know it's going to be difficult, if not impossible to get back in time.

But still. I've missed him now by two days in New Orleans, a day in the Dallas area.

So take me out to a dancehall
Slap my foot down to the rhythm
Tell 'em to play them old songs that we all love
And you tell me that you want me
And I tell you that I want you too
And I kiss your face,
Whenever you want me to.

Drenched

2005-08-12T09:18:00.000-05:00

This morning, when the alarm went off the room was strangely dark. Then there was a booming crack of thunder and the heavens opened and the rain came down in sheets.

It smells wonderful outside. I had forgotten what the rain smells like mingled with cut grass - how warm and comforting it is. Some of my fondest memories were the summer that I lived in the coed dorm on campus, and we would all sit outside the front porch watching the thunderstorms - the sky a murky purple with tongues of lightening. It never smelled like that in S. Fla. when it rained, maybe because of the ocean? But it smells like it here, and it's wonderful...

It's taking all I have not to go outside and just sit there, watching the clouds rumble in.

Rainy days should be spent snuggled under a thick antique quilt with a steaming mug of cocoa or hot tea tinged with honey, listening to the rain on the windowpane and reading a good book.

The greatest thing

2005-08-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

about the new house is my bathroom. It has a mosaic navy and white porcelain tile floor in an almost celtic love knot pattern. The paint is in all likelihood 100% lead, and the floor creaks, but I love the room. I took a bubble bath in there last night, and the tub is nice and deep. Not the claw foot I would love to have, but it'll definitely do. I'm putting a chandelier in there (candle lit) and can't wait to relax in the cold winter months with steaming hot water and a glass of wine. The tub in the old house just really wasn't worth the effort of a bath, but here - ahhhh I can't wait to get home.

Now if I only had someone to wash my hair for me... that would make it perfect.

Haiku, part deux

2005-08-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

Spam clogging my blog
inbox overflowing it's
driving me insane

The Big E

2005-08-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

My heart just got a little melty. I would totally leave my husband for this man, at least for a night or two, or as many as I could get away with.

Looks like Lindros is going to be back on the ice - and perhaps for Toronto, the team he has always wanted to play for.

I am elated. Lindros made me love hockey. He was roughly physical, but so graceful on the ice. And hot - let's not forget that. I love big bulky men and he was definitely easy on the eyes. Seeing him play (in person) before his latest concussion was one of the best sports memories I have. I get tingly just thinking about it.

On September 11, when I first found out about the attacks, I was wearing an old Flyers #88 jersey making pancakes and trying to figure out why there was some movie about the Pentagon being on fire on ESPN.

I was a Flyers fan, until I just couldn't stand Bobby Clarke anymore, and then I was a Rangers fan. Looks like a Maple Leaf is in my future.

Updated to say - indeed it is. And wow is he delicious.

Look Ma - a Cavity!

2005-08-11T10:16:00.000-05:00

In 26 years, I have never managed to have a cavity in my teeth. Given that we were so poor growing up that I rarely went to the dentist, that's somewhat of a miracle. The only problem I ever had was my wisdom teeth were impacted, and I had to have them surgically excised in law school. My dentists always raved about how strong my teeth were.

The last time I went to the dentist, I complained that when I bit down hard that sometimes my teeth would sort of stick together - like I had a piece of hard candy between them. The masochistic dental hygenist told me that I had a spot of enamel that was 'a bit soft' on one of my bottom molars, but that it shouldn't be an issue. This morning I stopped for a drink at Sonic (can I tell you how excited I am that they have Sonics here?!?!?!) and as I took a swig horrible pain shot through my mouth and that tooth just throbbed.

I think I have a cavity. I just elected not to get dental insurance through work. I am not particularly pleased.

Daily Haiku

2005-08-10T16:02:00.000-05:00

I sometimes wonder
what life would be like with you
by my side always

Settling in

2005-08-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

I'm here. I'm alive, but I can't say much more than that.

Well, to recap - here's the story.

The bar exam was horrific, I stayed in a hotel that advertised great room service and a relaxing pool only to get there, be refused my room - and have the restaurant mysteriously "under rennovation" and the pool be a 2 foot deep extravaganza of black sludge. At least I had semi-operative air conditioning, something a lot of other hotel guests did not have. Although I did have a rather poorly skilled clarinet player in the room next to me during the night inbetween day 1 and 2 of the bar.

We were supposed to leave on Friday morning, after I flew back from the bar exam late Thursday. Now, what is the ONE thing that would be bad to happen on a flight where you have to leave from your destination at 6 a.m. and drive across country? Hmm. that would be 1) a delay and 2) the airline losing your luggage. Guess which happened to me? That's right - BOTH. As I was sitting in the DFW airport - some period of time close to FOREVER on the runway - I had a sneaking suspicion that somehow my bags were not on the plane with me. This is also about the time that we had been sitting on the tarmac for close to 30 minutes with me needing to have gone to the bathroom before we left St. Louis and listening to the inebriated women behind me go on and on about nothing in the thickest Texas drawl I've ever heard. My bags decided that they would like to take the scenic route to S. Florida and ended up at around 2 a.m. at my house.

As he was coming to pick me up from the airport, his check engine light came on. Now I've been known to be a daring person upon occasion, but somehow moving across country didn't seem to be the time to have a car breakdown, especially when faced with finding service for one of them 'foreign cars' in backwoods Mississippi. So we thought we'd drop the car off at the dealership, tell them the importance of us getting it back quickly, and be on the road later that afternoon. Since his car was being dropped off, we thought we'd have mine looked at too. Nine hours later, two nails had been removed from my front tires, and his oxygen sensors were replaced. Storms were rolling in, so we decided to leave the next morning and suffer one more night on an air mattress.

As we were finally getting ready to leave, after packing an ungodly amount of stuff into the cars that the movers neglected to take (although - upon unpacking last night I did find that they so nicely decided to pack FRESH plums in a silver decorative basket for me.... oh that was retched. Nine days without temperature control does not make for an especially fresh plum) We each hauled one cat into the freshly catnip induced front seat of our respective cars, and bode the beaches, sand and waves goodbye. After driving for awhile I decided to let Alex out of the carrier because he seemed so calm. Seemed. What occurred next was a disaster of sorts involving a longhaired cat with exploding diarrhea who took shelter in a rubbermaid tub full of cactus, a devastating rainstorm that made it impossible to roll down the windows in the car, and no place to turn off the highway for around forty minutes, about three packages of baby wipes and a stench that I am not sure will ever get out of the upholstery in my car. And did I mention at that point all he wanted to do was to crawl in my lap. Good times. It was so awful that I couldn't stop to eat, afraid that when I rolled down the window the stench would hit the fast food attendant so hard that they would pass out.

And here I thought the bar exam was rough.

We made the 26+ hour drive in two days, and have started settling into the new place. I don't think I've ever been this tired though, and am so busy at the new job I can barely see straight.

I love having my own bathroom again, and I'm going to have killer legs given how many times I go up and down the stairs in the new place. It doesn't feel like home yet, but the neighbors are salesmanagers for a high end wine and beer distributor, and made us welcome with two wonderful bottles of wine that I can't wait to sample - assuming I ever find the wine glasses in the ENORMOUS FLOOR TO CEILING stack of boxes on ALL THREE STORIES OF THE HOUSE.

But yeah, I'm here. The people are really nice, and I like my new job a lot but sweet jesus am I busy.

I find out if I passed the bar around mid September. That's a long time to wait. A long long time.

hyperventilating

2005-07-24T18:26:00.000-05:00

I leave at 5 a.m. tomorrow for the bar exam. There are a stack of preparation books I never even opened because I didn't have time. I fly into the closest airport and drive three hours to the hotel.

While I'm gone, the movers will have come and taken away everything we own.

I am so afraid.

The fear of failure has always been my biggest worry - aside from never being loved.

If you've got a spare prayer, or thought, or anything, I could use it right now.

In the next five days, I have to sit the bar, clean out my entire house, and move cross country. Why in the world did I think this was a good idea again?

Not a good idea

2005-07-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

No matter how much you are desperately craving mexican food, eating 24 jalepenos in one sitting will not abate that desire, and frankly it just is NOT a good idea. You will be in serious pain all night long, and no amount of tagamet will relieve this pain.

Trust me.

Damn you J.K. Rowling

2005-07-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

If I fail the bar, it will be your fault.

Initial here

2005-07-19T10:28:00.000-05:00

Elegantly woven twisted and bound
six thousand threads of crimson
imprison my despondency
echoing devotion

do not forsake
the scent of spring
hope of twilight's touch
molten copper cascading
over palest porcelain

Between, among, inside
every permutation, nuanced
trust the undeniable
truth, passion, love

weary yet strong
stand until duty
fulfilled, no longer tarries
hold fast
remember even trifles

Leave now with haste
armed with faith
annointed by fate
bravery suits you.

Ants in the pants?!?!?

2005-07-13T08:21:00.000-05:00

I've been 26 for almost a week now, and I still haven't talked to either of my parents. I bought myself roses on my birthday, and they shriveled up and wilted, without ever opening. Bah.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.

I got a few random e-mails that surprised me, my roommate from grad school, a girl who I haven't seen since the first year of law school...

Michael's gift to me isn't being delivered until we move into the new house, but he showed up with Ants in the Pants as a joke. I laughed so hard I cried. And for the record, it's actually much harder to play than I would have imagined.

I started a new job on Monday, although considering that I won't actually show up to it until August 1, it feels a little strange to think that I'm "working" when I'm sitting on the couch in my underwear.

My mom left a message the day after my birthday to let me know that my grandmother fell and shattered her arm trying to grab a stray kitten off the porch. When they got home from the hospital the air conditioning was broken in the house. When it rains, well in our family it's a veritable flash flood.

In two weeks, I will be done with the bar exam. I am so ill prepared, and so stressed. I just keep telling myself, this too will pass. This too will pass. I just hope I do.

Goodbyes

2005-07-06T10:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not a real girly girl (ironic that I say that considering that I'm wearing a bright pink skirt, a cashmere black seater, a diamond brooch and a ribbon belt that matches the skirt with a pair of strappy black sandals) but I spent a few hours - and I won't even mention how much $$ saying my goodbyes to Sephora over the weekend. Yes, I realize that it's possible to order online - but it's not the same. It really isn't. I played will all sorts of pretty sparkly things and came home with a random bunch of stuff (Benefit's Bathina shaving cream which my Sephora no longer stocks but just happened to have some in the back - it's heaven. I've been using it for a year and it's w.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.l., some Cargo bronzer, some Sephora eye makeup remover, a new compact, blah blah blah.)

I'll miss my local Sephora although I have to admit that I wasn't as in love with the one in Paris like I thought I would be. The closest one to where we'll be is outside St. Louis, or Dallas.

I'm trying to say my goodbyes to a lot of places.

Last night we went to the little hole in the wall Cuban restaurant that I love. A giant piece of grilled snapper piled high with onions and lime served with black beans that are like velvet and rice and fried plantains for $9.95. Heavenly delicious.

I'm also trying to say my goodbyes to a lot of people too, something I've never been good at or comfortable with. I have a ton of acquaintances here, but no true friends to speak of. I can probably count on one hand how many "real" friends I've had in my life - the ones that no matter how many miles or years pass, we can still pick up right where we left off. The ones whose smiles are forever etched onto my heart. In a way, it's sad that I don't have someone here like that to say goodbye to. But then again, I'm grateful, because I'm much more the type of person who just slips away undetected.

A lot of "friends" from law school want to get together before I leave... but I just don't feel into it. It feels contrived - I mean we haven't been keeping up with each other for the last two years, so why should my departure have a last hurrah?

In a few days, none of this will matter

2005-06-30T16:18:00.000-05:00

But in the meantime, I wish I could just crawl up and tell everyone to leave me the fuck alone. I am one of the calmest people on the face of the earth, but today - after being told that the four hours of work I did on a document yesterday didn't show up in the new version, and basically calling me a liar to my face - that I never did any of it - I nearly lost it. When I offered to fix it, after finding an orphaned copy of the document on my harddrive, when you rolled your eyes at me and said you would have someone else who could handle it do it - yeah.

I've been in my office crying for the last two hours. I'm so angry I'm shaking. I know it's not about this. But I just can't take anymore screaming - today has been just absolutely h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e.

If I didn't worry about not having a paycheck for that extra week, and for looking unprofessional (and having to report walking out with no notice to the bar and oh - perhaps a malpractice action) I would completely blow this popsicle stand tonight and never look back.

But no. I'm a glutton for punishment, and I will sit here, upset - and worry about what these people think of me, and how horrible the next week will be.

But there is only one week.

Seven days left.

Lost and Finding

2005-06-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

Well, we went to about fifteen different apartments/lofts this weekend trying to find a place that was: (a) clean, (b) reasonably charming, (c) affordable; and (d) within a short enough commute to work - but not too close to family. Since it snows there, covered parking was important too.

We looked at quite a few lofts (horribly disappointing - when you think of a loft apartment do you picture generic beige apartment carpeting and speckled white walls? Well - I don't anyway. One loft was adorable - exposed brick, enormous floor to ceiling windows - looking out over a green area - in a converted warehouse - but they had put up 3/4 walls throughout the entire space and it felt so claustrophobic. It was a horrible use of space, and for a one bedroom for $1300 in that market - I said no thanks. They also wanted close to another $100/mo. to park - and $10/per 10 pounds of pet. Considering I have two monstrous nearly 20 pound cats - that was just wayyyyyy too much moohla.

We also checked out one too many generic white bread apartments. yes, I realize that you have newer appliances and amenities (such as a heated pool) but let's get real. Who here thinks I'll be hopping in the pool when the average high temps are hovering at around 20 degrees?

On Saturday, I found an apartment on the third floor in an older building that was directly across the street (well - across the park) from my new job. It had exposed brick in the kitchen, with all granite countertops - new stainless appliances, hardwood floors, built in wine rack in the kitchen, stained glass windows in the bathroom, a sun room, etc. - but... it was $1250 a month. Considering I'm taking around $12,000 paycut to move there that's a big deal to me. Walking distance to work - but I couldn't exactly call and say that I was stuck in traffic now could I?

Sunday - we went to get coffee and this little independent coffeehouse (very cute) that we had coffee at on Saturday. On our way out, he stopped to read the sports page. I was irritated with him because he was taking so damn long, and picked up the paper and flipped to the classifieds. Townhome - 2/2, hardwood floors, full dry basement. After going to all of our other appointments - and realizing that our flight left in two and half hours and we had NO clue where we were going to live... on a whim, we drove by. Cute from the street, the place wasn't amazingly spectacular inside - but for a year - I think it would be perfect. Literally within walking distance to a brewery/pub. Two blocks inside a state that actually believes in science and not religious mumbo jumbo. Washer/dryer hookups in the enormous basement, one car garage, street parking for the other car, original hardwood floors... nice quiet residential street. Bigger place than we have now. Giant beautiful maple tree in the front yard.

And the best part - $775/mo.

That is less than HALF what we pay now a month. I am so elated. It's got phenomenal closet space and it's close to shopping... work... everything.

Finally something good. Finally.

Italian does not mean deaf.

2005-06-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

In my other office, there is an attorney visiting from Italy who sits in the office next to me. His English is, while heavily accented (all the better for me - I have a thing for any man with an accent - and a special fondness for Italian men*) is impeccable. There is a partner who is working with him who is convinced he must be deaf. She practically screams in his ears each time she talks to him. I can only imagine how this must grate on his nerves.

He's not going to understand you any better if you're just louder.

It's ridiculous, and yet - when we were in France and 'Dam we noticed so many Americans doing this. Straining their voices to the upper limit to make themselves (in their minds) clearer.

I want to point out to her that she's making an ass of herself. I mean, what are they going to do - fire me?

*A few years ago, I briefly, but simultaenously dated three men named Anthony Joseph Italianlastnamio- none of who knew about the other. My husband, who was just a friend then - however, did know at the time - and thought it was hilarious. Ehhhh- it definitely made slip ups of names easier to deal with.

Winding down and freaking out

2005-06-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

I've given my notice at my job, and I'm trying to simultaneously wind down and tie up a million loose ends.

We fly out tomorrow to try to find an apt. because I'm not sure how long we'll be there and I don't want to get trapped in a house or neighborhood we're unhappy with. I'm committment phobic. {You know... I'm always the guy in the relationship. The one who is typically irritated by spooning (I'm not big on being held), who feels foreplay is usually a waste of time... the one who doesn't call when I say I will... the one who would rather go fishing with a cooler full of beer than attend a chick flick, the one who doesn't want to talk about "feelings" and "where is this relationship going" and always forgets anniversaries and birthdays. Yeah, I'm that girl.}

As I attempt to stare down the giant pile of documents piling over my desks (I actually have two offices now) I keep thinking...

I feel like I am choking. There is not enough air.

There is so much to be done.
There is so much I haven't even started.
There is so much that I have to finish.
There is so much that I don't even know where to start.

And then I get stressed. And then I realize...

There are only 24 hours in a day.
I am only one person.
I do not have superpowers.

When I go home at night, I try to study - pushing myself to remember the minutea of criminal procedure, conflicting constitutional dicta spewed from the Supremes, rules of procedure and evidence, and all the things I tried so hard to forget after the bar exam two years ago. The problem with learning another state's laws are that they are just familiar enough to make you comfortable and yet foreign enough that you find yourself utterly confused and exposed. I have one month and three days until the bar exam. one month and three days. As the words roll across my tongue in anything other than the softest whisper my heart palpitates and I feel faint.

When I took it before I studied for at least seven weeks straight. No work. No trying to coordinate a cross-country move. No distractions.

I have two weeks left of work. Fourteen days, nine work days. I am supposed to be at a doctor's office today having a cyst tested, but I had to cancel the appointment - because I am so innundated with work here.

There are fifteen days until my birthday. By now, I thought I would have "done" something with my life. Something meaningful. Something lasting. Something that would bring other people happiness or meaning. I feel so insignificant. I feel like I have failed to do anything other than live a life of mediocracy.

When I first moved here, I didn't know anyone. I came here to be with someone that I thought I loved. Someone that I found only loved my potential, my promise of being a trophy... not me. Late nights, with him in another state, I would sit on the beach in the moonlight letting the waves lap at my bare legs. I felt so tiny... so small when faced with the enormity of the ocean - with the vast expanse of waves stretching out as far as I could see.

I have one month before we will need to be packed, two cars sold, a yard sale finished, other stuff toted off to charities, a bar exam taken, vet records picked up, doctor visits planned, so many thousands of things.

I got my bar application in on the very last permissible day, so I'm not even sure that they will let me sit for it as a few crucial documents were still missing from it. As I've already given my notice here, I am in tremendous financial trouble if they don't.

I keep waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing worrying about everything I have to do. I feel so alone.

I can't breathe.

I thought about going to the beach to "think"... but to be quite honest I am afraid that the depth of my insignificance and powerlessness may overcome me.

Unspeakable

2005-06-15T15:48:00.000-05:00

I found out today that my childhood pastor has been indicted on child molestation charges, of his own daughter. This is the man that counseled me through difficult times when I was struggling with the pressures of being a teenager. This is the man who baptized me. Who attended to my grandfather's funeral. Who prayed with my family.

I am so horrified. I used to babysit for her and her siblings almost every week.

I am so sorry K. So incredibly sorry that this happened to you. So sorry that no one was able to stop this.

How does this happen?

Kitchen fetish

2005-06-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

I love to cook, but I absolutely abhor my kitchen knives. They were his prior to when we moved in together, and god only knows how long he's had them. They're marginally sharp, and missing the crucial paring knife that I can't live without. Any good chef worth her weight in salt will tell you that good kitchen knives can mean the difference between a so-so cooking experience and one that borders on well, pleasurable.

As I was trying to inventory the items in the kitchen that I wanted to replace after we moved, I decided that I wanted to ditch the kitchen knives that we have and splurge a little. Not too much, but a little - on some that were worth my while.

We looked at some on Amazon, and Michael said the only way you're going to know if you're going to like them is to actually hold them. So off we went to a store specializing in kitchen supplies and I found out that the Wustoff Classic knives that I thought I wanted were way too heavy for my tiny hands, so I decided to try the Henckles five star knives - and fell in love. As it turns out, they were on sale, so he convincend me to go ahead and buy them. And I did, and a few more open stock items too.

Now - I'm all set and wanting to chop, slice and dice up everything in my general vicinity. And I'm having a bad day, so it's best not to come too close.

Arlene

2005-06-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

Looks like my planned weekend getting a tan (and by tan I mean freckles and a sunburn) at the beach this weekend is about to come to a screeching ass halt.

I'm so over Florida.

Erasing

2005-06-09T11:29:00.000-05:00

Over the past week, I've been trying to systematically erase the minute rememberances of the last few years of my life. Not the memories, but rather the errant paper receipts piled in a drawer, the pens with no caps that clutter my desk, the canape cutters in the kitchen, the drawers full of clothing forgotten for more stylish choices. And I have come to a frightening conclusion... I have way too much stuff for a person my age. And even though there will be a team of movers doing all the packing and relocation for me, I will not be taking all this stuff with me. But it's hard to let go. It always has been for me.

But I'm learning. Letting go of the victorian ivory lamp my great-grandfather bought me when I was 10 with it's fringed brocade shade and etched roses. Letting go of the desk I got for Easter when I was eight, my initials carved into the front drawer with a protractor. Letting go of the pale pink silk negligee embroidered with spring flowers I bought back in college, still wrapped in scented tissue paper from the store - never worn. Letting go of the straw cowboy hat that my curls used to cascade under. Saying goodbye to the last vestiges of my first apartment, the beginning of my (temporary) independence and relics from every place I've called home since then. Releasing the cookbook with the pages stained with summer strawberries, the red heels that tied at the ankle bought one day when I just felt beautiful and alive. Letting go of small rocks picked up in Sedona, Ouray, and Seattle tucked into jacket pockets, of birthday and graduation cards yellowed with age... of ticket stubs, christmas ornaments and old journals - their pages full of declarations of undying devotion and scrawled poems on airplane napkins. Eliminating a decade's worth of film negatives of landscapes and faces etched into my mind.

This is hard. Even though I recognize the necessity of the endeavor, I feel like a part of me is being discarded with each trash bag. I feel like I'm losing something more than the physical item. I have to keep myself from digging through the garbage to retrieve a paperbook with a split spine that I remember reading with the sun spilling through the windows and laughter reverberating off the walls.

I was in the shower this morning when I heard the garbage truck amble down the alley. The water streaming over my face I leaned my head against the wall. This shouldn't be so hard.

It's just stuff after all.

Not my words, but my heart

2005-06-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

To have without holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurst to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
you float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

Bah!

2005-05-16T14:17:00.000-05:00

The perils of living in the Southeast.

After what we went through last summer, I am not looking forward to this.

Embarassing beauty

2005-05-16T11:52:00.000-05:00

Our yard is in serious disarray right now. Between our trip to Europe, and multiple trips since then attending to various things, Michael being in trial, and me swamped with work - we haven't exactly been able to keep on top of our house maintenance duties.

The result, sadly enough is that we now have grass high enough in the backyard to probably qualify as a natural grassland. It's (no lie) at least knee high in one spot. And yes, that is a serious code violation. The front yard isn't much better - but it's gone to seed, and is now embarassingly high, but it isn't that bad - ankle high or so I suppose. Oh sure, people shake their heads when they pass our yard - and I'm sure they mumble about "those neighbors" but look - we've been busy.

Michael was all set to mow the yard this weekend, and started to use the weedeater first. Hmm. It apparently has a faulty switch, and refuses to turn on. O.k. so then he starts to use the lawnmower - and when he pulls the starter it refuses to go. As it turns out a wire (note - I know *nothing* about lawnmowers, including how to start them) was rusted through because it wasn't put away properly and has been raining probably every day for the last month. So all of our lawn equipment is dead.

So I talk to the lawn service who does the neighbors next door - because the grass is so high, they want $150 to get the yard mowed, and then $50 every two weeks after that. Uh. That's a lot of $$. I can buy a whole new lawn mower for that.

And we won't even address the weeds growing in the patio. Sadly, all the flowers I planted are pretty much dried up little crisps - as it turns out you need to water the plants for them to manage. Even though it rains every day. Go figure.

So this morning while walking outside to the laundry room (the entrance is only accessible through the backyard - yet another pain about this house I'm ready to give up), I see this enormous beautiful flower growing in between the bricks. It's nearly a foot high, and definitely shouldn't be there, but I needed that little glimpse of accidental beauty today, even if it was a bit embarassing.

The Peanut Butter Solution

2005-05-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

As I have mentioned before, my husband is quite a bit older than me. As in "he had sex before I was born" older than me. Most of the time, it's not a big deal - as due to the confluence of 'life experience' I've always been considered as older or more mature than I am in true chronological age. Part of that is inevitable. I was holding down two jobs at 14 to help support my family, and finished college at 18. There really wasn't much choice to not grow up in a hurry.

There are times though, when our age difference is incredibly apparent and that usually ends up being the result of a passing referent of popular culture. When I was still toddling around in diapers, he was entrenched in punk music and was leaving home for college. There will be times when he, or I, will say don't you remember that song/movie/video/event - it was really popular in 198x? I was in "fourth grade"/"graduate school" then. There are a lot of times when I just don't get his referents - his experiences predate mine, and I feel at a loss sometimes that I don't identify with his music, his movies, his experiences. He vaguely can identify with mine, as he was at least aware on some level of what was popular when I was a kid. While my mom was fighting off hordes of other women in line desperate to buy their child a cabbage patch doll for Christmas, he was working in Motgomery Wards in another state trying to calm the hordes of women trying to claw each other to bits over the latest shipment of the dolls. He remembers the Challenger coverage interrupting his college studies - I remember my second grade teacher breaking down in giant sobs and all of us trying to understand what happened.

So I was trying to explain the movie, The Peanut Butter Solution to him, and I get a blank stare.

I didn't remember the exact story line, but I knew it had something to do with a kid whose hair falls out and then he and his friend put some peanut butter concoction on it, and he wakes up and his hair grows really fast. And his friend, who had a girl's name, puts the peanut butter goop 'down there' (the first inkling I had that pubic hair existed) and hair starts growing out the end of his pants. Then there is a wild kidnapping and he is strapped to a machine that makes magic paintbrushes.

Randomly, I find this film referenced on another blog today, and I had that moment of "Aha!" I'm not really crazy. This movie does exist.

Does anyone else remember this movie? Or is it just me? Are there other crazy movies you have tried to explain to someone and you feel like maybe you're the only person in the world who has seen this?

When I die, I may not go to heaven

2005-04-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

For the most part, I've left Texas behind.

It's been nearly five years since I've lived there. My hair no longer has it's own zip code. In fact, I haven't even picked up a bottle of hairspray in so long that I'm not even sure I'd know how to use it anymore. My Texas accent has been pretty much excised (aside from the times that I'm: (a) drinking; (b) talking to someone from home; or (c) really tired (that's tyyy-urd). A combination of (a), (b) and (c) is pretty hilarious. "Fixin'a" is no longer in my vocabulary as a perfectly good word/phrase to use. A coffee can with bacon drippings is not an acceptable addition to my kitchen. I rarely say "y'all" anymore. I realized that high school football is not actually a religion. I don't own a pair of Cowboy boots anymore. If someone is over and asks for a Coke, I now assume they actually mean Coca Cola - not Dr. Pepper or Sprite. I don't keep up with Texas politics anymore (it got too depressing for my bleeding liberal heart). I have nearly forgotten what real bar-b-que or mexican food tastes like. And while it would kill my father to hear it, I don't consider the Cowboys to be my team anymore.

But there is an inextricable part of me that will always be there. Yes, my family of course, but I mean something more - something about my heart that will always be a part of that place.

You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the girl.

I just realized it's bluebonnet season. The walls of my parent's hallway is covered in family photographs - in one of them there is a picture of us four girls - standing in a field of bluebonnets so wide it looked like we were in an ocean with tiny whitecapped waves. I was eighteen and a senior in college. It was one of the simultaneously happiest and saddest times in my life.

That day, I picked a bluebonnet (something every Texan will tell you is illegal - which it isn't - but we're ingrained with it from birth) and pressed it in a big heavy family bible given to my parents as a wedding gift. All my favorite mementos are tucked into that heavy white leather bound book - the only proof I have that my parents actually loved each other at one time. I later moved it into my journal. I haven't written in a long time, and I took it out to write the other day, mulling over memories from the past - laughing at the pathetic poetry, wincing at the rawness... I turned to the page where it was nestled and sighed as it crumbled into blue and green dust. I tried to describe it to someone today as similar to memories fading with time, to the point where you wonder if what you hold in your heart as true really could be.

On the side of my fridge is a closeup of a single bluebonnet. A simple reminder of who I am and where I come from ... and where a part of my heart will always be - no matter the emotional and physical distance.

Texas is as close as I've been.

Au revoir

2005-04-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

Three hours and counting until we leave for the Loire Valley, Paris and Amsterdam.

I will be back on this side of the pond in ten days.

Seized.

2005-03-28T14:50:00.000-06:00

In my last year of law school, I was driving to grab a bite to eat from Wendy's when I had a seizure - and blacked out. I hit my head against the steering wheel, and thankfully during the 'fit' I managed to slam the gear shift into park and halfway jumped a curb. Somehow during the madness, I bit my tongue rather forcefully - almost straight through it - and my mouth was full of blood. Thankfully I was on a side street - and I managed to coast slowly into a gas station where I promptly fainted. I got a nice sized bump on the head from the fainting spell - but was otherwise o.k.

When I finally made my way back to school - I walked in to Michael's office and told him what happened. He wanted to go to the hospital immediately, but I begged him not to take me. We went home instead, and I promptly fell asleep for about fifteen straight hours. I went to a cardiologist the next day - and was immediately whisked from specialist to specialist. The next few days were a blur of EKGs, EEGs, x-rays, MRIs, and a great deal of bloodletting to check on blood sugar imbalances, hormones, etc.

During the doctor's visits - I realized that I've always had these little "spells." Growing up, my great grandmother said someone was walking over my grave when I did it. Sometimes I could feel them coming on, but not always. When I did, they were preceded by a tightness and pain in my chest - and a feeling of pressure as if I was being crushed. Afterward, there was always a peculiar metal taste in my mouth and an overwhelming desire to immediately go to sleep.

Sometimes - when they are really bad - my arms flail out and I will involuntarily strike out at someone. It can be quite embarassing at times - sort of a physical Tourettes. I remembered driving to Florida from Texas when I whacked my sister in the front seat of the car. She looked at me stunned - and asked "What the hell was that for?" I wish I could have simply told her. I didn't know.

Milder versions cause me to just space out a little. I can hear people talking around me - but their voices sound very far away - like the muffled conversations of people living in the next apartment drifting through air vents.

During one of the trips to the neurologist, after another brain scan, the doctor told us that in all likelihood that it was epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. I sobbed. Michael cried. It was the one - and only time that I've ever seen him cry. No swimming, no bathing or showering without the door open and someone in the bathroom with me, no driving, no cooking, no being alone - period - under any circumstances for nearly four and a half months. I couldn't do anything. And I felt awful. I felt like a failure as a wife. I was only 23, and my husband was being forced to care for me like I was an old woman. It was heartbreaking. And then the doctor told us that we shouldn't try to have children. I needed to go back on the pill.

I was poked and prodded and sent to every specialist they could find. They ruled out epilepsy and we rejoiced. They ruled out m.s. and we cried with joy. But they never found out what the problem is. Stress, exhaustion and alcohol seemed to exacerbate the problem. Of course, since I was studying for the bar at the time, two of the three were a little difficult to control (and in fact I had a 'medium' seizure during the middle of the exam).

I have never had another grand mal seizure like that. I have had hundreds of other - small ones - but have accepted it as part of who I am. They seem to cluster at a time - and it's been a while since I've had one. I was told that I could slowly start incorporating my "regular" life back into my schedule. You have no idea the bliss of being able to shower in privacy. Of just driving to work - even in traffic.

I would never go into deep water alone. I would never drive extremely long distances alone. I stay away from excess alcohol and try to get plenty of sleep.

I should go back for more tests, but I am afraid. I am afraid that they will tell me it is something awful - something debilitating and untreatable - something I'm unwilling to recognize.

Three days ago I started having crushing pain in my chest that seems to ebb and flow. As this is how the really bad one before started, I didn't drive all weekend, and I took the train to work this a.m. I don't need this right now.

But I need answers. I keep calling the doctor's office - but somehow I just do not seem to be able to push the last digit. I don't want to give this up again. I can't.

I am really afraid.

The silent treatment

2005-03-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

When you can't say what you want because the very hint of a whisper

is an insurrection in the making

When you can't hurt openly

the wracking sobs contained within

hidden behind the false smiles

When happiness is stifled and pain magnified

This isn't about one anymore

But it will be

It's about being an adult

And listening

And understanding

An emptiness

a void

an indescribable hole

And it's about giving up

and compromise

I've done it before

I'm an expert of sorts

If it takes letting go

of giving up

My hopes. My happiness.

I have no choice

I will have no voice

I will have no opinion

I will acquiesce to the status quo

I will be you

To please you

And it will kill me -a little at a time

until I am no longer

But it will make you happy

And that's what matters

That's all I want

Praying I don't tip over

2005-03-25T11:51:00.000-06:00

Tonight we're going canoeing on a moonlit tour of Biscayne Bay. I am quite excited - aside from the fear that a shark will knock my canoe over and eat me. I'm petrified of sharks, so the idea of being in a canoe, at night, well has me a little leery. Yes - I fully realize the fear is irrational, and I'm much more likely to be bludgeoned to death by a coconut, or perhaps dying in the bathtub (apparently a very common place to keel over). Nonetheless, I know that while we are out there, Michael will be humming the creepy Jaws music.

Once, I went canoeing down the Guadalupe river (where I was sunburned so badly afterward that I couldn't wear clothes for three days and still have small little scars on the top of my breasts from the blisters I got from being burned). My friend Sabrina tipped the canoe, and we ended up losing everything we had in it (including her shoes, our sunscreen - thus the blistering). I've been a few times since I've lived here - in the mangroves, but it's hard work - and to be quite honest I haven't been to the gym in about 6 weeks and am quite sluggish right now. It's going to be a lot of effort and I hope that it have enough in me to do this.

And I'm taking bets on how long it takes before Michael or I dump the boat first.

My friend dramamine

2005-03-23T16:41:00.000-06:00

Today I had to accompany a client into international waters to sign some documents. The waves were swelling at 5-7 feet and we were on a sportsfisher, so I was quite thankful for the Dramamine that one of the gentlemen had slipped me as we were taking off. And thankful that my gym bag was in my car. While perhaps not stylish, the tennis shoes with my long black skirt suit was a definite advantage over the four inch heels I was wearing.

While we were waiting for the ship's captain, we were hanging out at the slip - and there was a dolphin playing next to the boat in front of us, chirping and jumping. It was fun to watch.

We high tailed it 12 miles offshore signed the documents and then skipped back to shore. I came back to the office smelling like sea spray and my nose is a little burnt because I was up flirting with the ship's captain up on top for the 50 minute boat ride out and back. O.k. I wasn't really flirting, I was trying to stay away from the diesel fumes in the cabin. O.k. well maybe I was a tinge flirty. He had a cute accent and I am a sucker for those. In retrospect, I regret it because it took nearly twenty minutes to brush the tangles out of my hair.

The poor bank representative who went out with us spent the majority of the afternoon behind the boat hacking up her early lunch. It's a good thing we got into port when we did because a giant storm is brewing over the water and it's quite scary out now. I was fine on the boat, but now I feel like my desk chair is rocking back and forth.

Sheesh.

Two out of three ain't bad.

2005-03-16T10:19:00.000-06:00

Last night at about seven I sent three resumes. This morning, two of them had already sent me emails stating that they were interested in talking.

Gah. Michael is going to kill me. I didn't expect such a swift (and positive) response, so I'm sort of nervous.

My heart is racing.

Trembling trepidation

2005-03-15T18:32:00.000-06:00

I sent three more resumes and cover letters out today to firms with openings in Kansas City. I am shaking all over with trepidation.

I sincerely hope that these don't make it back to my current employer.

I am almost afraid to hope.

almost.

Purple Haze

2005-03-15T12:30:00.000-06:00

There is a strange haze that has blown in off the water, and the phallic highrises, each reaching out taller to the sky than their neighbor have been cloaked in a purplish grey mist. The outlines of the buildings and trees are crisp, but the colors are distorted, and depth perception is off. Everything seems oddly flat, like a painted facade in a homey Sicilian restaurant where the plaster is starting to crumble off the walls.

It feels like I am watching a grainy home video of someone else's life. Someone else who I only realize is me on a philisophical level. Her reality has become one of stilted memories crashing through the frame as I chase my childhood through empty playgrounds and play hide and seek behind closed doors. Laughter caught on tape, rewound and replayed has lost its melodious innocence, sounding canned instead. But I still manage to scream at the appropriate times. The tears still tumble forth with remarkable precision.

I wish I could excise these moments, the cutting their emptiness away with surgical exactness. But how do you remove a void? How is it possible to excise the emptiness that is everything you are and all you have ever known? Once it is gone, what would remain?

BD, Konig Ludwig Weiss (Konig)

2005-03-13T14:06:00.000-06:00

Brewed by Konig Ludwig Schlossbrauerei in Kaltenberg, Bavaria, Germany. Tasty, tasty, tasty. A delightful royal bavarian hefe-weizen. This one was Michael's pick and I have to say I am quite impressed. Naturally cloudy, it was sweet and wonderful. Great summer brew with clove taste with a banana aftertaste (I can never remember how to spell banana. I always feel like it's redundant. bananananana.

Yummy yummy beer. Will be a repeat in our home.