I think I'm ready.

Saturday I received a belated christmas present from silversliver.  I'm pretty sure it changed... something.  I hesitate to say that it's my life that's changed for several valid reasons.  Well, it's only been a single weekend, for starters.  There's also how small the gift was to consider.  Every 'story' only a few hundred words.  

Everyone knows I hate poetry.  I hate poetry because I've always felt as though it's talking down to me, when really I know that it's my own precious insecurities doing the talking.  This book is poetry.  It doesn't initially strike one as poetry, no...  sneaky fucker stalks up on you and pounces into your lap.  I threw it down a few times because I just couldn't handle having this process of rejection from a pamphlet!

silversliver was very patient, and if it wasn't for how very much I care about our friendship and her feelings, I wouldn't have continued to read it.  Because everyone knows I just don't get this high minded Japanese furry crap.

Well, I searched.  I'm telling you that I read every single word in that book and I found nothing in there to suggest any of those things.  Okay, okay, I suppose the term 'furry' might be applied in this case, but please trust my word as a bitchy critic.  It's not like that.

It's just not like that, and I TRIED!  I tried to feel talked down to, and that my feelings and ethics were dismissed as low-brow and common.  You know what?  The whole time I felt like a guest that was being treated very graciously, even when I was being such an American.

How did she know?  How did she know I'd love these stories, and gleen so much from them?  Was it all the talking about my own feelings about social responsibility, and how it's been ingrained in me by at least two generations prior?  Is it my willingness so consider alternative arrangements of family, work, food, etc?  Is it because of what specifically ruined Heinlein for me that tipped her off?

I've been seeded.  I can feel it in there, spreading out and illuminating long neglected feelings and spirit.  It's kinda like a computer virus.  I can feel it in there, altering programming and just deleting stuff that I've hung on to all this time that I just don't need anymore.  So this is what validation feels like.

To the author:  Oh girl, you've had this floating around in you?  This center?  Your journal and these stories read like this clarion knell.  You are blessed, girlfriend!  Run with it.  You hear it, you run with it!  We hear you, and we have friends and family.  We hear now, too.  My God, woman, thank you.

And so is chicken.  Thanks, Lilu.  By the way, I love men who just aren't too caught up in gender roles.  They make my heart smile.  Anyway...

Micro is going well so far.  I think I freaked out the instructor already, though.  He's a sweet guy.  Kind of a lab rat, though.  I guess that's what I have to look forward to. That'll be me someday!

My veins require careful attention.  They are difficult to draw blood from. Also, I'm handling residual referred anxiety from surgery performed years ago.  Never the less, this morning was my second donation.  The poor kid ran the needle along my vein rather than into it.  Le OUCH!

I met with a financial advisor last night.  At teh end of the meeting, she said, "congratulations, this is the hardest case I've worked on all year."  Know what that means?  That this is indeed WAY more than I can handle alone.  I should not be handling this alone.  The person who manages this stuff for a living is having to call in reinforcements.  That means that I've done an excellent job thus far.  I'm at a quarter life, roughly,   I'm a high school drop out, and I can't do long division.  Yet this mess that my folks handed me many years ago is still afloat.  I did that.  I did well.  No one gets to give me shit ever again for the state of the house, or mom's health, or anything relating to stepping up and taking care of everything.  No one.  Not ever.

I work for myself and I reserve my own taxes.  I work with a CPA every year, so I know they're done correctly.  Boy is he ever going to be earning his fees this year.   I'm a freshman in college, therefore I have student loans.  Also, I am now a free agent.  Lots of extra work, but it means I have no boss or co-workers to worry about.  Man is it ever nice.  I don't think it'll last forever, though.

There is some misinformed fellow on Fox news right now commenting on Thanksgiving, John David Welkes?  I think that's his name.  Please correct me if I got his name wrong.  He's commenting on the "war on Thanksgiving".  There's some conflict about the celebration of Thanksgiving in a Seattle school district.  Sounds like someone(s) who is(are) sensitive to the ugliness of European colonization made it known that they find Thanksgiving to be a time of mourning; representative of a betrayal and both the incidental and deliberate destruction of Native American culture.  Basically, someone made it clear that there's another side to this story and that it deserves to be told.

This guy's response? "Pass the gravy?"  Very dismissive of him.  Also, he comments that the Native Americans were "better off."  He says that they were living in the Stone Age, and that they're enjoying Thanksgiving just like everyone else.  Someone PLEASE take this Great White Benefactor on a hand-guided tour of any reservation.  I want this winner to spend a week living with a family that's spent generations in poverty, and then tell me these folk are better off.

Did I mention that he says he's being a "good christian" about all this slamming of Christmas and Thanksgiving?

Way to make my points for me, sir.  Thank you.

EDIT:  I have something else to mention to this fella.  Does he buy Black Hills gold for his wife to wear?  Do you folks?  Anyone here know why we have the Dakotas as states?  Every time I hear the term "Indian Giver" I'm reminded of this story.  Wiki or Google it.  You'll be appalled just like I was when I learned about it in FIRST FUCKING GRADE.  That's right, in the 'burbs of Stamford Connecticut.  The rich suburbs.  Where the hell did this guy go to school?

I give you money and send you into the grocery store to pick up 5 items. You can only pick one thing from the following departments.. what is it?
1. Produce: 'Nannas for teh breakfast smoothies
2. Bakery: Arnold's brand Double Fiber bread
3. Meat/Deli: mussels!
4. Frozen: veggies, or berries for teh breakfast smoothies.  Whichever we need more of.
5. Dry goods: Toss-up between oats or Velveeta shells and cheese

Let's say we're heading out for a weekend getaway. You're only allowed to bring 3 articles of clothing with you. So, what's in your bag?
1. Favorite buttonfly jeans
2. Favorite grey knit sweater
3. Magnum boots or my nurse lady shoes

If I was to listen in on one of your conversations throughout the day, what 5 phrases or words would I be most likely to hear?
1. I forgot it/I don't have it with me/I lost it
2. Sonnova bitch!
3. Me laughing.  I laugh a lot.
4. Blah blah blah Vec/Denise blah blah
5. Do you need to go to the bathroom?  Okay well let's go then.  Use your chair lift, it'll do most of the work for you.  There ya go.  Careful!  Okay, knock when you're done.  You didn't knock!  Please knock or holler for me.  I need to be there so that I can help steady you if you start to fall.  Would you like to wash your hands?  I'll get that for you, just one sec.  There, ready to go sit back down?  Okay, hold onto my hands.  Grab your walker.  Whoops!  Steady now.  There ya go.  Remember to put your hands behind you and ease yourself into the chair, don't flop-You flopped!  That's really hard on your back, remember?  The doctor and nurses don't like it when you do that because it puts a lot of strain on your back.  Next time, go down gently into the chair, okay?  Are you hungry or thirsty?  Would you like some tea?  Okay, I'll be right back.  (No shit, guys.  That's verbatim.  Five days out of seven.)

So, what 3 things do you find yourself doing every single day, and if you didn't get to do, you probably wouldn't be in the best mood?
1. Brushing my fussy teeth
2. Internets
3. ...talking to Auntie D...

You're driving down the road, and suddenly you're hit with this sense of road rage. What 3 factors probably contributed to it?
1. Someone just hit an animal and didn't even pause, much less stopped to help fix it.  That's about it, guys.  I don't rage about driving because everyone's been "that guy" at least once.  Shit happens.  If you let yourself get worked up and out of control about it, what does that serve?  You're just shunting focus and concentration over to something other than driving.


Sweet, you just scored a whole afternoon to yourself. We're talking a 3 hour block with nobody around. What 5 activities might we find you doing?
1. Trying to get out of it as quickly as possible.  I don't like to be alone for long.
2. Bathtime!
3. Chores
4. Driving
5. Pr0ns

We're going to the zoo. But, it looks like it could start storming, so it'll have to be a quick visit. What 3 exhibits do we have to get to?
1. Jellyfish
2. baby anythings
3. ...food court...?

You just scored tickets to the taping of any show that comes on t.v. of your choice. You can pick between 4, so what are you deciding between?
1. Dr. Phil!
2. Oprah
3. To Catch a Predator
4. Law and Order

You're hungry for ice cream. I'll give you a triple dipper ice cream cone. What 3 flavors can I pile on for ya?
1. Chocolate
2. Dublin Mudslide
3. Moosetracks

Somebody stole your purse/wallet…in order to get it back, you have to name 5 things you know are inside to claim it. So, what's in there?
1. little red book with gold detailing
2. little collapsable pink umbrella
3. pH tape
4. my double leaf calculator
5. engineering compass

You are at a job fair, and asked what areas you are interested in pursuing a career in. Let's pretend you have every talent and ability to be whatever you wanted, so what 4 careers would be fun for you?
1. World travelling courtesan
2. health educator
3. Omo Oya Otora Neeko, Madrina/Babalou/Muerta
4. X-man

If you could go back and talk to the old you, when you were in high school, and inform yourself of 4 things, what would you say?

Fuck that.  I have all of this to say to me.  She needs all of this.

You are not alone, and you are not a monster.  You are polyamorous, bisexual and have not yet learned real fear.  Use that.  Lead an example so that others like you can be inspired.  Carry that in front of you like a holy beacon, casting the light of understanding and dignity where others hang shadows to hide what they fear and do not understand.  To do that, keep this in your heart:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you Not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson

Do not allow them to diminish themselves in your eyes.  People do what they know to do.  When they know better, they do better.  Everyone deserves your kindness, understanding, and respect.  Even when they do not afford you these same considerations.  It will be hard, but made easier if you remember that it's most likely not about you.   It's not personal even if they try to make it personal.  This is about them and their feelings.  They are ultimately responsible for them, and this is what they know to do.  People learn what they live.  Demonstrate a better way, and create a legacy that you can be proud of.

So yeah, I love me some Dr. Oz.  Not only is he hot shit (seriously the guy's like in his late fifties and doesn't look a day over forty MAYBE, is a frikkin' heart surgeon and an author and has all this passion and energy for what he does) but he never condescends to anyone that I've seen.  He'll talk about anything, anytime, and he's so goddamned excited about it.  Damn I miss that.

Anyway, I've been sitting on most of his books for years now.  Applying this strategy, learning about this system or that organ, but never really doing anything.  Well, I have all the time in the world these days, and I'm getting fatter.  I was 165 at the end of August, and now I'm 185.  PORKER!  Especially considering that I'm only 5'4".  I should weigh around 140-150 healthfully, because I've always been a tank, but that should be Betty Bad-Ass Suzy the Riveter muscles.  Man, is my knee ever tellin' me.  It's all like, 'bitch better do somethin' 'bout 'is or Imma take her ass out!'

So yeah, I'm going to give this little 20 minute workout a shot.  Also, my boss has a treadmill in the basement.  She walked me down there on my first day and pointed it out, showed me the TV, and told me that I could come down there everyday and work out.  Hint Hint.  So, I have NO Excuses.

Yup, cushiest job on the planet, and I'm bored.  Also, I have a full load of groceries in the back of my car from my midnight grocery shopping excursion. They will be there until after work and after class tonight.  Fun times.  Thank god it's ass cold outside.

We truly are the architects of our own experience.  This morning I had a nightmare about money.  In this nightmare, my father, uncle Mousey and uncle Davey came to my house and had a talk with me about how I'm bleeding my mother dry.  Intervention styles.  My uncle Mousey was arrested and indicted in July of 2006... basically for touching the neighbor girl.  He was living with us at the time, and he did whatever he did in my house, a room away from my disabled mother, without even a door closed between them.  Imagine where he is on my christmas list.

In the dream, I was ashamed, panicked, etc.  I woke up because I couldn't find my husband, and he wasn't answering his cellphone.  In the dream, I knew that he and his friends were avoiding me because they knew what was happening at my house right then, and they didn't wanna talk to me.  I woke up calling his name and begging at him.  Not a good morning.

Today at work I paid bills.  Never a good feeling time.  I almost had myself a panic attack.   That's where some Vecordian philosophy came in to play. Know what?  Nothing I could do right then was going to fix the situation, except paying the bills, which I could afford.  Problem solved, right?  For the moment, yes.  I still had a boxcar full of feelings that needed sorted, handled and moved on from.  Ick.

Do what needs doing, and move on.  I paid the bills, and started cleaning here at work.  Then I jumped onto LJ and my email, and discovered that social anxiety be damned, I'd made BUDDIES!

Yeah, I'm feeling much better now.  That, and I figured out a way to pay off a $42,000 mortgage in 4.5 years, and that's if I take my time.  I could have it paid off in two if mom pitches in, and maybe less if hubby pitches in.  Les see how it works out.

Okay, I'm out of the room with the blaring TV.  Time to do the bill paying.  This should have been done last week.

So yeah, nurse lady outfit didn't happen.  Instead, I went as me.  Sounds silly and trite maybe, but I figured this is my one shot for awhile.  Halloween is the one night around here where social awkwardness and impoliteness are forgiven.  It's our free pass for one night to do something disallowed most other times.  Wonder why lots of girls dress "like sluts" on Halloween?  Because we're not allowed to go that far any other time by our peers.  Think I'm kidding or incorrect?  Watch the reactions of other women when one of them is dressed up like some of the girls were dressed last night. 

Anyway, last night I had no pants.  S'right.

black tank top with white screen printing
my husbands' enormous white Oxford shirt tied in the front, otherwise it goes to my knees
No jewelry from the knees up
Black net knit pantyhose
black backseam fishnet stockings on over the hose
a pair of grey and black over-the-knee longsocks over the hosery
no less than three layers of underwear including the snug girdle onto which the garter straps fasten
one pair of mens black super stretchy boxer brief things over all of it.  They look like really short hotpants on those of the female persuasion.

For decoration, I busted out my collier from back in my voodoo practicin' days.  I just tied it around my socks for sock garters
found this really pretty, really long silver chain with little silver coins dangling from it.  That got looped and draped over my left boot.

Yes kids, this is how I used to dress in high school.  Though I used to throw a frilly back miniskirt over my ass so I wouldn't get sent home.  I even packed one just in case someone insisted.  It was awesome.  I haven't been Me in ages.

my favorite Magnum boots

I forgot just how much I love the Fifth Element.  I also forgot how bummed I was that it wasn't better received in theaters.  Too bad I'm a size 14, or I'd totally be Lilu tonight.  Instead, I think I'll wear my nurse's uniform.  No, not scrubs.  A real nurse dress from Uniformly Dressed.  Only think I need is a white slip, because this think is practically transparent otherwise.

So I'm looking into garbage service for our house.  Looks like it's going to be between $35-$60 a quarter depending on how much we want to throw out.  Oh, and no one offers residential recycling service.  Nice.  Seems like rural people are the least interested in the Green.

Back to the grind.

There.

That's right.  Bruce Squier is DMing a space opera this Friday evening after 6pm.  Probably at the Hammond building.  The game is loosely based on D20 Third Edition D&D rules, but mostly that world and the game are Bruce's creation.  Anyone remember Digital Arena?  This guy used to own it.  Anyone is welcome, just like last time.  EVEN if I don't know you.

There will be game of sorts tonight in State College.  Anyone who'd like to join us for the second session of what the DM is calling a "space opera" is welcome to join us.  It'll be sometime after 6pm, and I think it'll be at the DM's house.  Although I'm not sure.  So far we've got three players consisting of two rogues and one cleric.  Oh, a bit of a correction.  It's more like D&D than anything else, game world and some of the mechanics are of the DM's manufacture.

No one's to take this game too seriously yet.  It's not a silly campaign, bit it's not stark and serious either.  Right now we're just space scavengers out there picking valuables from space debris.  My character is on ship because she can best determine which are the most valuable bits and which aren't.  We've got a space bunny/halfling pilot, and the face of the operation is the cleric.  He's all about making the most space bucks.  Someone who's good with xenobiology would be nice, or maybe a space ninja with a mysterious past...

Okay, I know it's not the most flattering 100x100 pixels of either Mila or Lilu Dallas Multipass,  but it's just so expressive.  My husband thinks it looks like a chubby redhead crying.  I asked him what was inappropriate about that, given that it is in fact, my blog (and all that that implies).

So yeah, I'll be switching it up a bit.  As soon as I learn to make my own icons.

 Yesterday I learned how to crochet!  Today I have no yarn...  But tomorrow I will indeed HAS yarn!  This hobby rocks.  I don't understand why more men don't crochet.  It seems like it'd be right up their alley.  It reminds me of coding.  You're programming the yarn.  If you think that's absurd, check out a crocheting website for a peek at a pattern.  Now tell me that doesn't have Archaeotherium Device written all over it.

My husband is suffering today.  For years, his coping mechanism for doubt, worry and fear has been denial or outright intentional ignorance.  A friend once described it as, "He handles stress by pretending it's not there."  When he moved in with me, a relative stranger but one he was absolutely in love with, he couldn't ignore those things anymore.  I wouldn't allow it.

Back then I was an emotional wreck.  I had assumed the role of custodian/janitor for my family and loved ones.  If there was a problem, it was either my fault, my responsibility, or both.  It was my job to clean up physical, financial, emotional messes for everyone in the household, or to just be the dumpster everyone deposited their trash into.  I had no idea it had gotten that bad.

It took a relative stranger, but one that I was absolutely in love with, to make me aware of the scope of my own degradation.  One day he very carefully asked me, "Do they always talk to you like that?"  I was very indignant about that.  He just didn't understand, I told the both of us.  That was the seed of awareness that later germinated into a little seedling of questioning, and then into a sapling of corrective action.

There was a collective abusive relationship that was underwritten by your truly that he just hadn't been around long enough to buy into.  Thinking back on it, most new people reacted the way he did.  Few of them asked me about it, and fewer didn't decide to shrug their shoulders at the camera and hop on board.

These days, I'm not such a victim of my circumstances.  I'm no longer slaving away for people that treat me like they bought me.  I've risen above my raising in that regard.  I have my husband to thank for the wake-up call.  If he hadn't had the guts to question me, my family and my friends, I'd probably still be there.  He asked me to raise the bar for myself as well.

It's said that we teach people how to treat us, and that what we are critical of ourselves about is what we are most critical of in others.  I was a lonely, trodden-upon, judgmental, overbearing young lady.  So people treated me like one.  I was taught to focus on weakness to the exclusion of strength and to harp and hack and claw at it until it changed.  Once that happened, it was on to the next problem or flaw or change-worthy thing.  If you were good at something, good.  Now there's all this other stuff that needs worked on...

Yeah, that's a whole lot of fun to live with.

Living with and loving this man taught me grace.  I learned that being punctual is supposed to make others feel more comfortable, not worried that they might upset me by being late, or give me reason to be agitated because obviously this is a manifestation of how little regard they have for me or my feelings. 

I learned that integrity doesn't mean being held hostage by every request ever made of me, therefore overcommiting myself, feeling worn thin, overworked and unable to meet any of the requests.

I learned that patience isn't spinelessness, and that forgiveness isn't for the other people.

Some of these things he knew and actively applied in his everyday interactions with folks.  Some of these things I picked up while learning how to love this man, and this is not by any means a complete list of the things I'm aware that I've learned.  But these all came at a cost.

This man hurts today, because he learned from me too.  Within the first year that he and I were together, he learned about real commitment and responsibility.  He learned about forgiveness from me, too.  How to live in forgiveness.  He also learned about accountability, and about how very little entitlement he actually had in this world.  "The World" owes us nothing.

Those are the things that I'm proud to have taught him.  He also learned some things from me that I'm not proud to have taught him.  Things like fear, anxiety, and how to take responsibility for things that are not within your control or influence.  Throughout these few years, he's lost touch with his God given gift of joy.  This man used to be unabashedly amused, and able to enjoy himself no matter what else was going on.  Often times this brought him in direct conflict with my sense of responsibility and duty.  If I had spare time, it used to mean that I needed to get busy getting things done.  What it meant for him was that finally there was time for me to enjoy myself.  How could I?  There was so much to do.

Now he's plagued by that.  It's like he handed me his ration card of happiness, and tried to take up my yoke.  I'm not sure how to help him get reconnected with that place within him that let him relax and shine when the time came.  It's like he's taken on my misery.

This is not the legacy I want for my family.  This is not a fair and equitable exchange.  I'll be damned if I'm gonna leave this man to my abandoned Sisyphean fate.

I'm talking about this here on LJ because it's important to share experiences with the rest of the community.  Think about it.  How often have you thought about how different your life would have been if you'd have just known something sooner, or if someone had just shared their experience with you at some crucial time.  None of us should have to feel like we're the only ones going through a particular process, or that we're the only ones that feel a certain way.  Further silence means further isolation and alienation.  That is not what I want for my community.  That is not the mark I want to leave on the people my life touches.

We'll be at the College Buffet on North Atherton tonight.  Everyone's welcome.  Yes, even if I don't know you.  You'll know us because we'll probably be the loudest, laughenest bunch in there tonight.  But first, To Jezebel's!

This book is fucking fantastic.  It reads like someone's LiveJournal, and so far, I can relate to everything she's talked about.