Insert Dexter Theme Music Here, Minus the Murder

I found out today that you can't deny who you are; not really.

I don't know that I was actually denying it, ever, but I certainly got confirmation of what I was already pretty suspicious.  That is, of course, that I am heading in the right direction by going into forensics.

There is something about blood spatter on white tile floors that is both attractive and intriguing.  Now, don't read me wrong and think I am going to go Dexter on everyone--who, by the way, doesn't actually enjoy the sight of blood, but does like to "organize it," so to speak, thus his career choice--I don't think I would put the blood there purposefully from the veins of either myself or someone else just to look at it shimmer, I don't think I could ever do that.  But, clearly, I could certainly one to photograph, analyse, and collect the blood that has already been spattered by someone else's volition.  And, in fact, if I possessed either slides or a microscope, collection and study would have been on my list, as I stared down at my own blood spotting my bathroom floor.

Sometime last week I stepped on a glass plate on my floor and broke it into three pieces.  My carpet is, for lack of a better term, shag, and I clearly missed a few pieces as I was cleaning up.  Thus, this afternoon, walking across my newly cleaned but not newly vacuumed bedroom floor, my right, big toe caught a shard.  I proceeded to pick it out, first laughing at my stupidity and then curious to actually see my own blood on its tiny glass edge.  I carried into the bathroom to be thrown away, but when I realized how badly I was bleeding, I got a bit nerdy.

I set the glass on the counter and let my foot hang over the tile floor, waiting for a drop of crimson to fall the six-inches to the ground.  When it did, I sat down and cleaned off my poor toe while I studied the varying droplets I had both accidentally flicked onto the floor and purposefully let drop.  From afar they looked remarkably similar, but band-aid in place, I knelt down with my camera phone--cleverly retrieved from my bed--and took a few close ups.  Two of the spatters I'd accidentally flicked onto the tile when I thought I wasn't bleeding where thicker along the opposite edge, proving they'd been flicked.  Whereas, the one I'd let well and eventually drop from my toe was consistent, one two-cc droplet of dark red that clearly plopped down and chilled out just like it was.  I could even tell the way they'd landed by the rims around the edges where they'd already started to dry.  When I wiped them up with a wet tissue, the rims held on a bit longer, darker around the opposite edges where the blood had been propelled from the subtle flick of my foot as I hobbled into the bathroom.  The bigger, darker spot from my standing still had a rim as well, consistent in color around the circumference.  And, of course, the whole time I snapped pictures and looked up close, I was giggling.

I wish that I had had some slides; maybe I could've picked up the drops with a q-tip and kept them for later observation under a microscope.  I wish I had a microscope, so I could do such an observation.  I've never looked at blood under the scope, but I have a feeling I have a taste for it.  It's curious, the weird things we're into, but I guess they can't be denied.  

The good news is, other than serial killer, there are some career opportunities out there for weirdos like me.  One of them, of course, is forensic scientist, exactly what I was planning on majoring in--along with anthropology.

I'd rather not have to become a serial killer.  I'd really much rather put them in prison, it seems like less work.

And the conclusion I came to: I'm a dork.  I'm a nerd.  I'm a geek.  I'm probably a forensic scientist as well.

Looks like I am on the right track to accepting that my life is literally around the corner, all I have to do is be ready to round the bend.

Now if only I weren't so afraid.

:\

Even the Stars Sometimes Fade to Gray

I have been thinking about why I am so afraid of moving forward.  I have been thinking about why I am procrastinating, often moving in reverse, the goals I tote all the time.  The dreams I spend hours dreaming.  The ideals I label future-self with, labels obtainable but so far away.  I have wondered about what's stopping me; what am I so afraid of?  In the past week, I have had serious downs; breaking down in front of new friends, fearing the need to say goodbye to old ones, my mother yelling at me when I've already been sent home sick.  Everything's just been shit, and I am certain it's self-inflicted.  I am certain that if I opened up and just let myself be happy, it wouldn't happen anymore.  But, I know that things down miraculously change for the better.  One day the tide doesn't just turn and everything is alright.  And the people around me know that too, though some of them are clearly in denial.  It takes time, it takes effort, it takes motivation.  And even still you fall, even still you relapse and question and wonder and you think hard about taking a drink, or shooting up, or doing nothing but lie in bed and eat.  It's going to happen no matter what you do.  More than once, differently people have told me "you're going to fail.  Just accept it, because it is going to happen."  I have argued that sometimes you have to succeed.  And that's true.  And by failing and learning, usually you can.  But if you never even try, you've never given yourself the chance.  Now, I don't want to fail.  Me?  This one time I'd like to win.  And people keep coming back at me with that line.  All I can think is they don't believe I can win.  And I am starting to think I agree. I realize I am going to fall down every once in a while, but I haven't accepted that I might actually stand strong.
My argument for putting it off has been this: I am searching for the things and the people who are going to make me strong, so that when relapse comes, I don't completely crumble.  And yet I have still fallen, and I have still crumbled, and I have still not moved forward.  There has to be more to it than my lack of support group--a group to which I am incessantly blind.  I keep telling myself I am trying, but clearly I am doing very little of that.  I am doing very little of anything.
Today, sick, as I have actually been, I laid in bed and read all day.  Patricia Cornwell, murder mysteries; I know.  Don't look so imperious, they are entertaining and don't require much thought.  I am sure I read them for the same reasons other women divulge in romance.  I also read them, because it reminds me of the things I want to do.  Of course I realize life isn't like a novel, the characters never quite do what they are seemingly supposed to, plots never really work out the way they seemingly should, but nevertheless, the idea is along the same lines and I have a forum by which to imagine myself taking part in the game.  And, as I was doing just that, all day long today with Body of Evidence, I thought about the life I wanted and realized something: if I get into the navy, if I become a Master of Arms; once I am out of boot camp and past A-School, I am a badge carrying, gun toting equivalent of a street cop.  I could literally be there, doing that, in less than a year.  My bother has do to more than that to actually become a cop, and I could do it in as little as a year.  I could actually be somewhere close to who I've imagined being at thirty in a year's time.  I could be literally a step closer, in school on my off-time, working fifty hours a week building life experience the FBI just loves.  It's literally right in front of me, so close I could nearly grab it with the tips of my fingers.  And yet, I stand still.  I stand back, get fatter, get sadder, and let it slip away?  What am I so afraid of?!  Everything I have ever dreamed of is literally right in front of my fucking nose!  What is holding me back?
I tried the move-away, grow-up, be-independent thing, and it went miserably wrong.  I've tried it twice, and both times I hurried home to my mother's house, to Oklahoma, to a death sentence in my personal opinion.  I've curled up in my mother's spare twin bed, curled up into my youth and clung on to the support of the familiar to comfort my bruised ego and battered self-esteem.  I've hidden away from problems and ignored phone calls.  I've just closed off.  And all that time, I dreamed up in my mind all of the great things I would do, a few years from now.  And the age I would be when I did them has increased with my own, as the belief that I could ever accomplish them slowly receded.
Somehow, I have found the easiest way to get what I want, somehow that was the conclusion I came to.  For years before, with all of my running and all of my hiding, I would scheme little ideas to get what I wanted; little ideas that turned out to be complicated and difficult.  I touted my favorite saying to tout, "Hard work is everything; without it nothing means anything."  And I would plot my little plots, never playing a single one out.  And, on my last straw, on my last leg, I came up with a new one.  An obtainable one.  One that will actually do it, and do it fast.  All I had to do is lose weight, and I think I knew I could stop myself.  But, I have found out it is harder to hide if I did.  It's easy to lie about bills and debt and jobs and money.  It's hard to lie about pounds and sizes and muscle mass.  I have stopped myself, and everyone can see it, and I have nothing to blame because they know it would come off if I ran every day, they know the asthma would settle if I ran every day, they know I would moving forward if I ran everyday.  I tell myself it's their knowing that stops me from doing things that I know are good for me.  I hate how they know.  And I hate how they look at me when I've done something they think I should.  Especially if they've told me, and told me, and told me to do it.  The look on their faces, it drives me nuts, I can't take it.  I don't want to fucking do anything for them, so I don't do anything.  I use this excuse, and I guess if that's the reason, I need to learn to not care.  Fuck them, I should tell myself, I know better; I know who I did it for.  I don't tell myself, that, however.  And I continue to use that feeling as an excuse.
But it isn't an excuse, and it isn't the excuse.  Never before in my life have a realize how close to success I actually was.  I have always been able to talk myself out of it, always been able to stop myself from happiness, always been able to quit my dreams while still dreaming them.  It's super fucked up, I know, but it is my cycle, and it's one I'm realizing is coming to an end.
Kirstie, a member of that group I can't seem to convince myself I have, may possibly be signing with a publisher.  She's two years younger than me and I am sickeningly envious.  But, what have I done to be where she is?  Nothing.  She writes, probably every day if she can help it.  I talk myself out of writing because I don't "feel like it," even though I know if I would just sit down and do it, I'd "feel" better.  I would, writing lifts my spirits.  That's why I truly believe it's the only thing I was ever really meant to do, and I put it off like geometry homework.  I realize, looking at Kirstie, that if I would do what she does, I probably would be closer to it than I am right now.  But, publishing isn't the only thing I want to do anymore.  I have thought about it, and just laying around writing all day isn't what is going to make me happy.  Not that I can tell.  I need movement, I need motivation, I need something everyday to keep me going, something to write about.
Yes, I could already be there, I am starting to get that.  But if it isn't yet for me, than I can't quite argue with that.
What is yet for me, as I am quickly realizing, is to break my cycle and move fucking forward.  I am not going to get away with putting it off anymore.  I am not going to get away with excusing and blame.  And I am not going to get away with rolling over and hiding.  I don't want people to look at me with "I told you so"s, or worse, that look they get when I've done something good.  But, I don't have to care about that.  I don't have to listen to "thank yous" and I don't have to be bothered by looks I am probably imagining.  I don't know what was done to me to make me feel this way, but it's stupid and childish.  This is the time when absolutely nothing should be stopping me, when I am literally close enough to touch success.  This should be the time I leap forward, not stand around and wait to be pushed.  I'm tired of hiding, and I am tired of sleeping when I could change the world.  I'm tired of closing the blinds.
But, I am afraid.  Everything I have ever wanted is actually within reach.  That has never happened before.  I have always found a way of avoiding accomplishing my dreams, and suddenly I have no choice.  I am not giving myself a choice, fate is not giving me a choice, no one is giving me a choice.  And I am terrified.  It's right there!  Right fucking there!  I could actually be doing it.  I am terrified.
I could be an adult, and I am terrified.  I have lied to myself my whole life about wanting that if I am so terrified about it today.  I have lied to myself my whole life.
I guess that's why, more than ever, I need to do random, adventurous shit.  I need to put myself out into the world.  I need to write everyday and I need to do crazy things.  I need to step out of bed, out of hiding, and just start forward.  I need more than ever to do things I have never done.  If I am so terrified of everything I have always told myself I am ready for, everything I have told myself I was working for; if I am so terrified that I can't let myself have them, then what is to come of me?  Not good things, more not good things.  So, now is the time to stand up and do something outlandish.  And probably a good time to do something responsible.
And probably a good time to do something smart.
I don't know how much of any of this makes sense...I think that sentence got away from me a bit.  What I know is this: I feel better than I did yesterday, I feel better than I did last week.  I feel tired, and a little on the verge of tears.  I feel like I needed to write it out and put it out there no matter its eloquence or its coherence.  It isn't really for you, but I hope it worked anyway.  I am going to go to bed, now.  Tomorrow, I am going to finish my laundry, I am going to run, I am going to clean my room, and I am going to try to find another job.  One that pays more, so that another Monday down the line, I can start paying off debts and saving for things outlandish and ridiculous but all the same cleansing and spiritual and awakening.  No more being terrified, no more standing still.  Just jumping.
Even the Stars Hideaway

Day Breaks, My Head Aches

Well, I will live another day.

Or, at least, I have finished this day.
It started out fairly modestly, turned into fairly exciting, and ended with me sticking my feet in six inches of freezing water, searching for a metaphor.
I guess you could say I relapsed again.
I knew this was going to happen, a few times a least, when I set out to do this.  I knew I would break down at least once to my new friends.  I knew I would battle the sadness and the shame more than once so that I might come out of it stronger.  I just wish it hadn't been so petty, what sparked it--although, you can hardly call anything sparking my moods, they build up until I break and I kind of just have to let the flood gates open.  It's pathetic and stupid, but it is who I am, for now I suppose.  I would like to, someday, not be so blatantly emotional, but maybe it is right and it is good that I am.  Maybe, I just haven't found the good of it yet.
The water was freezing, and I could only last a minute, but I urged myself to last longer.  I begged myself to stay in.  I made myself stand there and look through the interlaced branches above, up into the stars.  Except for the numbing sensation in my toes, it was peaceful, and perfect.  We can say now that it was underwhelming, not really what we were planning, but it wasn't wrong in any way.
Last night, as it is now, I took a few drags from a cigarette, I had four beers, I watched a movie and rewrote many of the lines with my friends.  Friends, people that I want in my life, but when it comes down to it, I tend to push away.  I tend to not want to get close, when what I truly need is a good hug and someone to have coffee with.  But, the people in my life who tell me that they love me, those people have always managed to disappear.  Whether they use me and lose me, or just walk away, or leave angrily at something I selfishly have done, it doesn't matter.  Anyway it happens, it happens.  It's sad, and it's a little pathetic, but it is life.  It is a life I am not happy with, a life I am constantly battling against, and yet I push away those who tell me they are here, and who I should probably believe.  I have often said, if I could get myself to put stock in anything, maybe something would come of it.  I am sure that is true of friendship.
Amanda said something, something I should have been happy about.  Something a true friend celebrates for another.  And yet, I wasn't.  I turned bitter and the facade of the day broke.  The little game I had been playing was forfeit.  The little mask I was wearing ripped off.
But they stood by me.  Amanda and Kirstie, when I was a bitch, when I was a cold, jealous bitch, stood fucking by me.
They said something, something I don't know that I have ever actually heard: "I'm not going anywhere, no matter how hard you push."
And I push pretty fucking hard.
So I cried, in the car, just fucking sobbed in their arms for a while.  Because, every now and then you should do it in somebody's arms.  It's one thing to cry in doorways and the shower, it's another to do it against somebody's bicep.  It's humiliating and freeing all at once; I think we need more of this combination in our lives.
It was offered several times for someone to drive me home.  I was in the process of driving someone home when I broke, and now everyone was rushing to take me back to my house.  But, I didn't want to go.  I didn't want to be alone.  I didn't want to be couped up.  I wanted to drive, I wanted to breathe, I wanted to do anything but go home alone.  So, Kirstie got in the driver's seat, and I scooted to the passenger's, and we proceeded to drive.
I flipped on my iPod and scrolled to The Beatles.  Searched through all of their songs until I hit the one I wanted.  Pressed play, lifted my feet to the dashboard, curled my arms across my chest, and watched the world pass by.  As the song played, my favorite song, the one that can make me smile no matter what, I began to cry.  Kirstie reached over, and without saying anything, took my hand.  The night went on outside, the music played softly in the car; everything was still for just that moment.
We went to IHOP for cheap coffee and I made her laugh when I didn't mean to, and a little bit when I did.  And we talked about deep things.  She told me her first impression of me, and how she wanted to know what broke me.  No one has ever asked me that before.  I still haven't really answered, I don't think.
And, she told me this, when I said that at the end of all of this, all I truly want is to be able to say, "I accept who I am, and I forgive whomever hurt me, including myself."  She said this: I think you need to start with forgiving yourself.
And then there was this idea in my mind, to cleanse, to wash clean.  So, in the spirit of the memoir and the project I am attempting to right my life, I took her out on a little adventure.
There is a creek that flows behind the neighborhood where I grew up.  I stood in it, barefoot, because I didn't have the ability to jump into a river.
I would have, would have stripped down and thrown myself into a pond or a lake or a river, but everything was frozen and I wasn't wearing panties.  But I would have.  I would have jumped from a bridge into the Arkansas if I didn't think I might actually die from it--or land on a sand-flow and break something important.  I wanted so desperately to be baptized of this feeling, that I would have done it.  A bit of me wishes I had, if only to wash everything away, because the metaphor is so sickeningly sweet to taste.  But, life isn't a television show, and there isn't always a river you can plunge into.  I took what I could get, a freezing creek in the middle of my old neighborhood, and I made of it what I could.
And it didn't seem so cold for the five seconds I let go and stared up into the sky.  It didn't seem so bad, not when there was so much out there to see.
We walked around a bit after; I shattered a mug we found in the mud and we screamed in a drain tunnel.  We could have gotten onto the highway and just driven, could have gone anywhere we felt we could go.  But, what we did, though small and seemingly useless, was better for the both of us.  She came with me, kept on following me, didn't let go.  She held my hand as I stepped into the water, and she reached out to grab it as I waded out.  She was in it, with me, for me.  She was there, and I finally believed she was going to be.
When we got in the car, shaking and shivering, she asked me how I felt.  I told her I felt like I could make it 'til tomorrow.  I was alright for tonight.  And we headed home.
Alone in my car, I turned up The Beatles, and nearly went hoarse singing along to whatever came up on shuffle.
I think I am starting to grasp the concept that life isn't always what we want it, but we can make of it what we have the ability to; everything doesn't have to go according to plan, and that isn't so bad after all.  Because, life boils down to the little adventures; the spontaneous moments in the dark; the people you chose to take along with you.  And, if you stand still for a moment, and look at all the things there are to see, and try to take them all in, the pain doesn't seem so aching and the numbness doesn't seem so cold.
Eddie Izzard, Shitty Coffee, and a Few Adventures

Tuna Salad Sandwiches are Messy

I had a very long conversation with my mother on Saturday.  We talked about my situation and my state of mind.  I think she honestly doesn't get my project.  She thinks I should just focus on the weight loss and get into the navy.  She thinks I shouldn't bother with all of the little things I would like to do before I go.  So, I don't know if she really gets it, but she doesn't have to.  I wish that she did understand; but, it isn't up to her to understand, it isn't about her (just like it isn't really about Eddie Izzard).  She just has to keep putting up with me until it's done.  I am sure she will.  It did make me reset my weight loss goal, though.  It's been moved to 170 by April 24th-ish.  April 30th wouldn't make me cry.  I am just tired of putting it off for absolutely no reason other than that I am afraid.  I am afraid of a lot of things, it seems, and if I don't overcome those fears how to I expect to do any of the much scarier things I intend to do?  All I am saying is, agents in the FBI aren't afraid of a little running.  Neither should I be.

Of course I am not actually afraid of running.  That's silly.  I am afraid of what will come when I actually lose the weight and get enlisted.  But, I can't focus on that, especially not the fear part.  I need to worry about getting it off, I need to worry about getting in shape, and I need to worry about doing the things I feel need to be done to bring a sense of happiness and confidence into my life.  But the fear is still pretty AHH!  And I am still pretty swayed by that.  I guess it's something to work on.

In the meantime, I have decided once again that I wish I could work in a morgue.  My mother cleverly suggested I work for a funeral home, picking up bodies from the morgue.  It's an in...ish.  And you wonder where I get my cleverness?  Anyway, I am thinking this isn't a bad idea.  And, honestly, how many people out there are searching for work in a funeral home?  Not many, me thinks.  So, I guess I will start looking at that option, because getting hired on as a CNA is taking a minute, and working at Borders is draining me of my will to go on.  I am at the point at which I wish my relatives would just put me on the ice-float already and shove me out to sea.  And I really love books.  And I really love talking about books.  And I really hate this job.

So, I've got to find a new one.  And I've got to finish this essay I started last week.  It's called "Let's Be Stand-up Comedians" and it is all about getting myself stuck in retail.  And I've got to start learning French--I bought all the materials, I just have to get going!

On a side note I feel is noteworthy of mentioning: my friend Chris basically said he thinks Ricky Gervais is more doable than Eddie Izzard, and I want to make it clear that he is wrong.  Ricky Gervais, you go out and do fun things with.  Eddie Izzard, you stay in and do bad things to.  Now that I have clarified, I can move on.

I really don't have anywhere to move on to, this just seemed like a bit of an update, and that's all it's really turned into.  I am still working on my list, I am still coming up with material for my set, I am still trying to go out and do things that are strange and crazy.

On Wednesday, I am going to a catholic church, I've decided, and getting crossed with ash or blessed or whatever it is catholics do on Ash Wednesday.  I will post about it.

Tomorrow, I am watching Lost or "The Great Escape" with Amanda and Kirstie, and Raye might join us.  We are having beer and pizza and once again confirming that I am a beer&pizza kinda girl.

However, today is today, and so I must get to work on living for today.

And Other Things

Fuck My Life, Eddie

I have this curious tendency of calling my computer by the name of whomever is currently occupying my desktop background.  This year, thus far, it's been Eddie Izzard, and he has taken a beating.

I usually chose something adorable or funny, or a picture of a character I love, because seeing it every day when I open my laptop makes me smile.  I am sure if you've been reading this, you can understand how Eddie Izzard is appropriate.

Last year it was David Tennant as "The Doctor," and true to form, when my computer stopped working sometime in June, I was whining at it "c'mon Doctor!"  Then again, in November, when it began working for some unexplainable reason, its background still being The Doctor, I did a fair share of "c'mon Doctor!" once more.

I find my illusion of my computer's personality tends to mold around the perspective I have of the person displayed on the screen.  Popping out of existence and then suddenly coming back to life is a very Doctor thing to do, isn't it?  Indeed, I believe this to be accurate, because since it's been Eddie, it's behaved very sporadically and has come down with a cold.  I can hardly get it to behave anymore.  I realize that it doesn't want to be a computer, that it would rather go hit things with hammers, but I really need its cooperation today.  I really need its cooperation at all.

When it began working again out of nowhere in November, I took it as a good omen, a sign of good things to come if I could make it work.  But, I didn't make it work.  I didn't take full advantage of that omen.  I let it go to waste, while I lazed around not righting all the wrongs in my life.  And now it's got the karma police on its side.  I didn't take advantage of a good omen, didn't make of it what I should have, and now I have to deal with the shit storm of good energy gone bad.

That sounds very melodramatic.  But, it does make sense, in a sort of Taoist way.

I am probably making a mountain out of a molehill--something I am either fantastic at, or have never been so good at at all.  ("Oh my God, it's a fucking mountain!"  "No, it's a molehill, just bloody step over it!")

But, I do have to deal with this shit, and that is what it is: shit.  Shit because I didn't take action or shit just because, it's shit either way.  Shit has to be dealt with, and good omens need to be taken in full, and computers need to be fixed when they get sick, and some things in life just happen so we'd better suck it up and move on.

Except that things happen for a reason.  Whatever the reason may be, they do.  Maybe my computer is trying to tell me something; maybe I am right about karma coming in computer form; maybe I am not quite on the right track yet, but I have to believe I am getting there.

I have done all I can for my computer, and it looks like all that's left is to save what I can and throw the rest overboard.  Start over.  It can't be that bad, right?  Maybe a good purging is just what the doctor ordered?

Or Eddie ordered.

Or the universe ordered.

Or something ordered, and now I have to execute.

Yeah, That One Got Away From Me.

La Souris est au-Dessous de la Table

So, French.  I want to learn French.

I've always wanted to be fluent in at least one other language, but I have never really shown a talent for language, either because I have never really tried or because I don't really have the ability.  Except, I have a memory like no one's business, and can still remember some conversational French and Russian from the less-than-a-semester of work I actually did on both languages. So, do I have the ability and have I just not been applying myself?  If it's something that I really want, shouldn't I be able to figure it out?  I think the same goes for language as it goes for math and science, as far as I am concerned.  Though I have always wanted to be fluent in another language, I have never really wanted to do the work.  I used to think I couldn't understand math and science, because I was an "artist."  Now I see that I not only have the capacity and ability, but I quite like both and am actually very rational.  Maybe I have never really thought I could learn a new language, or, worse, never really wanted to because it wasn't something I believed I should be able to do.  I don't really know why I would think that way, but I am coming to realize that a lot of my childhood consisted of thoughts like that.  Irrational, silly thoughts that I can't do something because it doesn't fit into the idea I am supposed to fit into.  Or, because I am supposed to be stupid at everything else but my one true talent, which I tend to question.  So, I make myself believe I don't have any skills or talents, and then I really don't, do I?  Well, I think it's all bullocks.  I think I can learn French.  I could have learned Russian if I had wanted.  I can learn Arabic if it is what I wish.

But, I'd like to stick with Latin-based languages to start.  Learning a new alphabet isn't easy--and yet, I still know most of the Russian one.  So, I'll start with French.

French is used as a secondary language in a lot of the world I want to work in and see, so French will be both entertaining and practical.  Plus, Amanda wants to learn French.  If I have a buddy, it might make it more interesting, to say the least.

And, finally, Eddie Izzard speaks ish-French. As in, he learned it as a boy and has sort of revived his knowledge into a kind of useful fluency when needed.  He isn't really why I want to learn--well, revive in my own sense, into fluency.  I have always wanted to be fluent in French, since I was in seventh grade; but, Eddie's use of it and enjoyment of it, and his challenging himself to be better so he can conquer new stand-up fronts, has certainly inspired me to start up again.  I am not going to wait until I get back into school, I am going to do it on my own--with Amanda, of course.  I should do it, if only to prove to myself that I can.  Just like I should write this book, just like I should do this stand-up set, just like I should lose the weight and go to the navy.  Because I have to prove it to myself, and because I have to start moving forward.

Maybe you don't see learning French as a step forward in my life, toward a degree and a salary and a career sitting in labs poking at bones and dead bodies, but I do.  I see it as a gateway.  If I can learn another language, if I can speak it fluently and rapidly, if I can be good at something I always told myself I had trouble with, than I can do all of those things I want and more.  Learning another language is a gateway to learning more about oneself, I truly believe that, as well as learning more about the world, and learning more about what we're capable of.  I think it will help me accept my own true intelligence, something I have been curiously fighting with my whole life.  I think it will help me become somebody I have dreamed of being, but have never had faith I could be.  I think it will open the door for me to learn many other things, especially other languages.  It will allow me to travel and immerse in other cultures more easily.  It will open my mind in ways I could've only dreamed of until now.

Also, the FBI really likes it if you speak another language.

So, I am going to learn French.  That is on my list; my list of things I have to do, things I want to do this year, so I can finally grasp who I am, before I lose myself completely.

French, karaoke, tattoo.

All 206 bones.

Stand-up on my birthday.

Le Singe est Sur la Branche

Sun Comes Up with No Conclusions

It's cloudy, gray, misting, and cold; a fog is settled over this city and the one I just came from.  Part of me wants to get back on I-40 and just keep on west, but I am too practical for that.  I have to be at work at nine tomorrow morning, and as much as I dread to go, I will anyway.  This weekend, I feel, isn't going to be fun.  Today marks the end of the fun for the week.  The light won't come until Sunday, maybe, and then Monday.  And, yes, it's just a few days; but, I am so deep down in this, I can hardly use that as an excuse to smile.

I am not so far gone, though, don't freak out on me.  I am still savable, I am still living, even if I feel hollow on the inside.  There is a faint light, but it's still there, at the end of the tunnel, and the more I push forward, the brighter it gets.  That's why I came here.  To move, to step forward, to get closer to the light.

The Survivor Tree got through a bombing, it's still growing, its branches extend farther now than they did last year.  It isn't dead.  Not yet.

I am not a tree, but I am still growing, still extending my branches.

Everyone should see the tree sometime in their lives.  I have always wanted to, but have put it off.  Today, I took myself away and saw it alone.  I stood beneath it, all its branches bare, and I felt it living still.

Allison asked me why I'd come here.  She told me she hoped I found what I was looking for.

I think I did.

I'm looking for that bit of me that's salvageable, that bit that is breathing, that bit that they see when they look at me, but that I miss when I look into myself.  I think I can find it, I think I can be saved.

I want to be saved, I want to move forward, I want to feel something.

I know for a while I might just feel sadness--this is what I have been feeling for years, now, and I know it isn't going away that easily.  But, I hope too, that with the sadness, I can feel joy, and I can feel hope, and I can feel the love beneath the sorrow.  The love that reminds me why I'm living still.

If my life goes anything like I think it will, I will survive worse things that what I am enduring now.  This isn't anything, but it's so big now, and so big to me, that I forget how even mountains can be conquered.  It isn't a mountain, it's just a dune.  A dune I too can over come.  One I would like to put in my past.  To learn from it, and out it in my past, and move forward.

I know what I have to do.  I have to start living when I think I am dying.  I have to start laughing when I feel like crying.  I have to jump in my car and drive two hours to see a tree, and know why I need it.  So that I can remember, things happen, things happen for shitty, inexcusable reasons.  Things happen, and we move on from them.  Things happen, and we live.

Now I turn around.  Now I head home.

I'm Wide Awake, It's Mourning

Relapse Number One

I don't know what happened.  I got out of the shower today and knew that if I looked in the mirror, I would see nothing.

I want to get in the car and drive away.  Drive west, for some godforsaken reason.  Drive west and never come back.  Leave everything, all of my life up until now, behind.  Just drive.

I'm crying now.

I don't know how this is possible, to be what I am on the inside when everyone sees something different on the outside.  I get people telling me I am awesome, funny.  I feel like they see me as full of life and potential.  They can tap into something in my subconscious that I cannot.  How can I be so full of life and so dead on the inside?  Why am I so dead on the inside?  Why am I not bright and shiny?  When I look in the mirror, I see an empty shell.  Maybe a pretty empty shell, a smiling empty shell, but hollow nonetheless.  Why can they see the light when I can't?

I know, often times, in public, around others, I smile, I laugh, and it seems as if I am feeling it in my core.  And, maybe for a minute I am.  But, in the end all the numbness ebbs back.

I don't know what's wrong with me.  I don't know what will stop this feeling.  I know that getting in my car and driving won't, not completely, but that is the only thing I want.  Except, I have no place to go.  No place to go, no money to get there, no way I can stay here.  I have to get out and live.  I have to drive some place else, for the day, just go.

Where do I go?

I'm scared.
I wish that someone was listening. 

There and Back Again

My friend is calling this "Julie and Julia, but with Eddie Izzard."  I am calling this "recapturing--or, capturing, actually, since I haven't ever really had it--the will to live."  It's both those things, except more.

It's like this: in six months I will be twenty-two, and I will have never really lived.  A couple of days ago, I told my mother if I didn't dig out of the financial and emotional hole I am in, if I don't get my life together and get started moving forward toward my goals, if I don't get out of my head and into the world, I am probably going to end up killing myself.  Literally killing myself, something I have never seriously considered before.  It would be a waste of life if I can't get it together soon.  I know if I don't do this now, I am likely never to, so I might as well end it.  I don't want to end it.  I don't want to die.  But, I can't exactly call what I am doing living.  I have been sad for a long time, standing still for even longer.  I have to start moving forward.  I have to start living.  All my life I have been dreaming of doing crazy, incredible things because I have been trying to find my own will to live, my own survival mechanism, my own fight instead of flight instinct.  This is the time.  I start this now.

I am giving myself until my twenty-second birthday, July 15, 2010, to start living.  I have a list of things I want to do before that time, as well as a couple of partners in crime to find adventures with.  All of it is going to culminate in the ultimate show of self-confidence and self-belief.  I am going to do a stand-up routine on my birthday.  It is something that I have always secretly wanted to do, secretly hoped I'd be good at, but never truly believed I'd do.  I never thought I would want to put myself out there like that.  Stand-up is a scary, scary thing.  You can kill, yes, but most likely you'll die.  And the silence and the desire to please and the fear and flop sweat is just absolutely terrifying.  Why would I ever want to do that to myself.  Well, because I have always loved being on stage, and have always had a performer's heart, even if I've never had the confidence or the will.  I think I could do it, I think I could be funny, and I think if I am ever going to survive in this world and find who I am, if I am ever going to accept myself and become something, I have to believe I can do it and try.

Eddie Izzard says you have to believe you can do it, see it happening, before it can.  That, of course, is also what many books say on the matter of achieving anything, and I don't disagree.  I have to believe in myself, I have to believe in something, because for so long I haven't bothered.  I have to have faith, put some serious stock into myself, have some fucking hope, and believe.

Why Eddie Izzard, you say?  He's my favorite comedian, and if I could aspire to be anything in my one performance, it would be to be like him.  Of course, I am not trying to actually be like him, I think that's considered impersonation.  I guess I would just like to do him proud.

So, for the next six months, I am going to do everything I can to live.  I am going to write about it, I am going to share it with the world, I might even try to tell Eddie Izzard--although, I doubt he'll notice.  (He seems busy, is all.)

I am going to capture the will to live, so that I might live, for once in my life.

This is my story of how I took Rock Bottom and turned it into something new.  This is the uphill battle, the acceptance of who I am, and the refusal to quit now when I have so much I could do.

This is it.

Wish Me Luck

My Goal

This is very rough.  The delivery is shoddy, and I have been having a hard time remembering certain points, so I wrote it down.  It's very, very rough.  But, these are a few jokes I'd like to use in my first stand-up routine.  The last is a new addition, and needs work.  There is also one about the cells in your eyes being vampires that I don't have written down.  I'd like to talk about attracting lesbians to myself as well, but I don't think I have enough material to discuss it.  Anyway, like I said, this is the first time I've written anything like this down, and it's very, very shoddy.  Ellipses indicate the segway between jokes. 

My inner child, I have discovered, is a twelve-year-old gay boy.  Yes, I have learned that I am a gay man.  Not a queen gay man or a butch gay man.  I am the slob gay man.  The gay man you think is straight, who dresses okay but is a bit of a mess and one day you see through the “wash me” handwritten note on his back bumper a rainbow flag sticker and you realize, “oh, he’s gay!”  That’s the kind of gay man my inner child is.  He likes to play football and climb trees and swim in creeks and poke dead animals on the side of the road.  Yeah.  And then he goes home, cleans himself up, puts on mommy’s makeup and practices kissing boys on his wrist.  He’s the boy that hangs out with all the other boys at the skate park and secretly flirts with them.  That’s right, he’s flirting, but they don’t know it, because they are twelve year old boys!  He’s the type of boy who will kiss you on the cheek and then take a punch to the gut.  He will kick your ass too.  Even if he loses miserably, he won in here (point to heart).

That’s my inner child.

You have to think, when you’re talking about inner children, what they must be thinking about sex.  They have to be like, “eew!”  “Don’t touch me like that!”  (whispered:) “The counselors at school told me if anyone touched me there I should tell.”  They have to think that’s gross!

I think that’s the true difference between sex and making love.  In sex, your inner child is grossed out, and that little bit of you is distracted.  He’s saying, hurry up and orgasm, let’s get out of here!  You can’t really make a connection, ‘cause he’s standing right there watching!  But making love, that’s a deep, emotional thing isn’t it?  I think it’s deep and emotional because my inner child and your inner child have run off together to play in the sand box.  They teamed up and went to go poke an opossum.  That’s my inner child.  Hey, kid, let’s go poke dead things while they touch each other.  And then me and my boyfriend can have this connection, this moment.  It’s beautiful.

A booty call, though, is devoid of emotion.  That’s because booty calls happen in the middle of the night, don’t they?  Our inner children are sleeping.  You’re free to be as freaky as you want; little Billy is dreaming.  He’s not paying attention!  Go ahead, get crazy.  Just don’t wake the boy.

...

Oklahoma is like a completely separate entity from the rest of the world isn’t it?  I tell people here that my inner child is a little gay boy and they think that’s truly strange.  My friends get it.  My friends in Chicago get it.  “Oh, your inner child is a gay boy? Yeah, yeah, you’re a gay boy.  You’re totally a gay boy.”  They get it!  But, in Oklahoma, they do not.

I don’t think people own televisions in Oklahoma.  Or, they own them, but they don’t really watch what is happening.  They are hearing, but they aren’t listening.  I used to work at a Starbucks, and people in Oklahoma would walk in, look at the menu, look at me, look back at the menu and say, “can I get a grandy carmel machiati?”  And I look at the menu, and look at them, and say, “A grande caramel macchiato? Can you read?”

Seriously.They act like they have never seen the word grande before.  Like it isn’t on the menu at Taco Bell; I know they’ve seen it!  And macchiato just scares the living crap out of them, doesn’t it?  It’s Italian.  Italian is scary.  I-talian, not Italian.  I-talian, it’s hard.

There is a city in Oklahoma called Miam-a, but it’s spelt Miami.  Miami, and they pronounce it Miama.  Miami.  It’s Cuban.  No it’s not.  I’m pretty sure it’s native American or something.

My friend used to work in a shoe shop, and she told me that people used to pronounce the word Nik-ee as nike, which just furthers my belief that Oklahomans don’t own televisions and haven’t since the dawn of time.  Nik-ee.  And pue-ma.  Pue-ma.  It’s puma!  It’s French for cat.  No it’s not.  It’s French for big cat.  No it’s not.  It’s French for really big ass killer cat that lives in the jungle.  I don’t think it’s French.  I think it’s Portuguese.   For shoe.

...

Oklahoma is pretty bad, I think, but I don’t know that it’s as bad as some places.  I lived in Chicago for a while, and I heard some pretty poor grammar while I was there.  English is a different language up there.   I actually heard the word “therre” used in a sentence.  I didn’t know that was actually a word.  I thought Nelly’d made it up.  I heard it.  There was a woman on a bus I took once who apparently was talking on the phone to every member of her family, and every other word was “shit,” or “titties,” or “motherfucker.”  She actually said the word therre, and then she did something truly appalling.  She told her niece, whom I assume couldn’t have been that old, that she needed to stop being such a shit because this woman had raised her since she came “outta her mama’s pussy.”

I didn’t come out of my mama’s pussy.  I am from Bixby, Oklahoma.  I was born of my mother’s womb.  I was brought into this world by the hand of God Almighty and am a blessing unto this earth.  There was no “coming outta a pussy” for me.

Accents, dialects, diction is all different depending on where you are in the country.  For instance, my friend Allison is from Pittsburg.  She was birthed from her mother’s vagina.  That’s the difference! 

No pussy for us.

Yellow is the New Black

I can feel the numbness ebbing.

Today was a mediocre day.  Hardly the type of day-after one would imagine a girl having since hitting rock bottom the day before.  Yesterday, the day in which rock bottom was hit, wasn't the type of day you imagine hitting rock bottom.  None of this is how it should be, but this is how it is.  Today, though, I woke up, didn't I?  I watched an episode of Lost and drank a cup of coffee.  I got out of bed and hugged the dog and had a chat with my mom.  I pulled out the classifieds and started looking for a new job.  After making a list of websites and phone numbers, I got in the shower and started getting ready for work.  I did all of this without thinking, without feeling, without telling myself to move forward.  I knew what I had to do and I did it, and I suppose that is similar to the way a day-after rock bottom should be.  I didn't have the power to send out resumes and call non-stop every place I could.  I had to go to work, I had to keep living like people do.

I can feel my heart beating, in my chest, so I know that I am alive.  But all of these things I did in the morning were washed away when I got to work.  I didn't feel like I was numb, not like I did yesterday, but I didn't feel like I was living.  I felt like I was starting new, but like I wasn't moving.  I wasn't excited for the day, and shouldn't I have been?  It's so strange, because I found out I have four days off in a row this week, so I was happy to learn I could spend it finding a new job.  I even set a goal that I would have one by the time I was back at work.  And, I was working up stairs, closing with people that I liked.  I was smiling at myself, at little jokes and memories of old ones, making myself happy.  I was talking and behaving like normal, like nothing had happened, like I hadn't admitted I would end my life if I couldn't start it soon.  I don't know, looking back, if the behavior was false; I don't think it was, I think I might have truly taken a step forward.  But, my happiness was so fragile, from here seems like it might have been.

I was yelled at today.  Yelled at in front of customers.  It was mean, too, the way he did it, how he said it.  And from someone who I thought would never do that.  I don't know what was going on in his life at that moment, maybe he was taking something out on me--he was in a strange mood all day--but that isn't an excuse.  He didn't know what was going on with me, and his outburst at something I had been told to do by my other manager shattered my little pantomime of normalcy.  The numbness set in.

And then Amanda happened.  Then Amanda gave me a hug that nearly stopped my heart, and all the physical and emotional pain I had evaporated.  It came back later, but lighter, until it slowly ebbed away.  She kept me smiling, and once the night started to settle into itself, I started to smile again on my own.

When we got off, we decided to go get cheap coffee and talk.  I decided to tell her my life story, get it all out there, everything I was feeling, so she could start helping me live again--live for the first time.  We spent thirty minutes hacking away at an inch of ice and shoving several inches of snow from her car.  I took it upon myself to do it.  I made a joke that I am the man; I like to do shit like that because it makes me feel useful, like the hero.  So I did it.  I got clever and found a way to make it work with a tiny, plastic ice scrapper and my un-gloved hands.  I hacked away, laughing at the situation, and at us in it.  I hacked away until I could only laugh.  Laugh at how dull everything has been, how numb everything has been.  I scraped and I shattered and I pulled away until all the numbness I had was in my red and bleeding fingers.  Until Amanda's car was clear of its ice shell.  Until mine started to break away.  And I was laughing, not really caring about the numbness, or the cold, or the fact that I really didn't have to do it, but I needed to do something, so I did.  At one point, I climbed on her hood to shove away snow and get my fingers underneath a sheet I couldn't reach by leaning from the side.  I went out of my way, and I had fun, doing something we all see as a tedious chore.  I had fun, and I kind of made life easier for a friend.  Everything melted away.  I let go and let it.

I told Amanda, for doing that, she owes me friendship for life.  She has to come to my wedding.

She told me she'd send me cookies when I'm deployed.

I'm really glad I found her.  I think that with her, this will be easier.  Changing my life will be easier.  Pulling myself up from rock bottom will be easier because of her.

On the way home, I sang in the car.  I mean, I fucking belted it.  I sang like you do when you know you can sing, when you have nothing to lose, when you open up to the song and just let it take over.  I sang, and after chipping away at ice and telling my whole life story, eating pancakes and throwing around some jokes, I felt like I wasn't imitating life quite as much as I was before.

I told her thank you.  I don't feel quite alive just yet, but the numbness is ebbing away.  I can feel myself waking up.  I told her, "let's keep this up."

How Eddie Izzard, Skeletons, and a Few Adventures Saved My Life