There is something wrong with me, on the inside.  There must be something wrong.  How can I take a situation about someone else and make it about me? But, my feelings have been hurt, and absolutely no one has regard for the hurt I feel when we're busy focusing on someone else.  It isn't about me, so I don't get to be comforted, and I just have to believe that when I am finally allowed to be, these people will be there for me.  By all accounts, by all my memory, they won't be.  I have the hardest time believing that anyone will.  Part of me doesn't want to believe.  I want to kill that part of me.  That part that believes something will always go wrong.  That part that always tells me, in a whisper at the back of my heart, that everything will fall through.  And everything does, because I listen to it instead of to everything else that tells me it won't.  Everything else, that tells me to believe, to have faith, and things will come through.  I think I am being realistic by believing that tiny voice, but really, I am killing myself one pessimistic thought at a time.

I can't help everyone else when they are falling apart, because I already am.  I can't be there the way I should, so I feel bad, I feel hurt.  I feel pain and I believe they will walk away, they will forget I exist.  I listen to the little voice making me sad, and my friends follow through; they forget me, that don't care, because I can't see anything but the little voice.  I see what it says, not what they do.

I don't want to give up, not on myself and not on my plans, but if I believe everyone else already has--never did anything but--than that's all I will see and that's all that will happen.  I have spent my life giving up before I start.  I have spent my whole life listening to that little voice.  Where did it come from?  What is it's name?  Why has it been here all of this time?  What happened to me?  What have I done?  How did this happen?  What did this to me?

The problem is: we're focusing on someone else who is falling apart, for good reason.  But, I am left with this question myself.  I don't know how to understand it, and everyone in my life is too busy falling apart themselves to help me as I crumble after years of listing to this voice.  And, it isn't just today, it isn't just right now.  Everyone is always falling apart around me.  My mother, my friends, anyone I should be able to hold on to.  All of them and more have at one time abandoned me.  I have never been allowed to "fall apart."  I have never been allowed to focus on me.  No one else has focused on me.  I don't know what to do.  How to deal.  I don't think I can fix myself on my own, but no one is in my life who isn't falling to pieces and my health keeps falling through the cracks.  I have to ask, what about me, but no body wants to answer; I am made to feel selfish.  Everyone is too busy asking that about themselves.  I am told to accept that, because that is all being human is in this world, there isn't one person who is not thinking of only themselves.  I just need one person on my side.  I need one person to remember me.  To not fall apart on me while I am trying to put myself together again.

And for that, I am selfish, like everyone before me, and everyone after.  But I'm the only one feeling like a piece of shit for wondering what's wrong with me while everyone around me is worried about themselves.

I don't know what to do anymore.

I want to help us both, but I don't know that I can.

I'll Move Out of the Way for You

Okay, so here's the deal: I don't like to be tossed about.

And, yet, it happens at least once a week, if not much more often.

I don't like to be led on, I don't like to be lied to, and I don't like to be treated like a second rate individual when I am the one pulling your ass out of every bad situation you get yourself into.  I don't like to be toyed with, but I find I am everyone's favorite play-thing.

I am always there when people need me, and when they don't, I get left behind.

I have done my fair share of bitching about this in the past, people using and abusing me, and I continue to stay on stand-by, I continue to listen, to offer a shoulder, to help out in every way I can.  And I continue to get dumped on.

The problem is, I don't want to be unreliable, or labeled as such.  I don't want to be seen as a cold-hearted bitch or uncaring or unkind.  I want people to rely on me, but I often find people I cannot rely on.

Take my best friends in high school, one of which would go on to abandon me for my brother.  I was always there to soothe the ache for them, but when I needed someone, or when I planned something to make them better, they left me hanging.  One great example is my stupid-ass ex-friend Michelle, the one who thought she was going to marry my brother.  They broke-up one weekend--for the hundredth time, I'm sure--and I, still under her manipulation and thinking my brother was an ass, offered to drive to her city ninety miles away to spend the night and make it better if just for a few days.  Already on my way, I gave her a call to see how she was, and she cancelled.  I sat on the side of the road, trying to talk her out of cancelling, out of staying home alone, but she was already convinced I didn't need to come.  And there I was, prepared to drive an hour and looking forward to seeing someone I hadn't in a while, on the side of the road being told to turn around.  I was furious, but more than that, I was disappointed in myself for believing it was actually going to happen.  That I was actually going to drive the hour, meet her for dinner, hang out bad-mouthing boys, and spend the night on her spare bed.  I thought my problem was that I was an idiot; I am starting to think I am too desperate for something I can't quite put my finger on.

When I had a tarot card reading, one of the cards was to tell me how people saw me.  It said they saw me as unreliable; if I were to make travel plans with them, they would cancel.  I have to agree; but, I have to question as well, because it seems inconsistent.  I have spent the better part of the past few years trying to be anything but unreliable.  I have tried to be there for every bad thing, and have been scolded by it.  And I continue to be there, to go out of my way, even when I know I will eventually be overlooked, because I don't want to seem that way: unreliable.  Maybe my sister or my father put it in my head that I was, or maybe I have just always thought it myself, but it is the last thing I have ever wanted to be.  I don't want to be stupid, I don't want to be cruel, I don't want to be ugly, and I want to be reliable.  I want to be the person you can count on.  I want someone to count on me.

So I push hard to maintain that title, and usually what comes of it is this: your boyfriend becomes more important than me.  He does something truly shitty, and I come around to help out, and once he's back, even without offering apology or sincere regret, you run back to him and continue with your little charade that he loves you and everything will be alright.  I think if I honestly thought the boyfriends they run back to did love them, I wouldn't mind, but usually I am clever enough to realize they don't.  Ironically, of course, you will break up with him, and who will be there to hold you when you cry?  Me.  Because I am a sucker for the needy, and really all I need is to be needed.

And then, when we make plans, when we decide to travel and to road-trip and to do things that people our age are supposed to do, my friends cop-out at the last minute, and leave me hanging high and dry.  I wonder why I haven't ever done anything, it's because everyone bails on me, and I can't foot the bill myself.  And I am afraid to go by myself, but maybe I shouldn't be...maybe I should just keep on going.  Get in the car and drive wherever we were going myself, and then maybe I won't be unreliable.

I don't really know what the problem is.  I think it is that I am a pushover and allow myself to be walked on because I have severe abandonment issues.  I need to learn how to say no, and I need to learn how to not care if I have to.

I don't think I should stop being there for people.  I don't think I should just go away and not help when I am needed.  But, I am dead-tired of being walked on.  Of having plans changed because you let yourself sleep-on it and be swayed.  Some jack-ass treats you like shit, and I allow you to turn around and treat me that way, because you love him, even though he won't ever love you.  I will love you, and you won't ever love me. Not the way I need it.

My mother says I have to draw they right people to me.  I have to be the person I want to get to know, and I have to draw that time of person to me.  I have to learn to weed out the bad, to see them for what they are.  The problem is, that I fall in love too easily, and they aren't necessarily bad friends...when they want to be.

Whatever happened to chicks before dicks?

Whatever happened to loyalty?

Whatever happened to keeping plans with friends, because friends are the families we pick, not the one's we've been stuck with?

Whatever happened to being decent people?

I guess I don't have room to talk.  I guess I can't really be considered a "decent" person.  I guess that is my ultimate downfall.

You draw to you what you project.  I am needy and self-loathing.  Just look at my friends.

I'll Move Out of the Way for Her, Too

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.