Victorya Chase Goes To Therapy

Chicken Soup For the Soul

2009-07-23T13:10:00.002-04:00

I'm so stoked, just got the official e-mail that a story I wrote about my dear sweet Penny will be included in this anthology. I grew up reading these, they always gave me so much hope. I'm just ecstatic that now I'll be in one for kids like me to read (and adults too!)

You can pre-order this anywhere now apparently, and it's published on September 22nd. I can't wait to get a copy in my hands and see it in print, and go to every bookstore and see the name Victorya Chase in such an inspiring tome.

Cheers!

UPDATE

2009-05-28T13:53:00.004-04:00

Hello There! It's been a while for sure, thought I'd provide a little update.

As with all things in life, stuff happens. I did in fact have another episode, or whatever it's called now. Work got tough, life got tough, a LOT was going on and suddenly I realized I was in the spiral.

The good news? I NOTICED. I called my therapist. That's progress. Something was wrong and I could feel it.

In talking with my therapist it came out that the goal, the new goal, the forever goal I suppose is to keep the period of time between each flashback, each anxiety spiral that leaves me with stomach cramps and unable to sleep, a lot longer. And it was long. Maybe a year? While I don't hope for a next time, I will try and recognize it and hope it's very much in the far future, not near.

So Victorya Chase is back in therapy, but is back to increasing the time between sessions.

I will say there is still a big change between when I first started this blog and coming to the update. My 'Interpersonal skills' have increased. I have more people I'm closer too, which I am attributing as much to me being more open to accepting people as to others accepting me. It's so easy to say it's someone elses fault for not 'understanding you' when you close yourself off to others, which is a place I've been.

In even more news. I'm moving! I get to quit the job which is an unhealthy environment and go to a sleepy mountain town where I'll be entering grad school.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters Program

2008-06-02T10:34:00.000-04:00

The Big Brothers Big Sisters Program is billed as a mentoring program in the United States. It takes youths (mainly those at a proven disadvantage – lower economic status, single-parent households, etc.) and pairs them with an adult of the same gender to act as a mentor, to take them to cultural institutions or just spend time listening to them.

I had a ‘Big Sister’ growing up. This was a point where my mother tried, but fate was never on our side. My ‘Big Sister’ was a ‘Big Politician’ in the town. I believe she was even older than my mother. She lived in what was, to us, a mansion in the ritzy part of town. She had two big dogs and, though married, had no children. In the beginning, it was great. We went to ballets, museums, restaurants I had never been too. She was running for reelection. When she was sworn in, having won, I held the Bible in a dress she bought.

Then she stopped calling.

But not totally, she just became too busy to have me around. So she’d buy tickets to events and give them to me so my mother could take me- which isn’t what I wanted. Sure, I got to see Cats the musical that way and watch my mother, who told me that the show was going to be crap, cry during ‘Memories’ but it wasn’t the same.

I’ll never forget when my Big Sister was helping me get ready for a dance at school. This was Jr. High. She asked me what size my dress was – I was a 12. She told me that even at her age she’d never been that big.

Way to mentor.

I remember after it officially ended, I looked through the memorabilia of our time together. There were her pamphlets for re-election, with all of her good deeds laid out. Chief among them- she was a proud Big Sister.

This brought me back to all the times we went out before re-election, to how I held the Bible at her invocation and the Kodak moment it was.

I felt completely used, a pawn in a politicians play for power. That was it. Meaningless, just another instance of me being tossed aside when there was no more use for me.

That is the way I felt a lot in life. Incidental, of no consequence. I remember yelling at my mother that I felt like a prostitute. In order to get dinner, I had to hug her or tell her I loved her. Affection was traded for the necessities of life. And it was all so meaningless, so disgusting on many levels.

Dental Woes Continue and Last Meeting

2008-04-17T13:43:00.003-04:00

I had my official official last session with my therapist the other day. It was interesting. We talked more about my writing, really, and how that has changed. See, when I first went, I was scared, really scared to write. I was scared that someone might find me, might challenge me, might try to pull me down.

I don't know how to say it really, but I think I have more confidence now. I'm still jumpy as hell, especially when stressed. Just the other day a co-worker bumped into me and man did I reach the roof, lol, they're learning though. It's a learning process for all of us. One guy has finally learned not to point around me, it really bugs me, just the whole unpredictable movement things. But when it comes to meeting people, I'm there. When it comes to trusting others, way better. And when it comes to my dreams -

Recently I've had a couple dreams about my mother. Both involve her coming into my apartment, moving in. One just had her renting the apartment above mine. In both I fought back. I was adamant to my landlord that she should not rent a place here, that I, a tenant in this complex for eight years who always paid would be out the door. In the other I kicked her out. I have control. Not that I want to run into her in real time.

Okay, I think I'm going to be all over the map today, I haven't written on here in a while and am not writing in word first. April 26th is the 'deathiversary' of my Penny, whom I wrote about before. My real mother. It's still hard that she's gone, I'm going up to her grave this weekend to leave pussywillows. I know it's a bit cliche, pussywillows for a cat, but I think it fits. If all goes well I'm going with a new friend I met, a non-online one. The online life is an easy escape, but I have to join the real world with the virtual.

Oh, and my dental woes continue, only now with my dental insurance used up, ugh. Now we're on to apico surgery, through the gum to get at a root. And this is all stemming from childhood dental work that was done wrong. Not even done wrong, they said it was partially completed and I was supposed to have it finished as a child. But through whatever happened I was always told it was a finished product, and it wasn't.

See, there is so much happening that can bring me to my past, but now I'm looking to a future. I have a future.

Cheers!

Long Time No See

2008-03-19T09:31:00.002-04:00

Howdy!

Sorry I've been away for a while. I'm phazing out of therapy now, as I mentioned. I have another meeting in April, and am now doing an 8 week group thing which is interesting, but as it is a 'group,' we all had to sign confidentiality statements, which makes sense. I wouldn't want my real name blabbed and have no desire to talk about other peoples resolving issues.

Life has been interesting in that I forever have dental problems. I'm still, after over 12 hours in the dentists chair, not done with one root canal and then broke a tooth on the other side of my mouth leaving me on mush for a while. I noticed now that when I click peoples links, more blogs have gone private which is sad. I miss you guys!

I hope all is well/better/getting better with everyone.

It’s a Good Thing

2008-01-31T10:28:00.001-05:00

When I started this blog way back when, I was in the deepest part of the dungeon of despair. But I saw the window. This let me know that there was life outside. I know I’m lucky, that some don’t even see that window and think that the damp and darkness and self hatred and confusion is all there is. But I saw the light and knew where I wanted to be which is why I called, in tears, at midnight, for a psychiatric referral. Then, I did nothing with the number and lost it because I was scared of what it said about me that I needed help. However, over a month later, I found myself after three days of crying and tortured thoughts and flashbacks realizing help isn’t something bad to ask for and called again, crying at midnight, and started regular therapy.

Goals were set. I wanted to recognize triggers, to get methods to deal with them, to discover what set me off. I wanted no more flashbacks, night terrors, to get the voice of my mother telling me how worthless I am out of my head. I wanted to stop her continued control over me. I wanted a feeling of self-worth.

Things weren’t easy. The first few sessions involved me reliving the worst moment, the one freshest in my mind, the one where a lot of guilt started – when my mother killed my cat but blamed me. I had to keep going into the memory, to stop looking in as an outsider, but begin to look out of my 12-year old eyes and remember how she was the one that performed the actions. And it's not like stuff didn't start way before then. Hell, I remember her ripping my clothes off my back and dragging me by my hair way before then. But that's the moment that stuck, especially with the whole Bobo situation.

I had to take control of my past to take control of my future.

The thing that is the worst for me is the feeling of being trapped, because I was trapped for so long. Crowds, elevators, etc., I don’t freak out but don’t like them. Then, with both feet broken, I was trapped.

I worked with my therapist for well over a year and have slept much better. In fact, the last bottle of Ambien I got, in January of 2007 was for 30 pills. I still have some left. That’s a good thing.

Anyway, during that time at home I was faced with a lot of triggers. I was mostly immobile, my mother e-mailed me, I needed to rely on other people. And I handled it. I lived through that time and saw that people can be trusted, dependable.

So now, I’m phasing out of therapy. I meet with her once in February, and then we discuss the final session. It’s a good feeling, to regain control. Just as good as when I first got the diagnosis and realized I’m not alone, and more importantly, am not crazy like my family. Sure, some things come up. Right now the news is all over the Nixmary trial. To those not informed, she’s a little girl that was killed by her parents. They abused her horribly, forcing her to use the cat litter box, constant beatings, among other things. These stories are truly upsetting, and do bring up old feelings and memories. It’s sad that such abuse continues all too often.

Another big help was this blog. I started it to help me face things, to help me face therapy. I never really thought it would get the positive reception it would, the wonderful people that would appear, converted from the binary of computer language to support and aid, both in support of my blogs and my own escape in theirs.

But for now, it’s Victorya phasing out of therapy and wondering where my life will lead. Where ever it does lead, I know I’m the one doing the leading. It’s a good thing.

The Cats of My Life: Bobo

2008-01-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

Photo Copyright: victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

In terms of my journey, this is the last cat. She was a foster that I didn’t want. I had been searching for something after Penny died and got in touch with a local rescue group to help them. Basically, what I wanted to do was sit with them during the adoption events, take photographs for the website, etc.

This guy I met ended up being a manipulative bastard, and I was an easy mark. He told me of how many cats were dying in his cramped apartment, how they needed someplace else to stay – just for a few months. Some place like. . my apartment After a month or so of guilt trips I relented, and he brought over two not one cat—and the trouble began.

That first night Bobo shredded the bottom of my box spring and climbed in. Now, this was the first bed I ever bought. This was the first bed that was purely MY bed, not a hand me down, not my mother’s old bed, not an air bed, not a futon. I was livid, I had to get the cat out (ever try sleeping with an animal climbing around inside your mattress?) then duct tape the box spring.

“When are you going to adopt her out” was a common phrase with me, but he didn’t even bring her down to show her on weekends, where I was still helping out. Then, I think as he realized my guilt associated with the animals he began to delve deeper, telling me how all his money is spent solely for the good of the felines, and how the money I spent on my camera (which I was using to take photos of the cats then edit for the website) should have been given to him instead, as he wouldn’t be as frivolous as I obviously was. Luckily, I saw that as a warning sign and stopped helping him. Up to that point I had been donating a lot of time and energy, after that, I just wanted the cats out.

Then he admitted it was his tactic, to get people to foster but with no intention of adopting them to someone else. “After a while people get used to the cats and generally keep them,” he told me. So I figured, fine, I’ll keep them then send them to another adoption agency and told him I’d adopt them. “Then you owe me $200” he told me. “What the F*ck” was my reply. I’d given tons of time and energy, these animals were supposed to have already been wormed and yet the first week worms crawled out of one’s rear end (in full view of me, and on me) and I had to pay for worming, leukemia testing, etc., to the tune of over $300 already. Plus, the contract stated he could sue me if I got rid of the animal (like the recent Ellen debacle) and he had such a big ego, he would do it.

One of the cats then got adopted, but Bobo was tougher. She was unstable. She’d be sweet and cute and cuddly, getting up on my lap, and then turn and bite me or scratch me. She liked to snuggle up in my armpit at night, but half way through she’d grab my arm and kick, and the scars still aren’t fully faded. This was the cat that drove me over the edge.

I had her for over a year, I was trying to anticipate her moods. What did I do that caused her to act out? I bought her a cat condo, she took my favorite silk pillow as her bed, she was fed only organic cat food. I tried everything, but her mood would shift without provocation. Things would be good for a day or two, and then she'd attack me again. It got to the point where I’d just look at her and cry. For three days straight I cried, even missing work.

And that’s when it hit me – She was just like my mother, and I needed help. That’s when I started asking around for a psychiatrist and told the guy to get her out of my house that weekend (I also called other shelters, but all were full). That’s when I decided “screw it, I’m being railroaded and manipulated by a cat and an ass with a God complex that just uses other people to deify himself as some savior. I need to put myself first.”

Bobo was the bottom I reached before realizing I needed to find that rope to climb back up and find myself. That was when I started therapy.

And the first thing the therapist said?

“Geez, do I really need to tell you that she was your mother?”

Nope, I had figured it out, and that’s why I called for help.

What's On My Mind

2008-01-23T11:33:00.000-05:00

I realized there are two posts I still need to make. One is the last in my feline series and then one more. Of course, today is neither of those posts. They are still swimming in my mind. Today is about yesterday.

Yesterday I had to have an endoscopy. That’s when they stick a camera down your throat to check on your stomach and esophagus and take biopsies and other fun stuff. But that’s not important either.

After the biopsy, my friend came to pick me up. The doctors told her to hold me that I might be woozy. She wrapped her arm around me and asked if I’d mind that people will think we’re a gay couple. She loves to hold hands on the street with her female friends, hug them, be affectionate in public. I told her I didn’t really give a damn. But again, not that part of the day that bugged me.

Heath Ledger died, that wasn’t good, but that’s also not what is on my poor brain. Well, it’s there, but not predominant.

Coming out of the ‘Specialty Center’ as they like to think they aren’t a hospital, my friend and I, arm in arm, watched a man get beaten by the cops. We weren’t the only ones, there were people all around.

At first, we just saw the three cops and a guy behind them, then we heard the screaming, “stop resisting arrest, stop resisting arrest” and noticed that they were billy-clubbing a guy on the ground. This man had on a hat (it was snowing yesterday) and was clutching a duffel bag tightly, he was on the ground, but not fully – more like kneeling (or being pushed as, again, three cops and a fourth guy were on top of him).

The cops kept yelling that he was resisting arrest, he was screaming, “I didn’t do nuthin!”

Then one of the cops yelled for the spray, and this guy got it about three times in the face. Enough that my friend and I could see the white foam running down as he screamed. The cops continued to yell, and one was now livid about getting some of the residual spray as apparently there is a dispersal pattern.

This was in a matter of seconds, and my friend took me across the street. We walked around the block and when we came back, there was an ambulance.

“Why do you think they need an ambulance?” she asked. “Maybe because a guy was just beaten and maced by three cops?” I replied way too snottily. Luckily, she blamed it on the time being after 4 pm and me not having eaten since 6 am.

Contact

2008-01-11T10:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, so here's the deal, the real deal.

My mother contacted me.

Now, she has me address, my name, my info. It's not like it's easy to move around from house to house in my city, living space is a high commodity.

In the past she's sent cards, every few years or so, and I've ignored them.

But this was an e-mail. And, she dared to talk about my beloved cat, my REAL mother.

The therapist asked what was so wrong about that, as the sentiments were simply, "I'm sorry she passed" but the meaning is deeper to me. It's like someone who killed your child telling you they understand how you must feel, as they lost their child too and asking for a hug of understanding. It doesn't fly with me.

I tried, my friends tried, a co-worker tried to see how she could have gotten that e-mail address and no Google combination came up with it. We did get a number of sites offering us all my info for a mere 29.95USD and figure that's what she did.

So I was entirely pissed, I was angry, I was afraid. If she found my e-mail (and the other site that I used to run that she mentioned) how soon until she found this one? How soon until she infiltrated other parts of my life? Plus, I've already been told that she's harassed a couple other people I have contact with (albeit sporadically) so who else will she hunt down? How much MORE unstable is she now? I like my life, my school, my job - how will she attempt to f#ck it up in her goal to bring me down?

My neighbors were put on alert - pictures went out and everyone instructed to call 9-11 should she show up. Then I calmed down.

So I talked to my doctor who wondered if I wasn’t still giving my mother too much power, which probably led to me reading the book about owning your shadow and realizing, yeah, I was. I don’t want to swing to far the other way and cry, ‘just let her try something!’ but I did have to move on from that initial fright and ponder how a. She’s still trying to f*ck with me and b. it does still affect me. But then, that is what I’m working on, why I’m in therapy, why I started the blog. To deal with the fears I have, and her, as the absolute worst one.

Here, let me be completely honest. My therapist asked what I would like to hear from my mother, and I said the first thing that came to me – “I don’t want to hear from her at all, I want to hear from her lawyer telling me she’s dead.” And I suppose, in the end I’m realizing that the way I felt with that contact was like an aftershock, the main drama is over, the earthquake gone, all that’s left are the occasional tremors.

(censored, but unedited, sorry. In a state where if I don't post I won't.)

Owning Your Shadow

2008-01-08T14:59:00.000-05:00

Recently, while cleaning my house I found this book, Owning Your Shadow by Robert Johnson. It was a Harper Collins book, so I figure I most have nabbed it while I did a rotation through there. They had a great benefit (if lousy pay) and that was in the basement they'd put out books that employees could nab. You'd see us all down there just waiting for new books to be put out, and I was more than happy to run any errand that would bring me past that treasure trove.

Anyway, I'm not generally one for self-help psychobabble type stuff, which even when I picked the book up again recently, I felt it was. Just the title kind of irks me. Calling the dark side 'the shadow' isn't my thing, but it's my understanding he takes this from the Jungian philosophies the book attempts to 'bring down' to proletariat level.

But, it has made it's way into my bathroom reading rotation, and I'm about two-thirds through it now. And I have to say, I'm digging parts of it, or parts of it make sense.

I've always been about the unity of self, which this book promotes. It talks about making some ceremonial gifts to the 'dark side' once in a while to feed it and keep it from rearing it's ugly head (and it uses Mass as a perfect example of ceremoniously appeasing dark forces, what with the eating of flesh and drinking of blood and worshiping capital punishment and all that).

The part that stuck out, was where it talks about OTHERS shadows and how parents who don't want to deal with the darkness inside them, split and send their 'shadows' onto their children who then have to shoulder the burden of not just their own disunity, but their parents as well.

Which made me think - before I started this book things came up that brought back old fears (part of why I haven't posted in a while). All growing up, I felt my mother had the power, and technically, physically, she did. She was huge and imposing, taller than me, could throw my brother and I around. She crowed about how strong she was (on more than one occassion she also jumped kids that bothered my brother, a notable one sent her sliding down a snowy hill). She talked about her strength of character and physical strength that could cause us pain.

But she was weak, so very weak. She couldn't handle the burden of pain that her parents put on her, she couldn't handle her own darkness, so instead, she thrust it upon her children. She crowed about her perfections and her strengths and frequently commented on the weakness of her children. But we were the stronger, for we (or at least I, I like to think my brother has succeeded in unifying our fractured selves as well) had to deal with her by ourselves, while she just shoveled burden after burden on us so she didn't have to deal with it. We were like her own emotional garbage cans.

I'm just jotting stuff down freehand here or else I know I won't, so please excuse if this sounds to self-helpy or just incomprehensible (or badly spelled) but it pisses me off to think about it now. More than the physical abuse, all the mental ills that she forced on us just prove what a *insert swear word here* whimp she was, and that as always she put her own immediate needs over the long-term ones of her children. And all this time I thought she was strong, but only because she kept saying she was. I guess that proves that no matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn't make it true.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T16:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've been way lax in many things, but wanted to say, Happy New Year! Oh My, 2008 already? I'm getting old!

A lot has been going on, but I'm processing.

Cheers!

Just a quick note

2007-12-19T11:33:00.000-05:00

First, to thank all of you who have come by in my lax time, which will probably stay lax for a while still. It's really appreciated, and the support helps so much. Big Hugs!

Second, to let you know I'm back at work and it's tiring. I forgot our building takes up the entire block, so to get water is to walk a block and back. And now, even worse because if you remember a couple weeks ago I tripped and hurt my toe on my good foot? Now that the swelling is down the x-ray showed that it is indeed broken, so I get a surgical shoe for BOTH feet, and they are like cheep MBTs, those curved shoes that simulate walking on the beach? So it takes a lot of glutes.

I hope all the rest of you in blogland are doing well and have a great/had a great holiday!

Sniff Time To Go Back To Work

2007-12-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

Pending a snowstorm, I'm at work on Monday. So sorry for not keeping this up while at home. It's amazing how fast the time flew, I honestly think each week was a day. Wasn't it just yesterday I had the surgery? No? Okay.

Each week I still met with my therapist. My greatest fear was being trapped, and here I was for four weeks unable to walk. She thinks a lot of stuff came to head. Yeah, I was crying a lot and dealing with things. There were nights when every noise woke me, and I didn't want to take the Ambien because what if I forgot and stepped on my foot waking up all hung-over? Now, I can't find what I did with them. One conversation was particularly funny. My shower leaks, so I close the door as to not hear it. It's also always a good twenty degrees hotter than the rest of the house.

"Everytime I wake up to go to the bathroom at night, I keep thinking there's someone behind the door," I told her.

"Now why would they do that?"

"I don't know, because it's cold outside and my bathroom is really warm."

"So you think someone would climb up the fire escape, break into your bathroom, for a warm place to sleep?"

"Uhm, yeah. I know, if someone broke in, they'd open the door and come into the rest of the house."

Ah, the things we thing of :)

I Can Walk!

2007-12-11T16:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it's a sort of stumbling hoppy thing, but I still made it to the post office today on my own. Took me two hours to go there, stop at the pharmacy, the grocery store, and return. Keep in mind - the post office is only about 14-16 blocks away.

Still, I have to go to the doctor tomorrow because while the stitches were removed yesterday, by night time the top was cracking and there was a little blood. It hurts and really looks like it's breaking at the seam. I was told the day is packed and I'll probably end up waiting for a while. For the first time in a month I have to set my alarm clock. That totally sucks.

I really can't beleive how tiring this whole thing has been. Everything is so much harder, especially the whole showering thing. I haven't been on the computer nearly as much as while I'm at work, lol. However, nor have I been awake as much as usual as I tend to still sleep about 15 hours a day.

ARGH!

2007-12-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

I went to the doctor today, and he said one more week for the crutches and stitches. I was hoping to get to the grocery store this weekend. I'm dying for an avocado and some farmer's market bread. My neighbor is great, when she goes every weekend she asks if I want anything, but then she gets the wrong item. I'm very specific about my farmer's market vendors, and she prefers different ones than I do.

So, on the way home - I hate the steps outside my house. They were redone so they are nice and horrible uneven and the colors don't even match the place. So, they are tough to ascend in crutches (no railings either). The inevitable happened - I tripped. Now, my one good foot is a giant bruise. It hurts soooo much. And the other foot I still can't put wait down on. It looks like an origami balloon, the skin so dry I can see the seams. I had the doc put lotion on it today :)

oh yeah, ARGH!

Another Day, Another Doctor's Appointment

2007-11-28T19:37:00.000-05:00

I went for another follow-up today. The doctor said the swelling is about 99% better than any other patient he'd seen with the surgery. (Swelling is a major problem with foot surgery, as the blood can just flow and pool down there). I told him I was elevating it as told, and using a foam wedge.

"What do you mean?"

"Those things you get for GERD, a wedge. I figured it would elevate my feet without putting strain on my knees like if I just used pillows."

So he called in another doctor to look at my foot. They both agreed it looked great. So he asked about the wedge more.

"It goes from about here," I said, pointing to my hip, "to my foot, a gradual incline so I don't put stress on my joints."

"That's the problem with pillows," the other doctor said, "It puts stress on the joints."

"And people kick them off," my doctor said. "Most patients don't elevate their feet at night because of this. Dr. - go look up these foam wedges, we have to start selling them as foot wedges."

"And you're going to reccommend them to other patients?" I asked.

"No, I'm going to make them mandatory from now on. Every patient should have them after surgery."

I feel like a dork. I assumed he knew about the foam wedges for the bed. He asked more questions about it, and thought it was wonderful. Now he's going to buy them and resell them to his patients (probably having the insurance pay for it) and make even more money and from my idea which I assumed was common sense - if you have to put your foot up, use a gradual incline. He'd been having his patients use pillows. That's it, I'm asking for a cut of the profits.

On the plus side, my idea is going to help others heal better and in a more comfortable manner. In the end, I don't think this surgery was nearly as bad as it could be. Granted, it's not over yet and still hurts, but more from the crutches than anything else. Though the physical therapy will be a bitch I'm sure.

Family Reunion? No Time Soon

2007-11-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

I'm back to no photos. I know. I'm tired, weak, and damn if my hands don't hurt more each day.

I've been thinking about my brother a lot, since even before seeing Stop-Loss. I don't know what I want from him, honestly. Somedays I think it would be great to reunite - but he was so far gone last time we talked, I think it's dangerous.

"So what do you think will happen?" my therapist asks.

"I think he might talk to my mom about me."

"And what does that matter? It's not like she has control over you."

"Yeah, but I don't even want her to know how I'm doing, to try and take pride in what I've done."

"But you won't even know."

"But I'll consider it a betrayal, another act of him running and telling mommy on me."

Basically, I want nothing to do with her, and my brother is an extension of her. Just like I'm the reflection of our history, the reason he doesn't want to see me. I'm the keeper of the memory, of the pain of our childhood.

I called my aunt and grandma today. The whole act of reconnecting. Not easy. My aunt said she wanted to come to NYC and see me. I told her I'm not ready. I haven't seen her in over 12 years and I haven't had a family since maybe age 7, maybe age 9, I can't put an exact date on when I realized how emotionally alone I was. Family is foreign to me.

"You know what?" she told me. "After every card you send, every time you call, I immediately call your dad and tell him how you are doing."

It was like the breath was sucked out of me. Betrayal. I don't want him taking any pride in what I've done. The last time I saw him, when I was nine, I climbed up the stairs to a slide, looked down on his head, just starting to bald, and realized I hated him. I spat on him. I can't help but run my finger over the scar from when he punched me and my tooth went through my lip even as I type this.

"He's very proud of you sweetie. He knew you'd be the one to make it. He doesn't care about your brother, but he loves you."

My brother, despite all that my father did, despite the 'alleged' molestation, the pornography, the violence, the horrendous gas that had my brother and I run to our rooms and put towels at the bottom of the doors, always wanted to love my dad. Just like I wanted to be loved by my mother.

"He's been married for 25 years now you know."

He told my brother, in a letter, that he had a new family, a new son, and didn't want him to contact him anymore. That he wasn't his father anymore. Yet my brother didn't learn. He cried and he cried and I could hear his heart crackle like ice on a warm summers day. But goddammit, he still tried.

"I gotta go, my foot's acting up." I said.

"We love you, you know that."

"Yeah, thanks, I think I have to ice it."

"We do, we've always loved you. It's terrible what your mom did. But she kept you from us."

"She kept me from everbody," I replied, "Not just you. Even from herself. I really have to ice it."

Follow-up

2007-11-21T15:33:00.000-05:00

Here are some things I've learned in this past week:

Limited Mobility Sucks
The smell of Icy/Hot makes me really sick. Seriously, the headaches and nausea are not worth the limited muscle releif
We put a hell of a lot of pressure on our feet. The way my palms hurt after a week on crutches, I'm pampering my feet way more in the future. They're literate, they read that and are happy.
The following are dangerous to have at the same time: Free time, the internet, good credit, the Victoria Secret Clearance Catalogue with codes for the free Very Sexy Lip kit with any sweater purchase.

I went to the doctor today. They said it looks good. It reminded me of one of Chewy's paintings. There were the white cross-hatches of the cotton, then a big yellow splotch of abstract colour. Then, as the layers were peeled away a ruddy/rust brown splotch dominated, with the yellow fading away in the background (but still with the white lines throughout). Of course, that was drying blood, iodine, and the gauze. But it was vivid and had form. Once all peeled away, my poor frankenfoot was iodined yellow with purple lines (the stitches) on the side of the foot where they went in to screw the bone together. Two more weeks of crutches.

I think I aggravated the doctor. He said it looks fine and without any signs of infection. "You mean, like MRSA?" I said. He told me not to even say that word. "Oh, well, I was also thinking gangrene, or should I not say that too?" and he shot me an evil look.

"No, don't say that either."

My shoulders kill from the crutches, which keeps me from writing more than I would like.

Thanks so much for all the well wishes!

Johnny Appleseed

2007-11-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

While I'm arghing over foot issues and how I'm going to shower, I remembered this:

American folktales were big in my childhood. It was one of the items in our curriculum that my mother was good at and reinforced at home. Fables. We learned about Babe the Big Blue Ox and John Henry and, was it Coyote Bill? Yeah, Wild Bill Hicock, raised by the coyotes the same way I was raised by cats.

But my favorite was Johnny Appleseed. He walked barefoot across the United States planting apple trees. He had callouses on his feet so thick that he couldn't feel the cold or heat and walked across snow and the desert.

Of course, thinking back with my history, it's no wonder he was my hero - a person so calloused nothing could hurt him as he accomplished his life's mission.

The danger of such stories is this - from that moment forward I was determined to get big and calloused. I walked barefoot as much as possible. It'd built up my immunity to the snow walking barefoot through it, minutes turning to hours. This went on for a long time. By highschool I walked home barefoot. R. thought I was nuts. There was snow/slush on the ground and I was in my big winter boots. But, as hand me downs, they were too big. So I just took them off and walked those 5-10 blocks home through the snow in just my socks.

Of course, I have frostbite on my ankle. It never goes away. Now, whenever it gets cold that spot pops up again and burns. The area permanently damaged. But, I still have some good callouses on the bottom of my feet and the heels.

The Day After

2007-11-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

Surgery went well, so said the surgeon. My foot is warm and tingly, maybe a little sore. Other than that - even just these few hours with mobility issues has me feeling blessed - although I might be cursing at the end of the week as i realize how inaccessible my apt. is. I can't get the mail, and am no good with crutches going down my hill covered in wet leaves - almost fell last night so was driven to the door. Also, the landlord redid our front steps in the same craptacular way he 'fixed' my window - so they are uneven with ledges that even w/out crutches I trip over.

But, seriously. I have good friends, sore shoulders (from the crutches) but otherwise good health, and good health insurance.

Off to ice my foot again.

Oh yeah - my best friend and I are such a comic team together, all the nurses were laughing. That always means good service, and the good anesthesia (full, I was so knocked out! omg). I did notice more than one HIPAA violation (hospital information privacy act) which I hate, I used to do quality assurance for hospitals, so I'm sensitive too it. I was able to pick up a chart and start reading it. Don't worry, of the ones open for everyone to grab I just grabbed my own. I was showing my friend how to read it and what my surgery was going to be. But it was never questioned by all the nurses who came by.

Tomorrow. . .

2007-11-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

Is the day. If all goes well that is. I hate not having it set in stone. My doc still has to fax over the clearance forms, and the surgeons put down too different dates for my return to work (obviously, I want the later one!)

Interesting note - clearance forms require a pregnancy test. I told my doctor, "Knowing me and my beleifs, if that came back as positive, what would you do?"

"I'd start going to church a helluva lot more often."

So in the end, she said it's part of the patriarchal aspects of medicine that she hates, that they never take a women's word about her sexual encounters, or lack there of, and thus I wasn't tested. Yeah! I like a doctor that realizes I tell the truth about my body. For some reason, that whole pregnancy test thing ALWAYS offends me.

I can't eat after midnight tonight, but surgery doesn't begin until around 2 pm and I'm not expected to be able to go home until around 6! I'm hungry just thinking about it.

So, if I'm not on for a few days, it's because of the drug cocktail. (I've got sooooo many now, 3 for my stomach (but only take one of them, the others if it gets extreme), 1 for swelling and that will irritate my stomach, an antibiotic, and some codeine derivitive, plus other random stuff should these not work).

What Would Jesus Buy

2007-11-12T09:02:00.000-05:00

Image from toppun.com
Not to turn this into a film blog, but I got the chance to see an early screening of this film on Sunday. This the latest film produced by Morgan Spurlock (the guy who ate a lot of McDonald’s). In it, this performance artist Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Choir go around the nation in a bus to preach out against consumerism. As he says, it isn't about stopping shopping completely, that is just to get people's attention. It's about shopping responsibly, realizing what you need and don't need to buy, and realizing where your goods are coming from. In light of all the recalls from China, the increasing coverage of the dehumanizing conditions of the sweatshops, among other things, it's a timely message. The rev. takes his choir to places such as Disneyland and the Mall of America to sing out their message.

To be honest I will say that the first half was funny, and then I fell asleep toward the end. It's kind of a one note movie with a message. It's not like the tension escalates, or there are escalating beats. It kind of just is what it is.

But, it's just good that it got made I suppose. I'm so sick of the commercialization of holidays, especially Christmas. I'm tired of love being tied with money and presents of increasing 'value' when really, everything depreciates in value the minute it leaves the store. I know the wise men brought Jesus gifts, but one each. I have nothing against giving gifts at Christmas, just about Christmas being only about giving ginourmous gifts and the stress and anxiety that creates.

To quote a song we had to sing in the good ol' Salvation Army:

Christmas is all about love
Love from the Father from above
Christmas is all about peace and joy-

Stop-Loss

2007-11-09T08:46:00.000-05:00

Picture lovingly borrowed from imdb.com

Not much today. I saw the film Stop-Loss last night. It will be on everyone's lips when it comes out in March/April, or should. Stop-loss is when the government sends back shoulders who finished their committment with them and should be, in essence, free to go back to civilian lives. I guess it's also called the 'back-door draft.' People who serve their country can be forced to go back, and then jailed if they refuse. It also dealt with soldiers trying to reintegrate after the trauma they've suffered through.

I could go on, but I'm still processing it.

The Director/Writer, Kimberly Peirce was there. She also wrote Boys Don't Cry. I liked her a lot, she was very gracious (gave me her seat in the theater, I was initially up front and being that close in a war movie, my stomach was churning) and stayed to talk to the audience afterward. She is also just gorgeous, and so smart and articulate. My friend and I hung on every word, especially as she talked a lot about the act of writing and making the choice between writing something as nonfiction (she comes from a military family) or fiction.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who seems to act in a film about every family tragedy I've lived through (Mysterious Skin was so incredibly hard, so moving, and he did such an amazing job) was stunning in the film as a soldier who just can't live outside of war but is dishonorably discharged. Reminded me way too much of my brother. He was also on hand to answer questions from the audience.

It tired me out so much, I'm still pretty dazed. A lot is going through my mind right now. I figured, with a film on such subject matter I'd be jarred, and I'm already on edge. But, sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes, when I jar myself so much, a little bit of truth, a little memory, a little understanding ekes out.

I'm so not spell-checking this.

Something Different - Writing Stuff

2007-11-07T08:57:00.000-05:00

Picture from:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Circo_noche_gijon_08_octubre_2005.jpg

For some reason I feel like this post should be in the form of a letter:

From the Desk of Victorya Chase

To Whom it May Concern:

Attached please find excerpts from stories I will probably never finish writing. In fact, both of these are the same story. I just can't figure out how to tell it. I tend to lose steam by page five or six, but how much does that matter?

You see, one of the defining moments, if I was to beleive that one moment can define a person, which I don't, but society (or at least television) seems to think it's all one moment that changes a person, not a thousand little ones that get lumped together by a mind that would rather remember one thing than a thousand, was when a friend and I ran off with the circus. I've always wanted to mine it, to see what happened, to go back and answer those literary questions - what was my motivation? How did the protagonist (that's me) grow? If the world doesn't revolve around the protagonist (me) then how come in memory prophetic fallacy (or is it pathetic fallacy?) seems to be so evident. It's sunny when she's happy, when I remember riding in the car. Then there are periods of rain.

At the risk of making this a long letter, one that probably has already been tossed by your interns anyway, please read the attached.

Sincerely,

Victorya Chase

enc. 2

(sorry, this will be a long post. I saved up all the words from my photo posts apparently. Actually, no, I'll post the second version another time.)

Version 1 excerpt:

(Note, this is about the third or fourth paragraph in)

We lived on a small side street across from the college – Mother, Johnny, and I plus two stray cats. Johnny and I were scared of Mother – secretly calling her “Marine Mama.” She was a living Golem – hard as clay despite her girth and always speaking the words of others. She took the Bible literally when it came to discipline – we had welts sprouting like weeds from our legs and arms. There is no arguing with stone, nor any chance for understanding. Her cold poured forth like the vapors from an open fridge and there wasn’t a place Johnny and I knew where we could hide from her. There also wasn’t any reason for us to think this wasn’t how a parent was supposed to behave. This was the way life had always been.

Our father was left behind in Arizona when I was seven. I never knew him to begin with, though the scar on my lip reminded me there were some people in life we don’t need to know. Johnny was still pining for his father, but family secrets spiraled around their history. He dreamt of a father that loved him and could save him, but Mother would always come around with the court papers at such moments to show him why this dream was a fantasy, and fantasies were against the Bible. Still, Johnny cried when he received word that our father wanted nothing to do with us, the words slipping from Mother’s tongue.

* * *

(This is the last of it so far, I'm skipping to the sixth page, when I'm sent to go work outside the circus tents)

The heat was so strong you could smell it, though I’m sure I was really just smelling the animals that paced on the pavement and the sweat glistening on every worker in the circus that dutifully put up tent after tent and pole after pole. Each of them worked, eyes cast down to the pavement to avoid the sunlight. None of them had hats on, and their skin was baked a golden brown. Every once in a while I caught a glance in my direction. My shirt was reflecting the light as quickly as the asphalt was absorbing it. It shone with each movement, I had to be careful – light had already bounced into my eyes and green circles now dotted my line of vision. A couple of people had filled out applications while asking me questions about the circus. They were regulars – someone could fill out an application every thirty days. Sometimes I let them do it earlier, if I had a good premium, and would just hold the application until the system would accept it again. In this heat, the soda was the best premium we’d had – a whole six-pack too.

I had to use the walkie-talkies twice before lunch-time, the heat was unforgiving.

No One Anticipates - the Spanish Inquisition!

2007-11-06T08:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had to sign all the consent forms for my surgery. Friday are the blood tests. Next week are more tests, and then at the end of the week, surgery! Unfortunately, one of the people who was going to help me out has family sick duty, as her father fell and broke his hip. I think my anxiety is rising, as I don't want to do anything I should (like totally clean and disinfect my apartment, any NYers want to have a cleaning party this weekend?) or even do upkeep on this blog.

So I will sit here, at work, drink my 'Perfectly Protein' Vanilla Chai which for some reason reminds me of egg nog, and see what else I can put off doing.

The Write Stuff

2007-11-02T09:09:00.001-04:00

I’ve been trying to write my memoir for a long time. I think the first version, which was absolutely horrid and about 100 pages, was written in college. I called it, “Why I Hate My Mother,” and thought it was brilliant, a nod to David Peltzer whom I never read because I was still too close to my past to see it in other’s writing. I really wish I had a copy now. It was on a disk, somewhere, and none of disks from those days work anymore. Corruption.

Over the years I’ve written fiction that were thinly veiled stories of my past. A mother and two children, a girl who tries to make it on her own, is forced to become an adult by the time she can walk. Thankfully, in terms of real fiction, I’ve worked past that although similar themes show up throughout.

I started this blog as a way to get back to writing my memoirs, to figure a lot of stuff out as I go through therapy, to search for evolution of myself and my writing. But it’s the cohesion that’s eluding me.

Recently, knowing that in a couple weeks I’ll be homebound a bit, I enrolled in an online writing class. I’ve taken classes in this particular school offline in NYC, so felt confident in it. The previous instructor really helped me realize the rut I was in – that of creating a passive observer as a central character. That is – me- the child who lives internally which, while good for a bit, can’t sustain the action needed in a story.

That’s the part that gets me, thinking of my life as a story. Granted, I always have. A fairy tale, a fable whose moral I’m trying to still figure out. Something written by someone else, like the Book of Life. I dream somewhere is a giant library with a book for each and every person and I so want to break in and read the author’s notes to my book. I want to read the interviews, see what, or if, that person was even thinking of. (Yes, I saw Stranger Than Fiction and really liked it.) But where does the protagonist act? Where do I act in life? What did I do besides watch and retreat? Is that in any way interesting? Where is the narrator now, as she reflects on the story?

Maybe I’m not ready yet. I keep stalling. When I really sit down, when I really concentrate and think of all the literary devices to use, when I think of form and structure I lose it. Not mentally, I just stop a few pages in. When I stop thinking I realize I don’t want to think about such things. I’ve got bits and pieces all over. I’ve had opportunities to write, recently turning down a fellowship to go to the backwoods of the Deep South to write for four years because I felt all my writing was a lie. But I push it off. I'm afraid. It's a tough business.

This was all supposed to be a preamble to something else, but it looks like this took over.

Halloween Has Come and Gone~

2007-11-01T13:22:00.000-04:00

Photo copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

The test is over. It didn't go all too well, didn't even finish it. Honestly, I don't think anyone did. One person walked out w/out even answering one question. Just looked at it, then handed it back to him.

For the first time, I'm not going for the A, but just for the C so I can get my 750 refunded.

The above was taken at the farm, one of the more elaborate costumes made for the parade - Icarus. There are controls for the wings. I wish I could have seen it in action, rather than be taking a test.

My Final Is Today

2007-10-31T08:51:00.000-04:00

Gross Profit Margin

Return on Investments, Ugh

I want it over

SSSSSSSSsssssnake!

2007-10-30T08:53:00.000-04:00

Photo copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

My camera, my beautifully red and slim camera, apparently has a reformat button which apparently deletes everything on the memory card and apparently is quite easy to accidently hit.

This is a slightly older pic, a couple months, from a walk in the park near my house. Now, that's a boa, and no it's not loose in the park. The person I was walking with is the owner of the snake and we were taking it for a walk.

You get a lot of double-takes when you are taking a snake out for a walk. Puppies have children running up to you, snakes have macho men trying to touch it (without asking first) and saying, "Oh, DAMN!" a lot.

She's actually a sweetie, very patient, and on the few walks we've been on together, some longer than others, has yet to go to the bathroom on her owner. She's also curious and I think I've noticed a sense of humour in her eyes on more than one occassion. Who knew?

Day of the Dead

2007-10-29T08:46:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

Saturday I went to the Day of the Dead celebration at the National Museum of the American Indian. I go for the opening ceremonies, and had I not had to go somewhere else during the day, would have loved to stay for the closing.

What I love about the opening is the conch shells moaning into the mist (it's always rained when I've gone) and the drums beating a rhythm straight into my heart. It just feels so right.

The first time I went, a few years ago, it was pretty mystical. I had worked a couple hours first (yes, on a Saturday) and just as I crossed the street a car lost control ramming into a parked car that went up on the sidewalk where a street vendor jumped over his table just as the parked car was pushed into his wares. All of this happened just inches from me. Then the fog set in, so by the time I got down to the museum, you could barely see in front of you. The sound of those conches coming through the mist was amazing.

They have activities too, so I was able to paint a couple of simple skulls for my desk at work :)

The Glow of a Controlled Fire

2007-10-26T09:52:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I'd never taken a picture of fire before. Fortunately, this was a contained one, the fire we all ate around at the farm. My prayers go to those in other places where the fire isn't so well trained.

Some Day My Prints Will Come

2007-10-25T09:19:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

Because we worked so hard making the puppets this weekend, I don't feel comfortable posting the pics until after their debut at the Greenwich parade next Wednesday. The above was a photo from the farm. I loved the composition. A little bit creepy/dark, and a lot bit interesting (to me).

The day really was grand. I spent four hours making one wing, then went on to touch-ups of other things. There were a good dozen of us, not including the people who spent all day cooking. We ate fresh soup with vegetables grown by one of the workers, as well as some grilled cheese sandwiches - something I haven't had in a while. As the sun set, we walked down to the river and there were these two cute cats that followed us, meowing that we pet them and pick them up. I definately fell in love with one of those kitties, and needed some fuzz therapy.

We also saw deer (I only got a photo of their eyes in the darkness, they were too far away) which was amazing, even if it had me then put my pants inside my socks and hood up over my head as deers mean ticks.

After the river we went back and had dinner around a fire.

Can a Manic Monday Happen On a Wednesday?

2007-10-24T08:39:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I think yesterday was the first weekday I missed posting. We have Board Members in all week, so have to 'suit up.' Like the Fantastic Four only with calculators and spreadsheets.

The above was taken from the farm. The sun had almost set at that point. I finally uploaded a few pics. I loved the colors on the horizon. Notice the 'purple mountains majesty.'

Monday!

2007-10-22T09:43:00.000-04:00

Saturday was an awesome weekend, and I hope to get the pictures cropped and resized soon. I went to a farm upstate. Sunday was a 'booo, hisss' day as it was gorgeous and I had to stay inside to do homework for that class I don't like.

So, thought I'd put up a haiku I wrote a while ago while dealing with the bi-polar nature of my mother.

I reach for your hand

Between anger and remorse

And try to find love

Christmas Card

2007-10-19T08:33:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I thought this one looked like a nice Christmas Card. I don't know if the red berries on the tree are visible at all.

Last night we had to work late, got home just in time to fall asleep and then had to be to work early today. I was able to get out to see my therapist earlier in the week though, despite the hectic schedule and school.

"So, what about that letter from your Uncle struck you the most?" She asked.

"That he said he was my uncle, and that he called me his neice," I replied.

I can't beleive how long it's been since there's been any familial connection. I can't beleive I cried when I read it. Being a friend is great, but being called a neice? It was surreal in a good way.

Venting

2007-10-18T09:11:00.000-04:00

Cherished recently posted about ignorance in the media on her talk about Judge Judy. It’s all too easy to commiserate, as there is a lot of that out there.

I had my finance class last night, as I do twice a week. We were learning about liquidity ratios. Then the instructor decided to go on a diatribe about the poor in America.

“If we are going to talk about poverty though, it’s really more poverty in values than material objects,” he said. He then continued to talk about how thanks to Welfare the poor in this country “all have VCRs and DVD players and the biggest radios. In fact, the reason why immigrants come to this country is to be the fat poor.”

Wow, double whammy, slamming immigrants AND the poor in the U.S.

After class I decided to tell him that yes, that was offensive, and perpetrating a myth that keeps others from helping those who need it most. He apologized, said he’d keep it out of the classroom, and I was fine, till I turned to leave and he said:

“I really am sorry that the truth offends you, but it’s the truth, it’s the way these people live, and I’m sorry you don’t want to see that.”

There was one student left in the class when I went up to him, and she was waiting for me outside the door. We had a nice talk about ignorance and how we do have to face a lot of it especially in the finance field which is dominated (at least in NYC) with a special breed of people. I’ve faced it at work before when ‘the girls,’ these two women in the office my age, were laughing over a photo of what they called a white trash wedding. They thought it was pathetic that people would wear ‘such cheap clothing’ on their wedding day. It was an e-mail forward they had gotten. I was livid that day too, telling them if people are happy, they’re in love, what does it matter what they are wearing?

“But it looks like it came from Wal-Mart!” one said.

Ugh. My final in this class is on Halloween. I can’t wait. I’m still debating sending off a note to the dean.

The Truth is Out There

2007-10-17T09:03:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

My favorite of the night-time shots I took. Sums up how I feel sometimes. That the truth, civilization, life, is just across this vast expanse of water and I'm figuring out a way to get there. But again, sometimes, more often than before I feel like I am with 'the lights' and friends. Heck, I've even gotten a second letter from a person who says he's an uncle (and he's not asking for money! Every other relative that's come out of the woodwork has then asked for money).

Thanks to all my blogging friends :) I feel evolution.

Another Day, Another Dollar Before Taxes

2007-10-16T08:39:00.000-04:00

Image Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

Ugh. Times are so stressful right now that I'm avoiding talking about them and thinking of ways to avoid talking to my therapist about them - a wonderful sign. Avoidance, it's what I do best. It's one of the symptoms - the dream to run away, to just get out, to be safe with yourself alone.

Of course, the main thing I want to run away from is my impending surgery. I don't like being trapped or feeling broken. I feel broken enough as it is at times. I think 'differently,' 'act differently,' if people become inconsistent in their behaviours I think they are up to something rather than things may be happening in their lives that they are having trouble with. Now, for a while, I'll be holed up in my apartment with naught but ze internet to keep me company.

I'm also having a hard time switching 'brains' lately. I decided, since I'd be stuck all Rear Window in my house, to take an online writing course which I'm enjoying. However, I'm taking a real life finance course. This weekend, when I had homework due for both, it took a lot for me to switch from story mode to Financial Statement Analysis Mode. If nothing else, it proves the mode I should be in, that my brain wants to be in. Why must I suffer the slings and arrows of ballance sheets and vertical analysis?

Because I want to pay the rent.

Anyone out there want to be a generous sponsor like in the good ol' days? Heck, I'll dedicate my first published item to you. Artists should be free of the confines and shackles of finance so they may spend their time creating art. Art is the proof of existence of life.

*sigh*

Well, since I don't have the time to write as much as I'd like, I'm trying to 'write with my photos' as it were. I used to do this when I painted more often, take pictures and then use them to influence current work, much as Chewy has described her process (only she's a way better painter than I ever was). Now I'm doing that to try and keep ideas for future writing assignments.

So, what kind of story does the above look like to you?

Night Time, Autumn in the City

2007-10-15T08:41:00.001-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I decided to try some night time shots. I know that the building on the right is a boathouse, the one across the water is a highrise - I think the other lights are the train station, but don't remember exactly.

Running Away

2007-10-12T09:12:00.000-04:00

Franz Jüttner (1865–1925): Illustration fom Schneewittchen, Scholz' Künstler-Bilderbücher, Mainz 1905

This week David of Authorblog asks his readers if they have ever run away from home. I think I’ve mentioned before that I ran away a few times. I used to hide under my bed a lot. I liked the frame underneath, it was a spring mattress I think. I remember steal grey rods that I would stare up at, a maze of metal grating, like chicken wire, to support the mattress. I would hide under there and listen for my parents looking for me and smile because I was safe. For the most part, the bed was safe. At least, under the bed.

I once had a child eating bed. It was a hand me down from somewhere. But every time I climbed out of bed it bit my toe. My mother wouldn’t believe me, but then there was the blood evidence. Forensics would have found that the bed indeed was biting me, my mother said I got out of it wrong. She checked all corners for sharp edges, everything in the room. It was months of my toe getting bitten before we finally took that villain out of the house.

There was another time I ran away to Trin’s house and I sat on the floor eating out of the communal bowl with her family. When I was older, a teenager, a friend and I ran off with the circus. That adventure lasted a few days. We had both gone to dinner with a couple of the men that worked there, in ‘the oldest traveling circus in the United States’ before we left to follow them. It wasn’t even like we ran away for the thrill of saying – for three days we were part of the circus. We did it to get away from our families, to try and discover who we were outside the life regimented to us.

However, the number one way that I ran away is now called dissociation. That was how the name Victorya developed. Granted, now it’s just the name to remind me, but on a daily basis I went to this land where I was the sad beautiful little girl with no parents. I lived alone and peacefully in a little cottage and the nice ladies brought me food and there was music, always music. I talked to all the animals and my real mother was Nature, I was her only child. That was the main place I ran to in my life. I slipped out of the burden of being ‘the bratty little ragamuffin’ or ‘bitch’ (the first was my ‘nickname’ in my earlier years, the latter my mother’s ‘pet name’ for me as I hit puberty) and became Sister to Diana, protector of the wildlife, Victorya, The Last. A lot of times I was just ‘the Last’ in those fantasies. A child of enigma.

So yes, I ran away as a child. When I couldn’t do so physically, or realized I would always be caught and dragged back home, I did so mentally. I ran away to a world in which I was always safe, always valued, and always loved.

This One's For You, Fish

2007-10-11T08:58:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: VictoryaChaseGoestotherapy.blogspot.com

There is vandalous grafitti, and cool grafitti. All over the sidewalks the past weekend were chalk drawings, I took a couple photos of them. One was labelled 'birfday boy and bruthah' and then there was this fish. I love the lips and the expression on the fishy face. I don't mind the chalk drawings at all, some I just feel bad that they wash away so quickly!

And yeah, dedicated to my favorite fish on the web, fishwithoutbicycle.

The Other Side Of NYC

2007-10-10T11:03:00.000-04:00

Image Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I kept getting an error on blogger, or else this would have been put up sooner. This picture was taken the same day as the bee photo. Unfortunately, this type of useless vandalous graffiti is a problem around the city. This is also how I first thought of the city.

I remember (a looong time ago) going to NYC with the Salvation Army. It was a field trip to see the Yankees. I was happy because they were playing against the Tigers - and I was a cat fan. Now, this was before a lot of the clean-up in the city so it was a harrowing experience. The cars we saw were coated with graffiti, as was all the bridges/walls along the highway. People were loud and yelling and cursing and bumping into each other. We were each given a few dollars to by a souvenir and I purchased a Tiger's pendant. Others in my group told me we'd get beaten up because I was cheering for the wrong team, so I had to put it under my jacket.

Unfortunately, the graffiti is in every neighborhood. NYC is an entire globe forced into twelve miles of island. We have the beautiful relaxing parks right next to the projects and gangs. There is no escaping anything the world has to offer in this city - the beautiful and the ugly co-exist. And, for the most part, it's pretty darn peaceful.

Busy As A Bee

2007-10-09T08:52:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

This weekend I played around with the macro setting on my camera, this was the only one that wasn't terribly blurry. I think the bee was just sitting perfectly still by then, completely stunned by my flash.

This is dedicated to all the other busy bees out there, most notably the godfather of so many blogs - David McMahon. Best with getting the book finished! Hopefully it will hit our shelves soon. Just try and take some time out to smell the flowers, okay?

I Want To Fly Away

2007-10-08T09:23:00.000-04:00

photo copyright: victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com
camera used: Casio ex-s500 (red)

This was a tough weekend for me. The landlord was supposed to fix my window, which involved me taking a day off of work because the window repair shop is only open weekdays. Now, the day was to involve them removing my window, then bringing it to the shop to return around noon - which would leave me without a window in my apartment. So of course, the Super (think of him as the apartment manager, supposed to repair things in the building) says he doesn't want to stop by before work so he'll take the window out at night.

"No way" I tell him.

"You be safe," he says, thickening his accent (I swear it's to claim ignorance).

"No way," I tell him.

Meanwhile, when I call the landlord, he tells me that I should go to work, I shouldn't miss work because they have to fix my window.

"So you'll have someone posted then, to make sure no one climbs up the fire escape and into my apartment."

"No," he says, now his accent starts to thicken, "I don't guarantee safety."

Long story short, I go way longer than I'm supposed to without a window to my apartment. When the landlord drops it off, he doesn't put it in but runs out the door. I notice the frame isn't on correctly. The super hits it with something (coming up AFTER he ate dinner, despite me talking to his wife who covered for him) to make it fit, but it still worries me. I call the landlord again, but nothing.

Now, the number one trigger for me is safety. I spent over 12 hours without a window in my apartment - safety compromised. My cackles are up, or whatever the phrase is, and I hate the feeling of the racing heart, the inability to sleep (waking up every few hours), the jumping at every sound (the pigeons were landing on my AC all weekend, every scrape of their claws on the metal had me jumping), the lack of focus (meaning I got no homework done) and the desire to flee far away from here. It of course, also led to a couple dreams with both R. and Mother, but at least I told them both off. However, I wasn't able to get away from Bush when he decided to reinstate the draft for all genders, everyone under the age of 35. So last night, in my dream, there I was in the military.

At least I have the park, I took a nice walk to cool myself off. That's a seagull. I couldn't beleive how lucky I was to get this shot - there he is, wings fully spread, tips turned up, as he soars out over the water. That's a freedom I wish I had over the weekend.

NYC Trifecta

2007-10-05T10:19:00.000-04:00

photo copyright: victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

camera used: Casio ex-s500 (red)

I took this photo about a year ago. The day was drizzly damp but cool. I always liked this photo because it is total new york. First, there is the Papaya King, a purely NYC entity where, if one was to eat hot dogs, one could get them for about 2 for a dollar.

Next, we have the ubiquitous yellow cab. They are everywhere, even in the news lately as they threaten to strike over GPS placement in their cabs. I rode in a cab that had GPS before - and they still went in the completely opposite direction. I think it just creates a false sense of security to have those types of systems around, as people become reliant on them and allow the erroneous information of the unit to overtake common sense.

Finally, we have the steam being released. Those orange and white cylinders are all over the city, releasing pent up steam lest it explode (as it did a while ago near work. The streets are finally closer to normal there). It makes me think of this island of Manhattan as a giant whale and these are all the blowholes. Sometimes you can feel the streets breathing as you walk down them.

Oh, and the sign on the cab advertises Avenue Q - a great play on Broadway I was lucky enough to see with the original cast. If you haven't heard of it - think South Park meets Sesame Street. A little bit raunchy, definately not for kids (one of the characters is Sally the Slut) but a lot of laughs to be had.

Lining Up All My Ducks In A Row

2007-10-04T08:45:00.001-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

The sun had already begun to descend at this point and was well behind the trees so there was just the 'afterglow.' I love how, instead of congregating on dry land or waddling through the mud, the ducks settled into the only little stream of water they could find.

It's All Happening At The Zoo

2007-10-03T09:04:00.000-04:00

(image taken from answers.com, released into public domain)

Today, I was walking through the cubicles at work, as I do every morning on my way to the kitchen to get my horrible for me Diet Coke with the brain killing Aspartame and something hit me, and it wasn’t the filing cabinet drawer that people continually leave open. It was the name plate on the outside of the cubicles. They say:

Finance > Accounts Payable > John Smith

Or

Finance > Accounting > Mary Smith

And go on and on like that, Finance > Sub group > Name

Then my brain flashed, as it sometimes does, to a point in my life when I’ve seen something similar.

The zoo.

Rodentia > Abrocomidae > Chinchilla

Primates > Lemuridae > Lemurs

Primates > Hominids > Human

I had to stop walking while this sunk in. It’s a zoo, a human zoo. Order: Finance, Family: Financial Planning, Class: Victorya.

We push levers for rewards, given toys to ‘stimulate us,’ and live in our little cages in specific areas of the zoo.

So, what’s your order and family?

Sunset

2007-10-02T08:43:00.001-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

This was the sunset from my walk in the park. I loved how despite the brightness of the sun, it just turned the trees on the hill so dark and almost silhouette as the rays radiated out from the golden orb.

I am definately a sunset person as I think it gives the world this ethereal quality. I can almost see the fairies dancing in the light as it descends beyond the horizon, and hear the elves sing with the dragonflies. . .

A Very Proper Gander

2007-10-01T08:37:00.000-04:00

Photo Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

I decided to take a page from David's blog, as it were. Since I won't have much time to write, I figured I'd post some pictures now and then.

This was taken in the park on Saturday. Usually, at the particulary pond that I visit, there is a swan among the regular ducks and Canadian Geese. As of late, I've noticed this wonderful gander - it's not often I see an 'American' goose nibbling up the tossed corn and seed.

I really liked the mud, the water was very low that day. Even the ducks were sinking up to their 'knees,' that is, if ducks have knees.

What I like about this photo is not only the texture of the mud, but that it almost looks like the goose is gazing at his own reflection. Meanwhile, you can see the sun is setting through the length of the shadow and the almost golden light on the left side of the goose. In fact, in just a few moments after this shot the sun had already descended beyond the horizon.

Oh Noes! It Was All Just a Dream (Well, Mostly)

2007-09-28T12:06:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note before I start this post - things will be hectic for the next month, so postings may be sporadic. It's budget season at ye old job, which means the boss telling me to come in early and leave late yet still she wants me to go to school two nights a week to learn what I am doing. Oh, and total score, they are paying the $180 dollars that the textbook costs. I could do posts on how the US education system gouges the students with the price of these textbooks.

Anyway, let's see how short I can keep this today, as it's my lunchbreak. I just wanted to share an interesting dream.

See, after yesterday's post, I think stuff was more on my mind. Now, in the past, when stuff was dredged up I'd have these horrid nightmares. Last night, here was my dream:

I'm in my bed sleeping, in my current apartment when my mother comes and sits on the side of the bed and gently wakes me. I tell her I want to go to sleep, but she says this is important. So I groggily stare up at her.

"I'm sorry I put the pillow over your face," she tells me. "Really, it was wrong."

"Just let me go back to sleep," I say, rolling over and closing my eyes again.

"No, really, what I've done is wrong," she replies.

Now all I want to do in my dream is go back to sleep, so finally I say, "If you realize it's wrong, you should go get some help. You need help mom, more than I can give you."

I wake up (in my dream) to pounding on my door. It's my brother, and he wants to know where our mom is. Now, in real life my brother never lived on his own, he only left my mom's house to stay with his girlfriend then wife. When his girlfriend got pissed at him, he'd go back with my mom. He can't really do much on his own except kill people (hence his lifetime in the military) so needs someone to take advant- er- take care of him.

"What the f--- did you do with mom?" he asks me incredibly angry.

"I don't know," I reply wiping sleep from my eyes.

He barges into the house and looks around.

"I know she was staying with you, what did you do?"

I notice the message on my answering machine is blinking, so I listen to it. It's "Downtown Psychiatry Hospital" to alert me that my mom has checked herself in and after evaluation, they want to keep her in longer. She went to get help.

Now, at the same time my brother starts to freak out as he tells me that his blood test came back positive, "I'm BP too" he fumes at me, "you gonna have me committed?" Then his girlfriend comes and tells me that her blood test is also positive. I tell them I'm negative, but wonder if I am because I didn't even know there was a blood test for Bi-Polar disorder (note, in real life there isn't).

I just thought it was interesting how it was a wish-fulfillment dream in terms of my mother admitting she was wrong. I think that's the dream of every child abused by their parent's - that the mother and father stop hiding behind the rationalization of parental responsibility and admit that what they did was horribly wrong. We want the abusive parties to feel guilt, remorse, and shame for their actions. And while 10:1 that won't happen in real life, in dream life it can.

I think it also shows a shift - she wasn't overpowering. She invaded my space by being in my house, yes, but she left and got help, and I was able to tell her to do so. I wasn't afraid. Granted, my anxiety over having BP was still there (I'm 30 now, I was told if I did have it it would have come out in childhood because of the stress I was under, but 30 is basically the cut-off date for diagnosis, as it shows in the late teens and twenties mostly), but I handled it well, got them out of the house, and got back to sleep. The other thing of note - I didn't try to help her. I didn't take responsibility for her actions, but tried to tend to my own needs - something I really need to do more in life. It's hard to care for yourself when you are so used to caring for someone, or something else. I was thinking of that the other day while day-dreaming about getting another cat.

"I don't have anything to love," I said aloud wistfully.

"You have yourself," that voice inside me said. "Learn to love yourself more completely."

Blogging Against Abuse

2007-09-27T13:27:00.000-04:00

Today is Blog Catalog's Blogger's Unite Against Abuse Day. The badge above was created by one of the talented administrators there.

Now, I figure my blog is basically a case against abuse, right? But just in case it isn't clear, here are some tips for the parents out there.

Parents - I know kids can be frustrating. They don't do what you want them to, they don't always behave in public, and sometimes they act out for attention. Your child may not be as good-looking as you, or as smart as you, that's because of one simple fact - they aren't you! Please recognize that each child out there is different from their parents and an individual in their own right. They are not 'mini-me's' cloned for your amusement. They have feelings and emotions separate from you. They like things that are different. And even if they don't yet, they have the ability in them to be a separate entity.

To that end - DO NOT:

Remind them that you were prettier as a child than they are.
Constantly tell them that a subject for which you didn't do well in school is 'hard and useless' - you're creating a stigma.
Tell them that the subject they love is useless and they'll never excel in it anyway
Call them names.
Call others names in front of your children.
Insult specific 'races' or 'peoples' in front of your child.
Trade affection for chores or other items, "You want dinner honey? You have to hug me."

Of course, there are other items that really shouldn't need to be said, but I will:

Drag them around the house by their hair then cut it off in chunks for 'being so vain.'
As 'punishment,' drag them out of bed at 3 am in the morning and throw them in the shower because they didn't remember to put their toys away earlier.
Force a child to eat something after they throw it up.
Hit your child. With anything. It's incredibly confusing to kids when that happens.
Kick your child.
Tell them, "it hurts me more than it hurts you" as you spank them. It's confusing.
When they cry, don't say, "I'll hit you until you stop crying," that is wrong on so many levels.
Threaten your child with bodily harm and especially with sexual acts.

Parents, Please do:

Love them and watch them grow with that mixture of joy and wistfullness.
Encourage the differences and get interested in their new lives.
Pay attention to their behaviours, be open about what abuse is and let them tell you if something is wrong.
Harbour genuine trust between you and your children.
Treat your children with respect.
Have patience.

Now, I know I've never had kids, I've just had cats. But the trust and respect issue goes a long long way. Do not abuse your child, mentally, phsyically, emotionally, sexually. Love them with all your heart and be the guardian's they need you to be.

This is in response to: http://blog.blogcatalog.com/category/community-challenge/

Stories of Friendship - Trinh and Rachel

2007-09-26T12:38:00.001-04:00

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, a/k/a Raffaello di Urbino): Self-Portrait with a Friend (1517-1519, Oil on canvas)

Tell me, is it easier to make friends while a child when just running down the street can make you ‘buddies’? When everyone is from the same neighborhood and as a child, you don’t really understand what the economic division means, and we don’t have all those pre-conceived notions (yet) of who we’re not supposed to like, does friendship just come natural?

Some days the friends I had as a child are so clear. The area we lived in was mostly Section 8 housing, which is subsidized by the government for the economically disadvantaged. My mother prided herself on never actually living in the projects, but across the street from us stood ‘The Projects.’ These were housed, when I was a young little thing in Arizona, mostly immigrants as at the time Tempe was a place that was more of a stopping point as people made their way in America.

One of my closest friends was Trinh Phon (excuse me if I mangled the name). There were a lot of Cambodians at the time coming through. I remember the first time I ate at her house, how they sat on the floor and there was a big bowl in the middle. Everyone drank out of the same cup and that was something I was taught was ‘icky’ by my family. Birds were cooked in metal tins on the rooftops.

My mother used to warn me about her, say she was a thief, I didn’t believe it. We were friends, and friends don’t steal from each other! At the time my father, for some reason, had become the care taker of two giant drums of wheat (non-milled). My brother and I were yelled at often for playing with the wheat that was stored in the backyard. My mother was convinced that Trinh was stealing the wheat.

Now, we shared everything. One time she came over with some gum she got from her grandma – which turned out to be ‘chew’. Not something we were allowed to have. I think she did try some first, and thought it was nasty. Another time, she was talking about her sister needing new clothes. Now, I got my clothes as hand-me-downs from my brother, but I knew my mother had some of my older dresses in the closet, which I gave to Trinh. Little did I realize I just gave away my christening gown! My mother didn’t let me live that down for a while.

Trinh also came to my birthday parties. I still have ‘Ozma Of Oz’ – a book she gave me for one birthday. Again, my mother told me it was probably stolen. Well, then arrest me, it’s on my bookcase now.

Now, while she was a close friend, my best friend was Rachel. She lived with her mother and brother in an apartment complex that, well, was in an even worse area than my house. A story my mother always told involved a stabbing happening in front of those apartments. Though, in hindsight, that might have been told to keep me from asking to go to Rachel’s house.

In school, the teacher would give us a penny for each bottle top (the metal kind) that we brought in. I always looked on the streets for them, as at home it was plastic bottles or my parent’s cans of beer. But Rachel, without fail, on Mondays would bring in enough for a whole dollar. How I envied her! She told me that her mom got money off the rent by cleaning the other apartments, and they were always filled with the beer bottle caps! I was so envious of her to get that dollar every week.

When my mother packed up my brother and me up in that car to leave AZ, I was devastated (as I mentioned). But the worst was leaving Rachel. We were going off into the unknown – I didn’t even have an address to give her! A post card was sent once, from one of the states. But there wasn’t a response as there was no place to send one too. Rachel and her family were planning on moving as well, so we were doomed to be separated.

This is in answer to David's question - Who was your childhood friend?

The Flowers Arrived!

2007-09-25T09:19:00.000-04:00

(picture from http://www.flowersociety.com/)

My grandmother got her flowers.

When I went to choose it was interesting, as I realized I don’t know her at all. “What if she’s allergic?” I thought. “How old is she now, what would she like?”

So I went to the oldest person at work, and asked him his opinion. He went by what his wife would like receiving, and we chose Peruvian Lilies in a vase. I had looked at the baskets, thinking that they say ‘grandma,’ but he told me a vase might be appreciated more, and the flowers might last longer in a vase than a basket. So I went with a bouquet of these lilies.

At first I was worried, as when I received the e-mail confirmation it said the flowers were left at her front porch door. Now, granted she lives on the top of a hill but I wondered if she ever received them. When a day went by without a call, I finally caved and called her.

Now, last time I spoke to anyone in that household I was told my grandmother was deaf, yet, she answered the phone and spoke very clearly. Though, since she did most of the talking, who knows?

She was ecstatic, absolutely overwhelmed with the flowers, telling me she hasn’t gotten any in years as at her age (86) all of her friends are now dead. I think I get my bluntness from her side of the family.

I was happy that she was so content, and it was nice to hear her say that I was always her favorite grandkid, I’ll admit it.

But then, then she went and said something that scared me. She told me that she’s happy that we got in touch so I can take care of her now.

Uhm, yeah. That really set my bells a ringing because I don’t even have a cat anymore due to feeling trapped. I understand that she’s old, but she’s not alone. She lives with my Aunt (her daughter) and my cousin (her grandson) who is probably about 36 or so now. My aunt has had that same job for over 20 years as the butcher in a chain grocery store.

Half of the reason it constricted my breathing was the thought of me having to take care of someone I don’t know, and giving up the life I’m working for now. But I was able to calm that down and realize she is just an old woman overwhelmed by emotion and her ‘ailments.’

The other half of why it bugged me was that it assumed her daughter would die before her. When I first moved to NYC, my mother told me that when I die she wanted all my artwork. “Don’t you mean if?” I asked.

“No, when. I know you’ll die before I do,” she replied quite coolly.

I hated that, her telling me that my decision to leave her was basically my death, and then the claim on my artwork that she had fought against for so long. I’m no fan of mother’s assuming or anticipating their children will die before them.

As an update, yesterday I got a card from my Aunt telling me that grandma loved the flowers and that they know I love them, and they love me as well.

Familial love, who knew it was possible for me?

Vague Recollections (II)

2007-09-24T08:46:00.000-04:00

(Image created at http://becomeanmm.com)

I had a vague memory the other day. Just sort of, there.

We used to walk to A.J. Bayless, a grocery store in Arizona. If you got separated from your parents, you could go up to the register and they would call for them. While waiting, they would give you M & Ms.

Once, my mother and brother were going somewhere and left me behind with my father. I forget where they were going, but I decided they were at A.J. Bayless, and I left to go there and find them.

If my parents were still together, then I was age seven or under. Very young. The trip to A.J. Bayless involved walking down this alley-way, we always came around behind the store and the big dumpsters that we’d pick through for food.

So that’s the way I went, little seven or under me.

The way there was fine. Then, when I got to the store, I went up to the register and told them I was lost. I sat there and they gave me a handful of M & Ms that I ate as they called for my mother over the store address system.

Next to the grocery store was an ice cream store we used to go to sometimes, they had square scoops – not round. I always thought that was funny, a square lump of ice cream. But I always got the rainbow sherbet. Milk and I have never been friends, and it wasn’t until much later that I heard the term “lactose intolerant” – my mother always tried to get me to drink my milk- even though she later confided that she had to give me grey-soy milk as a child because I couldn’t tolerate milk even as an infant.

Anyway, after eating some M & Ms I left the store and went back home. On the way through the alley there was a kid (probably a teen) bouncing a basketball. He asked if I’d like to learn how to dribble. I told him no. He asked again if I wanted to play with the ball. I was a little frightened at that point, but just said ‘no’ again and kept walking and went home.

When I got back, I don’t even remember what happened. I think my father might have asked where I was, with me answering ‘out playing’ as a response. The guise of the memory is that I went looking for my mother, but that was what I said I was doing, not what I was really doing. I think I just wanted some M & Ms and to get out of the house. My mother had taken my brother to the fish store, and I knew that. Not the grocery store.

Sunday Special: Fruit Species

2007-09-23T14:20:00.000-04:00

One summer I decided I wanted to try new foods. I bugged all my friends to tell me about traditional fruits from their homes and find some to bring me. Thus, I was able to try Cebu dried mango straight from the Phillipines, Durians, Lychee, and mangosteen among other culinary adventures. It was a great summer.

In my quest to find out 'what I'm missing' and enlighten my mind and pallette I came across a wonderful site, Fruit Species.

Fruit Species is a wonderful blog that highlights those fruits that may not have the press they deserve. There, one can learn about the succulence of the Longan and the unique nature of the Soursop - a fruit I'd never heard of before.

For those who like new and intriguing fruits, head on over to Fruit Species and make your Sunday Special.

If you have a site you think would make Sunday Special, please leave me a link. This is something I'd like to continue each Sunday. Be it filled with cuteness, happiness, awesome artwork, or just plain positive energy feel free to let me know! Anything that would be of interest on a lazy hazy Sunday morning is up for review.

Happy Sunday!!

(image source: Tomomarusan)

Why Penny Was The Best Cat In The World (#1) – or – Stupid People I Pass On The Way To Work

2007-09-21T09:07:00.000-04:00

(pastels on dollar store paper)

This post would be entirely different had I not just seen what I did while I walked to work. It also would have been posted earlier.

I saw a woman walking her cat on a leash.

Actually, I don’t mind that act at all. Penny had her pretty black harness with glitter and a lead. We walked in the country when I lived upstate or in the apartment building when I lived in the city. I still remember the first time I put the harness on. R. and I were roommates and she had a cat as well. Since we lived in more of a suburban land, we thought it would be good to harness train our pets to take them outside. When I went to put the harness on Penny for the first time, she just leaned against my leg and looked up at me lovingly as I fumbled with the straps and tried to figure it out. R’s cat hissed and sank to the floor. In the end, R. gave her cat a nice drag across the carpet while Penny and I went outside to sniff the flowers and sit down in the sun while she nibbled on grass.

Walking a cat is different than walking a dog. They are abiding your wishes by wearing the harness, but you go where they want to go. Also, not all cats take to the harness (plus, for some it just takes time and patience). Penny walked like a bulldog down my apartment hallways whenever we went walking in her harness. However, the minute she got spooked she zoomed into my arms or into the apartment, and she had the right to do so.

The first time I saw someone (non me or R) walking a cat on a harness was at a rabies clinic I was a volunteer for. The woman took her cat out of the box, it was on a leash, and the cat flipped out. The feline started spinning on its back and hissing. It was stressed, and should never have been taken out of the box while on that leash except by someone trained to handle it. The woman, worried that the cat in its spinning would strangle its poor furry self, reached in to soothe it and a stream of blood shot across the room. Her wrist had been slashed by a flurry of furry anxiety.

The second time was by a truly stupid person. I think Romero has it right and zombies are now, his movies are just a warning to us all. I was volunteering at a dogs walk against cancer, and a person had brought out a cat on a leash thinking it would be ‘funny’. The cat was cowering, whimpering, and frightened as it tried to escape but had nowhere to go. The owner was laughing as dogs surrounded the trapped feline, and I was livid. I do think he was kicked out of the event.

Now, I have seen responsible cat walkers, those who know their cats. There is one in my neighborhood who takes her feline out to the park to nibble grass. The cat’s temperament is one for the walk; it just ambles along looking at everything, gazing up at its human partner with affection, and is generally unafraid. Together they sit in the grass and watch the birds fly by. If that is the animal’s temperament, then go for it! I love it, it’s responsible stewardship.

But today, today as I was walking to work in Midtown Manhattan – a place populated by a lot of suits rushing to work, a lot of cars, a lot of emissions – I saw a woman walking her cat and the cat was terrified. It was as low to the ground as it could possibly get, its tail was twitching back and forth, ears back. Every time it passed one of the tiny ‘beautification’ trees the city has put up, the cat darted up as far as it could go then the body would snap as the end of the leash was reached. She was walking it with just a collar, not a full harness, so its neck was pulling against the collar which could cause so much damage to the poor fuzzy.

This was not a cat meant to be walked in such a high population area, at least, not yet. The woman was smiling and laughing each time the cat zoomed up a tree, and I was seething. The poor thing was traumatized.

I implore pet owners to take the time to learn their pet’s personalities, to not enforce your ideals on an animal that can’t comprehend things the way we do. Show the same devotion to them they show to you, and even more as we are the stewards of the planet and all living creatures on it. We need to protect, empathize, love, and listen to our surroundings and our companion animals. Don’t stress them out for some ideal that may either take time or never be reached.

What Are You A Slave Too? Another Beggar's Tale

2007-09-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: Brother Juniper and the Beggar (Oil on canvas)
The stories of the homeless are always interesting to me, having lived a life of austere poverty when young. I often read that a high portion of the homeless in NYC are mentally ill, that they really need more help than a hand-out. This I believe. We were without a home because of my mother’s bi-polar disorder, and I can only imagine the myriad of illnesses that keep people sleeping on grates and cardboard boxes rather than a home. Granted, some, like the beggar in my last tale, see it as a profession and aren’t really homeless. Then you run into the case that I’m about to tell you about.

It was a long night and I was coming home from a wrap party. I used to work in film a lot more than I do now, just simple things, but also volunteered at all the festivals held in NYC. So it was a nice party, open bar (I don’t really drink, but was talked into trying a Cosmo by some devotee of Sex In The City), and a lot of drugged-out wannabes. Not really my scene, but the gift bags were nice!

I left the party a little early and famished as the pot-smokers always bogard the hors d’oeuvres at these types of functions. As I’m walking I spy a Burger King – yeah! Affordable food. Now, as with many establishments, there is someone begging at the door. It’s funny, because they tend to not want food – just the money. Once, I asked the gentleman begging outside the door if he wanted to come in and I’d buy him a burger, he told me, “No way, that food’s too unhealthy for me!” Beggars can’t be – oh well, they can. Another time I actually bought bagels for this person who was lying on the ground and pitifully moaning about how hungry he was. He told me, in a non-moaning voice, that he was on Atkins, thanks. When I went to return the bagels there was a girl returning muffins – who had bought them for the same reason as I- and was pissed that he did take the water she bought for herself.

Anyway, while in line gazing at my limited choices (no beef for me, and at the time, no chicken either, so probably just some fries to tide me over) I overhear this woman on the phone – she works for MTV! I had been wondering about getting a job there. She’s very cordial, and we start to talk. Then matters turn to the gentleman outside the door, as I think he came in and asked her for money – by name – and she gave him a couple dollars.

“That is the greatest musician that will never be,” she sighs to me. “We found him one day, beating, just amazing sounds. This guy is wonderful. And here he is homeless! We get him in and record some stuff and then offer him this huge contract, millions of dollars.”

I’m hooked then – this homeless guy begging for money outside a BK is so profound?

“Oh yeah,” she tells me, “just amazing. So we get him out of here and put him up in a nice hotel. Only thing is, he’s a user. So we have to detox him. That’s the condition – he has to be clean. The contract is signed, there it is, millions of dollars, he just can’t use.”

Well, we already know the ending of the story. He walked away from a life of music, of living up to his potential as the best thing around, to hold the door open as people enter a fast food restaurant in hopes of getting enough spare change to get his next fix. She looks truly devastated as she tells me this, and I think my jaw went slack. To give up so much of your future, for some immediate fabricated ‘feeling’ that a drug will provide.

That scene has long stuck with me, perhaps as a guidepost, as a bench marker. To make sure that my future isn’t obscured my immediate fleeting desires, to see that I still have control of my dreams.

Depression Inventory

2007-09-19T08:47:00.000-04:00

(Click on image for larger view)

The above is the depression inventory worksheet I must fill out every few months or so. It's interesting to note the overlap with anxiety (change in sleeping patterns, irritability, changes in concentration). I think a lot of these illnesses do have overlap, or one can be a symptom of another, so it's tough to pin down.

Depression is a big word in the states it seems. Every day I hear that damn commercial on television, "Depression hurts, Cymbalta can help." To some degree I think the popularity of depression has made it harder to deal with. Mainly because people have a right to get sad, yet when you are the word 'depression' immediately springs to mind whether warranted or not. Clinical depression and situational depression are different beasts with similar characteristics. The main thing that saddens me about this is the increase in the number of children taking medications for depression. While some may be warranted, the increasing numbers are frightening, especially when you look at the side effects (suicide being one of them).

It was hard for me to admit that I have periods of depression. But I do, I get irritable (around a 2), I feel guilty (2 at its highest, thankfully), my appetite can fluctuate from eating nothing to eating an entire pizza (plus dessert). However, happily, no matter how depressed I have gotten I haven't lost hope in the future, nor do I feel like a failure. I may have the fleeting thought of how easy it would be to step in front of a train, but I won't do it.

It is interesting to monitor my mood though. When I first started I had to keep an 'anxiety journal' and fill out the anxiety sheet once a week along with a daily monitoring (what was the highest point of anxiety today, what triggered it, etc.) In the end, it's about becoming aware of your feelings and recognizing that there is nothing wrong with them, really. Just figuring out what the triggers are to certain exaggerated responses (my tailspins). And just realizing that these little events affect me helps to put me back in control.

I'm A Winner

2007-09-18T06:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I found out I won Go! Smell the Flowers monthly contest. Each month they ask a question and their favorite answer wins flowers sent to anywhere internationally. This week, the question was, “What does your dream day consist of?”

My dream day was, “One where I wouldn’t worry about anything, I could live the 24 hours without judgment from myself or others, or worry about what other people were thinking in regard to my actions.

I’d love a day where I could just walk, no stress (physical or emotional) and just take in the beauty around me - whether I walk in the city or country. A day where everyone was kind to each other, and showed the common courtesies that are rare these days.”

Now, this was, to me, completely self-serving. I’m on a worry high as of late, can’t even see a smile without wondering what the ulterior motive is behind it. I’m sick of the worry and doubt.

What’s funny is I’m not self-conscious when outside talking with friends. I was at the park the other day when I ran into a neighbor/friend of mine, and her gentleman friend. She and I always joke around about things, sometimes going into the absurd. While the three of us were chatting my bra decided to come undone. But, rather than be embarrassed, I just started singing, “Do your ears hang low, do they wobble two and fro. . .” as I reached behind me to snap it back together. She was laughing, I didn’t really care, and when her male friend realized what was going on, he blushed and turned around (no, I didn’t show anything).

Which is why I’m amazed that every other little thing has been bugging me lately, having me worry, wonder, doubt peoples actions, even doubt my own actions.

After I put in my entry for the contest, I realized I actually did want to win the flowers. I mentioned the letter that I received from my grandmother. Since then I have written her back, she sent me a card, and my aunt left a message on my answering machine. I thought it would be wonderful if I won those flowers to send to them.

See, I’ve been talking about this in my therapy sessions. I don’t know how to go forward with my grandmother and aunt. It sounds silly, but there is a lot of my mom’s voice that pops up. In fact, my therapist asked if I realized that after every story I told of my grandmother there was one about my mom’s views on them.

My mother told me my aunt hated me. That because her daughter died she couldn’t look at me without being jealous and never wanted to see me. I asked my aunt about that after I graduated from college. She said that yes, her daughter died at age 3 days, but she never hated me for living. “I’ve always loved you,” she told me.

My mother told me my grandmother and aunt were stupid, were uneducated, weren’t worth our time. She laughed at my aunt when she got promoted at work (my aunt is a butcher) and had us, as children, laugh with her. “I can’t believe your aunt actually said that happiness is a 10 feet meat counter!” she cackled, having us join in on what she deemed small dreams. But, my aunt had what my mother couldn’t, a stable job she took pride in. Who cares what you do if you enjoy doing it?

My mother mocked the fact that my aunt still lived with her parents. That even when married, her husband moved in with them. That her son lives there, and when he married, his wife moved in to the house. As I grew up I realized how that was the type of family I wanted, one that wanted to stay together, one you could lean upon. She had me believing it was unnatural or incestuous to stay at home (while she implored my brother to never leave, which he didn’t until he was married) when you have a job, a career, a person to love. But the natural order seems to support one another, to be able to hold each other up, especially when it is economically advantageous to live together. They own the house everyone lives in, and always have. We lived in cars and a garage and Section 8 housing.

Right now, I don’t feel comfortable returning the phone call to my aunt and grandma. I don’t know why, I just feel so sad about it. I do remember our last phone calls, a few years ago, where it was awkward pauses and apologizes. Part of me just keeps hearing my mom’s voice and worries that I’ll repeat it, that despite talking to them about what was said I’ll slip into her way of thinking, of thinking that they are beneath me even though they are the family that loves me, something I have been seeking for a long time.

Another part worries that she was right, that they will just betray me at some point, that they don’t really care. Intellectually, I don’t believe that to be true, but emotionally, I don’t know if I can handle any more ‘family secrets’ being put on my shoulders. I want a hug, not a burden of history.

So while I may not be able to call them right now, I’m working on it. And I’m grateful I can send them some flowers and let them know I’m trying. I may not be able to say it yet, but I can write it out and, as the ad says, ‘say it with flowers.’

(The picture above is one I took after sharpening a lip pencil. I thought it looked like a rosebud.)

How Much Do You Make? A Beggar's Salary

2007-09-17T08:48:00.000-04:00

Jacques Callot: Beggar, 1622

Dpasquella mentioned on her blog recently that she overheard this woman talking (unprovoked) about her salary. At first, it hit me how in America people shun talking about salary. It's great for bosses, who can hire cheap. In fact, it's rather well known that the only way to make money here is to switch jobs. Your current one will never give you the promotions you deserve, yet all new hires get the new pay scale, which can rival your accumulated one over many years.

But then, people who on the street openly 'brag' about how much they make get annoying. I hear a lot of money talk in New York. From people who talk about paying 'only $400 for a pair of pants' to the 500+ spent on one pair of shoes and beyond.

Her story reminded me of a similiar one that happened while I was a temp, just out of college.

I was tired and it was late. Instead of cooking, I took a quick stop at Taco Bell to buy myself some cheap and (to me at least) edible grub for dinner. In line was this gentleman with a huge wad of cash, it was just bills upon bills. He was talking to a younger man about it.

"Yeah man, I cleared, like 250-300 dollars today man!" he said. The other kid oohed and aahed appropriately, and asked how.

"Begging man, everyone can spare a dollah! Everyone!"

So I turned around at that point, and asked if it's true.

"Yeah man, it's the holidays, you know? Christmas Spirit. I clear like 250 in 5 hours."

So he was working less hours than me, and bringing in way more (tax free) dollars.

"So, can you buy me a burrito?" I asked, since he had way more than me and 'everyone can spare a dollar.'

He laughed at first, then replied, "no man, gotta buy my woman some stones, you know? She wants diamonds and some shit."

I also found out he lived in a rather nice place, with his 'woman,' on Riverside Drive. He funded this fully through his job, begging.

Beggars and Prostitutes, I think they are the oldest of professions. And there will always be a place in society for both. Beggars do serve a purpose. I've had this discussion with some nurses at my old job. They provide us the chance for charity, to show we care. To some extent they lift us up because 'hey, at least we don't have to beg on the streets for money!' They also serve as warnings for parents to use on their children, "Do you want to end up like him honey?"

But I can't help to think it's a bit perverse that this beggar earned more than I earn, even now. That his was a life of 'stones for his girl' and an apartment overlooking the river. And all this by asking others if they can spare a dime while wearing the ultimate in casual work clothes.

Sunday Special: Ugly Overload

2007-09-16T10:21:00.000-04:00

Everyone loves cute. There is even now 'the culture of cute' with Hello Kitty as the leader. Kittens, puppies, baby ducks. All are so wonderful! It's a survival technique in the time of man. We want to save the whales, save the baby seals, but what of the less than fuzzy animals? What happens to the blobfish and star-nosed mole? Where are they in our charity fund-raisers?

Nowhere, because they just aren't cute.

But they are incredibly interesting! Thus, we have Ugly Overload. A site devoted to these creatures that we may not want to snuggle up to at night, but we should respect none-the-less. While some may be conventionally ugly, slimy, and downright frightening they are always intriguing.

The short posts on this blog contain a picture, usually a little background information on the animal of the day, and a link or two to other sites for further exploration. It is the site's motto not to show diseased animals, but those that are just the way nature made them (though they have posted a couple unique diseases on there as well).

So if you like nature and the way that different creatures have evolved to fit into their surroundings, this is the site for you. If you want to broaden your horizons, realize that just because something isn't cute doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile, then head on over to Ugly Overload and make your Sunday Special.

Happy Sunday!!

Tales of a Possessed Marshmallow Man

2007-09-14T08:56:00.000-04:00

David McMahon asked us this week to tell a Toy Story, well David, here ya go!

The year was 1985 (I think) and there was only one toy I wanted that year – the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My family was a huge fan of The Ghostbusters and I even had the movie picture book. I read through that book so many times, looking at all the pictures. I think the bitterness was setting in on the family. My parents had already divorced, but we hadn’t yet moved to New York. I remember one picture, of Gozer covered in bubbles with the two demon dogs at her side. My mother said my father bought be the book because of that picture, that he probably stared at it all the time or some other such nonsense. I didn’t care. I always pictured Dan Ackroyd as the perfect dad and wanted that stuffed Stay Puft to snuggle with at night like the kid on the commercial.

And I got it! The real one too, not a knock-off. When I had wanted a Strawberry Shortcake doll my mom’s friend made me one, not the same to a kid looking for the tags. Cabbage Patch Kid? Also made from a kit with a printed out adoption certificate, doesn’t cut it. But this one was the Kenner original.

He was bigger than I expected, and had that sailors cap with a real blue ribbon. He was very soft and cuddly. And he had a huge smile one. There was one thing I didn’t know about the doll – its face glowed in the dark. That, I didn’t learn until that night.

My parents were happy that they had been able to please me, to give me a gift I really wanted. So my mother was none to happy to hear I had thrown the doll across the room screaming during the night. I woke up – and that grin was just there floating in the darkness of my room.

I had a friend that had wanted a giggling cookie monster of some sort. She broke it the first night because she rolled on it, it screeched into the silence, “ME WANT COOKIE!” and she thought for sure it was trying to eat her. Survival of the fittest, her or the doll, and she won while I laughed at the story. I thought for sure I’d never be such a wimp!

Now, here I was with a doll that wouldn’t die but just grin evilly all through the night.

I think I tried, my mother was upset. I had wanted that doll so badly and now it was scaring me. In the end, my brother got it. He had wanted it too, secretly envying my doll while outwardly making fun of the stuffed toy. We all loved Ghostbusters.

Image from Answers.com

Show Me Your Security Blanket

2007-09-13T09:35:00.001-04:00

I always loved Linus from Peanuts. Next to Snoopy and Woodstock, he was among my favorite of the characters. He was the most passionate, even-keeled, theologically versed and - he was never afraid to show his need for his security blanket. It went with him everywhere (except for when his sister took it away or it was washday). There is nothing afraid with realizing you need something to lean on, even if it's a peice of cloth.

Yesterday the comments turned to security blankets, and how it seems most people have them. Of course, it need not always be a physical blanket. When I was little, I did hide under my ratty old yellow blanket. I'd pull it up at night and grip the smooth trim until my knuckles turned white. But, I couldn't bring it to school so had a mini-Bible I always kept in my pocket, thinking it would protect me from all the perils of an urban public school.

Now, I have an awesome blanket that I've had since highschool. Lovingly 'borrowed' from my brother and never given back. My brother came back from his first stint in the military with quite a few blankets, many harsh wool. But then he had these really smooth ones, I don't know the material, but it was the same stuff that trimmed my yellow blanket. Two of them went to college with me. One was tan and super long, like it was a 'remainder.' It was the length of about two people (but the width of only one). When we watched movies in the dorm, one person could be laying on the bed completely covered and the other sitting on the floor with the rest of the blanket wrapped around them.

The other is my green one. This is the one that remains long after the other disappeared, or was reclaimed. At one point it had stuffing, or, 'batting' inside. However, multiple washings left it lumpy. In an effort to save the blanket I performed a makeshift 'battingectomy' and, cutting a small hole at the seam, turned it inside out, removed all the stuffing, and then righted it again. Now, it may be thinner than my sheets, but it's still my blankie.

This is the blanket that is on my bed 24/7. It may look ratty, but it's clean! And it's still smooth and soft, and still strong enough to keep the monsters at bay. Whenever Penny would curl up next to me, I tucked her in under this blanket. In Winter of Summer this is the blanket that, even if I'm not wrapped up in it, is at my side.

So now, tell me about your security blanket (even if not blanket related). You can link here, or just drop me a line and I'll check it out.

Viva La Blankie!

(Yes, I threw it in the air and snapped a shot as it fell on my head, covering me with blanket love)

9-11 Remembered

2007-09-12T09:05:00.000-04:00

I figured, why be cliché and do my 9/11 memories the day of? Why not do it, the day after! Because not every NYC blog has to do a retrospective on the same day, does it?

Yes, I was working that day. It was while I was temping, trying to ‘find myself,’ so for that week was a receptionist for some firm around Grand Central. They had just installed a big screen television in the conference room, so we got to see the crash in ginormous detail. And CNN, being what it is, kept replaying pictures of the people jumping from the towers over, and over, and over again.

As luck would have it, my mother had a work related conference around the World Trade Center, so she was in town. We were going to have dinner that night. My best friend had also recently taken a job around there as well.

When I heard of the crash, I called my friend first. I was still talking to my mother, questioning why, but still wanted her to BE a mother. But I called my friend first and don’t regret it. The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see out the window. Alarms were blaring. Neither of us believed that the planes held passengers. We didn’t know what was going on.

After my friend said they were evacuating them to the roof (and she promised to call once safe) I could turn my attention to my mother. Her work didn’t know what happened, and now we were being evacuated. Some people asked if my mother was okay, I told them I wasn’t sure.

(If I’m going to be honest, part of me wanted her to be there and die. Not only would I not have the problem of what to do with my mother and struggle to completely cut her off, as I later did, but in completely mean retrospect, she could have done so much more for me had she died then in terms of monetary value, then the agony of her living. As my best friend said though, evil never dies.)

We all went to the home of one of the Senior Partners. It was somewhere in the 60s/70s on the East Side. Once there, I found out my mother was fine and in her hotel. I called her there, and she was freaking out. She didn’t feel safe (the hotel was around Penn Station) and thought for sure she’d die. She wanted to stay with me as I live uptown. Being the dutiful daughter, I walked to her hotel and got her. Then we made our way to my house (the trains were working, she was acting like a scared 5 year old and I had to bribe her with ice cream and Diet Coke). Once off the train we stopped to get her Ben & Jerry’s and soda.

All she wanted to do at my house was call all her friends (long-distance) and keep watching the footage from the attack. She told me it was her way of coping. I told her it was running up a bill I couldn’t afford to pay and that I didn’t like the constant blaring of the TV.

Should I mention now that I live in a studio? A Manhattan studio? So imagine her and I and Penny in this small an apartment when she tells me – “oh yeah honey, I didn’t bring my medication.”

There was a lot of stuff that happened but I’ll cut to the chase – after getting sick of her and going for a walk I came back to see she had put all these hair clips over (and in) Penny who was cowering in the corner. Penny was in pain. I had left her alone with my mother, and felt bad for it. I turned to my mother and asked her if it felt good hurting others, knowing that she has caused everyone around her so much pain. Her reply:

“Yes, it makes me feel powerful.”

She admitted it, she finally admitted it.

I kicked her out, got her a train ticket, and sent her home. She never paid for the long distance calls, saying I should understand, that she doesn’t have the money, excuse after excuse flowing from her mouth. I cut my long distance after that and slowly began the process of cutting her off completely.

(I'm re-reading this now, and when I rewrite this more non-blog formal, I think the title will be "How 9-11 Helped Me See The Terrorist In My Own Home")

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beija/243997357

Anxiety Inventory

2007-09-11T08:34:00.000-04:00

Every couple of months, I have to fill out these 'behavioural surveys' that keep track of my symptoms. The above is for anxiety, as it's a huge componenet of PTSD. It was interesting the first time I saw this, as I never knew 'fear of choking' was an anxiety symptom. My entire childhood I could never wear a necklace, turtleneck, anything that would touch my neck because it felt like i was choking. First peice of jewelry I bought in college was a cheap necklace, I remember my mother being amazed as I could never wear one before. The dizziness/lightheadness was also a new one to me, as I felt it all the time but always attributed it to poor diet. Granted, it can be that as well, but when since the dizziness comes on during periods of stress, it can easily be attributed to anxiety as well.

The rest are just as interesting. #18 - indigestion, #20 - face flushed. I sent this to my friend Xiomara that I've talked about, and she says she has every single one. I don't get them all that often, the main ones being dizziness and flushed face. Shaky was another childhood one. With every step I twisted my ankle and fell.

It's amazing what anxiety does to a person.

The Cats of My Life: Einstein

2007-09-10T10:03:00.000-04:00

One year when I was in college my brother tried to get a job, and worked at a veterinarian’s office. I think he was just one of the animal caretakers there; we weren’t really talking that much then. I heard the stories though – that he was attacked by a pitbull and needed stitches in his neck, then a couple weeks later was bit by a cat that had one of those institutionalized bacteria’s and a black streak went up his arm and to his heart.

Out of this came a cat – Einstein. He was one of the donor cats and, as my brother’s story goes, “he was in a cage so small he couldn’t stand up straight and they were going to kill him because they couldn’t find any good veins anymore.”

Indeed, he walked with a stoop, a bit of the hunchback action going on, and kept his claws out at all times, like he thought he needed them for traction. When you pet him, you could feel the scabs across his wiry frame.

But he was so happy, always happy. That sweet thing loved human company and was in whatever lap could be found. He purred whenever anyone entered the room and was just so content with his life. I think he drooled too, I don’t remember. Somewhere in my life was a cat that drooled when he was happy. Wait, it was Einstein as he had few teeth left.

When my brother moved out he took Einstein with him, as it was his rescue. I remember asking about him later. My brother told me that he had a horrible death- that he just yowled and yowled as another cat attacked him and punctured his lung. I really don’t believe that story, by that time my brother was saying what he could to hurt me, and he knew I cared for our little rescue cat. I also don’t like to think of the smile he had when he told me this story, or that he would enjoy the poor cat’s pain as much as he enjoyed telling me about it.

Instead, I like to think that Einstein passed away quietly, after a couple years of peace and love outside his cage.

Sunday Special: Bob T. Bear (esq)

2007-09-09T10:16:00.000-04:00

What could make a Sunday more Special than by spending it with a pants obsessed chocolate peanut loving Bear currently stationed in the United Kingdom? Not much, that's for sure. Hence today's Sunday Special Bob's Diary. (Bob, I took that picture above special for you.)

I'll be honest. It took me a bit to get into the writings of this bear, as they write phonetically. But, once past the small language bearier I was able to fully enjoy all this bear has to offer. And if you think those bears you have lying around your house are idle all day, let this one set you straight.

It was through Bob that I learned the UK Charmin puts pictures of bears on their toilet paper. Excuse me? No God-fearing American would ever whipe themselves with any printed TP (in fact, I've never seen anything but plain white TP sold, except through the internet). But imagine to wake up one day and see pictures of your genus on something that gets flushed away? Well, Bob wouldn't let that go buy without speaking up. He's a leader, that one.

Bob also has a slight obses- er- interest in pants. Apparently, in non-America land, pants are what we call underpants, so to speak so openly about shopping for pants is curiously tittilating as one imagines satin and lace rather than twill and cotton.

There is so many more facets to Bob than what I have typed in here. So go check it out, and make your Sunday Special.

If you have a site you think would make Sunday Special, please leave me a link. This is something I'd like to continue each Sunday. Be it filled with cuteness, happiness, awesome artwork, or just plain positive energy feel free to let me know! Anything that would be of interest on a lazy hazy Sunday morning is up for review.

Happy Sunday!!

Gifts

2007-09-07T09:18:00.000-04:00

“It is better to give than to receive” I so hate that saying. It’s such a lie. It’s easy to give something, but really hard to be accepting of others gifts. That’s how I see it. “Charity begins at home” is another one of those platitudes, yet more often I hear people saying that they don’t want to be a charity case. My mother never wanted to be a charity case, that’s why we ate out of the garbage. She refused welfare, or so she said. We’d be dragged to nursing homes to speak with the elderly at Christmas time and shyly hand them gifts the church was donating, but we weren’t allowed the candy they offered. We were there to give to them.

I remember, when I was younger the “Speak and. . .” series were huge. They were by Tiger Electronics I think, some Eighties giant computerized portable games. My brother had Speak and Math and I loved it (luckily, he hated it. But it was bought to improve his math skills). I really wanted the Speak and Spell. Just before our trip to New York, my mother got it for me for Christmas. She said she had to sell off a couple things and then go down to the clinic and sell plasma. Now, off and on she had sold blood to help us, well, live basically. I don’t know if they do that anymore, but they did then according to her. Plasma, she said, was harder to do because they have two tubes going in and out of you.

“Merry Christmas, here’s the gift you wanted; I was in pain to earn the money to buy what you wanted.”

Admirable what she did, sticks with me what she said about it. (Yes, I felt guilty for wanting it so bad she had to suffer for it to be the good mom she told everyone she was.)

My brother didn’t do well with the holidays. He always got so worked up that he wouldn’t get what he wanted that he’d throw temper tantrums leading up to the day. One year he took these blue plastic horses my mother got as her gift (I actually think he got them for her) and, in front of her, snapped all the legs of one by one. Another year, when he was much older, he tossed the coffee grinder (this time I think I bought for my mother) down on the ground and cracked it. One Christmas my parents got so mad I got all his presents. I loved it because he always got ‘action toys’ and I got boring dolls. But, eventually, I had to give them back.

‘Giving things’ was huge in the house. And it was always a show, with the story of suffering behind it to give something so grand. Accepting, not so much. It got to such a fever pitch that at one birthday party I refused to allow anyone to give me a gift. I couldn’t handle it. We had a piñata, a Carvel Ice Cream Cake, and a lot of fun (oh yeah, and no mother or brother at that party). But no presents for me.

So here I am, writing about this, and reflecting back, and realize it’s all another great game of control and power. You are the one providing when you give a gift, and everyone in the family didn’t want to accept anything because it was some weird power over the other person. No accepting of charity, no accepting of food, of little gifts knitted by people in nursing homes. That was wrong. Always the giver, never the receptor.

That is doing such an injustice to other people. Everyone feels good when they give something of themselves, and if it’s left hanging in the air it’s a rejection of that person and their thoughtfulness. I’ve come to realize that gracious acceptors are few and far between. Hell, I have trouble even taking a compliment! “Oh, no, you look better today! The blue in your shirt really brings out your eyes! Ah, no, I just got it in the sale bin, it’s nothing special. You’re too kind, really, no, it’s all about you!”

But I see it’s not just me. Compliment someone on their clothes they’ll tell you the cost. Compliment a woman on her hair she’ll say something self-deprecating. At least, that’s been my experience.

What the world needs is more gracious acceptors. That’s what I’m working on (oh my, I have a long list of things to work on!)

Image found on www.peppersandpollywogs.com

Pennsylvania (The Trip - Part Three)

2007-09-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

In Pennsylvania we met who were, for a short time, to be our family. My mother introduced them as our aunt, uncle, and cousin. The cousin was a girl around my age (I forget who was older). They were staying in a huge camper, such luxury when we had been in a three man tent for so long. They had a barbecue, television, stove, canopy, all the trappings, or, uhm, trimmings.

My Little Ponies were big then, and the cousin (J) and I played with them. My brother had another ‘man’ to talk too, and my mother got to sit back in a chair, beer in hand, and smile that her dream was coming to fruition. We were away from her demons in Arizona and on to a new life.

All of which, as I mentioned earlier, was highly illegal. She was not to cross state lines because custody was joint. But, as my mother told us kids, “your father doesn’t give a damn about you anyway. He doesn’t care.”

J. and I got along, which was good. Because it wasn’t to long before we had to pack up and move to our next stop – the garage of our Aunt and Uncle. I have no idea why we weren’t allowed in the house, but we weren’t. In reflection, it makes sense. I’ve asked a couple people what they would do if they had a relative like my mother, and they said if it wasn’t for the kids they would have just sent money to shoo her away. But there is a fear of being completely vulnerable around her, or someone so unstable.

The good thing was, I got along with J and thus could sleep inside the house some nights, albeit on her floor. She had everything – braces, a computer, two bikes (so we could go riding), a whole bunch of My Little Ponies – you name it, it was in her possession. In fact, the only times I got in trouble were when I repeated things my mother had said and J. would start to cry. For instance, my mother said that our ‘uncle’ was born in the toilet, and laughed about that. J. didn’t like the thought of her father being born in such an unsightly place.

There was guilt over J. too, that’s what my mother said. Because she was born with a cleft palate, they didn’t want another child and spoiled her rotten. Indeed they did, from picking out raisins in her raisin brain (“why not just get normal bran?” I asked, “She likes Raisin Bran,” I was told.), to letting her wear whatever she wanted, to the whole play den downstairs. I got some peripheral spoiling – like the trip to the salon, some new clothes, and Honey Nut Cheerios which J. thought she would like, but didn’t. I love those.

Dealing With the Holes

2007-09-05T09:10:00.001-04:00

One of the first things I had to deal with in my current therapy is dealing with the holes in my memory. Or, really, just accepting that I’m not going to remember everything and that it’s probably for the best. I don’t want to drown in my own past as I’m moving toward a positive future now, do I?

For the most part that’s fine. I don’t remember everything. I want to write things down just to gain ownership over them, to accept that they are part of me, my past, and to realize that damn it, I was a kid and shouldn’t feel guilt over things from childhood.

Then something happens, like yesterday, and the holes come back and I’m staring in the shadows and wondering just what the hell happened.

My foot has been hurting me for sometime and I have had x-rays and such and going to physical therapy for it. Then the other foot started to hurt so I went to my doctor. Well, he was running late so the head of the practice was there and figured, why make her wait for my partner? And took me in. He wasn’t happy.

See, after two x-rays, it turns out I have a fracture in one foot and a break in the other. These have apparently been there since childhood. He asked if I had some accident when I was younger.

These are the questions that spiral me, so I had a hard time asking or answering other questions after that. With people without my past, I wonder if they’d shrug and think something happened in their rambunctious years. But with me, I wonder if my parents did something and then never took me to the doctors. That was the first thought, “What the F*ck happened?” Because I didn’t go to the doctor’s much when younger, not that I remember. There were a few ER visits, but those are a long story and I was away at camp when that adventure started.

Then I begin to think, “Well, maybe they did take me to a doctor but it was one of those free clinics,” because really, that’s what we could afford. I’ve been dealing with so many dental issues caused from these free clinics when I was younger. I have one more tooth left to fix, one that was given half a root canal then covered with a temporary and never finished. I don’t even remember the work every being done, but now I have to have it fixed.

It’s tough, and will be even tougher as I have to have surgery and be laid up for two weeks. It reminds me how physically alone I am here without a family to help out a bit. Who’ll catch me if I fall? I get tired of setting up nets myself to catch me, you know? A nice hand someday. Of course, that’s what I’m working toward, breaking down enough of the walls that I’ll be open to another’s hands one day. And, of course, accepting that I’ll never know how those bones broke.

*sigh*

Image taken from www.picturingpeace.org

The Prince of Egypt

2007-09-04T13:03:00.000-04:00

After listening to the CD so many times (I still can’t believe it was remaindered to the dollar store) I finally splurged and got the DVD. Definitely amazing, the animation is absolutely stunning.

To those that are unfamiliar – this is a Dreamworks animated telling of the story of Moses – at least until after the sea parts and he brings his people out of the Pharaoh’s reach.

What I think they did really well was the personal dilemma. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in a castle and then realize you were born a slave that, to the family you are raised in, is not even human. Can you also imagine waking up one day and finding out that your purpose is clearly delineated – but involves giving up everything you’ve known and worse, fighting against it to lead others to freedom? To one day realize that all you have is worthless when others have no hope of ever attaining it.

But then I realized, it’s not just Moses. Throughout history we have people who realized, despite the threat to safety, they had to lead others against the dominating classes and fight, not just for freedom, but the right to be seen as human beings. What is it that allows some eyes to be open and so many to remain closed, that allows some people to stand up while others avert their eyes?

I think the film was empathetic to the whole human experience inherent in the tale. There is so much pain in the Old Testament. The relationship between Moses and Ramses was also done well, on a human level. How could Ramses not be upset that his brother turned his back on everything he’d known?

The best part was the parting of the Red Sea. The animation was just astounding (especially with the whale swimming in the columns of water) and with the swell of perfectly placed music I couldn’t help but be choked up.

And of course, it is always great to listen to Brian Stokes Mitchell. He has such an amazing voice.

All-in-all a great thought-provoking film.

More Tags!

2007-09-03T08:33:00.000-04:00

I missed Sunday!

Actually, I tried in the morning but my net wasn't too happy (dial-up) then I got caught up in things (cleaned my bedroom, yeah!)

So now to clean house on the blog :)

Amel from Amel's Realm gave me the Blogging Star Award, and on the day of one of my hardest to write posts!
I bestow it to:

Rachelle of Pasture Musings for many many reasons, but people really should check out her adventures in Alpaca land! It's a rollercoaster of a read, with a lot of sweet fuzzies in the mix.

Carol Cooper for just awesomeness, I love her blog and support

and Chewy, definately an inspiration as I continue my blogging.

Amel has also bestowed on my a wonderful award, the I <3>

David
Jessica
Cherished
Bob
Helena

And one more from Amel! She's is just such an amazingly nice and giving blogger, never gives me a chance to give her these awards :p
This award was created by Bella Enchanted who says,

"This award will be awarded to those that are just nice people , good blog friends and those that inspire good feelings and inspiration! Those that care about others that are there to lend support or those that are just a positive influence in our blogging world!"

and definately goes to everyone who reads my blog and keeps me going on a day to day basis!

And finally, one last Meme, this time from the Angel of Delusion. This is Seven Priceless Experiences and a chance to talk about where you live. Here are seven things I love about New York:

1. The People. There is a reason the newest slogan is something like 'Ask A Local.' New Yorkers, real New Yorkers, are great. Whenever lost I have been able to ask someone for help. They pick you up when you fall. In fact, if you are treated rudely in New York it's generally a tourist, or someone who only works in NYC and lives elsewhere. It seems like they come here expecting to be treated bad and thus do it first.

2. The Subways. Okay, sometimes I get a bit claustrophobic down there, like during rush hour when it stops and the light goes out, but for the most part it's fast and affordable. For only 76$ I have my transportation paid for the month and can go anywhere in the city or boroughs. Plus, you meet a lot of people down there. I've had so many interesting conversations with random people, it's great.

3. The Food. Except for Stroopwafels and Hopjes, which unfortunately I love but fortunately aren't the healthiest snack anyway, I have been able to find everything I wanted here. From Durian and Lychee to marzipan, blood orange gelato and beyond we've got it. There are so many cultures represented that there is bound to be a section somewhere focusing on their cuisine. Lately I've been on a Tandoori Kick and able to choose from a few different places around work alone. And right now I'm drinking blueberry juice as I type.

4. The Parks. One day I have to post up some pictures, I even have one taken off the roof. We have so many parks, Central, Riverside, Washington Square, Fort Tryon, Inwood Hill - to name a few. And they are all gorgeous and a great place to walk through and unwind while seeing interesting outside performers and listening to live performances.

5. The Animals. I love animals, and it seems like every other person has a dog. One of my favorite memories in New York is watching this big bulky guy walking down the street in front of me. He has the swagger, the giant puffy coat that makes him look even big, and from the back just looks all Hip-Hop tough. When I pass him I see he is walking his dog - a maltese. You just can't really match the dog to the person here. While most are small dogs, due to the nature of city life, they are still omnipresent. Chi's are popular, and I've had more then one person tell me they trained their dog to use a litter box (works with female dogs only).

6. The Art. I love the Cloister's, the medevil arts museum. But the Met, the Moma, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the Chinese American Experience - all wonderful. Any museum you could want is somewhere either on the main island or a borough. I've even been to the Comic Arts Museum, the Bible Museum, Museum of the Moving Image - the list goes on. Wonderful way to spend your day.

7. The Plays. I remember thinking these were expensive once, all the big budget Broadway plays. And they are, the big budget ones. BUT if you are flexible you can see a lot of stuff for free. I'm an audience filler, so have seen a number of wonderful shows I wouldn't have even thought of seeing before, and for free! I loved the Great American Trailer Park Musical, and just saw Bi-Partisan Bashing which had my friend and I in stitches. Through the Fringe Festival I was able to see a brilliant show by an Austrailian Troupe, Stuck Pigs Squealing, that led to an interest in Ern Malley.

Anyone who wishes to share 7 things about there home is encouraged to do so! Thank so much to Amel and Angela for these tags.

The Cats of My Life: Penny

2007-09-01T12:11:00.000-04:00

After her death, I went to two different therapists. One, a grief counselor specializing in the human/animal bond and the other one of the leaders in interpersonal therapy who dealt mostly with dysthymia (constant low-grade depression). Both agreed: She was my real mother.

I started a charity drive to help save her life, as when her cancer returned I was told it would be $1,000 a session of radiation therapy. I had already spent all my savings to have the first tumours removed, and that was supposed to be all that was needed.

Many celebrities sent me items in support, I was able to raise about $500, but by then it was obvious God was calling his favorite angel home. I found this on the way to work a couple days before the end:

There are so many stories. Stories of how my mother did try to kill her too.

"Honey, your cat fell off the balcony!" she called one day.

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know, I think the wind knocked the door open, lifted her up and over the edge. I heard scratching, and there she was falling down."

But God wouldn't let her go until I was ready, even though I still sometimes feel like I never could be ready for her to leave.

Other stories involve her wanting to be near me so much that she'd crawl into the bathtub with me, purring as the water wicked up her fur.

When my mother or that 'bad friend' R. would yell at me, Penny would get inbetween us and start just screaming her head off at the other person.

In that end, that's the memory. The cancer is there, but she was love. She was understanding. She was constant devotion and protection. She stayed up all night to keep the demons at bay so I could sleep. When my alarm went off in the morning, after our joint constitutional (yes, she always went to the bathroom the same time as I) she'd curl up on my pillow. She stayed in the doorways and fought back the shadows that lurk there and try to escape. She made me stronger.

And she fought valiantly to stay with me as long as possible, even as her body failed her mind never did. She'd stare up at me with her emerald eyes and crawl into my lap. The vets had never seen anything like it, no matter how many tumors she had (and they spread incredibly fast, even a doctor in Italy was interested because it just wasn't seen before) she still purred, wanted to be held, to love. After all, it was only her flesh that was dying, not her soul. And while the vets said that cats get angry and hide when they are sick, Penny never did. Because she was my angel. When we went to the vet that last time, she just lay her head in my palm and didn't fight. She purred, comforted by my touch. This, even though the vet had trouble finding a vein because of the tumours. She was going home, and knew that I was safe and she had done her duty.

Warning: This video may be disturbing to some. It's of one of her last days.

(Note to David: This is one of the posts I have had a lot of trouble pulling together.)

The Trip - Part Two

2007-08-31T08:55:00.001-04:00

My mother only beleived in camping at KOA Kampgrounds.

New Mexico was the first stop. The tent we had was white and blue, a three person pop-up tent with those ‘collapsable poles’ – the type with that elasticy bungee chord type string in the middle. They bend and twist and collapse at inopportune times. I think there were only three poles that crossed over each other on the top of the tent. Then there were the little stakes we used to pound it into the ground so that some errant breeze wouldn’t blow our new home away. Imagine, just an overgrown raincoat separated us from the elements.

All I remember about New Mexico was that it was flat, it was our first state, and I want to live there someday. Alamogordo. Albuquerque. Names Bugs Bunny loved saying. That’s New Mexico.

Tennessee was scary. My brother and I were used to the flatlands, the desert, the land of tumbleweeds and cacti and suddenly we were around towering trees. Amidst the trees on the campground my brother and I found a playground. It was damp and there was moss all around. We were convinced it was a secret playground and we were the first to find it in centuries. I think we were in such awe that we didn’t even take a trip down the slide, just ran our hands over it and ‘felt the children from the past.’

It was in Tennessee that we learned of ticks, as a neighboring camper warned us that they jump out of the trees on to animals and people. As if we weren’t scared enough watching the trees bend in the winds. Shortly after, my mother did get a tick in her head and had my brother rub butter into it, but to no avail. Finally we went back to our informative neighbors and they extracted the blood sucker. My brother and I went straight into the tent and put clothes on top of our heads. We covered every inch of our body.

Lesson: Trees can be intimidating, and dangerous.

I think it was Oklahoma that had red sand, one of the states did. I had me favorite florescent yellow socks and wore them all the time, but in Oklahoma the sand got to them. There were also mosquitos. Lots and lots of mosquitos. They were everywhere, the state ‘bird.’

There was one state where we were greeted by a group of ducks. One of them had a shriveled leg. I imagined it got caught in a fire. We called them the welcoming committee, and gave them some bread (which I’m sure was their real purpose for visiting). There was a place to fish there and my brother caught a number of them. He used some of our spoiled meat for bait, the stench drew in the fish. Then, later, when we took a boat out on the lake my brother said it was okay to swim in it. So he and I jumped in the water and grabbed on to the side of the boat. We were enjoying ourselves, until someone from administration saw us and was screaming frantically. My brother and I climbed into the boat and came ashore. The lady was furious, she had specifically told my brother we couldn’t swim in the water as it was filled with water moccasins. He just grinned.

Arkansas had clay-like dirt, I think it was Arkansas. I had ziploc bags and was collecting some dirt from each state as we drove. At first my mother tried to tell me it was illegal (first it was theft, then it was something to do with ruining ecology) but in the end relented. Really, what’s a little dirt in a baggie? It was there that my brother was attacked by some birds. Apparently they nest in the ground and he got too close. He came running to our tent screaming, “mom! I got stung! I got stung!” as he thought they were huge bees. There was a puncture wound in-between his eyes (he got lucky with that one) and in his buttocks from them attacking as he ran away. It was the manager who told us that they were small birds, not large bees that attacked. He warned us that they nest around waters edge, so stay in the designated areas.

One campground had a sign around the pool forbidding you to walk on water.

In one state the wind was so strong even with the tent tethered down it was blowing away (with the cat inside!) so we stayed in a musty cabin instead.

In another state we met a kid who was a vegetarian. We didn’t understand what it meant, my brother and I never saw vegetables, it was all hotdogs and macaroni and cheese. So he ate a hotdog with us and liked it. How could he not? It’s all nitrates and salt. His family was furious.

Texas. Amarillo, the ‘armpit of the South’ as others have since told me. There were big bugs, crickets we could tie to our shoes and uses as moon boots, roaches the size of kittens.

Let’s see, in one of the states there was Mello Yellow, the first and last time I saw that brand of soda. It was some lemony-limey type thing. Another had Giggles Potato Chips. I had never realized there was such a thing as ‘regional food’ before then. The world was what it was.

We left behind Carls Jr. For the first few states that was a huge staple of our diet, when we got sick of the hotdogs we could get a hamburger for 39 cents and I think the fries were a quarter. In my memory, their fries beat out those of any other chain restaurant. McDonald’s was too expensive at the time, although one of my mother’s first jobs in our
‘promised land’ was to make the biscuits at McDonald’s (before they were sent frozen) so we ate there every day. She prided herself on how fluffy her biscuits were compared to others.

We didn’t go straight to New York, we stopped in Pennsylvania to meet the people my mom had us call Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. At least, for a while we did. They were camping there and we would meet them on the campground, and then follow them to our temporary home.

Excuse Me, But Your Issues Are Showing

2007-08-30T08:49:00.000-04:00

Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy by Géricault, Jean Louis Théodore

I know some of my issues, how they carry over in life. One, I’m trying so hard to work on, and that is only liking others that are pained. It’s more a case of, “how can you understand me if you don’t also hurt?”

But, as I come out of that hurt viewpoint of myself, where I see myself as broken and thus think only others that are in pieces can connect with me, I realize what a disservice I’m doing to myself and others.

I became ‘best friends’ with my friend, Xiomara, when we cried over parental issues. In college, I hated those shiny happy people so much. I felt they were vapid, stupid, unaware of the world around them. When someone told me their only concern in life was to be happy I shot them down, “how can you care about just being ‘happy’?” I challenged. “Are you really that shallow that all that matters is fun and happiness?”

It’s a hard one; it really is, wishing to see the cracks in people, to focus on other’s pain kind of as a way to validate your own. “Because everybody hurts, sometimes.” And, because if there is a perfect family out there maybe everything was really my fault.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say. For so long I felt like I couldn’t identify with anyone who wasn’t also troubled, but then we just fed into each other’s insecurities and depression. It’s so easy to think the whole world is just a disaster when you surround yourself with the detritus of the American family, those cast aside, thrown out in the gutter with no loving arms to wrap themselves in. It’s also really easy to think that those who have what you want – those with a chance at love – are beneath you and ‘can’t comprehend the real world’ and live in a delusion. But then, we were living in our own delusion, one that was just a bottomless pit of despair.

I was being discriminatory, not giving anyone a chance, not letting anyone who seemed put together know me because they ‘couldn’t possibly understand’ when I think, honestly, I just didn’t want to be hurt by anyone again. Rejection is easier if you’re the one doing it.

That’s my new directive, to allow people in past these walls that have built up. To give them a chance to love, despite all the scars and scabs I pick at until they bleed all over again. Give someone else a chance to care for me as I am, and in doing so acknowledge that I am a person worthy of affection from ‘the normals’ out there.

And never discount someone’s life just because it is different then your own.

Actually, I think I've succeeded in a lot of this a while ago, as I get along fine with people from all walks of life - nuclear family or no. I can 'connect' with people no matter the 'pain,' and that's what I'm looking for, to recognize that I can (and have) been able to accept people who haven't had a background similiar to mine, and to move forward in the future realizing my worth to society at large, not just the fringes.

The Trip - Part One

2007-08-29T09:22:00.001-04:00

Taken by Wing-Chi Poon on 19th December 2004

I think I mentioned that as my brother and I were spending our days selling everything we owned at the Park and Swap we really didn’t realize the truth behind what was happening. We were young, and we were spending time with our mother, and we were ingesting a hell of a lot of sugar.

The sad part was our animals. I had a rabbit still (my brother’s had died earlier) and she went to a neighbor I think. I liked her, she was big and fluffy. When we first got her we were warned she was a cat killer, but we kept her (mostly) in her hutch. I think my father made the hutch. I remember this one thunderstorm where we had to take the rabbits into our rooms. My brother’s rabbit left so many ‘presents’ all around the room, and mine (Snuffy, named after my favorite Sesame Street character) left only one. She was a good rabbit.

The turtles went to someone, I don’t remember. We also had fish. The birds had died long ago, as had the dog (another case of my mom taking an animal to the pound for some reason of the other). The only animal we were going to take was Georgie. One bi-polar mother, two kids, and a cat in a car for two weeks as they traveled across the United States. Such a recipe for excitement.

My brother had this giant stuffed pink snake, I still remember it. I used to sit in the center of its coils. My brother offered to trade it to me for batteries, and I agreed imagining myself sitting safe in its coils in the back seat of the car. Of course that night my mother tossed it out, and my brother stood by laughing. It was too big to bring in the car, and he had been warned earlier. Cheeky bugger just got free batteries.

A lot of stuff was tossed. The day we left, I clung to my closet door looking around my empty yellow room and cried so hard. My mother told me it was too late, I had agreed. She told me not to cry, I had even helped sell off everything. I don’t think she had the capacity to understand that I didn’t really know what forever meant, what leaving meant. I would never see my friends again, they were moving soon and we didn’t have a house or address at all, just the car cruising on the highways.

The car was once a burgundy red, but the Arizona sun had faded it. It had a pretty big trunk. The cat was in the back seat, I think I spent most of the time sleeping in the back seat too. I remember there were somethings we forgot:

My mothers new swimsuit, and it was the first one she bought that fit her in years.

The porta potty that consisted of some metal contraption and blue bags.

Do You Beleive In Ghosts?

2007-08-28T09:05:00.001-04:00

David McMahon of Authorblog asks this question of his readers this week. It’s an interesting one indeed, because what is a ghost? Is it the spirit of a dead person come to haunt us? A lost soul stuck between realms? Maybe the question is broader in scope though, just asking if I think there are other things out there, things that perhaps we can’t see and that aren’t a divinity.

To that, I say yes.

When I was younger the Major of our Salvation Army corps helped my mother out by baby-sitting my brother and I on occasion. He had a trampoline that I loved and would jump on it the entire time I was there. My mother commented on how I could just jump on that thing for hours.

In what is probably not the norm for Salvation Army officers, this man claimed to have the gift of exorcism. He could also speak in tongues and translate when others did so. In fact, he regaled his congregation with stories of going to revivals where people were supposedly speaking in tongues. Then, he would speak in a foreign language and laugh as others mistranslated what he was saying.

We learned that if Satan or his demons come after you to say, “In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I order you to leave.” I woke up from more than one dream saying these words.

“Exorcism,” he explained to his congregation, “is not like you see in movies. It is not something ‘spectacular’ that takes place in hours. It is a long process. The person must want the demon gone, they must learn of God’s love, of his power.” It was more like therapy sessions that he did with these people.

We also learned that when a hypnotist puts a person under, they are making them susceptible to possession by another entity. In terms of past lives, it is the demon that has entered the body and speaking of their life they’ve led, not the person who is hypnotized. There is but one life for us on Earth, and then the other either in heaven or hell.

Now, our church had a big gymnasium and play room. I remember one potluck dinner when my brother and I were running around with all the other kids, then called in to hear the prayer before eating. As the Major prayed, one of the lights, the long bolted into the ceiling florescent gymnasium lights, pulled from the ceiling and swung toward him, then dropped to the floor a few inches in front of him. We all stood our mouths agape. It had literally swung across the room.

There were other things too, similar to what Shrink posted about in her response. Times when items just started flinging off shelves and my brother and I stood in the corner repeating, “In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I command you to leave” in our frightened young voices.

Maybe it’s not belief, maybe it’s knowledge that there is more out there. Angels, demons, poltergeists, ghosts, whatever you want to call it. They are there.

So Much To Say, So Little Focus

2007-08-27T09:16:00.000-04:00

Photo by Anthony M. from Rome, Italy

I haven’t answered my doorbell (actually, more like a buzzer. Or, more appropriately, like that part in Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carey makes the most annoying sound in the world, that’s my doorbell) in maybe a month. It could be longer, or a little less.

At first I was just tired. I was in school two nights a week, working 6 days a week, and dealing with an elderly neighbor who didn’t understand what ‘no’ meant. She kept calling and ringing my bell because of computer issues. Like, she didn’t know how to turn it on, turn it off, plug it in. I hooked her up, helped her fill out rebate forms, taught her how to open Word, etc., then told her I was really busy. But alas, in the end I just stopped answering my door.

For about two weeks every day there’d be the buzz. I really do hate that sound. Still, I left it unanswered. Then, another elderly neighbor ran into me in the hallway – she was the one who had been buzzing my doorbell. She had a gift she wanted to give me for helping her out while she was in the hospital. I felt bad that I’d been ignoring her rings for the past couple weeks.

But still, I’m not answering it. I haven’t talked to my therapist about this, but I talked to Xiomara. She summed it up easily.

“I don’t answer it either,” she said. “Because it’s quiet, and then, it’s just not.”

It’s the ‘just not’ that I don’t like.

When the buzzer sounds, lately, I’ve been jumpy. So whatever I’m doing in my nice quiet apartment is disturbed, and I leap, and my heart races. Then, I get mad at the person on the other side of the buzzer and just refuse to answer because of that. Plus, I’m not expecting anyone, so figure there’s no reason for anyone to ring my bell. If I had ordered a pizza or something, I’d answer. But I’m not. Instead, my silence is being disturbed.

Anyway, so after my grandmother post I started thinking about her so sent her a little note. A really little note, tiny in fact. Co-workers weren’t sure the post office would mail something that small. It was just a little ‘thinking of you’ note to let them know I care.

I received back a three page letter, very sweet, very affirming. Very interesting, in that she mentioned my mother went to their house a couple times asking about me. She lives about three hours away from them last I knew. She was thrown out of their property, and they didn’t say anything. But it’s interesting that she even went there in the first place. . .

At least it didn’t lead to as many nightmares as I thought it might. I did have a dream that she came to my door and was banging on it, I screamed at her to leave me alone and then called 911. There was another dream, unsettling, but mainly just another ‘trapped with her’ dream. But, I was still able to sleep (without the aid of Ambien) so – improvement!

Sunday Special: Icanhascheezburger

2007-08-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

I don't know when I first discovered the lol cats. Simply put, they are silly pictures of animals with captions in haxor language (basically, bad spelling). The captions are often hilarious. And the biggest repository of lol cat images is I Can Has Cheezburger. There you can surf page after page of photos and chuckle with delight, though some do have me laughing out loud.

I can spend more than a day just going through all the images. And hope it helps to make your Sunday Special.

If you have a site you think would make Sunday Special, please leave me a link. This is something I'd like to continue each Sunday. Be it filled with cuteness, happiness, awesome artwork, or just plain positive energy feel free to let me know! Anything that would be of interest on a lazy hazy Sunday morning is up for review.

Happy Sunday!

What's Your Favorite Color?

2007-08-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, my favorite color was yellow. Everything had to be yellow. My mother called me her ‘sunshine girl’ and painted my room a brilliant shade, and I loved it. My mother’s favorite color was always blue when I was younger.

I was never really a pink girl. I wore no bows, had no sweet pink lace plaited in my hair. In fact, I loudly voiced my distaste of those prissy pink people all dressed up in, well, dresses and ribbons and other such ‘nonsense.’

Of course, a lot of that had to do with envy I’m sure. I couldn’t be a pink girl, as I wore my brother’s hand me downs so often. In fact, I didn’t like pink for the longest time, until college. Then I bought a pair of pink sneakers. I wore them across the stage at graduation. I guess someone commented that it didn’t seem dignified, me wearing pink sneakers at the commencement ceremony. But it signified that I finally accepted my femininity (point 1) and the day before, Xiamora and I had gone to the zoo. While there, I tripped and fell and got a nice ride in a golf cart by the security personnel to the nurse’s station. There, I spoke with the nurse as she talked about being profiled in some trade magazine and how they have a venom repository and anti-venom is air-lifted from them to all over the world when people are bit by snakes. She bandaged up my ankle (which had been badly twisted) and told me to stay off of it and to stay in sneakers for a while with it bandaged. She then wrapped it in an Ace bandage with some ice and sent me of on my way (point 2). So there was no way I was going to wear heals, and it was lucky I had the pink sneakers.

I do like pink now, but it’s not my favorite color. I went through the black phase. Everything had to be black, and I wanted my room painted black. Not that that happened. Black, the color of darkness, the color of despair, the color that isn’t even a color, just like I wasn’t a person, wasn’t a girl. Black absorbs all other colors but has none of their own, just like I absorbed all that was going around but did nothing myself, was nothing myself. I was just there to be the sponge to the hatred around me.

Blackness. I still appreciate it, but for different reasons. I like the dark, I was never afraid of it, I actually felt safer there where I couldn’t be found, where other’s would stumble I could move with sure movements. Blackness was very inviting, even the inhabitants of the darkness – those hiding from a world they either want to destroy or that wants to destroy them. I acknowledged it, embraced it, and when given the chance moved on.

Red is my favorite color now. At first, my mother said it was anger. She hated red, said it was all my ire, my hatred for the world. But she was wrong. It is a vibrant color, and that of fire, of the phoenix. From the ashes of fire rises the phoenix, new and reborn, in brilliance and splendor. Fire is a cleanser, and has been throughout history.

I find it interesting that as my favorite color changed to red (as it still is) my mother’s changed from blue to purple. Sure, she tried to say why my color was wrong, and yet she adopted it, blending it with her own once favorite, to become purple.

Fire is life, it is brilliant, and has no anger, it just is. And that’s what I’m going for – life, as is, no questions asked. To just be.

I do so love red. What’s your favorite color?

The Park N Swap

2007-08-24T09:20:00.000-04:00

So many things happened in my childhood, it’s hard to say what stuck and what didn’t. Life was just topsy-turvy. One day was normal and the next felt like you were doing handstands underwater.

Part of the divorce called for visitation rights for my father. I think they were supervised. At first we were aloud at the home he was staying at, as he was living with family friends. But then after he hit me it was at our house where he would come over, turn on the television, and promptly fall asleep. Yay, daddy’s here. *snore*

Legally, I think my father had custody rights. He had to pay child support, after all. I’m not sure. But then my mother got it in her head that life was better in New York, far away from the desert wasteland of Arizona. Granted, the place was starting to explode with industrialization which in theory would bring jobs, but New York was the promised land.

My mother sent out letters to her ‘family,’ that is, the ones she believed to be her family. At the same time we started selling everything we owned at the Park and Swap, which is basically a huge parking lot that rents out spaces each weekend so people can come and sell things. My brother and I loved the Park and Swap. We would run around and look at everything and sometimes bug our mother for money to buy something new, which of course we couldn’t considering the point was to sell off everything we owned. Once my brother did buy something new, I think a water gun, so my mother made him try to return it. When he couldn’t, he had to sell it at our table, and he made a profit.

Goodness, the Park and Swap. We would sit there all day in the sun trying to sell off what little we had. I remember there was this mirrored placemat my mother had, and on top she had placed a piece of crystal (one of her former occupations involved home parties and she had some product left over). Someone told her it was basically blinding everyone so it would be best to move it. There was the time she sold some shoehorn and then heard the guy snicker that it was worth double what he paid.

One time, I really wanted to play cards. I was bored. My mother was selling the deck of cards for 50 cents. I pleaded with her until finally she gave in. Inside was a twenty-dollar bill. She forgot she had hidden it in there. She always secreted money away, something I do now too. Every time I clean I find money hidden in places I have forgotten about.

In Arizona we have what are called dust devils, the wind starts to zip around and basically form low-level funnel clouds on the ground. It’s kind of like mini-tornado’s that zip through the vastness of the desert but then die down quickly. Next to our booth was a woman selling these little rings, they were maybe a dollar each. I used to love trying them on and smiling at the sparkling ‘jewels’ which were probably nothing more than cheap glass. One of those dust devils tore through the Park and Swap and sent everyone’s wares flying. We all scrambled to get our goods, and then helped the others around us. I ran to the lady selling jewelry and helped her get everything back together. Such excitement! Then she wanted to offer me a ring as a thank you, since I’d been admiring them for so long. I was so happy! They were a bit big for me, but there was one with a pink heart. . . .

I wasn’t allowed by my mother and had to return the ring. She refused to allow this person to give me anything. I understood part of it, she wanted me to not expect a reward, but I still remember that ring.

The best part about the Park and Swap was that after we loaded up what was left and went home, we would stop at the 7/11 and get a Big Gulp. And, even better, the fountain was in the open so we could control how much ice or soda to put in. I always mixed mine, as much as it grossed out my brother. The best recipe was half orange, a quarter sprite, and a quarter cherry soda. Sometimes I’d ad a touch of root beer on top for some bite. In fact, my favorite soda is still a mixture of orange soda, sprite, and root beer. Not that I’ve had it in years. But my brother would say I was disgusting and my mother wonder, until finally she caved and tried some and admitted it was indeed tasty. As for the others, my brother would get I think Sprite or Cola and my mother her Diet Coke.

Image from www.mediabistro.com

The Cats of My Life: Cleo

2007-08-23T09:11:00.000-04:00

Cleo was a white cat with gray spots. The white on her forehead happened to form the first initial of my mother’s name, so she loved that. We had been mourning the loss of Yentl for a while and, except for One-Day Kitty hadn’t had much feline companionship. A friend of my mother told her how her neighbor was going to throw out a cat she got for a valentines gift. So, instead, we took her in.

Cleo was skittish at first. We were informed that the person who had her hadn’t fed her so all Cleo had eaten was what she could steal around the house. She was very smart and able to get into all sorts of food which she’d hide in corners and under rugs throughout the house. We named her Cleopatra because when we first got her she was sleek and long with big ears and that perfect cat face with sharp cheekbones and she looked every bit like a Pharaoh’s dream cat.

Even after Cleo became fat with our open feline food policy she still hid things around the apartment. We’d be walking and hear a ‘crunch’ and see nothing under our feet, but a closer examination would reveal a bump in the rug and a cracker underneath it. Once it was to the point where she would even raid the popcorn bowl taking up kernels in her cheeks as if she was a chipmunk.

We had Cleo spade through a clinic and she never looked the same afterwards, as her stomach just kind of hung.

Cleo had this huge green eyes that were just so full of life and energy and inquisitiveness. She loved to nurture things (like my stuffed bear) and would sit there grooming it until it was sopping wet. She licked the hair off of every fake mouse we gave her. She would also come up and pet you and she loved stroking her paws through my long hair. However, her true love was my brother. Never have I seen such devotion to him.

My mother and I joked how sickening it was. Cleo would follow him around like a lovesick teen and would start to cry if a door closed between them. Whenever he had a girlfriend over Cleo would stay in between the two of them and just glare with the evilest of cat eyes at the poor thing until she left. Then, to show my brother her displeasure she would turn her back on him the rest of the evening. Although, she always forgave him by bedtime and still curled up next to him.

One of Cleo’s favorite foods was cinnamon donuts. Whenever we left donuts on the counter we’d see nibbles taken out of the cinnamon sugared donuts, or sometimes a trail of cinnamon dust that led to her latest spot to hide food. These were also my brother’s favorite donut.

My brother used to love seeing how much he could do to Cleo. For example, he’d pick her up and wrap her around his neck like a mink stole. Then he’d drape her down his legs by her hind legs and all the while she’d just purr so loud the neighbors could probably hear.
She smiled too, this huge grin came on her face when she saw my brother.

Cleo was a cat ruled by her passions. She loved my brother, and she loved Whiskas cat treats. She would attack you if she even saw the can and would stretch up your leg to reach for them. She was very long and would pass my hip when she fully extended. However, if you didn’t give her the treat in time she would scale you with her mighty claws to get it. The joke was to hide them in a family members pocket or drop the treats down each others shirts as Cleo would be on you like a piranha.

The funny thing about Cleo was, as much as she adored my brother, she really just loved all men. I recall a time when the plumber came over and we heard him yelling for help from under the sink. Cleo had gone and lay down across his hands and he was afraid to move her. She ‘presented’ herself to many a man that came through the house. Women, she tolerated only if they didn’t take time away from HER men.

After about two years with Cleo my mother took in Penny. Penny was a lot scrappier a cat but Cleo still got to lick and groom her and we’d often find them curled up together, despite earlier fights. Penny did love to bug her ‘big sister’ though, and a primary way was to take away her fake mice and rip off the fur. I’ll never forget the time that Penny was zooming through the house while Cleo was licking her new mouse. Cleo saw her coming and quickly shoved the mouse under her body and sat on it. Penny sniffed around her a bit but, not seeing the mouse, left her alone.

As mentioned, Penny liked a good fight or two. But Cleo learned quickly how to dominate her. Whenever Penny charged Cleo would get up on her hind legs and grab Penny with her front paws, quickly flipping her over. With each charge Cleo would just turn her like a pro wrestler until Penny got the hint and figured out another way to torment her. One of these involved jumping off the fridge on Cleo’s head. But, as Penny had an incredibly long tail to Cleo’s short stubby one, Cleo took to standing on chairs and biting the tip of Penny’s tail as she sauntered by. However, once the fights were over they’d be cleaning each other’s ears and nestled together like a feline yin-yang symbol.

Cleo waved to you from the window. I loved that. Whenever we left in the morning she’d sit in the window and if you waved to her, her little dainty paw would go up patting the window in her feline wave.

Because my mother loved Cleo so much she got her regular shots. Penny (as she became my cat) did not. Unfortunately, this show of love was the downfall for our wonderful sprite. Feline Injection Site Sarcoma. They didn’t call it that back then, but that’s what it was. Shots were administered at the clinic by pulling up the scruff of the neck and jabbing in the needle, and that’s where the tumor started. I remember how sad my brother was the first time he felt it, but we couldn’t really afford any extra vet care and my mother figured it would go away. But it didn’t take long before the thing was the size of a fist and Cleo couldn’t even hold her head upright. My brother cried and screamed at my mother for not protecting her. Cleo was his true love, the unconditional love that he needed and he wasn’t ready to let her go. Soon the inevitable came and Cleo was put to sleep. I think my brother buried her at his current girlfriend’s house, though I’m not sure. I wasn’t party to her last rites.

I felt sad for my sweet Penny too. For about a week after Cleo passed she went meowing through the house searching every nook and cranny for the only other cat she’d known, and coming up empty. I didn’t have an answer to her inquiries as I, too, didn’t know what happened with the body.

picture taken from encylcopedia brittanica online.

Dreams of Angels and Demons

2007-08-22T09:02:00.000-04:00

Carlos Schwabe's "Death and the Gravedigger"

I think I have mentioned a couple dreams here. It’s funny how they’ve always been my indicator that something is wrong.

There was one recurring dream I had when I was younger, while I may not have many concrete images of the life lived, I do remember the one dreamed.

I think I was five the first time I had the dream, in the dream I am around age five. Then it came back a couple more times by age seven, and then again when I was a pre-teen, enough times for me to remember.

I was asleep in bed when I get woken by a storm outside. I go to my parent’s room because I’m afraid and my mother is sound asleep. I peer through the door and see my father. He is sitting on the side of the bed and there is a glass of water and a bottle of red pills. He swallows one and suddenly horns sprout out of his head, a tail grows. He turns to me as his skin is becoming ruddy and his eyes glow. He sees me and begins to chase me. I scream and run from the doorway.

My mother, hearing my cries, wakes up. She opens up the drawer and takes out a jar of white pills. She swallows one and her hair turns white and grows out long, a white gown forms around her, she runs out to help.

I am outside running in the rain and it’s very damp. I’m slipping on the grass as my father chases me throwing out curses, flames shooting from his mouth. My mother begins to chase him, yelling for him to leave us alone. I run toward a pine tree and am running around it slipping and sliding with my father/demon behind me and my mother/angel behind him. Then I slip and fall and he towers over me – and I wake up sweating.

Like I said – the first time was at age five. The dynamics were already there. Although I don’t remember much about my father – I know from this dream he wasn’t someone I felt safe around. There were times when I loved nothing more than using his arm as a pillow (in fact, one of my scarier “I can’t believe I dreamed it” dreams involved me cutting of his arm to use as my pillow, the rest of him living at another house. It was bloody, but comfortable).

I was five. Five years old and my father is a demon my mother an angel. I have a scar under my lip. My mother always said it was from when I was age five and she and my father were in their bedroom. My brother and I were peering through the door, when my brother pushed me. My father came barreling out of the room and hit me – sending my tooth through my lip. This is my mother’s story of the scar; I have no memory of the real event. But parts of it make sense for the timing of the dream which I do remember.

Dreams have always been more real to me than my past, maybe that’s why I remember some of dreams so much more clearly than I do other events in my life. They are the way my mind worked through so many happenings, told me in ways I could understand what was going on in my life.

I wanted my mother to be my angel, but even in the dream, no matter how many times I dreamt it she never saved me. It’s also kind of interesting to me, looking back, that she had to take a pill to help me. This kind of goes with the running bi-polar theory. When she was medicated, she was normal. When she was on her pills, whatever they were (she never really told us) she was ‘our mother.’

When talking with my therapist about this we discussed the main points - how I saw my mother and father- which is quite obvious by the whole demon/angel imagery. However, the most interesting to her was that my mother never saved me. In all of my dreams, in all of my stories, no one saves me. I want her to, but in the end I save myself, be it by waking myself up or through getting on with my life and just standing up against all odds. There was no white knight for me, not even an angel.

My Father

2007-08-21T09:27:00.000-04:00

Salvador Dali's "Persistence of Memory"

I haven’t spoken of him much, because I don’t know much about him really. Maybe I should go about this the same way I did with my mother’s stories.

He had red hair. There was one time when he put his cup of coffee down on a shelf. Georgie knocked a sock into it. My mother took out the sock and no one told him and we giggled as he drank.

He had bad gas. There was one time he fell asleep in front of the television and the gas was so bad it sent the rest of us to our rooms. I placed a towel by the bottom of the door so the smell couldn’t get in.

One of my favorite foods has always been Gouda cheese. He bought some special for me one Easter. I ate the cheese with delight and pressed the red wax around my nose to make a mold. Until that point we only got Gouda at Christmas.

He loved science fiction and Star Trek.

Once my mom made me go to this slumber party. It was the daughter of the woman who ran the special school my mother had wanted us to be in. I felt so left out – I had no gift or money. My father came by with a carton of strawberries and saved the night.

My father was a good cook, he made an amazing pineapple upside down cake. I don’t think I’ve eaten it since then. My mother always complained about the mess after he cooked, but it was worth it.

He got really sick, much like my brother always did, and vomited when ill.

One of his eyes was hazel, the other blue.

He dressed as Darth Vader at some school carnival one year.

I don’t remember the sound of his voice.

When I was nine-years old he came to visit us. My mother had moved us to New York by then. We were in a park. My brother dared me to spit on our father’s head, and I did.

There were other times after that he came to New York, but we never found out until after he left.

My brother tried so hard to reconnect with him, to no avail.

Finally, when my brother was older, maybe after high school, our father came up with his new wife. He had three new kids. He agreed to see my brother. My brother returned with his heart now filled with hate. I think he said our father said he has a new family now and doesn’t want to deal with us anymore.

When my father found out I lived in Manhattan, I think he thought I had money. He sent a letter to my grandma who forwarded it to me. I had my friend read it. After reading it she told me I probably shouldn’t. He denied any part in anything bad in my childhood and wanted money. He also said he was dying from leukemia and the doctors said his children should be tested. That’s a lie. No doctor would want a donation from the person’s child, they are haploidentical and lead to way more complications then the Leukemia would. I don’t have that letter anymore.

When my brother heard about the possible leukemia, he still got tested to see if his blood matched.

His birthday and that of my mother and brother always fell on the same day of the week each and every year; mine was the only one that was different.

I don’t even remember what year he was born in anymore.

I wrote a poem when I was little, “When Pigs Fly.” One of the lines was, “I’ll like boys when pigs fly.” He referenced it in the letter.

We went to a double feature once; it was the Karate Kid and Gremlins. He jumped out of his seat when a Gremlin popped out of the cabinet in the film. We left early. I couldn’t get to sleep I was so scared so he slept on the floor in my bedroom (my mother never believed in letting children sleep with them in the adult bed).

I remember going to see Supergirl and one of the George Burns Oh God movies with him.

He drove a big white van as a courier for some job. I liked riding with him, but we weren’t allowed to be seen by his employer and had to duck a lot.

He was a traveling salesman at some point.

He hit me in the back with a pair of shoes.

He hid pornography in various places; I remember showing one to my mother.

When my brother was thinking about college, he found out my father was working at one he was interested in. Our father said if he applied he would deny the relation so he couldn’t get the discount. My brother ended up alternating between the military and community college. I still don’t know if he ever graduated.

I think at points he tried, his demons were just too strong.

The Wedding

2007-08-20T09:10:00.000-04:00

Edmund Blair Leighton's "Till Death Do Us Part," 1878

I was working in the buying offices of a major NY retail fixture when I found out my brother was getting married. My mother informed me of the bridal shower and such, I don’t remember if I was invited or not. I do remember I sent her a gift. Being in the buying offices meant free goodies sometimes, so I walked over to the wedding buyer and got some big white chocolates in the shape of gorgeous wedding cakes and shoes and a book about the history behind all the wedding myths. It was really interesting, it talked about why the best man and maid-of-honor was started (so demons would mistake them for the bride and groom and possess them instead, leaving the happy couple to remain so. Remember that if you are ever asked to be in a bridal party – you are sacrificing your soul for your friend’s.)

I put them all together with a card and my mother convinced me to send it to her to give out at the bridal shower.

Later my brother called and I found out my mother had tossed the card I had included and added one wherein she wrote “To my favorite brother, despite everything I love you and you will always be my big brother, I miss you” or something really corny (and personal and not for her to write) along those lines. I did explain that that was NOT the card I sent, which was more of a wedding one. I think she also changed the wrapping paper as she didn’t think mine was ‘festive’ enough. However, his future wife had loved the chocolates and they were both perusing the book with great interest.

I got an invitation for the wedding and was planning on going. Then my mother called me.

“Honey, don’t be upset,” she said, “but I talked to your brother and he said he only sent the invitation out of politeness. He’d rather you don’t go. Actually, he is afraid you’ll ruin the whole thing so doesn’t want you there. He just didn’t want to talk to you, so asked I tell you.”

Well, if that wasn’t the be all. After all we’d been through, he didn’t want me at the wedding?

I had the chance shortly after that to really affect his wedding, be it in a good or bad way. I live in the land of MTV and received a call from them. I was in a high profile retail chain after all. They were casting for a makeover show. If there was an event I was to go to, and wanted a complete makeover, they would pay for it and then film the event. “This is my chance!” I thought. “I can show them I am somebody, I can show them that others want me even if my family doesn’t!” MTV casting liked the idea of me going to a wedding of estranged family members with camera crew and new designer clothes in my back pocket. Drama! Intrigue!

For a moment I seriously fantasized about accepting, how often do you get to be on camera? To have people cater to you? But then I thought rationally and outside the realm of revenge. This was my brother’s day, his future wife’s day. I would be trumping a bride on her wedding day, and didn’t think that was right. If they wanted a quiet peaceful day and thought that meant no me whatsoever, then let them have it.

The day of his wedding my best friend invited me to see Tony and Tina’s Wedding, an interactive off-Broadway play. She had some free tickets. I ended up leaving the ‘reception’ in tears, sad that my own brother didn’t want me at his and here the actors were making everyone feel so welcome. My friend was mad that I left her (the reception had free food, no one straight out of college would have left that!) but I think in the end understood.

A while later either I called my brother or he called me, the end of it is we talked. It turns out that my mother told him I refused to come to the wedding if I couldn’t sing at it, and that’s why I wasn’t there. In the end, we were both listening to my mother and believing her, and she lied to both. My brother said he had wanted his little sister there and never told our mother he didn’t want me there. She had once again lied to us both to keep my brother and I apart and her in power, even if it meant hurting us on what was to be a happy occasion.

Sunday Special: Meowza

2007-08-19T13:46:00.000-04:00

Today I’d like to present to you an amazing artist, known worldwide as one name only, Meowza.

This cool cat has been jamming on worth100.com, a mainly photoshop arts site, since 2003 laying down awesome photo chops and even more amazing drawings coming straight from his own mind (or headbone, as the kitty might say). I’m really partial to his early ones, such as Anniversary and victory where it seems as though the kitty is playing with styles. However his style quickly solidified and has become a standout ever since. Just look at the following:

But what first brought my attention to this artist were a series of cartoons based on a little stuffed kitty with hollow eyes by the name of – yup – Meowza. Many of them are on his old blog iamjapanese.blogspot.com, and you can see the progression away from the story of a girl and her stuffed kitty and on to more painful subject matters, as raw and passionate as the kitty himself.

There is a whole treasure trove of images at his portfolio and many cartoons at his old blog, so go have some Sunday Special time and check him out.

Happy Sunday!

Note: All images copyright Meowza and/or Meowza/Worth1000

Happy Memories - The Garden

2007-08-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

There was a time, I think it was while I was in high school, that at least economically there was stability. My mother had bought a house and it had a small backyard and grapevines. Most houses in that area had grapevines, as the original founders were old-world Italian. In the basement was a huge circular cement slab – the remnants of a press. There were two types of grapes – green and purple. My friends and I harvested them like thus:

One of us would hold the long-handled garden clippers and look for bunches. When she had placed the clippers around the stem, we’d call to the other who would stand under the bunch, look up, and hold out a bag. Then the person would snip, the grapes would fall, half would land in the bag and the rest bounce off the person holding the bag. We’d laugh, toss grapes at each other, and pick up those we could salvage. This would continue until we tired or the bag was full.

The trick to getting a good harvest is to prune, prune, prune those branches. Every November I went out with the giant clippers and cut back all the long winding branches. Then, I’d weave them into wreaths. At first it was just a couple for the house, then I started making them for all the older women at church. My mother would drive me to the craft store and I’d buy ribbons and little ornaments to decorate the wreaths. When my mother saw how much the ladies loved them, she started helping me buy the ribbons.

My mother had planted rhubarb in the backyard, claiming they are the heartiest and grow in any soil. I loved being able to just go outside, grab some rhubarb, clean it off, and then either dip it in sugar to sweeten it or suck on the sour stalk. I learned how to make strawberry-rhubarb pie, as that was my mother’s favorite. I’d use a pre-made crust and tapioca mix to thicken it. That was all it was – strawberries, fresh rhubarb, tapioca mix, and the piecrust.

One summer I really wanted sunflowers and so my mother bought me the seeds. They grew over six feet tall and there was so much pollen golden powder collected on the leaves. All the bees came to our yard and left so loaded we could see their pouches. The stalks were thick, like trunks, and after the harvest we were never able to get them all out after the season. When the time was right, I cut off all the sunflower heads and brought them to the attic to dry out. Once dry, I got all the sunflower seeds out and boiled them in salt, then baked them. Everyone in our church and neighborhood had fresh sunflower seeds that season. There were bags and bags of them. That was the only time I had sunflowers, as my mother and brother both have seasonal allergies and it was too much pollen for them.

Vague Recollections

2007-08-17T09:09:00.000-04:00

There was a time when my brother and I were close friends. We would go down to a field near our house in Arizona and chase the jackrabbits around the brush. He was a cactus magnet. There is one species – Choia- the jumping cactus that would always attack his little legs as he ran by. The only time I got a cactus prickles in me is when I pet a Prickly Pear because the needles looked so fine. I remember school teaching us that even though Teddy Bear cacti have such an inviting name, we aren’t to touch them.

My father told us tales of the jackelope, a jack rabbit with antlers. We wanted to meet him and go to his home and talk to him. I think we believed him able to grant our wishes or something. I don’t know what we would wish for – I think to have some money, to have food. My brother loved bacon; he dreamed of bacon and begged for bacon. He knew many folk tales involving bacon. One of them involved the reason why the sea is salty, although I forget the rest.

There was a Mexican place that my mother loved to take us to when she had the money. I only remember getting the American platter or cheese crisp (cheese melted on top of a crispy tortilla). On your birthday they gave the kids a free piñata. For some reason, I enjoyed tearing off all the brightly colored paper to make it bare. My brother said I was the fastest at taking off the crepe paper. I have such a vague recollection of me choosing an elephant one. They would put a sombrero on you and take a picture to hang on the wall of the happy children. I have this image of a young me smiling with my elephant (to be de-frocked later) surrounded by that thick white border of Polaroid film embedded in some recess of my memory.

I remember my mother saying I always had the cleanest bedroom. It was yellow, I liked yellow. She said it was bright and a nice retreat for her, to come and sit on my bed while I was at school and enjoy the only clean spot in the house, the one that was so bright and cheery.

I also remember her commenting on it being so messy, years later, and lamenting what happened. She wondered where things changed that I went from the neat freak to total slob. I think she was trying to put two and two together, but by leaving herself out of the equation there was never an answer.

There was Owen who threw peaches at the chickens in his backyard.

There was me walking to the backyard of family friends where they were draining a chicken. The bucket held so much blood. I learned it’s easier to defeather a chicken when it’s still warm.

Juanita sometimes ate play dough, she said it was salty. It was; it was the homemade play dough of flour and salt and coloring.

My mother made a rule, “if you accuse your brother of stealing something, then find it later in your room, he gets to keep it.”

My mother said I was a brat a lot. Later, she said I was a bitch a lot. I remember my father calling me a dirty little ragamuffin. I’ve forgotten the context for most of this. The words do remain.

Of the few letters my father sent after the divorce, I just remember one where he wrote that it was so hot he bought a kiddie pool to sit in. He was wearing his shorts and the zipper rusted. I remember this because my mother said the letter was inappropriate. I don’t know if there is more to the letter that I don’t remember or not.

When old enough (and in a safe enough neighborhood) to trick or treat I had to hide my candy inside stuffed animals in my room if I didn’t want my brother to steal it. My mother usually got a good portion of our chocolate. One year, back in Arizona, she said she would make me my costume for school. I think I was in second grade. I wanted to go as a quarter. The coin, not a quarter-horse, but an actual quarter. She made me one out of cardboard, duct tape, and a lot of the silver crayon.

One year my brother was a chicken in the school play, or a turkey, something that had to hatch out of an egg. He couldn’t get out of the egg, it got stuck together.

I don’t know why all this just flitted through my head. I wonder if it means something? Does it have to or can it just be what it is, vague recollections of a life once lived, one so far removed now?

Note: I did bring these up in therapy and my doctor was happy to note that it is a picture of happy, sad, and just kind of there memories. There is no need to analyze them – they are what they are. But she did laugh, a lot, about me wanting to be a quarter. I think it served as a warning to her to not promise her kids she will get them whatever costumes they want because, who knows what a kid will say?

My Mother's Stories

2007-08-16T09:03:00.000-04:00

Painting by Segantini, Giovanni, 1894

I know my mother’s story. Many of her stories, actually. Sometimes they changed, some remained constant.

When people try and explain away behavior they go to the back story – the past affects the future. But beware of using history as an excuse for present actions; we’re supposed to learn from it not repeat it.

She was abandoned. She was given away to a friend down the hall. She never knew her mother lived two doors down.

She was beaten, suffocated, and molested by a drunken grandfather who pinned her to the wall and stuck his tongue down her throat. She had to sleep in the same bed as her “sister” who always peed the bed. Her younger “brother” ripped up her comics and used her coin collection to buy candy.

She was in love with a boy in high school and they decided to skip the prom and get married instead. But then her younger sister got pregnant (at 14) and ‘stole her thunder.’

That first husband beat her and forced her to move furniture while she was pregnant and then after a particularly brutal ‘session’ my possible older brother (She knew it was a boy since conception) was flushed away. His name was Christopher (the child).

They divorced and she threw rocks at his car but had already gotten him a good job with the city that he still has today. She went on to have a fling or two and met my father on the ski slopes.

My father lied to her and stole her violin and told her he was with the CIA. He kept her apart from all her friends and family. He never beat her, but after my brother was born he never touched her either. She knew something was wrong but wasn’t sure what and wanted to stay together for us kids until she realized he was bad for us.

She died on the table giving birth to me. Her soul flew up to the humming fluorescent light and she looked down as the doctor pulled me from her.

She found her real family late in life and she had a real brother and real sister and real nephews (who I found later through the SSDI – dead while his father was in jail). After the divorce from my father she found what she believed to be her real name and took it as her own. She looked through obituaries for family members and went to the funerals when one was mentioned.

She cried when the obituary didn’t include her among the ‘survived by.’

I can’t imagine what the funeral was like – her going in and saying she’s the daughter given away, be my family. But her maybe sister was there and they became friends off and on and my mother introduced her to us as our Aunt but by then I didn’t want any more of her family that she’d present to us then take away as not real family.

When the maybe brother got out of jail he visited and gave her a painting he made.

She was bad at math in school. She once brought home a friend of hers named ‘Pearl’ and her given-to-mama wouldn’t let them in because she was black.

She owned the original Spider-man comic.

She married to get away from the abuse.

She had to put down her favorite dog because it became too protective of her.

She once painted a house with barn paint and it soaked into the wood and became splotchy.

She once owned a craft store and would get paid up to 1000$ for her handicrafts.

I recognize some similarities between her and I. We both yearn for family, but I know I can’t find one in the past only the future, one I actively create. She didn’t learn this. I also know not to repeat the cycle of my childhood.

We’re both creative.

I’m not giving her the time or energy to ‘pretty up’ her stories with fancy rhetoric. They are what they are. Many sounded more like excuses as she told us of the abuse she suffered as a child. Many would come before she went on a rampage – the line “this is nothing like what I got; you want to know about abuse?” was frequent.

I’ll never know the truth, but I know the pain. I know she was pained. She wasn’t in a state to have children, but couldn’t relinquish the power she had over us – maybe the only power she had every known.

Ruminations

2007-08-15T09:07:00.000-04:00

Anchise Picchi's "The Mother"

Was there a conscious point, a revelation, a moment when I realized that my mother’s kisses couldn’t heal me anymore? And worse, when did I realize she was the main aggressor?

I wonder these things.

For so long it was believed that the mother’s kiss would make things better. “Come here baby, peroxide and iodine will burn but not mommy.”

But it was mommy.

When did I stop loving her, if I ever did? I did, I tried.

Once she told me she loved me, but didn’t like me, that there was a difference. She begged, pleaded that I tell her that I love her and got mad when I told her I couldn’t recite it on command, I didn’t want it to become meaningless. It was her argument that if I truly loved her I could say it whenever she asks. Somehow, I knew it to be wrong to make that routine.

I remember my brother asked me many times if I loved our mother. Is that an odd thing for one child to ask their sibling? Not the “I love her more” thing but, “do you even love her? Can you love her?”

I think he fought really hard to love her, much harder than I ever did, much harder than I wanted to. Sometimes I question my commitment. But the final time he asked, before he even finished the question I had said ‘No.’ He looked at me like I was a foreign creature.

“You answered so quickly,” he said.

But I already knew the question was coming.

My brother treated my mother with such disdain. He screamed and yelled at her, forgot every birthday, made every excuse to leave her company, came home only to ask for money or scream at someone some more. My mother bought him everything he asked for – numerous cars, college tuition, clothes. The money we had went to him, the money we didn’t have. But when my mother asked –

“Of course I do!” he’d say as he hugged her.

The money I had went to make her happy. There was one time a friend and I went out to see a movie, my mother had been sad (again). I bought her some chocolates and a Bat Mitzvah card (as I figured it was one she had never received). I came home to pitch black. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t recall it ever being that dark. I called for her; she was in the back room. I felt my way back there.

“What happened,” I asked.

“There was a power outage.”

“Why didn’t you get a flashlight, light some candles?”

“I didn’t feel like moving.”

“Did you check the circuit breaker?”

“I’m tired honey.”

“How long have you been sitting here?”

“I don’t know, a couple hours maybe.”

For two hours, while I was in the movie theater, she sat in the dark staring at an empty television screen all alone. It scared me. I think I either lit candles or got the flashlight or flipped that circuit breaker switch. I read her the card, showed her it. I don’t remember if she ate the candies then or not. She thanked me, the card made her laugh. She thought it was pretty; there were gold swirls on it.

I couldn’t say I loved her, but I can say I tried. Words end up meaningless, strewn all over the floor and walked on. They just fall from the lips and an errant breeze can blow them into the gutter. But actions – the cleaning, the cooking, the birthdays and cakes and teddy bears and everything my little child’s mind could come up with- they said something that she couldn’t hear. Yet, it echos in my mind, reminds me of how much I prayed one day to have a mother who could understand me when I spoke in my own way.

Identity Revisited

2007-08-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

Image taken from www.militaryhq.com

This dialogue of race has come up again in one of my newsgroups. I do wonder how many people realize that the notion of race does not exist. Cultures, yes, but a biological race? Nope. That has been disproved many times. I think of it like squirrels – there are black and gray squirrels in my parks, and even white ones out there. Flying squirrels live in certain regions too. They just adapted for their regions, but all are squirrels. Just like we’re all people. So what’s the deal with focusing on skin color?

I think as much as America may try and deny it, it is still very much a black and white world. Yes, I hear people lament about good black men marrying white demon women and other such nonsense. As much as my mother lamented about relatives that were slaves she also told me never to marry a black man because he could never support a family. Thanks ma.

I have been broken down to body parts before by people seeking to identify me but on a visual level of perceived race. Since my ears are small but my lips big this one man determined I was black enough to date him. Uhmm, not after that, no. Then there are my Turkish (or Irish apparently, it’s a double row of eyelashes thing) eyes, my Dutch hair, My Native cheekbones. It’s like I’ve become an ethnic jigsaw puzzle to people.

Well, stop it. Stop being so darn preoccupied with it all. Plus, as most discussions in the news and print still seem to be about the whole black/white issue stop that too – it makes it seem like others aren’t as important and worse, what happens to those of us who are just big old mutts?

The ‘other’ category, that’s what. We get the choice of white, black, Hispanic, other non-Hispanic, native American/Alaskan/pacific islander and I think just plain other.

So what does that make me? Hasn’t it always been human nature to fear the unknown ‘other’?

As much as I have always believed I have no ethnicity and that’s fine, it means I can take from all of them, it does bug me at times as it makes me feel like I have no voice or worth in a society that prides itself on diversity – as long as the diversity is easy to categorize and place into little boxes. This leaves me out on the rug, so to speak, to be trampled on by others.

Which is why I’m sorely tempted to participate in the National Geographic Genomic Project to see at least my maternal line. To at least get an idea of the migration patterns of my ancestors and thus, have more to contribute to society on that side. It’s pricey for sure, but will it be worth it to have one less question to ask?

I did talk to my therapist about this and she asked why I do associate myself more with the ‘non-white’ other. In highschool I was in the Black and Latino Student Union. I even helped get the banner made and held up one end during the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. parades. A friend and I were both supposed to join, but when she walked into the room she walked right back out and said she felt too uncomfortable. Admittedly, just walking in was a big step for her as she still referred to people as ‘coloreds.’ In college when I asked about the Black Women’s group I was told I couldn’t join because I wasn’t black enough. This really hurt me as it was a big part of my highschool social life, and how did my blackness change from one year to the next? But my skin tone tends toward a more ivory of shades, and that was apparently the deciding factor.

So in college I ended up in the Native American Coalition. It was great- there were a lot of elders and storytellers that came to talk to us over dinners. This introduced me to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian where I volunteered for many years afterwards.

When my therapist asked the question though, I had to think back farther, and I think the answer lies in the poverty of my youth. It’s true that ethnically, those in poverty are generally regarded as ‘minority’ status in America. I lived in Arizona, so we teamed up with Mexican immigrants as we went on searches for food. That is where I belonged. That is what the schools were comprised of. I remember once a richer neighborhood decided to bus some of us poorer students in, to provide diversity. I didn’t like the new school where I was an outcast or an oddity – a bused student on the free lunch program. When you have no money or a lot it seems race doesn’t matter, it’s only in the middle class where it does.

So I went from this land of poverty where others DID share and work together, even if my family was falling apart, to an upper echelon in college where that togetherness wasn’t really there as everyone was fighting for an identity, and physical ethnicity just seems to be the easiest one to grab on to.

Of course, I don’t have that ability to take the easy way out.

The ending of that therapy session was to get out and join some clubs and just start meeting people. Maybe join a walking group, or volleyball, or fern lovers, or whatever is out there just to start meeting people and seeing what I like. I can’t identify with any one ethnic group, and I’m not horribly poor so don’t have that, I’ve got my name. And I’m beginning to think that might be enough.

It's Final Day!

2007-08-13T08:38:00.000-04:00

Picture taken from amazon.com

Ugh, being a student in Accounting is no fun, no siree. But it was part of the conditions of my promotion at work, and as long as I get a C or better, they pay for the course. They even paid for the text book (which was a horrendous $150. Why do companies insist on ripping off those with the least money?)

There's actually a little backstory here. I would have been finished with this class already if not for one little thing - the original teacher was an idiot. That's being mean, I know. But a bunch off us started off in this course with another teacher. That teacher, well, he would never commit to an answer because he was too afraid to say someone was 'wrong' thus he kept on about how in accounting there can be multiple answers. Made some of us wonder if he taught the Enron folks. But our biggest complaint besides his inability to commit to any one answer was that he spent three -four weeks on one chapter that we had all completed in a prior semester, and we told him that. Then we told the dean that (there are no refunds after a couple classes have passed). The next week we moved on but the week after that he went right back to that chapter he seemed to have a love affair with.

This got me quite mad as I figured in the next class (which builds on this one) I'd need to know stuff we just weren't covering. I called the school back and they said that they could transfer me into the next section, which would be an accelerated course. I liked the time line of the one I was in because it met once a week after work and didn't coincide with anything. The next course met two nights a week for 3 hours(each night) for a total of 6 weeks. It also happened to be the same 6 weeks I had to teach my weekend course.

I took this option, knowing it would hurt for these six weeks, but also knowing I needed to get the class done and in a timely manner. The school told me to make sure the class I was in knew of their offer - a third joined me in the new class and I think others took the option to wait until the next semester.

That is why my final is today, and I have to get back to studying, and I will return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. It's hard to learn so much in so short a time, especially when I'm not overly interested in it.

Sunday Special

2007-08-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

Viral Cuteness! How can you not love it? These images have been seen on so many sites, it's darn near impossible to find the original source. But darn if they aren't sweet and bring a smile to my face. Sunday smiles are great, so here's a couple more:

Now, for something else I'd like to add - a Sunday Special Site. One that, if you want something uplifting or cute or happy to read and look at, will give it to you in spades.

Today I present - Amel's Realm. I cannot help but smile each and every time I visit her site or read one of her comments on mine. Amel is the personification of positive energy. I love her Three Beautiful Things (and that they often go ABOVE the #3). But it's not just fluff, no siree, as she also tackles questions that come up in her daily life such as questioning cross-gender relationships. All is done with raw energetic honesty and a smile.

So if you want a special place to go online on Sunday's - let me suggest you visit Amel's Realm.

Now, if you have a site you think would make Sunday Special, please leave me a link. This is something I'd like to continue each Sunday. Be it filled with cuteness, happiness, awesome artwork, or just plain positive energy feel free to let me know! Anything that would be of interest on a lazy hazy Sunday morning is up for review.

Happy Sunday!

(Now, back to studying for me.)

Keeping up with the Memes

2007-08-11T18:04:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to Michelle of Crow's Feet for nominating me as a Rocking Girl Rocker! See the pretty badge? Thank you so much! And I do so love pink. There are just too many to nominate any one. Hopefully I'll update my blogroll one day (which might take as long as this took, yikes!) but each and everyone one of you guys totally rocks!

Now, I know I also got a couple Blogging Tips tags. But, honestly, I feel so new to this the only tip I really have it to 'blog honestly' so don't feel I have much to offer in forms of tips at this point.

Amel also tagged me with the Courageous Blogger Award, the rules as follows:

1) If you have received an award simply choose either the dark or light background image and save it to your files, then post it proudly on your blog!

2) Pass the award on to five other people, you can choose any of the awards from the series, you do not have to pass out the exact award you received. Choose whichever of the awards that you'd like to give out. You can give out one of each or five of the same one, whatever you prefer.

3) You can change the size and color of awards to suit your blog, that's up to you, it's your blog, just leave the titles the same.

4) Please link back to this post so that people can read these rules and so that the meanings of the awards will not be lost.

5) If you feel that you or a friend are deserving of an award and no one has given one to you yet then email me at sayhitochristy(at)hotmail.com and tell me about your website.

For my five:

David of authorblog is probably the reason why the Thoughtful Blogger Award was created. I can think of noone more helpful and encouraging to new bloggers out there. I'm happy to be under his wing - and with all the other bloggers under there, he must have some wingspan!

Cherished is an amazingly courageous blogger, looking stigma right in the eye and refusing to blink. As is Jason as he deals with his mental illness. It may be a relatively new blog (started last month I beleive) but no less worth a read. Let's hope he stays with it!

Which brings me to Jessica whose stories of her family are just so friggin funny and definately 'uplifting' as the inspirational blogger award calls for.

And, who can be more inspirational than a Spy Bear such as Bob? He tackles many adventures nose on and I'd love to be like him when I grow up. Or perhaps I can convince him I'm Lisa Simpson and get a bear hug one day. You know Bob, I am only a few degrees from Lisa? A former boss who gave me my bike, well, her father is in the Simpson's orchestra. . . .

These things aren't easy, are they?

A Continuation From Yesterday- Anxiety and Public RestRooms

2007-08-10T09:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, I thought I’d give another example of simple pervasive anxiety and how I have to walk myself through it.

Public Bathrooms.

That’s right- public bathrooms. Every time I go in I check the door, make sure it says ‘women,’ and then for some weird reason once I’m actually in the bathroom think I went in the wrong one.

Of course this is ridiculous, especially at work when the men’s bathroom is down the hallway about half a block. But the minute the door opens I think I entered the wrong one and will get in trouble.

So I have to think: Okay, you checked the door twice, yes? You hear the copier; the copier is outside the women’s room. This is the ladies room. There were no urinals when you entered- this means it’s not the men’s room. And if it was? So what? You are in a stall, they can’t see you; you can’t see them. Everyone goes to the bathroom.

These thoughts get worse at school, as the men’s and women’s room are right next to each other, but again, there are no urinals when I enter so why the thought that I entered the wrong room? And more importantly, what does it really matter?

It’s funny to me because in life I have purposely gone into the men’s room many times, such as at plays and in restaurants when the woman’s line is too long. Nothing happens. Once, one guy was a bit off –put but then laughed it off. (I do make sure the room is empty by asking a man who comes out, and a friend usually watches the door, or a manager). So what harm is there? Heck, I’ve even had to cover a friend once when both lines were so long she went around back to the bushes. Nothing bad happened (though I suppose that time what she was doing WAS illegal) so why the anxiety?

The simple answer in my mind is that when that stress or whatever hits it tries to find a way to completely undermine myself and take away my self-control. Depending upon how self-confident I am, I might worry until I see some feminine shoes walk by, though I’m stopping myself faster now as the CBT comes in – the main thing being, I already checked the sign twice, I know the area, and in the end if I’m in the wrong bathroom who really cares?

It just annoys me at times that these thoughts creep in and can be so pervasive about such stupid little things.

Picture taken by Stefan Kühn from http://commons.wikimedia.org

Dealing With PTSD Symptoms

2007-08-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

This was asked of me recently, how to handle it now that I’ve got it. To keep the monster at bay, as it were. During the worst of it I have ended up on the phone with my therapists crying uncontrollably as she walks me through breathing exercises. Okay, that happened once. Maybe twice that same weekend, the weekend before I decided to start the blog.

This blog actually does help because it has me going through the thought processes I need to practice and is part of the CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Not that I told my therapist I’m doing this online, although she knows I write every day.

What CBT entails, as is my understanding, is kind of rethinking the way I think. For example, When something unexpected happens my mind can immediately become fatalist and think a. I did something wrong (as I always do) b. This cannot end well but only in disaster. So when that thought pops in my head that I did do ‘something wrong’ I rethink the situation. Maybe a real world example is in order.

The other day I had to deliver some letters to a bigwig in the company and was given detailed instructions for his secretary. I had forgotten to write down his office number, so went by memory. When I get to the office I think is his it’s a little dark, and there’s no sign on the door. I peak my head in and see no secretary, so I look around but per my memory, it has to me his office. So I walk in again and see another open door and an older gentleman sitting there. He asks me what I want, I ask if this is so and so’s office, he says yes. Then I ask if I am speaking with so and so, he says yes. So I give him the documents to sign, he tells me he has a meeting but he’ll call me when he’s signed them.

My first thoughts were that I did something wrong, that he’s going to call my boss and tell her he was offended in some way because I didn’t know who he was. I immediately go to this whole scenario where she’s mad at me because I made the department look bad. So using CBT I have to really walk myself through the situation again: I have never met him, so how am I supposed to know what he looks like? I was respectful the entire time and completed my task. There was nothing that I did wrong. But, because the secretary wasn’t there and the plan had the slight deviation, my first thought is of doom.

This is what I’m practicing until it becomes second nature. As the first thought is doom and failure I have to walk my way through the thought process and realize that nothing bad happened and see the other options that are there for me. But first this means paying close attention to those initial thoughts as they creep into my mind.

Happy Memories

2007-08-08T10:27:00.000-04:00

Here are two I remembered the other day:

One:

I forgot why, but my brother, mother, and I were running toward the doorway. We lived on the second floor of an apartment building. We were in a happy mood, laughing. We all wanted to be the first out. I was young then, not yet a teen. Well, we all hit the doorway at the same time and got stuck. I remember the force of them on either side hitting the doorway lifted me off the ground and I was kind of dangling there between them. We laughed about it, and somehow got ourselves unstuck. But it is just funny to think that we actually got stuck in a doorway.

Two:

Standing before my mother before even hitting age eleven, I was sick of her already. Every day was a trial and here was the final insult. Despite hearing from doctors the terrors that milk can cause my delicate system, she has taken my hand and filled it with whipped cream insisting I eat and enjoy it like she and my brother. I stare at the hand covered in rapidly deflating aerosoled milk product and then turn to my mother. Finally, I do it. I raise my hand and push the whipped cream into my mother’s face. I feel my greasy palm as it slides from her eye and brushes against her smooth ski slope of a nose.

“Ah! My eye was open!” she screams. But then she begins to laugh. I begin to laugh. My brother takes what’s left in his hand, warm whipped cream and saliva, and pushes it into my hair. I yelp and grab the can, spraying it at him, covering his worn G.I Joe khaki green shirt. My mom has washed out her eye, the rim red, as she grabs me. For a moment there’s tension. When not turning the television channel fast enough gives rise to a hanger across the back, I know that whipped cream in the eye must mean an even harsher punishment.

Silently, my mother takes the canister from my hand and sprays a huge mound into hers. I watch it cover her life line, her health line. The mound of soft cream towers above her slightly curled and calloused fingers. My brother watches with a wary smile and whipped cream dripping down his chest. Then she rubs the whipped cream on my shirt. I feel her palm press into my chest and stop for a moment above my heart. I feel her pulse and the cool of the cream penetrate my thin clothes. When she lets go, my brother and I chase each other around the house, my mother trailing behind, until the canister is empty.

Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez

The Sexualizing of Children

2007-08-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

Here’s something that bugs me, and makes me pause. What are people doing to their children? Because, it seems to me, they are becoming sexualized at a young age. And I don’t just mean the whole JonBenet beauty pageant thing. That has been going on for a long, long time. I mean the clothes and other accouterments of childhood and how they have changed.

In my neighborhood, everyone wore hand-me downs so it was mainly a lifestyle of tee-shirts and ripped pants. But, even as I aged and could afford my own clothes it was mostly the same thing – with perhaps a skirt or two thrown in. Modesty was the key. Now I see these kids on the subways, even in the stroller wearing tube tops and mini-skirts. Why does a two year old need a tube top that bares her belly button (and, professes in silver studs that she is a ‘naughty girl’) and a mini-skirt that her diaper sticks out from?

I really don’t understand this. Sites like watchdog.us and others track sex offenders in America. We have the Amber alert because if we don’t find a child within twenty-four hours they probably aren’t alive. The children are our future and our worry, so why the hell do we dress them up as a pedophile’s dream?

But more troubling I suppose is what they know at a young age and the earlier onset of puberty. Working in the schools, I have heard of children as young as seven I think getting their periods. Can you imagine? The blame now is being laid on processed food, and I’m sure there is a link, but has to be more to it.

Plus, there is sexuality in a lot of children’s programming. Even some cartoons I’ve breezed through show the girls wearing little more than bikini’s (I’m thinking of The Winx Club with this one). I hear kids joking around about sex on the subways, sidewalks, and these are pre-teens and younger. It really is discouraging.

So my question is this – as more and more issues become prevalent in the news with regard to the sexual abuse of children- what is the root cause?

The media loves to blame figures such as Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears for this ‘slut chic’ clothing line and life style that’s out there. But the media only airs what makes them money, so if mothers weren’t buying their three year olds thongs then they wouldn’t be made and advertised on television.

Maybe I this is a chicken and egg question. If television didn’t advertise the glamour of sexualized children and stores didn’t sell baby g-strings that were made by a company, would they still be in style or do the stores make them because people want and do buy them enough that the news can see a moneymaking opportunity and runs with it? Is the media pushing the trend of the people? Which is the mirror at this point?

The Cats Of My Life: Yentl

2007-08-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

Picture from commons.wikimedia.org

After Georgie died my mother was adrift without an anchor. She had had that cat for so much of her life. It was a devastating blow. But, we were in touch with a woman my mother at one time said was her sister, then later said wasn’t. That woman had seven outdoor cats and all gave birth at the same time. Suddenly, her house was my dream, a house filled with cute little fuzzballs.

My brother and I begged our mother to bring us there as often as possible. We helped name them all and loved watching feeding time when the floor of the kitchen became a writhing mass of kittens. My brother and I were very protective of the kittens and when potential adopters came made sure they weren’t researchers (yes, one admitted to wanting the kitten for a research project.) From the litter my mother picked one curious black cat to be her next companion. This is why she said she liked him:

“He was on my lap playing, and then suddenly he just shot off! I didn’t know where he went but found him in the litter box. He’s very clean and held it in until the last possible minute because he wanted to be with me.”

At the time, my mother thought Barbara Streisand was the best thing ever, hence the name.

That cat did love my mother with absolute blind devotion. And he didn’t continue running to the bathroom as he had when he was a kitten. Often times my mother complained of waking up with the cat still nestled in her armpit, and poop extruding from his behind. On multiple occasions he chose her warmth over the litter box. But I think she adored it. What more could she want then such love? Her children couldn’t give her that. As much as we tried we still had free will and she still saw us as hiding things from her, as not trusting or loving her as much as she deserved. After all, we wouldn’t soil ourselves just to remain in her presence.

My mother had gotten a leash to try and train him – as he was an outdoors cat – but it never worked. However, if she flicked the leash back and forth across the rug in an arc, he would jump after it often doing backflips in the process. Oh how her laughter would echo through the apartment as she flipped the leash across the floor. She did this until tears streamed down her face and Yentl, tired, curled up in her lap and fell asleep.

Yentl was a sleek black cat with sunflower yellow eyes. My brother and I joked about him seeing his ‘girlfriends’ around the block. There was the sweet tabby across the street and a calico a few doors down.

At the time we lived on a hill on the second floor of a two story building. Our landlord was old world Italian and kept a key to the place. On more than one occasion we came home to find evidence that she’d been there – and usually the evidence was the cat was let out. I don’t think she was a fan of black cats.

Our downstairs neighbor, well, I only remember my mother calling them ‘white trash’ as they constantly had cars up on cement blocks. They weren’t too fond of us, but my mother was known for insulting people loudly. Not the smartest thing to do.

The thing my brother seemed most fascinated about with Yentl was that despite the deep midnight black of his coat, he had the pinkest little behind. My brother always joked that Yentl had hemorrhoids. It was such a pervading joke, that when I attempted to sew as my grandmother did (but without patterns or a sewing machine) I made a little Yentl doll. It was simple, just cat shaped pieces sewn together. But on the back was a bright pink piece of fabric and when you pulled a thread, it wrinkled and bunched together and made my brother laugh as he repeated, ‘hemorrhoid’ over and over.

As Yentl was an outdoors cat he did get fleas. I remember watching my mother give him flea dip. I was horrified as the fleas ran to his eyes and ears to get away from the water and chemicals.

Yentl always knew when my mother was coming home from work and would run to the door meowing. Thus, when he wasn’t at the door as my mom pulled out of the driveway one night we were worried. I don’t even remember how we found him, just that he was bloody. Very bloody. In searching for something to wrap him in my mother grabbed my coat. My pink coat. My only coat. A coat that we couldn’t afford to replace. There is still some anger over the fact that I had to go to school in a coat with his blood stains on them after this.

But at that time, it was extreme emergency. We wrapped him and held him in the back of the car as my mother somehow drove to the vets amid tears. While driving she concocted the story of what happened to Yentl. “It was those white trash neighbors of ours,” she seethed, “they knew he was our cat and that’s why they hit him with the car.” I forget where she got that idea, but it’s what we believed.

Yentl was rushed into surgery and within a few hours we were told that his jaw was broken and would be wired. The vet went over instructions with my mother and sent us all home. We could not visit him as he still had a lot of work to be done.

The next morning came the call. It was believed that a blood clot moved into his lungs. Either way, he was dead. There would be no more little black cat to poop in my mother’s bed, or make her laugh as he jumped after a leash, or run to greet her when she came home. All that remained was the blood on my jacket.

Yentl was buried in our ‘aunts’ backyard. Or maybe it was our backyard. I think it was ours. Shortly afterwards my brother began burying animal after animal in the yard. He made crosses from sticks and branches and, for Yentl, out of bricks he found. Although he insisted he found the animals already dead, we weren’t entirely sure if that was true.

Sunday Special

2007-08-05T08:08:00.000-04:00

On occasion I get the urge to paint. I painted this many years ago and always loved the way it came out.

At the time, I was living with a roommate and it was my first post-college year in New York. My roommate's boss had given her a set of three stacking tables. They were just cheap little things that showed the abuse he had given them. So she gave them to me to see if I could fix them up stating she'd throw them out otherwise.

The other two looked fine with just a little contact paper and cleaning. I don't know what possessed me to paint this one, but like the results. It's easily one of the better paintings I've done.

Victorya Chase Goes To Therapy

Chicken Soup For the Soul

UPDATE

Big Brothers, Big Sisters Program

Dental Woes Continue and Last Meeting

Long Time No See

It’s a Good Thing

The Cats of My Life: Bobo

What's On My Mind

Contact

Owning Your Shadow

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note

*Sniff* Time To Go Back To Work

I Can Walk!

ARGH!

Another Day, Another Doctor's Appointment

Family Reunion? No Time Soon

Follow-up

Johnny Appleseed

The Day After

Tomorrow. . .

What Would Jesus Buy

Stop-Loss

Something Different - Writing Stuff

No One Anticipates - the Spanish Inquisition!

The Write Stuff

Halloween Has Come and Gone~

My Final Is Today

SSSSSSSSsssssnake!

Day of the Dead

The Glow of a Controlled Fire

Some Day My Prints Will Come

Can a Manic Monday Happen On a Wednesday?

Monday!

Christmas Card

Venting

The Truth is Out There

Another Day, Another Dollar Before Taxes

Night Time, Autumn in the City

Running Away

This One's For You, Fish

The Other Side Of NYC

Busy As A Bee

I Want To Fly Away

NYC Trifecta

Lining Up All My Ducks In A Row

It's All Happening At The Zoo

Sunset

A Very Proper Gander

Oh Noes! It Was All Just a Dream (Well, Mostly)

Blogging Against Abuse

Stories of Friendship - Trinh and Rachel

The Flowers Arrived!

Vague Recollections (II)

Sunday Special: Fruit Species

Why Penny Was The Best Cat In The World (#1) – or – Stupid People I Pass On The Way To Work

What Are You A Slave Too? Another Beggar's Tale

Depression Inventory

I'm A Winner

How Much Do You Make? A Beggar's Salary

Sunday Special: Ugly Overload

Tales of a Possessed Marshmallow Man

Show Me Your Security Blanket

9-11 Remembered

Anxiety Inventory

The Cats of My Life: Einstein

Sunday Special: Bob T. Bear (esq)

Gifts

Pennsylvania (The Trip - Part Three)

Dealing With the Holes

The Prince of Egypt

More Tags!

The Cats of My Life: Penny

The Trip - Part Two

Excuse Me, But Your Issues Are Showing

The Trip - Part One

Do You Beleive In Ghosts?

So Much To Say, So Little Focus

Sunday Special: Icanhascheezburger

Sniff Time To Go Back To Work