Last night I dreamed I was Willow…

and Buffy was there.  Great dream, but that’s all I remember.  I took a bunch of muscle relaxors.  Remember the snow?  Yeah.  I strained my back.  Maybe not my back, exactly, but the back of my hip?  It seems that having a teenager is not really helpful in terms of snow removal.  He won’t get up early to do it.  Yesterday I shovelled mine, and then shovelled the neighbor’s too.  It’s the little things, you know?  I mean my day was already headed towards shitty but maybe you can make someone else’s nicer, yes?

Well, I strained something.  Good thing I’ve been doing my yoga or it might have thrown my back out.  At least it’s not a pinched nerve.  That really is worse.  Still, it would’ve been way cooler if I’d injured myself fighting demons or something.  This morning I just said, “fuck it,” and drove right out over the snowplow berm.

update:  another interview today, the one I really want.  I’m wearing a raspberry colored sweater, brown cords, and these…

my knee high shearling boots that I have decided will pass for proper snow-shovelling footwear.  well, they’re knee high when I don’t have them folded down like that.  so, now you can visualize me when you send me those “get that job” vibes, right?  lovelovelove.

don’t hate me because I have beautiful shoes… hate me because I went to the automated car wash today.  Lizzie is now sparkly inside and out.  It’s a once a year extravaganza.  I picked up a card there too, at the car wash.  I don’t know who I will send it to but it was too good to pass up:

convo between two black and white sixties women…
so what are you getting for your birthday?
oh bob always sends a dozen roses.
that’s great!  what’s wrong with that?
well, I don’t want to spend the next three days on my back with my feet in the air.
why, don’t you have a vase?

BAHAHAHAHAAHA!

band camp, indeed…

final bit…  (the beginning is two entries down)

Nothing lasts forever, does it?  Nothing good and nothing bad.  I can’t talk to my mom about any of this because she bursts into tears and goes on about how she ruined my life.  Actually, I prefer not to consider my life ruined, and it’s not really helpful to have to comfort my mother.  She had no idea, she really didn’t.  Why would she?  I guess I must have talked to her on the phone?  I don’t remember.  I can only assume what I thought.

I’ve participated in a few alternative parenting boards.  The general tenor is anti-interventionist in regard to children’s services.  I say hell no.  Call.  Please call.  If someone had called for me it might have mad a lot of difference.  I don’t see how it could’ve made it worse.

So spring break rolled around and mom flew in to see us at the new house.  I don’t remember the airport or anything after, but I remember this short bit:  the walk from the car (our old grand torino) to the door.  It was in that infinitessimal interval that my dad, in front of me, asked my mom for a divorce and all hell broke loose.

I don’t remember anything else until sitting in my treehouse back in Denver.  It was moving day, but the new people had showed up early.  I had a cool fort in the ancient oak in the circular driveway.  The new kids climbed up and said, “get out of here; this is our treehouse now.”  Then they said, “and we get to keep your dog too!”  It turned out that my mom had figured that Lily the black lab would be left with the new family while Golda the brilliant and loving golden retriever would go live with one of her friends.  We were getting a house, but she’d have to go to work full time, so I guess I can understand it better now.  but not entirely.  Still, she did the best she could, I guess.

I don’t remember the rest of third grade, but I remember having all kinds of math problems in the fourth.  No one figured out that I didn’t know my multiplication tables until late in the fifth grade.  I had attended two other grade schools by then.  I wound up in accellerated math again by seventh grade.  I took trigonometry my sophomore year in high school, well the first half anyway.  The teacher reminded me of my dad, the way he talked, the way he made me feel invisible… I flunked at midyear and my mom pulled me out.  She got me a tutor instead.  I took it again the next year and got an A.  I loved that teacher.  I distincly remember that class and every minute in it was a relief. 

Hmm… I feel a lot better.  I should go get myself some proper snowboots and get something done around here.

part deux…

My dad was going to be the accountant for the University of North Dakota.  He’d be starting the first of the year.  He and my mom went up there over Christmas to buy a house.  We spent the holiday at home then mom stayed there with my sister to sell the house while dad and I moved to Grand Forks to start work and school.

It was the middle of third grade.  I loved my old school, Park Hill Elementary.  It’s a gorgeous old school.  I still dream about it.  My teacher was Mrs. Brunner, one of those older women who’s harsh and strict but she LOVED me, and I loved her.  We were just starting muliplication when I left, and I had read every Bill Peet book in the school library.  I was in advanced math, reading, and science.

I don’t remember the first time I saw our new house.  I don’t suppose there was much to remember, it was a plain ranch house with a plain yard and not a stick of furniture anywhere.  Nice enough, I guess, but nothing special.  We slept in sleeping bags on the floor.  I was nervous about starting school.  I should have been terrified.

I got to the new school and just kind of started.  The kids weren’t friendly like they were at my old school.  They were insular, and mean.  They scared me, and I decided that the less I said, the better.  The teacher was a nice enough man.  They were doing division.  I didn’t know how to do division so I got all the problems wrong and couldn’t understand when he would explain it to me.  So he decided I was a moron and put me in remedial math, which was still division, but with dumb kids.

It was so cold there.  People hooked their car engines up to heaters all night just so they would start in the morning.  It would snow a foot overnight and school was never cancelled.  People had hockey rinks in their yards.  In fact, we played hockey at recess at school.  I made a tunnel through our back yard that started at the eaves of the house.  The snow was so deep that you could stand up inside my tunnel.

It wasn’t too long before dad was coming home really late at night.  Then sometimes he didn’t come home till morning before I left for school.  Then, well, he didn’t come home at all.  Sometimes he’d take me to his friends’ house, the Dunns and I would spend a few days with them.  They had a daughter my age, Annie, who was in my grade but not in my class.  She wouldn’t talk to me at school though, kids can smell social failure a mile away and know better.  Still, most of the time it was just me in that empty house.

I didn’t want to go to school and I didn’t want to be home that badly either.  I started saying I had a sore throat so they’d send me home.  Then the school called my dad at work and from then on they just gave me aspergum to chew whenever I wanted.  So instead I prayed for a blizzard.

I checked out lots of books at the school library.  I would go home and read a book every day.  I went from picture books to chapter books in short order.  I read every single Nancy Drew book.  I read them locked in the bathroom.  There’s a safe feeling about a bathroom.  There’s a lock and there are no windows.  To this day, most of my nightmares revolve around trying to fortify whatever house I’m in to keep something aweful out.  I don’t like to sit with my back to a door.

At a certain point I didn’t want to come out of the bathroom even when my dad was home.  I’d sit in my locked bathroom and read every waking moment of my time at home.

I’ll fly away, fly away, to glory
I’ll fly away
When I die, hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away

The one bright spot at school was music class.  I remember that REALLY well.  Singing made me feel whole.  I felt real at those moments.  Everything else was trancelike and unreal, but when I sang it was like none of it had ever happened.  Oh yeah, and I liked P.E. because I got to peg kids in the head with those red playground balls during dodgeball.  heh.

more in a few…

When I was in the third grade my dad worked for HEW, Health, Education, and Welfare, the government, in management.  My mom had her degree in teaching but stayed home with my sister and I.  It was the seventies in Denver.  They had up and coming politico friends, artist friends, and my mom used to do things like grind her own flour to bake bread.  We had a garden.  We lived in a three story brick colonial with a carriage house and a picket fence on half an acre within sight of the museum of natural history.

I’m sure it looked fantastic on the outside.  And it was mostly fantastic, sort of.  My parents had gotten a great deal on the house because the doctor who lived there a long time before had come home and shot his wife in the face right in the entryway.  I remember looking at the heights of their kids on the wall of the landing of the stairs to the basement.  It just was what it was.  I thought there were vampires in the attic.  one weird thing, though, the family room was in the basement.  It had a wooden floor and I’ve never been one for shoes so I was CONSTANTLY getting sewing needles stuck in my foot.  My mom cleaned and cleaned down there, but any time I was barefoot in that room I’d get a needle stuck in my foot.  Yay, sewing needle ghost.  That’s not even interesting.  I held out more hope for the vampires in the attic off the third floor, but that never manifested.

My dad was fairly routinely cheating on my mom.  Secretarys or whoever.  Mom and dad would fight.  I got in trouble a lot.  A lot.  I guess I did.  I got spanked nearly every day by my dad.  You were lucky if mom spanked you; it didn’t hurt and she was the one who ended up crying.  My sister never got spanked.  She was too little.  Funny, I don’t remember ever being little enough not to be spanked.  But dad was scary.  Once he broke a yardstick on my bare butt.  And you weren’t supposed to cry; you could get spanked for crying.  “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

I assumed everyone lived like that.  And, well, I think a lot of people did, just not all of them.

Things are never all bad, you know?  I had lots of friends.  I was in brownies and played soccer and tennis.  I took art lessons.  Next door lived OraJean and Fuller.  They were retired when I met them.  I would go over there after school.  During my first grade year I pretended I was a cat and I would meow at their back door after school and OraJean would let me in the milk door!  She even got me a kitten which I kept at her house, Squeeky.  She’d give me snacks and I stayed there often until dinner.  She taught me origami, needlepoint, all kinds of things.  She used to be a teacher in China when she was young.  She was a graduate of Radcliffe.  We had so much fun.

One Christmas OraJean didn’t get a Christmas tree.  Fuller wasn’t doing well and she said it just wasn’t neccessary to go get one.  I talked to my mom and one evening when they were out we put up a tree in their house, all decorated and everything.  Mom and my sister and I spent lots and lots of time over there after that.

Twenty years later when I was having a crisis, a single mom underground (a stalker thing), I got a call from mom.  Even though OraJean had died a few years earlier (we’d been to visit her in the nursing home, and had her out for apple blossom) her will had just cleared.  She left me money.  It turned out she was a General Mills heiress.  Kind, kind OraJean, her generosity once again uplifted my circumstances.

So it’s understandable that I was devastated when my parents told me we were moving to North Dakota.

more later…

 

morning.  woke up on the wrong side of my head…

part of the problem with getting “better” is that as you heal your psyche decides to let things pop back up, as in, okay, you can handle this now.  let’s hope so. 

a few years ago I started weekly therapy.  after years of seeing therapists that didn’t really want to do the work, I found someone outside my insurance network who did.  the bad part was that I had to pay out of pocket.  the good part is that my dx is off the books.  on the books I have Major Depression, from the shrink, who I really thought did a good job.  he got me back functioning and I don’t really think he knew there were further depths to plumb.  most people don’t know what questions to ask, do they?

Marion did.  funny, how I found her was a complete fluke and she seemed to have direct line into the center of my problem.  I had classic symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder… not the type where you flashback and relive trauma in an active way, the type where you dissociate, trance out and are unable to remember whole chunks of time.

all mo betta now… but.  there’s always a but.  now when something touches a memory I remember it.  sigh.

the snow.  thinking about getting up to shovel the driveway, knowing there is a huge plow berm I’ll have to pick away at… realizing I don’t have proper boots.  and then I remember, the snowmobile boots.  I was eight years old in grand forks north dakota…

the day’s shot.  I’m going to go shovel out my shit and then come in and Shovel Out My Shit.

 

so, what do you know?  my sister went back to nyc today.  I didn’t talk about it much here on the off chance mom was reading.  back to normal, I guess.  I had a big relief feeling after us pulling off the sixty person surprise partay, and thanksgiving.  it does, however, leave a deadly lull.

Paula called and we talked about the deadly lull feeling.  I mean I’m on AD’s so maybe I should be more pulled together?  still, it is december and if we’re not having killing/death thoughts perhaps we’re ahead of the game.  Paula brought up the subject of cults, that it was really too bad there weren’t any cults for us to join in this town, well, none that would suit us.  That was one thing I didn’t really mind about marriage.  I don’t mind being told what to do, you know, but it’s gotta be a BENEVOLENT leader.  so here are the words of wisdom that came out of that convo:  better a longing for a cult than a longing for death.

Having just watched Stepford Wives, Paula wanted to know what I would want in a stepford husband.  the thought gave me chills.  huge goosebumps.  the thought had never occurred to me.  what an idea… I mean, it’s not that I’m averse to the concept of marriage, I really liked a lot about being married.  I just don’t think I could marry any humans or anything.  why they gotta be all up in my shit all the time?

At that point Paula reiterated that she would NOT marry me.  I told her never say never.  one of us might need health insurance some day.  besides, eventually I’ll have a career and make decent money and everything.  waterfront house?  I bet she changes her tune THEN, boy howdy.

She said she had to go; her phone was getting hot and she was pretty sure she was getting a brain tumour.

  the kids and crictor

  she was surprised

  I was saying I could feel her ribs

  yummy baby and hangover hair

off to get the beebees early.  the pod has Had Enough.  singing to the tune of Ave Maria:  where are my glaaaaaaaasses… they must be here so-o-o-omewhere…  I didn’t wear them yesterdaaaay, but I know I’ve seen them re-e-ecently.

you think I jest.  I do not.  choreography to follow.

off to book club… I didn’t finish the book.  it’s MY pick, so my lead in discussion.  BAHAHAHAHAHA!  I’m willing to bet not everyone finished it either.  I could’ve skimmed and finished but it’s too good to rush.  PLUS, this is only my second time there and two of the women I know won’t be there.  I won’t know anyone.  oh well.  onward and upward.  and maybe a glass of vino.

 

snatched from lotusgirl and NescafeMornings

(I said snatch)

1. What is the geekiest part of your music collection?

mandy patinkin “singing in the bathtub”?  I suspect most of it is… 

2. What do you eat when you raid the fridge late at night? 

I’m not actually much of a night eater but I did have a tamale last night.

3. What is your secret guaranteed weeping movie? 

Always with Richard Dreyfus and Holly Hunter… Parenthood?  Where The Heart Is you know the one where Natalie Portman gives birth in Wal-Mart.  I can imagine few things worse than giving birth in Wal-Mart.  smirk.

4. If you could have plastic surgery, what would you have done? 

I used to want a nose job, but I don’t think I’d bother now.

5. Do you have a completely irrational fear?

I think most of my fears are rational, but overblown.  hmm, okay, when I’m on the bridge I have this urge to throw everything off and watch it go down, so I’m afraid I’ll do that even though I know I won’t.

6. What is the little physical habit that gives away your insecure moments? 

I think I get extra animated.  also I make less eye contact.  I don’t know what to do with my hands.  one thing I hate about wearing girl clothes is that there are no pockets to shove my hands in.

7. Are you a pyromaniac? 

 No.

8. Do you have too many love interests?  

nope.  do hollywood boyfriends count?

9. Do you know anyone famous? 

yes.  a musician and a cinematographer, oh and an actress who while famous in her own right also slept with fonzi and big bird

10. Describe your bed: 

astronaut foam with a dark curved headboard

11. Are you spontaneous or planned?

I’m mostly spontaneous and I tend to get into trouble when I plan too much.

12. Who would play you in a movie? 

today?  yoda.  last week I’d have hoped for Isabella Rosellini 

13. Do you know how to play poker?

Yeppers.  after school in london I took a few quarters going to community college and staying at home (so I could buy a truck).  all my girlfriends had gone away so I hung out with the guys which meant beer, pizza, and poker every night.  they often proposed strip poker but I never lost.  funny thing is I always had to use a cheat sheet:  “I don’t know what this is, but I think it beats what you have…” 

14. What do you carry with you at all times?

my phone, a handkerchief, lippie

15. What do you miss most about being a kid? 

not much.  guilt free milkshakes?

16. Are you happy with your given name?

now that people are kind of used to it it’s much better.  LAH-RAH, not LARE-A.  sigh, or Laura, I get that a lot.

17. How much money would it take to get you to give up the internet for one year? 

I wouldn’t do it for money, it’s my outlet.

18. What color is your bedroom? 

taupe.        

19. What was the last song you were listening to? 

Playing right now:  Forever, Ben Harper

20. Have you ever been in a play? 

several.  I was Jo in Little Women.  It was an unmitigated disaster that embarrases me to this day.

21. Have you ever been in love? 

Yes

22. Do you talk a lot?  

absolutely.

23. Do you like yourself and believe in yourself? 

most of the time.

24. Do transient, homeless, or starving people sometimes annoy you? 

no.  they make me very very sad.

25. Do you consider yourself to be a nice person? 

No.  but I think I’m a good person.

26. Do you spend more time with your girlfriend/boyfriend or your friends? 

sigh.

27. What is your ideal marriage location? 

??  in theory?  maybe vegas.  or italy.

28. Which musical instrument do you wish you could play?

all of them

29. Favorite fabric?

tencel, stretch denim 

30. Something you love and hate?

the phone

31. What kind of bedding do you use? 

dog sheets.  a raspberry waffle blanket.  a dog quilt.  supima pillowcase, buckwheat neckroll, down reading wedge.  it’s time to change to the pink duvet, I think.

33. What’s the one language you want to learn? 

italian.

34. How do you eat an apple? 

just regular.

35. What do you order at a bar? 

a kamakazi, or tequila neat… in a tavern, stout.  restaurant, cabernet or cab-merlot.

36. Have you ever pierced your body parts? 

 just ears

37. do you have tattoos?

yes, and I’d do more

38. Do you drive a stick? 

 yes, my dad taught me in his vw rabbit.

39. Favorite trait of the opposite sex? 

kindness or gentleness

40. What’s one trait you hate in a person? 

cruelty or violence

41. What kind of watch do you wear? 

I have four.  I LOVE watches.

42. Most frivolous purchase? 

cowboy boots.
43. Do you consider yourself materialistic? 

yes, in practice, but I’m not invested in my things.

44. What are you best at cooking? 

baking, I’m best at baking. 

45. Favorite writing instrument? 

pencil, which is weird because I always hated the impermanence of it. I prefer fine point, black pens.

46. Do you prefer to stand out or blend in? 

a little of both.

47. Would you ever go out dressed like the opposite sex?

I do daily.

48. What’s one car you will never buy?

a hummer.  I think that’s practically immoral. 

49. What kind of books do you like to read?  

everything, but I love sci-fi.

50. If you won the lottery, what would you do? 

buy a boat. give money to my friends.  travel.

51. Burial or cremation? 

 Cremation.  who cares.  I’m dead.

52. How many online journals do you read regularly? 

I’m afraid to count.

53. What’s one thing you’re a loser at? 

snowboarding.
54. If you don’t like a person, how do you show it? 

I kick them in the shins.

55. Do you cry in front of your friends? 

yes.  sigh.

56. What kind of first impression do you think you give to people? 

if we meet in a group they think I’m outgoing usually.  if it’s more one on one they tend to get a more even picture.

57. What’s one thing you like to do alone? 

lots of things… movies?

58. Are you a giver or a taker? 

giver.  hmm, or maybe taker.  both?  I guess it’s different with different people.

59. When’s the last time you cried? 

Last night.

60. Favorite communication method? 

talking in person

61. How many drinks before you’re tipsy? 

I can be pretty hammered without it being obvious, but I’d say two for feeling it, three and watch out.

62. Do you think you’re cute? 

unlikely… I think I’m attractive enough.

63. Do you have problems changing clothes in front of friends? 

Nope.  as long as they’re not holding a camera or anything.

64.  Do you have any crushes? 

I plead the fifth.

65.  Favorite cartoon character?

Bubbles (powerpuff), Samurai Jack, Haku in Spirited Away 

66.  Last time you laughed so hard you cried? 

friday night with Paula, Libby, and Scott… and Dylan actually.  several times.

67.  Last big risk you took? 

moving back here.

68.  Last time you fell in love?  

??

69.  Your first car? 

first one I owned myself:  red nissan king cab 4×4 named James.  license plate 1999! 

70.  What mood are you in right now?

even. a little worried about my sister’s flight problems… fuel leaking, cancelled, rescheduled three times, now we’re socked in with killer fog.

Well, I had already put the house to bed when I decided to turn on a lamp and open this back up to write.  I spent most of the evening reading my book; tommorrow night is book club and I’ve not finished, nor have I even come close.  I’d just thrown on my jammies, flannel, fresh from the dryer, laid down my book on the nightstand with the covers thrown back and thought, “what melancholy,” knowing I wasn’t quite done.

Normally I’m a quick reader.  I often skip long narratives of scenery or history that doesn’t advance the plot.  In fact, this may be the first time I’ve meandered through a story, taking it in exactly as written.  It strikes me to the bone.  I feel as though I’m feeling what’s written, and not because it’s so well written, which it is, but for something more ellusive.  And truly, while I don’t suppose I’m aching for the memory of my own Mandalay, it feels familiar on some base level.

The fear, the uncertainty, the stilted longing for something staid and familiar is so pressing.  At the back of my throat I feel something tighten and a flush rise merely in admitting it to myself.  Still, I’m no closer to catching a glimpse of what stands just so far off that it is always around a corner… a foreboding, not dark really, an unknown.

And I go about my world not quite right.  I gaff, and my half formed smile becomes in actuality a sneer.  It doesn’t matter my intentions.  I offend and witness the recoil of the other in shock, blundering further in my attempts to right myself.  Yes, that is it.  Perhaps I should retire among my books until the light comes back, daylight, softer than this harsh bulb illuminating, as it always does, my inadequacy.