You can't belive what kind of wonderful people I know. Well, if you're reading this, you're probably one of them, or someone who knows one of them, so I guess that's a patently false statement. All I know for sure is that this whole weird ride would be a hell of a lot less interesting and more painful if the people who love me didn't love me, or even tolerate me. Suffice it to say, if you've passed more than three words with me in the last week, you are on my all-time list of People I Could Do Without But I Wouldn't Like it One Bit and I'd be a Lot Worse Off.
Soon, when I'm not blogging while doing laundry and willing the sun to come out, there will be further postiness here about who I love and why
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
a story
It is summer. She is eleven years old. Her birthday fell on Easter, this year. The cake was a bunny; her mother outdid herself. She, her mother, and her baby brother have arrived at the town pool. They do this every day that the pool is open for the entire summer. No one thought to teach her to swim until she almost drowned when she was five. Then there was a flurry of lessons and caution that gently dropped into near-total amphibianism. Her mother will leave her here when the baby gets tired and pick her up before dinner. On lucky days, she might get to spend four or six hours in the water.
She had to stop taking swimming lessons two years ago because everyone watching her swim was making her very nervous. Really, anyone looking at her for any reason makes her nervous. Now that she's older it isn't cute to hide behind doors, in closets, under tables or in cabinets. Sometimes when she tries, now, she gets stuck. Then everyone has to look at you even harder while they try to help you get out. She doesn't understand why they won't just close the door and let her stay there until everyone leaves. She could get out if she was alone.
Lately she has discovered that if she corralls some of the younger children, or runs errands, or gets the grownups refreshments everyone will ignore her, as if she wasn't even there. As if she wasn't something to stare at. Being helpful and useful makes you invisible, and safe. She doesn't hear the words in her head, but there is a sensation like a tiny click as she realizes it in much broader terms. Now she thinks she'll get out and run around to the deep end and do about 98 dives and cannonballs, then go play with her brother.
She's thinking about this as she climbs the ladder, so it's a shock when she looks down for the next rung and sees her body for what feels like the first time ever. Her legs, which she's been looking at for her entire life as various people dressed and washed them, and then as she learned to do the same, look like part of an alien species that she's encountering for the first time. Here in her head, there has never been a judgement on a particular body part. This is how they sounded in her head before: leg, arm, hand, head, torso, foot. Now, somehow, since she heard that click, they sound like this: fat, weak, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. The way her hand-me-down black Speedo one-peice is cutting into the dimpled fat over her hip is making her seriously feel like vomiting.
She is paralysed on the ladder, and when she can finally climb out she wraps her towel around herself. It won't go all the way around, and her eyes dart around to see if anyone is laughing or pointing. Retching. All she sees is regular, happy people. They don't seem to be paying any attention to her, so she sits down on the side and covers as much of her body as she can with the tiny towel.
Sometimes things get very weird when you're a kid. Some mornings she wakes up and the whole world except for her is in super-slo-mo mode. It feels like it takes her mother an hour and a half to say, "It's time to go to school." Even swinging in the hammock is so incredibly slow that she can't stand it. Sometimes if she reads and pays attention to nothing else, it will speed up enough so she won't scream. Sometimes it just starts in the middle of the day, too, and those days she sometimes will scream.
Words have been bothering her lately, too. The word "crotch" has become unbearably dirty to her ears and eyes. Not only can't she stand the written or spoken word, but she has an aversion to most things which could be described by the word. Strangely, the crotch of her panties doesn't bother her (except at the laundromat, when so many panties in the basket make the crotchiness of them shoutingly obvious), nor does her own crotch. However, the crotch of a pair of tights has made her hysterical and her mother has bought all new knee-socks to spare them all the drama. And the crotches of tree limbs make her so uncomfortable she has had to stop climbing trees altogether, though if you'd asked her before this she'd have described tree-climbing as, "my favorite outdoor activity which doesn't include immersion in water."
All of a sudden, she wants to leave. If she tells her mother she doesn't feel well, they will go home and she can lie in bed under the covers. She stands up, shading her eyes with one hand and trying to obscure at least her bottom with the towel, looks for her mother and brother. Mom, tanned and lithe in her bikini, holds the baby over her head, then swoops him around in the air over the shallow end, just skimming his baby belly and legs through the water, then claps him to her body for a big hug. He's laughing hysterically as drops of water shimmer in the hot air all around them. "Mom!" She can hear her voice in her head, but it isn't coming out of her mouth. "Mom, I feel sick, I need to go home!" She's afraid they're having so much fun they'll be mad about having to leave. She can't ask them to, but she can't be here anymore.
Her voice still won't come out of her mouth, but it starts talking in her head again. "You can't make them leave. Just go hide in the shower, or the locker room. Come out in a little while when you're more calm, and buy some candy, then sit and eat it in the truck and a few minutes later you can all go home." This is reassuring. Her voice won't come out and tell people what she wants, but it will tell her, secretly in her head, now to make them give it to her anyway. This might be okay. Her voice says, "You're too ugly and fat, so no one will ever love you or want you for anything. Go hide in the shower so no one has to look at you and you don't cry or make a scene or everyone will know how pathetic you are." So she did.
the end
She had to stop taking swimming lessons two years ago because everyone watching her swim was making her very nervous. Really, anyone looking at her for any reason makes her nervous. Now that she's older it isn't cute to hide behind doors, in closets, under tables or in cabinets. Sometimes when she tries, now, she gets stuck. Then everyone has to look at you even harder while they try to help you get out. She doesn't understand why they won't just close the door and let her stay there until everyone leaves. She could get out if she was alone.
Lately she has discovered that if she corralls some of the younger children, or runs errands, or gets the grownups refreshments everyone will ignore her, as if she wasn't even there. As if she wasn't something to stare at. Being helpful and useful makes you invisible, and safe. She doesn't hear the words in her head, but there is a sensation like a tiny click as she realizes it in much broader terms. Now she thinks she'll get out and run around to the deep end and do about 98 dives and cannonballs, then go play with her brother.
She's thinking about this as she climbs the ladder, so it's a shock when she looks down for the next rung and sees her body for what feels like the first time ever. Her legs, which she's been looking at for her entire life as various people dressed and washed them, and then as she learned to do the same, look like part of an alien species that she's encountering for the first time. Here in her head, there has never been a judgement on a particular body part. This is how they sounded in her head before: leg, arm, hand, head, torso, foot. Now, somehow, since she heard that click, they sound like this: fat, weak, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. The way her hand-me-down black Speedo one-peice is cutting into the dimpled fat over her hip is making her seriously feel like vomiting.
She is paralysed on the ladder, and when she can finally climb out she wraps her towel around herself. It won't go all the way around, and her eyes dart around to see if anyone is laughing or pointing. Retching. All she sees is regular, happy people. They don't seem to be paying any attention to her, so she sits down on the side and covers as much of her body as she can with the tiny towel.
Sometimes things get very weird when you're a kid. Some mornings she wakes up and the whole world except for her is in super-slo-mo mode. It feels like it takes her mother an hour and a half to say, "It's time to go to school." Even swinging in the hammock is so incredibly slow that she can't stand it. Sometimes if she reads and pays attention to nothing else, it will speed up enough so she won't scream. Sometimes it just starts in the middle of the day, too, and those days she sometimes will scream.
Words have been bothering her lately, too. The word "crotch" has become unbearably dirty to her ears and eyes. Not only can't she stand the written or spoken word, but she has an aversion to most things which could be described by the word. Strangely, the crotch of her panties doesn't bother her (except at the laundromat, when so many panties in the basket make the crotchiness of them shoutingly obvious), nor does her own crotch. However, the crotch of a pair of tights has made her hysterical and her mother has bought all new knee-socks to spare them all the drama. And the crotches of tree limbs make her so uncomfortable she has had to stop climbing trees altogether, though if you'd asked her before this she'd have described tree-climbing as, "my favorite outdoor activity which doesn't include immersion in water."
All of a sudden, she wants to leave. If she tells her mother she doesn't feel well, they will go home and she can lie in bed under the covers. She stands up, shading her eyes with one hand and trying to obscure at least her bottom with the towel, looks for her mother and brother. Mom, tanned and lithe in her bikini, holds the baby over her head, then swoops him around in the air over the shallow end, just skimming his baby belly and legs through the water, then claps him to her body for a big hug. He's laughing hysterically as drops of water shimmer in the hot air all around them. "Mom!" She can hear her voice in her head, but it isn't coming out of her mouth. "Mom, I feel sick, I need to go home!" She's afraid they're having so much fun they'll be mad about having to leave. She can't ask them to, but she can't be here anymore.
Her voice still won't come out of her mouth, but it starts talking in her head again. "You can't make them leave. Just go hide in the shower, or the locker room. Come out in a little while when you're more calm, and buy some candy, then sit and eat it in the truck and a few minutes later you can all go home." This is reassuring. Her voice won't come out and tell people what she wants, but it will tell her, secretly in her head, now to make them give it to her anyway. This might be okay. Her voice says, "You're too ugly and fat, so no one will ever love you or want you for anything. Go hide in the shower so no one has to look at you and you don't cry or make a scene or everyone will know how pathetic you are." So she did.
the end
Monday, January 15, 2007
a letter
Dear Kellye,
We are trying so hard to be there for each other and support each other and love each other that it is hard for me to criticize you or ask you to change your behavior. I don't want to inhibit or discourage you. I know how fragile you are under the mask, and that the tiniest nay, once said, can make you want to hide for days, to retreat to that safe, dry place where you don't have to try, or care, or engage ever again. I know that when you're scared and hurting all you can think about is how to make it stop, and how to keep it secret, and how to protect anyone else you care about from being exposed to it. I'm asking you to listen to me with the thought in mind that I love you very much and I wouldn't ask if I didn't need it.
I know you're stronger than you think you are, and more useful, too. I know you have a lot of room to improve in almost every area of your life, but where that makes you queasily suicidal or autistically depressed, I think it could be exciting if you'd embrace it. Also, embrace your fears. It's time. You know they're most of them not real, and you know you can beat them. You're scared of dancing and love and sharks in the same way you were scared of the 183 flyover, which you tricked yourself into not caring about one way or the other as you drive over it three times a week. So what if you're scared of looking stupid? So what if you're scared of being vulnerable or dissapointing or laughable or getting hurt or being rejected. Being so careful that none of those things ever happen to you hurts just as much if not more. And it's so much lonlier. Watching you be this lonely and scared and sad is breaking me.
Here's the thing, darling: I want to help. Everyone that loves you wants to help. And we can. None of us could do it alone, not even me, but if you can stretch yourself out to be just a little more vulnerable, to be a little more patient, a little kinder, a little safer in your own skin. Then everyone who wants to help you would find it so much easier, and you'd be better able to be there for them. Things wouldn't be so scary if you'd at least try to believe that you're really a cherished part of a huge, loving, wonderful family of people who only stand as far off as you make them.
love, -kel
We are trying so hard to be there for each other and support each other and love each other that it is hard for me to criticize you or ask you to change your behavior. I don't want to inhibit or discourage you. I know how fragile you are under the mask, and that the tiniest nay, once said, can make you want to hide for days, to retreat to that safe, dry place where you don't have to try, or care, or engage ever again. I know that when you're scared and hurting all you can think about is how to make it stop, and how to keep it secret, and how to protect anyone else you care about from being exposed to it. I'm asking you to listen to me with the thought in mind that I love you very much and I wouldn't ask if I didn't need it.
I know you're stronger than you think you are, and more useful, too. I know you have a lot of room to improve in almost every area of your life, but where that makes you queasily suicidal or autistically depressed, I think it could be exciting if you'd embrace it. Also, embrace your fears. It's time. You know they're most of them not real, and you know you can beat them. You're scared of dancing and love and sharks in the same way you were scared of the 183 flyover, which you tricked yourself into not caring about one way or the other as you drive over it three times a week. So what if you're scared of looking stupid? So what if you're scared of being vulnerable or dissapointing or laughable or getting hurt or being rejected. Being so careful that none of those things ever happen to you hurts just as much if not more. And it's so much lonlier. Watching you be this lonely and scared and sad is breaking me.
Here's the thing, darling: I want to help. Everyone that loves you wants to help. And we can. None of us could do it alone, not even me, but if you can stretch yourself out to be just a little more vulnerable, to be a little more patient, a little kinder, a little safer in your own skin. Then everyone who wants to help you would find it so much easier, and you'd be better able to be there for them. Things wouldn't be so scary if you'd at least try to believe that you're really a cherished part of a huge, loving, wonderful family of people who only stand as far off as you make them.
love, -kel
Friday, November 03, 2006
Liking myself
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life and my actions and decisions and responsibilities lately, as you know if you've listened to me at all lately. I say, "listened to me" because no one has had much of a chance to do anything else with me lately. I never thought it would happen (and I bet you didn't either) but I'm actually sick of the sound of my own voice. I'm actually consiously trying to not talk and to listen more, which used to not be a chore or anything I even had to think about until I decided not to have my Saturn Return after all and just turned into a tantrum throwing, taco hurling, whining, "that's-not-fair"-ing little baby for two years.
I think last night I had a breakthrough. Not sure. It doesn't seem to have miraculously changed my life and made me a better happier person, overnight. Which was part of the breakthrough, actually. Accepting that it's just hard and that knowing more about why doesn't really help make it easier. Just easier to take. Accepting that the work is the reason. It's hard, and you have to start over every day, and you have to do all the work yourself. And the reason why you have to do it is because it's there to do. Not work, as in "career" but work as in "travail." But another part of the revelation to myself was that it can't really be explained or talked about substantively because the realization happens to you and you can't even really explain it to yourself. Another significant part was the idea that being a happy and successful adult is largely impulse control, which I'm pretty sure I learned from Clarice Starling, years ago, but which really hit me during this whole "sense of significance" experience I'm talking about. That maturity and responsibility aren't magical keys that you find at a pre-arranged point in the video game. That taking control of your life isn't anything anyone else can help you do, by definition. That you get out of life what you put in, and that every moment is simultaneously important, precious, insignificant, and fleeting. That our behavior is a contract we write with the world, determining every effect of our experience. The killer part is that I already knew all these things. I've said them to numerous people. Ad nauseam. I even believed some of them to be true, but last night it was as if I had been describing giraffes to everyone from a third-hand description of one and then woke up to one in my room. Again I can't really explain how or why.
Not that any of it will mean anything to anyone but me, since we are talking about chemical fires inside my own uniquely coiled head-meat, but what the hell. I need to spitball about it a little so I won't monologue and short-circuit my growth by being forced to cut out my own tongue. Besides, noboby reads this blog anymore because I never post, so it's almost like those things we used to have way back when. You know...it's like a book...but with no words in it...and you put words...a diary! I tried to keep a diary for years but I just wasn't getting enough attention. God bless pornography for inventing the internet.
Anyway, so I'll be working on that. I fucked up my timesheets at work and won't get a check for a month, because the one for the next two weeks will come out with the one I get after that. Assuming I don't fuck up those timesheets. I finally got my drivers' license renewed/replaced and changed my address on it. I finally went down to the courthouse to show them my insurance papers (which they wouldn't accept without my DL) and get the deferment so I only have to pay half of that ticket, so I only owe the city another $250 or so. I'm thinking about looking for another job. I feel pretty. I need to gut this blog and make it nice again, and decide what to do about the "two blogs" issue. Not enough time or energy to write unique posts for both, not really enough time or energy to duplicate posts. Hmmmm. Don't know. (Actually I have four blogs, but I never post on the other two. I just needed them, back when I got the blogging bug.
The thing that made me think what I felt last night was a real breakthrough in my thinking, that it honestly meant something, is that I've had momentary glimpses of the feeling it gave me, throughout my life. It felt kind of...I can't explain it. But it never felt like it had as much content as it felt it had this time. Like I was knowing something deep for the first time. Or the latest time, however you want to view it. Sci-fi author Connie Willis, in her excellent book Passage, writes something along the lines of, "just because you really, really want something to be true, that doesn't make it true. But just because you really, really want something to be true, doesn't make it not possible." I really, really want to believe that I'll give myself this feeling more often. That I'll learn to carry carefully this precious thing inside my chest and live a life that honors it. That I'll teach myself to live fully and with zest, full of awe and love.
I think last night I had a breakthrough. Not sure. It doesn't seem to have miraculously changed my life and made me a better happier person, overnight. Which was part of the breakthrough, actually. Accepting that it's just hard and that knowing more about why doesn't really help make it easier. Just easier to take. Accepting that the work is the reason. It's hard, and you have to start over every day, and you have to do all the work yourself. And the reason why you have to do it is because it's there to do. Not work, as in "career" but work as in "travail." But another part of the revelation to myself was that it can't really be explained or talked about substantively because the realization happens to you and you can't even really explain it to yourself. Another significant part was the idea that being a happy and successful adult is largely impulse control, which I'm pretty sure I learned from Clarice Starling, years ago, but which really hit me during this whole "sense of significance" experience I'm talking about. That maturity and responsibility aren't magical keys that you find at a pre-arranged point in the video game. That taking control of your life isn't anything anyone else can help you do, by definition. That you get out of life what you put in, and that every moment is simultaneously important, precious, insignificant, and fleeting. That our behavior is a contract we write with the world, determining every effect of our experience. The killer part is that I already knew all these things. I've said them to numerous people. Ad nauseam. I even believed some of them to be true, but last night it was as if I had been describing giraffes to everyone from a third-hand description of one and then woke up to one in my room. Again I can't really explain how or why.
Not that any of it will mean anything to anyone but me, since we are talking about chemical fires inside my own uniquely coiled head-meat, but what the hell. I need to spitball about it a little so I won't monologue and short-circuit my growth by being forced to cut out my own tongue. Besides, noboby reads this blog anymore because I never post, so it's almost like those things we used to have way back when. You know...it's like a book...but with no words in it...and you put words...a diary! I tried to keep a diary for years but I just wasn't getting enough attention. God bless pornography for inventing the internet.
Anyway, so I'll be working on that. I fucked up my timesheets at work and won't get a check for a month, because the one for the next two weeks will come out with the one I get after that. Assuming I don't fuck up those timesheets. I finally got my drivers' license renewed/replaced and changed my address on it. I finally went down to the courthouse to show them my insurance papers (which they wouldn't accept without my DL) and get the deferment so I only have to pay half of that ticket, so I only owe the city another $250 or so. I'm thinking about looking for another job. I feel pretty. I need to gut this blog and make it nice again, and decide what to do about the "two blogs" issue. Not enough time or energy to write unique posts for both, not really enough time or energy to duplicate posts. Hmmmm. Don't know. (Actually I have four blogs, but I never post on the other two. I just needed them, back when I got the blogging bug.
The thing that made me think what I felt last night was a real breakthrough in my thinking, that it honestly meant something, is that I've had momentary glimpses of the feeling it gave me, throughout my life. It felt kind of...I can't explain it. But it never felt like it had as much content as it felt it had this time. Like I was knowing something deep for the first time. Or the latest time, however you want to view it. Sci-fi author Connie Willis, in her excellent book Passage, writes something along the lines of, "just because you really, really want something to be true, that doesn't make it true. But just because you really, really want something to be true, doesn't make it not possible." I really, really want to believe that I'll give myself this feeling more often. That I'll learn to carry carefully this precious thing inside my chest and live a life that honors it. That I'll teach myself to live fully and with zest, full of awe and love.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
I love when things just come together.
I can't remember what exactly I wanted to write about tonight, but it had to do with W.H. Auden, whom I've been reading lately. For about the last 4 years. On and off. And I've barely made it through about twenty of his poems in one book of his collected stuff. But I think I'm getting it.
I, of course, got interested in him in high school. When I first saw Four Weddings and a Funeral and heard John Hannah give the devastating recital of "Funeral Blues" at Gareth's funeral. Years later I finally bought a book of his poetry and started trying to really understand every line. So far I get "Funeral Blues" and parts of "Song For St. Cecelia's Day" and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (strangely enough) and "The Quest." I think.
Anyway, I wanted to write something about something I read tonight and I got online to IMDb to look up the movie to find a link to the poem and found all kinds of wonderful information that is super-exessively linked above. And when I happened to casually click on the "reccomendations" link (which I almost never do) I discovered a revelation about how I feel about romance and love, divulged in the fickle heart of "user ratings" I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I'm working on it.
Then, looking for a few stray links I wanted to include but couldn't find, I stumbled upon this article about this poem of his. And I feel like I understand several things now that I didn't before. Which I hope you do now also.
I, of course, got interested in him in high school. When I first saw Four Weddings and a Funeral and heard John Hannah give the devastating recital of "Funeral Blues" at Gareth's funeral. Years later I finally bought a book of his poetry and started trying to really understand every line. So far I get "Funeral Blues" and parts of "Song For St. Cecelia's Day" and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (strangely enough) and "The Quest." I think.
Anyway, I wanted to write something about something I read tonight and I got online to IMDb to look up the movie to find a link to the poem and found all kinds of wonderful information that is super-exessively linked above. And when I happened to casually click on the "reccomendations" link (which I almost never do) I discovered a revelation about how I feel about romance and love, divulged in the fickle heart of "user ratings" I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I'm working on it.
Then, looking for a few stray links I wanted to include but couldn't find, I stumbled upon this article about this poem of his. And I feel like I understand several things now that I didn't before. Which I hope you do now also.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Best boquet EVER
My mom and grandma and brother all give me plant cuttings whenever I visit. Sometimes it's a plant I know and love, sometimes it's a mystery plant. Last time I was home all three of them gave me and Jasper cuttings of this kind of plant, which I've always loved because the stems or spines or fingers or whatever of the plant are soft as a kitten. I had just forgotten until my brother reminded me that the flowers smell like rotting meat because they're from South Africa and they're pollinated by flies. Soooooo awesome. Jasper sent me the above link because he couldn't stand not knowing their name after finally finding a flower he could love. Here is a Google search about stinking flowers. I really love the Stapelia gigantea simply because I have several, but among the others I can't decide if my favorite is Dead Horse Arum or Stinking Corpse Lily. E-mail me if you live in Austin and want a cutting of S. gigantea when I separate them in the spring.
Margaritaville
This is such a cruel song. If there really was a place I could go live and spend all day wasting away...no job, no responsibilities...just look for my lost shaker of salt all afternoon and then maybe take a swim. I wouldn't even care if I stepped on a pop-top and blew out my flip-flop. I might even get a new tatoo...
That's right, it's been stuck in my head for over 32 hours now. And people wonder why I'm so irritable sometimes. Jimmy Buffett wrote that song the year I was born and my parents used that as an excuse to expose me to it literally thousands of times. And now I'm an alcoholic. Call CPS. A point of interest: I wrote this whole post, then I looked up a link to the lyrics to check them, since I wasn't 100% sure "pop-top" was right. I had no idea, nor do I even now, what in the hell he's talking about about the sponge cake. Traditional island fare?
That's right, it's been stuck in my head for over 32 hours now. And people wonder why I'm so irritable sometimes. Jimmy Buffett wrote that song the year I was born and my parents used that as an excuse to expose me to it literally thousands of times. And now I'm an alcoholic. Call CPS. A point of interest: I wrote this whole post, then I looked up a link to the lyrics to check them, since I wasn't 100% sure "pop-top" was right. I had no idea, nor do I even now, what in the hell he's talking about about the sponge cake. Traditional island fare?
Sunday, August 27, 2006
grudgingly recommended
is this awesome video. I love the video itself, but it was my first experience with YouTube, which I found amusing and diverting. Until I tried to set up a profile and prepare it so I could click on the "blog this" whenever I found something on there I wanted to show you all. I don't know about you, but I don't like getting my dick shaken by websites that are suppposed to be simple and fun. I wouldn't even have logged in and tried to blog by clicking through, but I've been on several websites where you can't link directly to a page and have to use their link. Then I entered my blogging info and clicked the button to get it all started, and the page goes, "please wait a moment while we get your blog junk all set up" (or however they said it), the page said "done" and the whole thing refreshed. Back to "please wait." Then it did it about 700 more times while I was making coffee. I guess that's great for YouTube, since I'm so freaking interested in their site I've looked at it 765 times just today, but for me it's just annoying. And I still had to blog it manually! Ugh!
Monday, August 14, 2006
That's right: summarily shot!
I have this weird tendancy to work a lot in one or two weeks, then to sit around on my ass until I'm completely out of money before I maniacally start working again. Luckily I've landed in an industry where work is so in supply and workers so in demand that I can do this. For a while longer, anyway. Until the stress kills me. I'm having a pretty raunchy week, not in the good way. I kind of feel like my emotional life has taken on an aspect of "chemical bus toilet, DFW to Chicago nonstop," but when you take into account that I'm living on about $8 a week for the essentials (beer, smokes, gas) with nothing left over for non-essentials (food, medicine, fun) and it's all basically because I chose to live this way and I repeatedly refuse to learn to take care of myself or even attempt to do better, you sort of can understand how I got to the point that I'm hiding in my bed and throwing food objects at people who can't tolerate my pouting. Just so everyone knows, this, too, is somewhat likely to pass. Assuming everyone stops patting me and telling me how worried they are that I'm having such a hard time. For those of you who didn't grow up in my childhood home, the way to treat Kellye is this: pretend nothing is happening and that everything is all right, especially if things go a bit wonky. If behavior becomes troublingly erratic, leave or otherwise disengage yourself. Return when regular "only semi-erratic" behavior is restarted, pretend nothing happened. Thank you.
On a related note, persons who use the disturbing word "blogoverse" in any context othere than condemnation will be summarily shot. This is not a drill.
On a related note, persons who use the disturbing word "blogoverse" in any context othere than condemnation will be summarily shot. This is not a drill.
Friday, August 11, 2006
a conversation
me: me, me, me.
you: me, me, me.
me: me, me, me. dammit.
you: me, me, me. really.
me: boo, hoo, hoo.
you: you, you, you.
me: me, me, me, me, me!
you: you, you, you, you. me.
me: ME, ME, ME, ME. you?
you: me.
me: ok
you: me, me, me.
me: me, me, me. dammit.
you: me, me, me. really.
me: boo, hoo, hoo.
you: you, you, you.
me: me, me, me, me, me!
you: you, you, you, you. me.
me: ME, ME, ME, ME. you?
you: me.
me: ok
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Inky dark inkwell of pondering...
I changed the headline or tagline or whatever it is, so I had to put the old one somewhere for posterity. Since I'll probably go back to it in a week or two, and whatever. I'm gardening and playing croquet today. Because I plan to have a croquet game set up for my birthday, and I need to practice. Because if I lose at croqet on my birthday, with ready acess to a keg, a pinata full of liquor (decided drugs was too dangerous) wooden mallets and sharpened wooden stakes, something probably pretty bad is going to happen. You know I'm too pretty to go to prison. Rambling, rambling, babbling, nothing much to say. I keep thinking of great blog posts when I'm doing something where I really can't drop everything and post them, then I forget them before I get to a computer. You know, driving my car, riding my bike, having the spins in my yard, whatever. I need to start toting around a physical journal to jot some of this shit in. Either that, or figure out how to blog from my phone or whatever crazy, mixed-up, computers-taking-over-the-world, I Robot "convenience" blogging they have set up now. Blog from your fillings! If people who aren't poor even have fillings anymore. Have you ever thought about joining the military (obviously, in peacetime, not now) just to get your teeth fixed? This is a good question to ask people at parties to find out if they're the same "class" as you. Also, I just want to say, who the fuck is too fancy to drink cheap beer? I can't tell you the number of times I've been totally ridiculed in the last year for drinking PBR. I'm talking schoolyard-style hazing. What the fuck is up with that?!? Did everybody else in the world just get a raise and start drinking some $13 a six-pack shit from Europe? Or do people just enjoy making fun of me? Fuck people who like making fun of me, I can get drunk for $6.04, including tax. And then I can stab them.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Just in case you didn't know or have forgotten...
I'm a vicious bitch. Also, my birthday is coming up. I'll message all you bitches and let you know when the party is. I'm having a pinata. I told my mom I was having a pinata and she said, "Be careful, you know how all those people on America's Home Videos are always getting the shit beat out of them by a four-year-old with a streamer-covered stick." And I was all, "Shit, mom, don't worry. My party's going to be all adults. Plus we'll all do compulsory jello shots for about half an hour, then everybody gets a stick and I announce that the pinata is full of little bags of kind bud. Yayy! Happy Birthday!"
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Sometimes...
when I'm just walking around, I suddenly can hear the "Darth Vader Theme" from Star Wars in my head. Then, sometimes, I realize that I'm singing it out loud. Sometimes people look at me funny.
Now re-read it and pretend I'm saying it to you in a Ralph Wiggim voice. Yes, it really is that strange in here. Now imagine Ralph Wiggim dressed up as Vader. "Luke, I choo-choo-choose you!" Someone save me.
Now re-read it and pretend I'm saying it to you in a Ralph Wiggim voice. Yes, it really is that strange in here. Now imagine Ralph Wiggim dressed up as Vader. "Luke, I choo-choo-choose you!" Someone save me.
Friday, January 27, 2006
HOLY SHIT!
I forgot to tell you my fantastic news! About two weeks ago, while I was at work doing one of my first 12 hour shifts, Jessica called me a couple hours before I got off. I just happened to be in a situation where I could answer the phone, so I did, because as many of you know, I kind of enjoy me some Jessica-chatting-up.
Jess: "Hey, don't get mad at me, I got you a present."
Kel: "Oh, I always get so mad at you when you bring me presents."
J: "Well, I kind of made you a present. And It's kind of big."
K: (having fantasy where the "present" is that she's somehow swabbed out my horror of an excuse for a bedroom and made it livable and pleasant, then dismissing it) "Well, that's okay. I like big presents AND made presents"
J: "It was supposed to be just a little present but when I got started making it, I couldn't stop and now it's kind of...huge."
K: (Fantasy of clean, tidy room with 0% effort from me comes screaming back into my head with a sense of certainty, and instead of dismissing it I tell myself, 'Don't get your hopes up. There's no way anyone could do the whole thing in one day.') "Okay. Sounds good, I can't wait to get home."
J: "And you won't get mad?"
K: "Absolutely not. See you soon" (Doing a little dance as I turn off the phone.)
As I was driving home I kept repeating, "Don't get your hopes up. She probably started the picking-up for you and it's going to make it 100% easier to get started and you'll be done in no time and she's so awesome! Yayy!" I walk into the house repeating it. There is a palpable sense of excitement and suspense in the air as I walk over to the door of my room. Jessica looks like a pressure cooker right before it blows a hole in the wall behind the stove. I'm about to loose my mind trying to be cool. I open the door. My room is totally spotless. EVERYTHING has been picked up off the previously knee-deep floor and either put in it's place or assigned a temporary space. Jessica begins taking me around the room and showing me where she's put things that have never had a place before in this house. I notice that she's taken the six-inch-deep pile of mat boards, art paper and collage materials from under the bed and sorted and filed them under my desk. My arts and crafts supplies are no longer strewn around the room, they are neatly put away in one of three areas. All the clothing that was everywhere in the room is neatly in piles for laundry or putting away. Shoes are sorted. The closet closes. Every book I own is on a shelf, rather than in a box or on the floor. She's found all my cds and put them neatly together. The bed is made. You can find the bed easily, and neither pair of stairs is blocked. I start to cry. I notice Jess is crying. I call everyone I know and tell them about it, and they all cry. Rejoicing resounded througout the kingdom, and they all lived happily ever after.
Jess: "Hey, don't get mad at me, I got you a present."
Kel: "Oh, I always get so mad at you when you bring me presents."
J: "Well, I kind of made you a present. And It's kind of big."
K: (having fantasy where the "present" is that she's somehow swabbed out my horror of an excuse for a bedroom and made it livable and pleasant, then dismissing it) "Well, that's okay. I like big presents AND made presents"
J: "It was supposed to be just a little present but when I got started making it, I couldn't stop and now it's kind of...huge."
K: (Fantasy of clean, tidy room with 0% effort from me comes screaming back into my head with a sense of certainty, and instead of dismissing it I tell myself, 'Don't get your hopes up. There's no way anyone could do the whole thing in one day.') "Okay. Sounds good, I can't wait to get home."
J: "And you won't get mad?"
K: "Absolutely not. See you soon" (Doing a little dance as I turn off the phone.)
As I was driving home I kept repeating, "Don't get your hopes up. She probably started the picking-up for you and it's going to make it 100% easier to get started and you'll be done in no time and she's so awesome! Yayy!" I walk into the house repeating it. There is a palpable sense of excitement and suspense in the air as I walk over to the door of my room. Jessica looks like a pressure cooker right before it blows a hole in the wall behind the stove. I'm about to loose my mind trying to be cool. I open the door. My room is totally spotless. EVERYTHING has been picked up off the previously knee-deep floor and either put in it's place or assigned a temporary space. Jessica begins taking me around the room and showing me where she's put things that have never had a place before in this house. I notice that she's taken the six-inch-deep pile of mat boards, art paper and collage materials from under the bed and sorted and filed them under my desk. My arts and crafts supplies are no longer strewn around the room, they are neatly put away in one of three areas. All the clothing that was everywhere in the room is neatly in piles for laundry or putting away. Shoes are sorted. The closet closes. Every book I own is on a shelf, rather than in a box or on the floor. She's found all my cds and put them neatly together. The bed is made. You can find the bed easily, and neither pair of stairs is blocked. I start to cry. I notice Jess is crying. I call everyone I know and tell them about it, and they all cry. Rejoicing resounded througout the kingdom, and they all lived happily ever after.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Eeek!
Various horrible e-mail drama as Yahoo! fucks me around. Please click on the "write to me" link on the top of the sidebar and write to me at my gmail account (link now sends to me there) if you'd ever like to get an e-mail from me again, because the evil Y! people have deleted my account for the third and last time. Evil, terrible weirdness swirling. Here are more (mostly serious) things I'd like to become by pretending I already am:
-sober more often
-nicer in a more heartfelt way
-a person who says "yes" when she means "yes" and "no" when she means "no" and "I'll do that" only when she really wants to
-did I mention taller?
-stronger and more healthy, emotionally and physically
In other news, people just won't stop calling the house phone and hanging up on the machine. We have caller ID, people. In most cases I know exactly where you live. I know where you sleep. Just leave a fucking message, before I start pretending I'm already the kind of person who would stab you. Oh, wait, I already am.
Also, I just noticed that the dates were showing in Dutch, so I changed it back to English.
-sober more often
-nicer in a more heartfelt way
-a person who says "yes" when she means "yes" and "no" when she means "no" and "I'll do that" only when she really wants to
-did I mention taller?
-stronger and more healthy, emotionally and physically
In other news, people just won't stop calling the house phone and hanging up on the machine. We have caller ID, people. In most cases I know exactly where you live. I know where you sleep. Just leave a fucking message, before I start pretending I'm already the kind of person who would stab you. Oh, wait, I already am.
Also, I just noticed that the dates were showing in Dutch, so I changed it back to English.
How to be happy
Who knew? Trying helps a lot. Back when I first posted about this, I was really hanging on by my thumbs, and really scared. I couldn't see a way out or a way to ever change what I was feeling, even though I knew I had felt that way before and it had gotten better eventually. I couldn't see how I could change anything; my lifestyle, my personality, my emotions, my behavior for the better. I didn't think I would ever stop feeling that sad. I was very afraid of what might happen to me.
Then I got really fucking tired of it. Tired of feeling bad all the time. Tired of my eyes aching because I couldn't stop crying and tired of missing my friends and wishing they could help and knowing that they were getting tired of it too, and tired of being angry and tired of being scared. Tired of other people being scared about me. And really, really fucking tired of how much it hurt.
Until I realized that virtually the only thing I had any power or control over at right that second, or any time until I could feel better, was my attitude. So now I'm becoming a happy person by pretending I'm already happy. Not in a fakey, assy way, but really trying to feel what it would feel like if I was really happy right now. And it's working. I definitely feel better and am reacting more like I would like to.
Not that it's a perfect system. The bottom fell out on me the other night, and everything went sideways and I felt as bad as I did right before I decided to change my attitude. It was all back, the crying and the feeling like a terrible person and the persecuted feeling and the anger and the fear and dissapointment. I felt like a stupid fucking failure, too, because I was right back where I had started and thought I had lost all that ground.
Then I realized I hadn't lost anything because I could change my attitude again and again until I got it right. This is going to work for me, I think. Then, when I have being happy worked out, I can become tall and willowy and Belgian by just pretending that I already am tall and willowy and Belgian. Then I'll pretend I have 8 billion dollars and a castle in France. And an 18 year old Italian boyfriend. And a tiara. And a pony...
Then I got really fucking tired of it. Tired of feeling bad all the time. Tired of my eyes aching because I couldn't stop crying and tired of missing my friends and wishing they could help and knowing that they were getting tired of it too, and tired of being angry and tired of being scared. Tired of other people being scared about me. And really, really fucking tired of how much it hurt.
Until I realized that virtually the only thing I had any power or control over at right that second, or any time until I could feel better, was my attitude. So now I'm becoming a happy person by pretending I'm already happy. Not in a fakey, assy way, but really trying to feel what it would feel like if I was really happy right now. And it's working. I definitely feel better and am reacting more like I would like to.
Not that it's a perfect system. The bottom fell out on me the other night, and everything went sideways and I felt as bad as I did right before I decided to change my attitude. It was all back, the crying and the feeling like a terrible person and the persecuted feeling and the anger and the fear and dissapointment. I felt like a stupid fucking failure, too, because I was right back where I had started and thought I had lost all that ground.
Then I realized I hadn't lost anything because I could change my attitude again and again until I got it right. This is going to work for me, I think. Then, when I have being happy worked out, I can become tall and willowy and Belgian by just pretending that I already am tall and willowy and Belgian. Then I'll pretend I have 8 billion dollars and a castle in France. And an 18 year old Italian boyfriend. And a tiara. And a pony...
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
photo musing
I need more pictures of myself. This is an odd state for me to be in, as I've, since about age 10, avoided having my picture taken or destroyed what pictures of me I could get my hands on. The cognitive dissonance between my picture-in-my-head of what I should look like and my retinal dismay at what I do look like is too much for my tiny little brain.
However. When I got my digital camera (which is a hunk of crap, but what the hell) I was suddenly able to sit, totally self absorbed, for entire hours, snapping self-portrait after self portrait until I captured something I actually wanted to see. This has caused unfortunate side-effects, because people are now getting used to seeing pictures of me. My mother, for instance, will not get off my back. "Why haven't you sent more pictures? Where are the pictures? Take more pictures!" I panicked and sent her every picture I have of myself that was taken in the last three years (I had been doling them out like a smart girl) and now she's even more crazy for more current pictures. Never mind that the pictures she now has of me taken in the last three years outnumber the pictures of me from the foregoing 10 years...
Which is only a problem because my camera is a hunk of crap that won't keep a charge. And because I'm tired of only self-portraits. I'd like to get some shots including more than one side of my face and part of my neck. I might even consent to let myself be photographed all the way down to the shoulders, if I could only get someone to agree to help...that won't be happening anytime soon, tho. I've asked everyone I could bear to ask and have been flatly refused...I'm trying to be cool about this development, but my brain wants me to be bitter and never take another photo. This time, however, my brain is not going to win.
However. When I got my digital camera (which is a hunk of crap, but what the hell) I was suddenly able to sit, totally self absorbed, for entire hours, snapping self-portrait after self portrait until I captured something I actually wanted to see. This has caused unfortunate side-effects, because people are now getting used to seeing pictures of me. My mother, for instance, will not get off my back. "Why haven't you sent more pictures? Where are the pictures? Take more pictures!" I panicked and sent her every picture I have of myself that was taken in the last three years (I had been doling them out like a smart girl) and now she's even more crazy for more current pictures. Never mind that the pictures she now has of me taken in the last three years outnumber the pictures of me from the foregoing 10 years...
Which is only a problem because my camera is a hunk of crap that won't keep a charge. And because I'm tired of only self-portraits. I'd like to get some shots including more than one side of my face and part of my neck. I might even consent to let myself be photographed all the way down to the shoulders, if I could only get someone to agree to help...that won't be happening anytime soon, tho. I've asked everyone I could bear to ask and have been flatly refused...I'm trying to be cool about this development, but my brain wants me to be bitter and never take another photo. This time, however, my brain is not going to win.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Self-Portrait Tuesday
There's this cool thing on Flickr called "Self-Portrait Tuesday" where every Tuesday or thereabouts you take a new self-portrait or post an older one. I really like the idea, so I'm piling on. We'll see how long it lasts...I hope a long time. Ironically, I'm posting this from Photobucket because I can't use my Flickr account because it's tied to my old, now deleted by Yahoo! account. These pictures were taken last year sometime while I was living with my folks. I like to take a couple pictures in sequence with just a little change in between. I don't know why, but I thought it would be a fun thing to start with and since they're so tiny (when did I make them so small? what was I planning?) it seemed like putting them both up would be good.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Continuing near-normalcy
Still happy by main force. Getting easier every day. I mean, being happy is getting easier. I'm already as easy as I can get. And as Jasper says, I get what I can take. I had a moment this morning where I lost the center and hated everybody and everything and wanted to stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Then I decided to not be like that anymore. For right then, anyway.
Went to lunch with Kathey and Rob today at Threadgill's. Yum. They brought Jessica a bed today, and they're MARRIED! I mean, I know, I know, I was at their wedding but I can't quite make it work in my head. I told my neighbor today, "My friend and her husband are coming over in a minute and they might use your parking space for two minutes." Then I got this dumbstruck look on my face and she said, "What?" And I was all, "They just got married and I've never said that word in reference to them before." And then of course I got to see the great look on her face when they came up and she noticed the 22-year age difference. I love that. In other K&R news, I'll be setting up their wedding Flickr site for them soon. Yayyyy!
Went to lunch with Kathey and Rob today at Threadgill's. Yum. They brought Jessica a bed today, and they're MARRIED! I mean, I know, I know, I was at their wedding but I can't quite make it work in my head. I told my neighbor today, "My friend and her husband are coming over in a minute and they might use your parking space for two minutes." Then I got this dumbstruck look on my face and she said, "What?" And I was all, "They just got married and I've never said that word in reference to them before." And then of course I got to see the great look on her face when they came up and she noticed the 22-year age difference. I love that. In other K&R news, I'll be setting up their wedding Flickr site for them soon. Yayyyy!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Fasten your seatbelt and prepare to be astounded! And beaten with sticks!
It's my miracle new cure for depression: just be happy by pretending you're already happy! I'm holding my first workshop next weekend...only $500 per person per day (two day minimum). I've hammered out the notes for the class on smiling maniacally in any circumstance, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to teach "whole body fake-happiness" where you pretend you're happy even when alone or asleep. I wonder if it's okay to beat people with a stick? Is there some kind of release they have to sign saying you can stand over them for six hours and whip them every time they stop smiling?
Monday, January 02, 2006
Please disregard the last post
as it was written by an insane monster that lives in my head. The monster has had her internet priveledges rescinded and will be beaten bloody with bottles of beer and enormous spliffs the size of small dogs. But less hairy. So far my recovery strategies have included re-reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas daily, emotionally abusing everyone who loves me, the above-mentioned chemical treatments, and weeping uncontrollably at the slightest stimulus. I swear, if things don't get better soon, I may have to come up with something else to try.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
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