Showing posts with label serious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label serious. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
*Warning!* - Another seriously old, seriously introspective blog! Proceed with caution!
When it comes to being a Hero or Villain, there are definitely shades of gray. With all of the 2007 turmoil, I didn't consider Future Husband a Villain. Conflicted, yes. Foolish, definitely. But I was just as much to blame for the mess. When he told me about his feelings, I could have told him that I reciprocated, but that he needed to end things with Crazy Ex#1 before we started carrying on. I initially did that, but the longer it took, the harder it was to resist him. Eventually it was a full fledged affair. And when it went sour, it hurt all three of us involved, and split our once tight social circle into two distinctive sides, even those that didn't want to be involved. Even today I say the bulk of the blame lies with Future Husband, but I'm not responsibility free. I know that.
And I'd like to think I'm smart enough to not make the same mistake twice... but I did.
Though in my defense, I didn't think I was making the same mistake. And the scenario wasn't exactly the same: It was actually worse. When Future Husband and I finally got together I lived in Oklahoma, and he lived in Seattle... with soon-to-be Crazy Ex #2. I thought that it would just be a fling, and he would finally be out of my system and out of my life. But it was the exact opposite of what ended up happening. Even when he started pushing for a relationship, I suggested we be friends while we were apart, and lovers while we were in the same city. Because, apparently, I like to make things unnecessarily complicated. Just like before, I didn't resist him for long. He promised to break up with Ex #2, just like he had with #1. I hoped that he had enough courage to do it, but was terrified he wouldn't. But something had changed in the years in between. Maybe finally being with me entirely was enough to make him realize I was worth fighting for. I was worth being a Villain for.
During the weeks between us becoming us, and him returning to Seattle from tour, he vented all of his frustrations and insecurities to me. He hated that he had to be a bad guy, but he gave himself the pep talks. I just agreed. He decided he would just blame the band for his reason for leaving Crazy Ex #2. I advised him that this was a bad idea, but if it's what he was comfortable doing, to go for it. He thought it would soften the blow. He also didn't want her to stab him or set his record collection on fire. I couldn't blame him, there. I'd heard through the web of mutual friends that she was just like Crazy Ex#1.
When he got back to Seattle, he followed through, broke up with her, and moved out. Things weren't easy, but he didn't make the same mistake he had in 2007. He chose me, this time. However, things didn't stay peachy for long. It turned out that Crazy Ex#2 had suspected me for a while, and had been facebook stalking me. A few days before Christmas, she was able to track down 'proof' in a comment I'd left on someone's page. She understandably blew her gasket.
She acted like a love torn 13 year old. It was embarrassing. Like those awkward comedies where you laugh because you feel so very bad for the person. For a woman who's almost 30, her behavior was abominable. She logged into Future Husband's social networks, sent out emails to his family and friends, and then changed his passwords so that he couldn't get back in right away to delete everything. She sent me numerous emails. She even sent one to my father on Christmas morning, preaching sisterhood, all the while sending drunken emails to Future Husband about how much she hated me and how I had ruined her life. Me. Not Future Husband for cheating on her. Me.
She harassed me for a few weeks online (she only tormented Future Husband for about a week), and even her mother and two friends got in on it. Months later, when she found out I was going on tour with the band, her nasty messages to me started back up. With only one friend getting in on the action the second time, so I guess that's an improvement. Though, she did threaten me. I'm not sure if she threatened to somehow use the internet to find me and cause me physical harm, or if she meant that she'd find my personal information and like... I don't know. Ruin my credit? Either way, the threat (thankfully) never panned out. Which is fortunate for them, too, because while I am not violence prone, I am vindictive, have a long memory, and have many beefy, violent Italian men that are wrapped around my little finger and willing to do literally anything for me. (Seriously. Back in 2007 when things imploded with FH, I argued with two of my cousins about giving them his home address.) Even now that my family (all of it) is happy with Future Husband, since the engagement I've gotten a few, "We're happy for you, but does he know that if he hurts you again, he's still dead?" It's the Italian in us., what can I say?
Although, on a side note, after months and months of Crazy Ex #2's online harassment, I finally gave in and replied. I never sent a reply to any of her emails (though I wrote a few) and never acknowledged her. I figured ignoring her would probably anger her more, and it kept my own muddled feelings from exploding and making me feel worse. After her last snarky comment (actually on this blog) I gave in to my mischievous side. I had her email address (and home address, and phone number, and work number - because she apparently assumed that I don't know how to use google) and decided to be naughty. After she stalked me and wrote me horrible nasty things for months, after she wrote to my father on Christmas in an effort to ruin our holiday, after she tried her hardest to hurt me (because she assumed I knew absolutely nothing about FH's history, flaws or dark side)... I signed her up for Midget Porn. Yep. You read that correctly. Midget Porn. After her hurtful words and hostile behavior, I threw a rubber chicken. I thought it was hilarious. I had one angry email from her even crazier friend after that, but since then she's left me alone. Never underestimate the power of miniature dominatrices.
What bothers me, to this day, about this situation, is that she considers me the Villain. Not Future Husband. Sure, I was a bad female. I was knowingly the 'other woman.' She even used the word "stole" in one of her tirades. That's always bothered me. It seems like the women who loudly proclaim that they do not want to be objectified are the first to accuse another woman of 'stealing her man.' It's not like I snuck into her backyard one night and took Future Husband because she forgot to lock him up. He's not a bicycle. He's an adult; fully capable of making his own decisions, good and bad.
We (thankfully) haven't heard from her for a few months now, so we're hoping she finally came to her senses, and has recognized that Future Husband treated her horribly. He pretty much used her as an excuse to get away from Crazy Ex #1, and then as a place to live so he wouldn't be homeless when the band moved from Arizona to Seattle. He even told me (before we became a couple) that he knew she was more in love with him, and that he felt bad about it. On the whole, he was truly villainous towards her, and yet she still seems to hold him up on a pedestal. I understand despising me (I would, too), but she's never met me. I don't know Crazy Ex #2 and hold nothing against her, aside from her atrocious behavior towards me concerning this fiasco. She should be angry at Future Husband. She should loathe him. And for some reason, I get the impression she doesn't. She still thinks I stole her bicycle.
Evil Lori will steal your man, and your Penny Farthing. All while wearing a jaunty hat!
In her story, he was Willoughby, and she just can't figure that out. Jane never lets us see Ms. Grey/Mrs. Willoughby. We only hear how Willoughby relates her to Elinor. So who knows how accurate that portrait was, given his past history of self preservation? So if you're still cyber stalking me, Crazyhead- forget Willoughby. Go find yourself your Colonel Brandon.
(On a side note, it seems I'm painting a really horrible picture of Future Husband and I. I guess I'm just trying to clear the air, and my conscience. I'm not perfect, neither is he. He's the Hero in my love story because he's perfect for me. Not because he's Clark Kent. We've both done bad things in our social lives and our love lives, but who hasn't? I'm just willing to share mine.)
Crazy Ex #2 has been intermittently on my mind since we went public with our engagement. I don't think I'll hear from her ever again, but I wouldn't be surprised, either, if there was another little flip out when she finds out that we're getting married and I'm not pregnant. Maybe the new batch of angry messages will come in November, after the wedding. Who knows? Let's hope, for everyone's sake, that she realized what a Douchey McDouchebag Future Husband was to her. That he was a villain in her story, not an anti-hero. Let's hope that she's come to the mature realization that harassing me (It's actually legal harassment - I looked it up. I could press charges if I wanted to.) isn't going to make her feel better, or help her move on.
And how do I do it, you ask? How do I sleep at night being a Villainess? After being instrumental in the heart break of two different women? Well, there are three things that keep me from feeling guilty for more than a few seconds;
1- Future Husband knew me before he know either of them, and in his own 2007 words, fell in love with me the night he met me. It's almost like they were the 'other women.' I was the original.
2- I was only an instrument. My favorite analogy; if you get stabbed by someone, you don't get angry at the knife.
3- Completely good heroes are boring. ;-)
When it comes to being a Hero or Villain, there are definitely shades of gray. With all of the 2007 turmoil, I didn't consider Future Husband a Villain. Conflicted, yes. Foolish, definitely. But I was just as much to blame for the mess. When he told me about his feelings, I could have told him that I reciprocated, but that he needed to end things with Crazy Ex#1 before we started carrying on. I initially did that, but the longer it took, the harder it was to resist him. Eventually it was a full fledged affair. And when it went sour, it hurt all three of us involved, and split our once tight social circle into two distinctive sides, even those that didn't want to be involved. Even today I say the bulk of the blame lies with Future Husband, but I'm not responsibility free. I know that.
And I'd like to think I'm smart enough to not make the same mistake twice... but I did.
Though in my defense, I didn't think I was making the same mistake. And the scenario wasn't exactly the same: It was actually worse. When Future Husband and I finally got together I lived in Oklahoma, and he lived in Seattle... with soon-to-be Crazy Ex #2. I thought that it would just be a fling, and he would finally be out of my system and out of my life. But it was the exact opposite of what ended up happening. Even when he started pushing for a relationship, I suggested we be friends while we were apart, and lovers while we were in the same city. Because, apparently, I like to make things unnecessarily complicated. Just like before, I didn't resist him for long. He promised to break up with Ex #2, just like he had with #1. I hoped that he had enough courage to do it, but was terrified he wouldn't. But something had changed in the years in between. Maybe finally being with me entirely was enough to make him realize I was worth fighting for. I was worth being a Villain for.
During the weeks between us becoming us, and him returning to Seattle from tour, he vented all of his frustrations and insecurities to me. He hated that he had to be a bad guy, but he gave himself the pep talks. I just agreed. He decided he would just blame the band for his reason for leaving Crazy Ex #2. I advised him that this was a bad idea, but if it's what he was comfortable doing, to go for it. He thought it would soften the blow. He also didn't want her to stab him or set his record collection on fire. I couldn't blame him, there. I'd heard through the web of mutual friends that she was just like Crazy Ex#1.
When he got back to Seattle, he followed through, broke up with her, and moved out. Things weren't easy, but he didn't make the same mistake he had in 2007. He chose me, this time. However, things didn't stay peachy for long. It turned out that Crazy Ex#2 had suspected me for a while, and had been facebook stalking me. A few days before Christmas, she was able to track down 'proof' in a comment I'd left on someone's page. She understandably blew her gasket.
She acted like a love torn 13 year old. It was embarrassing. Like those awkward comedies where you laugh because you feel so very bad for the person. For a woman who's almost 30, her behavior was abominable. She logged into Future Husband's social networks, sent out emails to his family and friends, and then changed his passwords so that he couldn't get back in right away to delete everything. She sent me numerous emails. She even sent one to my father on Christmas morning, preaching sisterhood, all the while sending drunken emails to Future Husband about how much she hated me and how I had ruined her life. Me. Not Future Husband for cheating on her. Me.
She harassed me for a few weeks online (she only tormented Future Husband for about a week), and even her mother and two friends got in on it. Months later, when she found out I was going on tour with the band, her nasty messages to me started back up. With only one friend getting in on the action the second time, so I guess that's an improvement. Though, she did threaten me. I'm not sure if she threatened to somehow use the internet to find me and cause me physical harm, or if she meant that she'd find my personal information and like... I don't know. Ruin my credit? Either way, the threat (thankfully) never panned out. Which is fortunate for them, too, because while I am not violence prone, I am vindictive, have a long memory, and have many beefy, violent Italian men that are wrapped around my little finger and willing to do literally anything for me. (Seriously. Back in 2007 when things imploded with FH, I argued with two of my cousins about giving them his home address.) Even now that my family (all of it) is happy with Future Husband, since the engagement I've gotten a few, "We're happy for you, but does he know that if he hurts you again, he's still dead?" It's the Italian in us., what can I say?
Although, on a side note, after months and months of Crazy Ex #2's online harassment, I finally gave in and replied. I never sent a reply to any of her emails (though I wrote a few) and never acknowledged her. I figured ignoring her would probably anger her more, and it kept my own muddled feelings from exploding and making me feel worse. After her last snarky comment (actually on this blog) I gave in to my mischievous side. I had her email address (and home address, and phone number, and work number - because she apparently assumed that I don't know how to use google) and decided to be naughty. After she stalked me and wrote me horrible nasty things for months, after she wrote to my father on Christmas in an effort to ruin our holiday, after she tried her hardest to hurt me (because she assumed I knew absolutely nothing about FH's history, flaws or dark side)... I signed her up for Midget Porn. Yep. You read that correctly. Midget Porn. After her hurtful words and hostile behavior, I threw a rubber chicken. I thought it was hilarious. I had one angry email from her even crazier friend after that, but since then she's left me alone. Never underestimate the power of miniature dominatrices.
What bothers me, to this day, about this situation, is that she considers me the Villain. Not Future Husband. Sure, I was a bad female. I was knowingly the 'other woman.' She even used the word "stole" in one of her tirades. That's always bothered me. It seems like the women who loudly proclaim that they do not want to be objectified are the first to accuse another woman of 'stealing her man.' It's not like I snuck into her backyard one night and took Future Husband because she forgot to lock him up. He's not a bicycle. He's an adult; fully capable of making his own decisions, good and bad.
We (thankfully) haven't heard from her for a few months now, so we're hoping she finally came to her senses, and has recognized that Future Husband treated her horribly. He pretty much used her as an excuse to get away from Crazy Ex #1, and then as a place to live so he wouldn't be homeless when the band moved from Arizona to Seattle. He even told me (before we became a couple) that he knew she was more in love with him, and that he felt bad about it. On the whole, he was truly villainous towards her, and yet she still seems to hold him up on a pedestal. I understand despising me (I would, too), but she's never met me. I don't know Crazy Ex #2 and hold nothing against her, aside from her atrocious behavior towards me concerning this fiasco. She should be angry at Future Husband. She should loathe him. And for some reason, I get the impression she doesn't. She still thinks I stole her bicycle.
Evil Lori will steal your man, and your Penny Farthing. All while wearing a jaunty hat!
In her story, he was Willoughby, and she just can't figure that out. Jane never lets us see Ms. Grey/Mrs. Willoughby. We only hear how Willoughby relates her to Elinor. So who knows how accurate that portrait was, given his past history of self preservation? So if you're still cyber stalking me, Crazyhead- forget Willoughby. Go find yourself your Colonel Brandon.
(On a side note, it seems I'm painting a really horrible picture of Future Husband and I. I guess I'm just trying to clear the air, and my conscience. I'm not perfect, neither is he. He's the Hero in my love story because he's perfect for me. Not because he's Clark Kent. We've both done bad things in our social lives and our love lives, but who hasn't? I'm just willing to share mine.)
Crazy Ex #2 has been intermittently on my mind since we went public with our engagement. I don't think I'll hear from her ever again, but I wouldn't be surprised, either, if there was another little flip out when she finds out that we're getting married and I'm not pregnant. Maybe the new batch of angry messages will come in November, after the wedding. Who knows? Let's hope, for everyone's sake, that she realized what a Douchey McDouchebag Future Husband was to her. That he was a villain in her story, not an anti-hero. Let's hope that she's come to the mature realization that harassing me (It's actually legal harassment - I looked it up. I could press charges if I wanted to.) isn't going to make her feel better, or help her move on.
And how do I do it, you ask? How do I sleep at night being a Villainess? After being instrumental in the heart break of two different women? Well, there are three things that keep me from feeling guilty for more than a few seconds;
1- Future Husband knew me before he know either of them, and in his own 2007 words, fell in love with me the night he met me. It's almost like they were the 'other women.' I was the original.
2- I was only an instrument. My favorite analogy; if you get stabbed by someone, you don't get angry at the knife.
3- Completely good heroes are boring. ;-)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
**WARNING!** Serious Lori ramblings lay ahead. In fact, you will see the darker side of Lori in the following paragraphs. Not 'Making Cartoons in MS Paint' Lori, but 'Sitting in the Dark and being Unhealthily Introspective' Lori. You have yet to see this on this blog. Proceed with Caution!
Okay, I'll soften the blow with a cartoon.
Warning #2!! - I wrote this blog months and months ago, but just never posted it. Which is a pity, because I dearly love the above cartoon. I've decided, in the interest of getting back in the habit of blogging, to post this. A pretty sizable contributing factor to my lack of posting lately has been that I feel I can't really say what I want to say. Self censoring, in a way. Mostly because I've been afraid of offending people, should they happen across my little corner of cyberspace. Recently a few things have happened that have made me stop caring whether or not I offend someone by telling everyone the Emporor's naked. So I decided, before I start venting my frustrations by showing off everyone else's dirty laundry, I would expose a little of my own.
It probably doesn't come as any surprise to you that I enjoy writing fiction, as well as over exposed diary entries. I mean... blogs. So I've been mulling over the idea of Heroes and Villains. And in the good stories, there are no differences in their motivations. Each character believes they are doing what is right. The Villain doesn't know they are the antagonist, or at least, have not set out to be the bad guy. It seems that in the best stories, the Hero and Villain don't even know they're the protagonist and antagonist, they just are.
I've had the word 'fairytale' thrown at me as an insult by both friend and foe, and I fully admit that my coping mechanism is storytelling. I put things into a linear storyline so it's easier for me to swallow. I know perfectly well that life doesn't always happen that way. People don't even behave in a linear fashion, usually. Many factors motivate people, not a sequence of events. Literature, Life and Fairytales alike begin and end in medias res. Life is told in chapters. I've been translating my written world way of thinking into real life, and I've realized that we are all both Hero and Villain. Even the people I love most - me, my family and friends, Future Husband - we have all been both.
Okay, maybe two cartoons.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Crazy Ex #1 and Crazy Ex #2. It's well known among Future Husband's friends and family that he has terrible taste in women. The joke is that he's just very lucky that I have strange taste in men, and we ended up together.
(Seriously, when I met his parents for the first time at Christmas 2010 I could tell they were uneasy. Even in March when we stayed with them for two weeks, it seemed like they were a little reserved, just waiting for me to take a sudden detour into Crazytown. It took them a while to realize I wasn't going to go kookoo bananas anytime soon.)
Future Husband and I met before he'd even met Crazy Ex #1. Which is how I've been able to justify being a terrible female by allowing him to cheat on her with me, back in 2007. Things didn't turn out very well for me then, which I suppose is exactly what I deserved. In the beginning I made the mistake of trying to become friends with Crazy Ex #1, so when everything went to hell in a hand basket, she not only had to deal with her boyfriend being unfaithful, but someone she thought was a friend betraying her. That is what I feel awful about. I never should have tried to be friendly with her. After everything exploded spectacularly (I won't tell the story here, as it's the subject of an entire novel I'm writing), Future Husband had a lot of back peddling and butt kissing to do. Their relationship only lasted another year, which delighted me - he lost forever with me for one more year with a crazy girl (or so we thought). In that year, he got her name tattooed inside a heart on his arm. It's also a common man's name, so it's kinda funny. We humorously took care of that in Denver. But he also made the mistake of entering into a Domestic Partnership with her. We've been working to dissolve that, and we're almost done, but that's why she's been on my mind lately.
Thinking of Crazy Ex #1 has made me feel something I thought I never would, especially where she is concerned. She is a spectacular waste of space and, in general, a lousy human - nothing to contribute to mankind on an intellectual, creative or humanitarian basis - but that doesn't mean she deserved to be treated the way I treated her. That doesn't raise her on the human bean scale at all, but it does seem to lower me. I'm disappointed in myself for behaving so poorly towards her, and not doing myself justice. I purposely manipulated her, used her, and thoroughly despised her during the entire duration of our 'friendship.' I felt territorial over Future Husband. He knew me first, and yet she had somehow wiggled in line in front of me. She's a pretty loud, 'out there' kind of personality. While I was flirting subtly with young FH, she was bold and socially aggressive. Of course, now I know that FH was just as unsure of me returning his feelings as I was of his. So it's understandable why a 21 year old boy would go for the girl that made her feelings readily available and easy to read. I can't blame him for that. I can't blame her, either.
A long time ago I made a joke to Future Husband about Crazy Ex #1, and he said, "Well, we know how that turned out. You won."
It ruffled my feathers a bit, because I always considered her to be the competitive one. (Towards the end of the craziness in 2007, she kept lightening her hair, and flat out told me she wanted it to be the same color as mine.) I realized something when he said that; I hadn't cared about winning where she was concerned, I'd cared about being right. I've always been one of those stubborn kids that has a hard time admitting they're wrong, and on the same note, backing off when I'm right. To me, Crazy Ex #1 and Future Husband just didn't make sense together. They were incompatible. We made sense. We fit; we were right. They weren't. That's why I was territorial. Why I was uncharacteristically competitive, manipulative and mean.
Now, with Crazy Ex #1 on my mind while Future Husband and I work on getting rid of her paper trail, I am prepared to do something I rarely do. Crazy Ex #1 is unintelligent, uncaring, spiteful, competitive and manipulative. And I lowered myself to her level.
So if you ever come across my little corner of the blogosphere, Crazyhead, on that long walk I want you to take off a short pier... know that I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I was genuinely terrible to you, and I should not have been. Your inferiority to me did not give me the right to behave badly.
I was wrong. I'm sorry.
As far as Crazy Ex #1 is concerned, when the credits roll on her life story, I'll be billed as a Villain, and justly so. I'm the Hero of my own story, and she's simply a plot point. But I was a terrible person towards her, and she has every right to feel that. If she's capable of human emotion (I have my doubts.)
Maybe it's the time and the distance between the shit storm that was 2007, and now; maybe it's just that I'm older and a little wiser, but I feel more forgiving towards Crazy Ex #1's behavior towards me. Granted, just because I was horrible, doesn't mean she was Pollyanna, she's bar fight kind of crazy. Once she realized I had feelings for Future Husband she was just as manipulative and mean. Now I can see why, though. How horrible to realize that someone you thought was your friend was actually using you just to be closer to your boyfriend. Major suckage. And honestly, I probably would have acted the same. But when the manure did hit the oscillating air dispersal device, I got mad at Future Husband. In fact, I was mad for years. Sure, I wasn't quiet about recognizing what an awful person Crazy Ex #1 was, but I didn't write blogs about how angry I was at her. Because I wasn't. I didn't turn into one of those ridiculous Springer-esque kind of girls that gets mad at the girl. I got mad at FH for using me, and treating me horribly. Like I should have.
Crazy Ex #2, however, can't say the same about her behavior....
Okay, I'll soften the blow with a cartoon.
Warning #2!! - I wrote this blog months and months ago, but just never posted it. Which is a pity, because I dearly love the above cartoon. I've decided, in the interest of getting back in the habit of blogging, to post this. A pretty sizable contributing factor to my lack of posting lately has been that I feel I can't really say what I want to say. Self censoring, in a way. Mostly because I've been afraid of offending people, should they happen across my little corner of cyberspace. Recently a few things have happened that have made me stop caring whether or not I offend someone by telling everyone the Emporor's naked. So I decided, before I start venting my frustrations by showing off everyone else's dirty laundry, I would expose a little of my own.
It probably doesn't come as any surprise to you that I enjoy writing fiction, as well as over exposed diary entries. I mean... blogs. So I've been mulling over the idea of Heroes and Villains. And in the good stories, there are no differences in their motivations. Each character believes they are doing what is right. The Villain doesn't know they are the antagonist, or at least, have not set out to be the bad guy. It seems that in the best stories, the Hero and Villain don't even know they're the protagonist and antagonist, they just are.
I've had the word 'fairytale' thrown at me as an insult by both friend and foe, and I fully admit that my coping mechanism is storytelling. I put things into a linear storyline so it's easier for me to swallow. I know perfectly well that life doesn't always happen that way. People don't even behave in a linear fashion, usually. Many factors motivate people, not a sequence of events. Literature, Life and Fairytales alike begin and end in medias res. Life is told in chapters. I've been translating my written world way of thinking into real life, and I've realized that we are all both Hero and Villain. Even the people I love most - me, my family and friends, Future Husband - we have all been both.
Okay, maybe two cartoons.
The Tale of Crazy Ex #1
---
---
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Crazy Ex #1 and Crazy Ex #2. It's well known among Future Husband's friends and family that he has terrible taste in women. The joke is that he's just very lucky that I have strange taste in men, and we ended up together.
(Seriously, when I met his parents for the first time at Christmas 2010 I could tell they were uneasy. Even in March when we stayed with them for two weeks, it seemed like they were a little reserved, just waiting for me to take a sudden detour into Crazytown. It took them a while to realize I wasn't going to go kookoo bananas anytime soon.)
Future Husband and I met before he'd even met Crazy Ex #1. Which is how I've been able to justify being a terrible female by allowing him to cheat on her with me, back in 2007. Things didn't turn out very well for me then, which I suppose is exactly what I deserved. In the beginning I made the mistake of trying to become friends with Crazy Ex #1, so when everything went to hell in a hand basket, she not only had to deal with her boyfriend being unfaithful, but someone she thought was a friend betraying her. That is what I feel awful about. I never should have tried to be friendly with her. After everything exploded spectacularly (I won't tell the story here, as it's the subject of an entire novel I'm writing), Future Husband had a lot of back peddling and butt kissing to do. Their relationship only lasted another year, which delighted me - he lost forever with me for one more year with a crazy girl (or so we thought). In that year, he got her name tattooed inside a heart on his arm. It's also a common man's name, so it's kinda funny. We humorously took care of that in Denver. But he also made the mistake of entering into a Domestic Partnership with her. We've been working to dissolve that, and we're almost done, but that's why she's been on my mind lately.
Thinking of Crazy Ex #1 has made me feel something I thought I never would, especially where she is concerned. She is a spectacular waste of space and, in general, a lousy human - nothing to contribute to mankind on an intellectual, creative or humanitarian basis - but that doesn't mean she deserved to be treated the way I treated her. That doesn't raise her on the human bean scale at all, but it does seem to lower me. I'm disappointed in myself for behaving so poorly towards her, and not doing myself justice. I purposely manipulated her, used her, and thoroughly despised her during the entire duration of our 'friendship.' I felt territorial over Future Husband. He knew me first, and yet she had somehow wiggled in line in front of me. She's a pretty loud, 'out there' kind of personality. While I was flirting subtly with young FH, she was bold and socially aggressive. Of course, now I know that FH was just as unsure of me returning his feelings as I was of his. So it's understandable why a 21 year old boy would go for the girl that made her feelings readily available and easy to read. I can't blame him for that. I can't blame her, either.
A long time ago I made a joke to Future Husband about Crazy Ex #1, and he said, "Well, we know how that turned out. You won."
It ruffled my feathers a bit, because I always considered her to be the competitive one. (Towards the end of the craziness in 2007, she kept lightening her hair, and flat out told me she wanted it to be the same color as mine.) I realized something when he said that; I hadn't cared about winning where she was concerned, I'd cared about being right. I've always been one of those stubborn kids that has a hard time admitting they're wrong, and on the same note, backing off when I'm right. To me, Crazy Ex #1 and Future Husband just didn't make sense together. They were incompatible. We made sense. We fit; we were right. They weren't. That's why I was territorial. Why I was uncharacteristically competitive, manipulative and mean.
Now, with Crazy Ex #1 on my mind while Future Husband and I work on getting rid of her paper trail, I am prepared to do something I rarely do. Crazy Ex #1 is unintelligent, uncaring, spiteful, competitive and manipulative. And I lowered myself to her level.
So if you ever come across my little corner of the blogosphere, Crazyhead, on that long walk I want you to take off a short pier... know that I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I was genuinely terrible to you, and I should not have been. Your inferiority to me did not give me the right to behave badly.
I was wrong. I'm sorry.
As far as Crazy Ex #1 is concerned, when the credits roll on her life story, I'll be billed as a Villain, and justly so. I'm the Hero of my own story, and she's simply a plot point. But I was a terrible person towards her, and she has every right to feel that. If she's capable of human emotion (I have my doubts.)
Maybe it's the time and the distance between the shit storm that was 2007, and now; maybe it's just that I'm older and a little wiser, but I feel more forgiving towards Crazy Ex #1's behavior towards me. Granted, just because I was horrible, doesn't mean she was Pollyanna, she's bar fight kind of crazy. Once she realized I had feelings for Future Husband she was just as manipulative and mean. Now I can see why, though. How horrible to realize that someone you thought was your friend was actually using you just to be closer to your boyfriend. Major suckage. And honestly, I probably would have acted the same. But when the manure did hit the oscillating air dispersal device, I got mad at Future Husband. In fact, I was mad for years. Sure, I wasn't quiet about recognizing what an awful person Crazy Ex #1 was, but I didn't write blogs about how angry I was at her. Because I wasn't. I didn't turn into one of those ridiculous Springer-esque kind of girls that gets mad at the girl. I got mad at FH for using me, and treating me horribly. Like I should have.
Crazy Ex #2, however, can't say the same about her behavior....
...to be continued.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I am a terrible blogger.
I mean, I do pretty well with the writing part, it's the frequency with which I post, the varying subject matter (sometimes funny, sometimes introspective.) But I guess this just makes me Versatile, according to my lovely cousin Sara, who has awarded me with the Versatile Blogger award. I've gotten a few of these little awards before, but I'm horrible about actually posting these things that I'm supposed to. (An example of my bad bloggerhood.)
For these Award things, I'm supposed to post things about myself that you all may not know. Seven seems to be the most common number...
1 - I have three kidneys. You may have seen me mention this before (a la kidney stones last April). We found out when I was 14, amidst trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I started my freshman year of Highschool 5'7" and 180 lbs. Four months later in December, I was a 1/4" away from being 6' tall, and weighed 270. This was while I was running a mile every morning in PE, playing soccer after school, and eating very little because of my insane Prep School curriculum. Factor in the concern that I had a full C cup, all the normal hairy gifts puberty gives you, acne to rival a teenage boy's, but no monthly visit... Well, Mom and Dad realized something was quite wrong. We originally thought it was a thyroid thing, but after almost a year of doctor visits and blood tests and ultrasounds, they discovered it was something as simple as Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome. 10% of the female population has it. Yet my doctors looked into cancer and leukemia first. Go figure. One of those tests they put me through was a dye treatment and x-rays of my abdomen... in which we discovered my third kidney. Fully functional, too! So while I was anxiously awaiting puberty as a child, hoping for some flashy mutant power like Jubilee, or something useful like Jean Grey, my mutation only gives me the power to pee more frequently. Oh, well.
2 - I was almost in Forest Gump. I was a pretty little kid. I had a pretty long awkward phase (about 8-20) but I was cute as a button before my eighth birthday and some unfortunate hair decisions. My parents used to take me out to acting and modeling gigs and auditions. When I was a baby, my grandmother used to ask me, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" and I would proudly proclaim, "Actisss!" Because, you know, 13 month olds aren't so good with enunciation. My mother was an actress, and later director, so nepotism awarded me my earliest acting roles. Credits like, "Crying Child" and "Baby." But when I was 6 years old, my parents took me to a Cattle Call at a hotel in Phoenix. After the initial day there, making cut after cut, reading lines, looking cute and mugging for pictures, I was told to come back at a later date. It turns out I was in consideration for the role of Young Jenny. "Run, Forest! Run!" could have been my line. I was rejected, in the end, for being too tall. But it was between me, a little girl from South Carolina, and the girl that got the role.
See, I used to be cute.
3 - I got my first tattoo when I was only 15. My parents asked me what I wanted for my fifteenth birthday. I told them I wanted to get the cartilage in my ear pierced. They told me it was too dangerous. My mother had seen horror stories about infections that resulted in hearing loss and partial amputation of the ear. I tried to reason with them, but they still refused. As a counter offer my mother said, "How about a tattoo?" I was stunned for a moment, then said, "Wait, really?" To which my mother replied, "Sure! They're much safer, and if we go with you to the parlor, it's legal." I agreed wholeheartedly, and began researching artists and parlors and thinking about what I wanted. A few months later, I had an inch high treble clef on my right shoulder blade. It's so tiny that it's blurry now (I can't believe it's ten years old!) and I've added four more to my collection.
4 - I was a virgin until I was 23. It seems like super personal information, but I don't mind sharing it. (I hope you don't mind reading it.) It's something I'm rather proud of, now. When I was younger, and all of my friends were making foolish bedroom choices, I felt a little left behind. It wasn't so much that I hadn't had an opportunity to lose the V-card, but I'd chosen not to. Nevertheless, it left me feeling conflicted. Should I? Shouldn't I? I got my first offer at 17, and in the end said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I'd fooled around a bit all through my late teenage years and early twenties, but I just wasn't ready to sleep with someone I wasn't in love with. I wasn't ready to open myself up to that sort of emotional vulnerability. Factor in being pudgy and tall, with that aforementioned acne still lingering... yeah, not so much with the confidence and self esteem. A lot of people used to ask me if I was waiting for marriage, and I would always reply that I was simply waiting for love. So by the time I finally got some hours of the mattress tango on my resume, I'd already graduated High School, earned an AA degree, gotten three tattoos and had four novels written. I don't regret waiting at all, in fact, I'm very glad I did.
5 - I am allergic to Bell Peppers. It's the weirdest food allergy, I know. I've only come across one other person that has it, and even then, it was his wife, not the actual afflicted party. Strangely, my reactions aren't always the same. I've had the puffy, throat swelling, hive-y kind of reaction, but I've also accidentally ingested small amounts, and just had terrible indigestion. It seems the green ones are a more potent poison. Go figure.
6 - I love to cook. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. In fact, my cousin Jinxie has featured some of my recipes on her blog. I have my own food blog reserved, but I haven't posted on it. Yet. Once I do, I will definitely be promoting that shamelessly. Cooking for me is like another artform. I'm constantly thinking of new things I could try, looking up and tweaking recipes. When I lived with my parents, my father and I would just watch Food Network all day, and try out things we had seen for dinner that night. Food is an adventure. A tasty, tasty adventure.
7 - I want to be famous. Like, ridiculously famous. Girls screaming and bursting into tears when I walk into the room kind of famous. Boys staring at posters of me on their ceiling, famous. Basically, I think I want to be boy band famous. I know it will never happen, though. And that's because I'm not willing to do stupid shit, or compromise my morals, or give up my creative integrity for it. So I guess it balances out. Kind of like my teenage and early twenties years. I was the horniest virgin ever. I wanted so badly to be sweaty and naughty, but I wasn't willing to be promiscuous and risk my health/sanity/reputation. I know I'm never going to be famous for writing a blog. Chances are, I'll never be famous if/when any of my books get published. But that doesn't stop me from hoping. Or practicing my autograph.
Time to pass this along. I think I was supposed to pick fifteen, but jesus. No. I'll pick the blog I'm digging the most these days.
Mrs. Biscuit rocks my socks. She's seriously -so adorable.- She lives in Arizona, but she actually wants to be there, she wasn't trapped by birth or circumstance, like the rest of us were. (She must be just a little insane.) She's always posting links to adorable things on Etsy or cute stories about her cats or her new Husband (Mr. Muffin.)
But also make sure to check out The Frisky Virgin and Sara in Le Petit Village, who have both given me awards before.
I'll get back to the funny stuff soon, I promise!
I mean, I do pretty well with the writing part, it's the frequency with which I post, the varying subject matter (sometimes funny, sometimes introspective.) But I guess this just makes me Versatile, according to my lovely cousin Sara, who has awarded me with the Versatile Blogger award. I've gotten a few of these little awards before, but I'm horrible about actually posting these things that I'm supposed to. (An example of my bad bloggerhood.)
For these Award things, I'm supposed to post things about myself that you all may not know. Seven seems to be the most common number...
1 - I have three kidneys. You may have seen me mention this before (a la kidney stones last April). We found out when I was 14, amidst trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I started my freshman year of Highschool 5'7" and 180 lbs. Four months later in December, I was a 1/4" away from being 6' tall, and weighed 270. This was while I was running a mile every morning in PE, playing soccer after school, and eating very little because of my insane Prep School curriculum. Factor in the concern that I had a full C cup, all the normal hairy gifts puberty gives you, acne to rival a teenage boy's, but no monthly visit... Well, Mom and Dad realized something was quite wrong. We originally thought it was a thyroid thing, but after almost a year of doctor visits and blood tests and ultrasounds, they discovered it was something as simple as Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome. 10% of the female population has it. Yet my doctors looked into cancer and leukemia first. Go figure. One of those tests they put me through was a dye treatment and x-rays of my abdomen... in which we discovered my third kidney. Fully functional, too! So while I was anxiously awaiting puberty as a child, hoping for some flashy mutant power like Jubilee, or something useful like Jean Grey, my mutation only gives me the power to pee more frequently. Oh, well.
2 - I was almost in Forest Gump. I was a pretty little kid. I had a pretty long awkward phase (about 8-20) but I was cute as a button before my eighth birthday and some unfortunate hair decisions. My parents used to take me out to acting and modeling gigs and auditions. When I was a baby, my grandmother used to ask me, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" and I would proudly proclaim, "Actisss!" Because, you know, 13 month olds aren't so good with enunciation. My mother was an actress, and later director, so nepotism awarded me my earliest acting roles. Credits like, "Crying Child" and "Baby." But when I was 6 years old, my parents took me to a Cattle Call at a hotel in Phoenix. After the initial day there, making cut after cut, reading lines, looking cute and mugging for pictures, I was told to come back at a later date. It turns out I was in consideration for the role of Young Jenny. "Run, Forest! Run!" could have been my line. I was rejected, in the end, for being too tall. But it was between me, a little girl from South Carolina, and the girl that got the role.
See, I used to be cute.3 - I got my first tattoo when I was only 15. My parents asked me what I wanted for my fifteenth birthday. I told them I wanted to get the cartilage in my ear pierced. They told me it was too dangerous. My mother had seen horror stories about infections that resulted in hearing loss and partial amputation of the ear. I tried to reason with them, but they still refused. As a counter offer my mother said, "How about a tattoo?" I was stunned for a moment, then said, "Wait, really?" To which my mother replied, "Sure! They're much safer, and if we go with you to the parlor, it's legal." I agreed wholeheartedly, and began researching artists and parlors and thinking about what I wanted. A few months later, I had an inch high treble clef on my right shoulder blade. It's so tiny that it's blurry now (I can't believe it's ten years old!) and I've added four more to my collection.
4 - I was a virgin until I was 23. It seems like super personal information, but I don't mind sharing it. (I hope you don't mind reading it.) It's something I'm rather proud of, now. When I was younger, and all of my friends were making foolish bedroom choices, I felt a little left behind. It wasn't so much that I hadn't had an opportunity to lose the V-card, but I'd chosen not to. Nevertheless, it left me feeling conflicted. Should I? Shouldn't I? I got my first offer at 17, and in the end said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I'd fooled around a bit all through my late teenage years and early twenties, but I just wasn't ready to sleep with someone I wasn't in love with. I wasn't ready to open myself up to that sort of emotional vulnerability. Factor in being pudgy and tall, with that aforementioned acne still lingering... yeah, not so much with the confidence and self esteem. A lot of people used to ask me if I was waiting for marriage, and I would always reply that I was simply waiting for love. So by the time I finally got some hours of the mattress tango on my resume, I'd already graduated High School, earned an AA degree, gotten three tattoos and had four novels written. I don't regret waiting at all, in fact, I'm very glad I did.
5 - I am allergic to Bell Peppers. It's the weirdest food allergy, I know. I've only come across one other person that has it, and even then, it was his wife, not the actual afflicted party. Strangely, my reactions aren't always the same. I've had the puffy, throat swelling, hive-y kind of reaction, but I've also accidentally ingested small amounts, and just had terrible indigestion. It seems the green ones are a more potent poison. Go figure.
6 - I love to cook. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. In fact, my cousin Jinxie has featured some of my recipes on her blog. I have my own food blog reserved, but I haven't posted on it. Yet. Once I do, I will definitely be promoting that shamelessly. Cooking for me is like another artform. I'm constantly thinking of new things I could try, looking up and tweaking recipes. When I lived with my parents, my father and I would just watch Food Network all day, and try out things we had seen for dinner that night. Food is an adventure. A tasty, tasty adventure.
7 - I want to be famous. Like, ridiculously famous. Girls screaming and bursting into tears when I walk into the room kind of famous. Boys staring at posters of me on their ceiling, famous. Basically, I think I want to be boy band famous. I know it will never happen, though. And that's because I'm not willing to do stupid shit, or compromise my morals, or give up my creative integrity for it. So I guess it balances out. Kind of like my teenage and early twenties years. I was the horniest virgin ever. I wanted so badly to be sweaty and naughty, but I wasn't willing to be promiscuous and risk my health/sanity/reputation. I know I'm never going to be famous for writing a blog. Chances are, I'll never be famous if/when any of my books get published. But that doesn't stop me from hoping. Or practicing my autograph.
Time to pass this along. I think I was supposed to pick fifteen, but jesus. No. I'll pick the blog I'm digging the most these days.
Mrs. Biscuit rocks my socks. She's seriously -so adorable.- She lives in Arizona, but she actually wants to be there, she wasn't trapped by birth or circumstance, like the rest of us were. (She must be just a little insane.) She's always posting links to adorable things on Etsy or cute stories about her cats or her new Husband (Mr. Muffin.)
But also make sure to check out The Frisky Virgin and Sara in Le Petit Village, who have both given me awards before.
I'll get back to the funny stuff soon, I promise!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
I know, I know, it's been over a month since I've posted. Believe me, I would love to be keeping you all updated, in the most comical way possible, on how miserable being a Tour Widow is.
But a lot happened this April. A LOT.
I'll keep my list of excuses short, but give it to you nonetheless:
1-My grandmother took a turn for the worst. She's been in and out of facilities since January, but at the end of March she was moved to Hospice. The first weekend of April, I flew down to AZ to visit her one last time. She improved during and after my visit and was moved out of Hospice. I got a call Thursday night, that she's been moved back again.
2-I'm working two jobs. Which, while Future Husband is here, isn't so bad. But with him gone, I feel like he took half my brain with him. I'm miserable, lonely, and all I want to do is sleep. But when I crawl into bed alone, all I can think about is how much I miss him, and that keeps me awake.
3-We're moving. We've been looking for an apartment since February, but it's ridiculously difficult for many reasons. What little free time I have between work and trying to sleep has been sucked up by the fruitless search. (Oh, I have such tales to tell.) We finially found a place yesterday, right as we were starting to get desperate.
4-Our Roommate got picked up by Bounty Hunters. No joke. I wasn't able to post on my blog all about my roommate drama, because she was always online, always reading my blog, always commenting on my facebook. Now that she's in jail, I can say all the things I've been wanting to say. You, dear readers, will get quite a lot to read on this subject.
But that will be at a later date. I have to finish packing up the crappy Roomie's stuff, find her pets new homes, finish packing up my stuff, move it all into our new home (by myself), and somehow still find the time for two jobs and sleep. And maybe flying to AZ for a funeral.
Wish me luck.
But a lot happened this April. A LOT.
I'll keep my list of excuses short, but give it to you nonetheless:
1-My grandmother took a turn for the worst. She's been in and out of facilities since January, but at the end of March she was moved to Hospice. The first weekend of April, I flew down to AZ to visit her one last time. She improved during and after my visit and was moved out of Hospice. I got a call Thursday night, that she's been moved back again.
2-I'm working two jobs. Which, while Future Husband is here, isn't so bad. But with him gone, I feel like he took half my brain with him. I'm miserable, lonely, and all I want to do is sleep. But when I crawl into bed alone, all I can think about is how much I miss him, and that keeps me awake.
3-We're moving. We've been looking for an apartment since February, but it's ridiculously difficult for many reasons. What little free time I have between work and trying to sleep has been sucked up by the fruitless search. (Oh, I have such tales to tell.) We finially found a place yesterday, right as we were starting to get desperate.
4-Our Roommate got picked up by Bounty Hunters. No joke. I wasn't able to post on my blog all about my roommate drama, because she was always online, always reading my blog, always commenting on my facebook. Now that she's in jail, I can say all the things I've been wanting to say. You, dear readers, will get quite a lot to read on this subject.
But that will be at a later date. I have to finish packing up the crappy Roomie's stuff, find her pets new homes, finish packing up my stuff, move it all into our new home (by myself), and somehow still find the time for two jobs and sleep. And maybe flying to AZ for a funeral.
Wish me luck.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Looking back at where I was last New Year's time, and where I am now, is really sort of mind boggling.
This time last year, when I had to sit down and name this blog, I knew that I was about to undergo a lot of change. So I decided to call it 'Third Time's the Charm.' Not, as a certain Crazy Ex of Future Husband's alleged, because I was giving him a third chance, but because this is the third time I've had a big, life altering change.
A lot of my past blogs (and before that, diaries) have complained about feeling stagnant or lost, not really knowing where I was going or why or who with. When I was 11 years old, my family's home burnt down on New Year's Day. Since then, it's always been a strange day for me. Not so much a holiday, but more like a day of remembrance. Like when a loved one passes away. When the house burned, we lost literally everything. There were a few things we were thankfully able to save; some of my cousins dug through the rubble and found my parents' wedding rings, the contents of my mother's cedar chest (her wedding dress included), and the family photos the firemen grabbed off the wall when they realized we weren't home. We lived in a hotel for a while, then bounced around with relatives until the insurance company got us an apartment. The people at our church donated clothes and toys for us, but really, all we had left from before was what we had when the house went up in flames; each other.
Eleven years later (and funnily enough, the fire marking the middle point in my life), my family fell into financial ruin. We'd tried to keep our heads above water, but my mother and I got laid off within two weeks of each other. Me one week before Christmas, and her one week after. Only a few weeks earlier, knowing we were living paycheck to paycheck and fed up with Phoenix's price and weather, we'd had a family meeting and decided to move to Tulsa. We'd been through the city before on a family road trip, and fallen in love with the area. The cost of living was less than half of Phoenix's, and the economy and job market better. So when Mom and I were both suddenly jobless, we decided that instead of moving to Tulsa in the Summer of '09, we'd go right then. So in early January (again), we decided that it we'd start over. Again.
The two years I spent in Tulsa were some of the happiest of my life. I made friends, I made and saved money. I paid for two vacations entirely by myself, as well as helping support my family. I had a job I loved and finally lived in city I liked. I felt like I had finally found a home. But as everything started falling into place for me financially and personally, I found myself thinking more and more of Future Husband. At that point in time, he was still The One Who Got Away. Or rather, to him I was The One Who Got Away Because I Was A Stupid Git. We hadn't spoken to each other since May of 2007. As more and more of 2008 passed by, I found myself missing his conversation and company, and remembering all the fun we'd had together, rather than the heartache and sleeplessness and weepy self loathing he had caused me. Believe me, there was plenty of that, but that's not what I found myself thinking of in quiet moments. I missed him. I hated myself for it, and looked for answers in the bottoms of bottles. Because of the internet and our circle of mutual friends, I was able to keep tabs on him from afar. So when I found out in October of 2008 that his band would be playing a show in Tulsa in December, I seized my opportunity. I thought I might get some sort of closure out of it, but all it did was rip the stitches out of a wound that was not yet healed.
The rest, as they say, is history. Nine months after that, we were a couple. And I was faced with another big decision- try and tackle this incredibly significant relationship long distance (as if we hadn't been over enough speedbumps), or move to Seattle? Future Husband had said he was willing to quit his band and move to Tulsa, but I knew that he wouldn't be happy, and that he, G and D would miss out on something great. (Now that I live with them, and vicariously reap the benefits of a functioning band, I kick myself for not trying harder when I was in a band as a teenager. We could have been good, too, and we weren't, because I never took it seriously enough. One of the few regrets I carry.) I desperately tried to think of a way that things would work if I stayed in Tulsa, but there was just no way. Future Husband had mentioned marriage only five days into our romantic relationship. It surprised me, but the idea felt right. (That was even more surprising.) So I decided to leave behind everything I had worked to build up over the last two years, and move to Seattle, leaving behind the job I loved, The Bestest, my home, and most importantly, my Family. All for love.
So now I've started over for a third time. I'm hoping that this is the last time I will have to change everything about my life and begin with nothing. It probably won't be, but I sure hope it is. I like the idea of building a life with Future Husband, and slowly accumulating and accomplishing all of the milestones that couples pass.
I love lists, so I'm going to make a list of all of the crazy/awesome things that have happened to me over the last year.
-I moved to Seattle, a city I probably would have always wanted to visit, but never would have.
-I went to (or through) 18 states that I had not been to before, leaving 18 continental states that I have yet to see. (I'd already been through 12 of them.)
-I visited New Orleans twice.
-I became formally engaged.
-I lived in a van for 7 months.
-I visited three foreign countries, and got my first stamps in my first Passport.
-I was a bridesmaid for the first (and probably only) time.
-I've made new friends all over the country (and one in France!). Seriously. My facebook list is awesome.
And as I've been reflecting over this for the past few days, thinking of what would go on that list, I've realized that though I worry about things; like planning the wedding, and money, and being able to tour next year, I don't feel stagnant or lost anymore. I don't worry about not ever doing anything with my life. I thought that I felt like myself in Oklahoma, and undoubtedly without those years I wouldn't be who or where I am now. For the first time I can remember in a long time (honestly, probably since my pre-fire childhood), I finally feel like myself. I feel completely comfortable in my own skin, in my own life. I don't find myself yearning for things I don't have (except money) and comforting myself with the idea of 'someday.'
All of my somedays are happening.
This time last year, when I had to sit down and name this blog, I knew that I was about to undergo a lot of change. So I decided to call it 'Third Time's the Charm.' Not, as a certain Crazy Ex of Future Husband's alleged, because I was giving him a third chance, but because this is the third time I've had a big, life altering change.
A lot of my past blogs (and before that, diaries) have complained about feeling stagnant or lost, not really knowing where I was going or why or who with. When I was 11 years old, my family's home burnt down on New Year's Day. Since then, it's always been a strange day for me. Not so much a holiday, but more like a day of remembrance. Like when a loved one passes away. When the house burned, we lost literally everything. There were a few things we were thankfully able to save; some of my cousins dug through the rubble and found my parents' wedding rings, the contents of my mother's cedar chest (her wedding dress included), and the family photos the firemen grabbed off the wall when they realized we weren't home. We lived in a hotel for a while, then bounced around with relatives until the insurance company got us an apartment. The people at our church donated clothes and toys for us, but really, all we had left from before was what we had when the house went up in flames; each other.
Eleven years later (and funnily enough, the fire marking the middle point in my life), my family fell into financial ruin. We'd tried to keep our heads above water, but my mother and I got laid off within two weeks of each other. Me one week before Christmas, and her one week after. Only a few weeks earlier, knowing we were living paycheck to paycheck and fed up with Phoenix's price and weather, we'd had a family meeting and decided to move to Tulsa. We'd been through the city before on a family road trip, and fallen in love with the area. The cost of living was less than half of Phoenix's, and the economy and job market better. So when Mom and I were both suddenly jobless, we decided that instead of moving to Tulsa in the Summer of '09, we'd go right then. So in early January (again), we decided that it we'd start over. Again.
The two years I spent in Tulsa were some of the happiest of my life. I made friends, I made and saved money. I paid for two vacations entirely by myself, as well as helping support my family. I had a job I loved and finally lived in city I liked. I felt like I had finally found a home. But as everything started falling into place for me financially and personally, I found myself thinking more and more of Future Husband. At that point in time, he was still The One Who Got Away. Or rather, to him I was The One Who Got Away Because I Was A Stupid Git. We hadn't spoken to each other since May of 2007. As more and more of 2008 passed by, I found myself missing his conversation and company, and remembering all the fun we'd had together, rather than the heartache and sleeplessness and weepy self loathing he had caused me. Believe me, there was plenty of that, but that's not what I found myself thinking of in quiet moments. I missed him. I hated myself for it, and looked for answers in the bottoms of bottles. Because of the internet and our circle of mutual friends, I was able to keep tabs on him from afar. So when I found out in October of 2008 that his band would be playing a show in Tulsa in December, I seized my opportunity. I thought I might get some sort of closure out of it, but all it did was rip the stitches out of a wound that was not yet healed.
The rest, as they say, is history. Nine months after that, we were a couple. And I was faced with another big decision- try and tackle this incredibly significant relationship long distance (as if we hadn't been over enough speedbumps), or move to Seattle? Future Husband had said he was willing to quit his band and move to Tulsa, but I knew that he wouldn't be happy, and that he, G and D would miss out on something great. (Now that I live with them, and vicariously reap the benefits of a functioning band, I kick myself for not trying harder when I was in a band as a teenager. We could have been good, too, and we weren't, because I never took it seriously enough. One of the few regrets I carry.) I desperately tried to think of a way that things would work if I stayed in Tulsa, but there was just no way. Future Husband had mentioned marriage only five days into our romantic relationship. It surprised me, but the idea felt right. (That was even more surprising.) So I decided to leave behind everything I had worked to build up over the last two years, and move to Seattle, leaving behind the job I loved, The Bestest, my home, and most importantly, my Family. All for love.
So now I've started over for a third time. I'm hoping that this is the last time I will have to change everything about my life and begin with nothing. It probably won't be, but I sure hope it is. I like the idea of building a life with Future Husband, and slowly accumulating and accomplishing all of the milestones that couples pass.
I love lists, so I'm going to make a list of all of the crazy/awesome things that have happened to me over the last year.
-I moved to Seattle, a city I probably would have always wanted to visit, but never would have.
-I went to (or through) 18 states that I had not been to before, leaving 18 continental states that I have yet to see. (I'd already been through 12 of them.)
-I visited New Orleans twice.
-I became formally engaged.
-I lived in a van for 7 months.
-I visited three foreign countries, and got my first stamps in my first Passport.
-I was a bridesmaid for the first (and probably only) time.
-I've made new friends all over the country (and one in France!). Seriously. My facebook list is awesome.
And as I've been reflecting over this for the past few days, thinking of what would go on that list, I've realized that though I worry about things; like planning the wedding, and money, and being able to tour next year, I don't feel stagnant or lost anymore. I don't worry about not ever doing anything with my life. I thought that I felt like myself in Oklahoma, and undoubtedly without those years I wouldn't be who or where I am now. For the first time I can remember in a long time (honestly, probably since my pre-fire childhood), I finally feel like myself. I feel completely comfortable in my own skin, in my own life. I don't find myself yearning for things I don't have (except money) and comforting myself with the idea of 'someday.'
All of my somedays are happening.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
*Sorry guys, a serious blog today, even though I have a fabulous Caribbean cruise to blog about. I didn't change all of the name's in this blog because, well, you change names to protect the innocent, right?*
So my 'Uncle' Michael has died.
I don't mourn his loss at all. Honestly, today felt no different from the day before, or a Friday a few weeks ago. I doubt it will be any different from next Friday.
The only sad or mournful feelings I have over this are for my Grandmother. No one deserves to lose a child. And as my cousin said, "he's proof that bad people can be born of good people." I have no children of my own yet, but I know what it's like to love a child as my own. And imagining something bad happening to them makes my stomach turn. For my grandmother, I feel sorrow, I feel pain. But for no one else.
You have to understand, in my Big Fat Italian Family, I have a lot of different 'Uncles'. I have my California Uncle, who is an amazing writer, has a killer sense of humor, asks me about school, and movies, and boys, and life, over crab nachos at the end of Santa Monica pier. He performs cheesy magic tricks for us whenever he visits. I have early childhood memories of his deep, rumbley voice, and hearing his laugh, and feeling his beard tickle me as he kissed me good night on Christmas Eve. I remember that sort of tangible childhood excitement I would feel when my parents told me he was visiting from California. He's not actually genetically related to me at all. He's just a good friend of my parents'. Yesterday he congratulated me on my recent engagement, and assured me that he'd try his hardest to be at my wedding next Fall.
Then I have an Uncle that now lives in Santa Fe, who is a good friend of my Aunt's, and again, not biologically related to me at all. I remember watching TV with him as a child. I remember him taking me on outings to bookstores and cafes as a child. He loved Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman as much as I did, and he taught me how to use a whip. I remember laughing with him over the way Microsoft Word's spellcheck tried to correct Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as our own very Italian last names. He used to give me candy coated fennel seeds to sooth my stomach. One of his houses had kumquats growing outside near the front stoop. To this day, the smell of eucalyptus oil makes me miss him.
That being said, I have two memories of my 'Uncle' Michael. Neither of them actually contain him, they just happen to take place around him. When I was about ten, I remember going over to his house with Cousinface. We played HORSE on his basketball court in the backyard, and later we played around on his pool table, though none of us kids were good enough to actually play billiards. I seem to remember one of my cousins (I think it was the rapper) showing me how to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 in only ten minutes. On the way home in the back of Cousinface's dad's red Nissan truck, her older sister Jen kept picking her nose and flicking the boogers into the wind. They always hit me in the face.
The only other memory I have is of his Anniversary party. I don't remember what the numerical value was, I just remember that I was a young teenager, and his third wife (the evil, malicious Judy) was so drunk that she forgot Cousinface's name. Cousinface's family visited Michael (her grandfather) every holiday, and sometimes for dinner on weekends in between. Judy remembered me (whom she'd met maybe two or three times before) but forgot Cousinface. I remember the crushed, hurt look on her face more than anything. And the fact that the bartender at the country club (or where ever it was) didn't know what a Shirley Temple was.
So my point is, this 'Uncle' of mine, was not an uncle at all. I would feel more over the loss of an elementary school teacher that I was close to. I have no memories of magic tricks, or snowmen, or bookstores, or Christmas Eve with this man. In fact, all I have are the stories of those he hurt so deeply.
Like how he left my cousin Jinx and her mother (his second wife, whom I consider my Aunt) by telling them he was going to the convenience store for a pack of cigarettes and never coming back. Jinx was six. Her brother was younger. He turned up at one of his mistresses house's a few days later. He never paid child support to their mother. Later, when Jinx sued him for backed child support as an adult, Michael took issue with my father. I remember him telling my dad that Jinx "wasn't smart enough" to do it on her own. Jinx is one of the smartest people I know, and one of my closest friends.
A few years ago, when some family drama broke out, and my little branch ended up sawing off the horribly trashy, obnoxious branch that contained some of his offspring, his horrible third wife sent me a letter telling me to take down my blog and 'never write again.' I hadn't spoken to or interacted with them in years, and the first contact I get in almost a decade is some holier-than-thou attempt at censorship. Based on what? The fact that he was the oldest person with our last name? It takes a lot more to make a patriarch than age.
But the most damning thing told to me was the abuse he put my Aunt Awesome through. (My father's sister.) It's not my story to tell, so I won't elaborate much. Aunt Awesome is my favorite aunt. We have a lot in common, including tastes and temperaments. So when I found out how horribly Michael treated her as a child (when he was a teenager), it spoiled him in my mind forever. It turned whatever traces of familial affection I might have had for him into burning hatred. Aunt Awesome is quite possibly the nicest person I have the privilege of knowing. So to wound her so grievously, and then try to play it off as 'something children do'... no. Unacceptable. He never denied the abuse he was responsible for, he just made a point of not apologizing for it. There are no words for how much I loathed that man.
As far as I'm concerned, a Deadbeat Dad, Philanderer and Child Molester died yesterday. He may have had my last name and some of the same genetic material, but for all intents and purposes, I might as well have been watching the evening news and an announcement of a prisoner's execution. There was no sentimental connection for me, just a sense of relief, because someone horrible is gone from this world. So if you are sad that your loved one is facing his final judgment, fine. Go be sad. Somewhere in your corner of cyberspace. I'm not invading it and telling you how I feel, I'm just voicing my opinion from my own little corner. I am entirely entitled to have my own opinion and state it however, where ever and whenever I want to. You are the one that decides to read it.
Tonight I raised a glass, and clinked it among friends and loved ones. Yes, I celebrated someone's death. And if you have a problem with that, I have a problem with you. Feel free to ask me why, and I will explain it, in the simplest terms necessary for your feeble mind.
A Monster died yesterday, and I am happy.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
25 years ago today, Marty McFly went to a parking lot to meet with Doc Brown. The rest, as they say is history.
Also, in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, my mom squeezed me out.
I know I haven't been blogging much lately. Tour puts a damper on my productivity (malnutrition, tiredness, lack of reliable internet connection), and now that I'm home I've been distracted with things like looking for work, working, and household chores. And Breaking Bad. Seriously, Boyfriend and I have put away almost three seasons since October 8th. That's a lot of sitting in front of a boob tube.
I don't think I'll draw any cute cartoons today, as I just want to put a blog up so you all know I haven't mysteriously disappeared. Also, it's my birthday. My 25th freaking birthday. It seems like a blog worthy day.
Birthdays have never made me feel any different. As a child, I always expected some sort of magical transformation over night, or at the very least, for the day to feel unusual. Like Christmas. There's this sort of stillness in the air on Christmas. I always expect my birthday to feel that way, but it doesn't.
This birthday makes me want to better myself, though. Like it's a chance for New Years-esque resolutions. Like I'm really starting my adult life now, with a nice, round, halfway to 50 age.
But here are my Quarter Life resolutions:
-Write EVERY day. 1,000 words on a novel would be nice, but that's not realistic. A paragraph or two, or a blog, or even just jotting down ideas of stories and novels... hell, even fan fiction, is better than not writing at all.
-Eat better. I've been doing a good job of it since tour, but I've had entirely too much fast food and too many restaurant outings this year. I don't feel good. Good food makes you feel good.
-Be smarter with money. Just because I have money sitting in my bank account, doesn't mean I have to spend it.
-Practice music more. I miss playing and writing and singing. It's an amazing way to express myself, and I miss getting lost in it.
I can't really think of anything else. I mean, I've got a great guy by my side, a wonderful family, and friends that actually care about me. The outlook from here is pretty swell. Honestly, I couldn't ask for more. Well, maybe a book deal or to win the lottery, but as far as practicality goes... this is Happily Ever After, and I'm lucky enough to have found it this young.
Also, in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, my mom squeezed me out.
I know I haven't been blogging much lately. Tour puts a damper on my productivity (malnutrition, tiredness, lack of reliable internet connection), and now that I'm home I've been distracted with things like looking for work, working, and household chores. And Breaking Bad. Seriously, Boyfriend and I have put away almost three seasons since October 8th. That's a lot of sitting in front of a boob tube.
I don't think I'll draw any cute cartoons today, as I just want to put a blog up so you all know I haven't mysteriously disappeared. Also, it's my birthday. My 25th freaking birthday. It seems like a blog worthy day.
Birthdays have never made me feel any different. As a child, I always expected some sort of magical transformation over night, or at the very least, for the day to feel unusual. Like Christmas. There's this sort of stillness in the air on Christmas. I always expect my birthday to feel that way, but it doesn't.
This birthday makes me want to better myself, though. Like it's a chance for New Years-esque resolutions. Like I'm really starting my adult life now, with a nice, round, halfway to 50 age.
But here are my Quarter Life resolutions:
-Write EVERY day. 1,000 words on a novel would be nice, but that's not realistic. A paragraph or two, or a blog, or even just jotting down ideas of stories and novels... hell, even fan fiction, is better than not writing at all.
-Eat better. I've been doing a good job of it since tour, but I've had entirely too much fast food and too many restaurant outings this year. I don't feel good. Good food makes you feel good.
-Be smarter with money. Just because I have money sitting in my bank account, doesn't mean I have to spend it.
-Practice music more. I miss playing and writing and singing. It's an amazing way to express myself, and I miss getting lost in it.
I can't really think of anything else. I mean, I've got a great guy by my side, a wonderful family, and friends that actually care about me. The outlook from here is pretty swell. Honestly, I couldn't ask for more. Well, maybe a book deal or to win the lottery, but as far as practicality goes... this is Happily Ever After, and I'm lucky enough to have found it this young.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
I suppose this blog really needs to start off last night.
When I went downstairs The Bestest and I stayed up for two hours giggling before sleep finally claimed us. I slept rather restlessly, and woke up four hours later to check my bags one more time, put on my face paint and get dressed. When everything was all set I serenaded The Bestest with the chorus of "His Cheeseburger", gave her one last hug, and headed upstairs.
My mom had a dentist appointment at 8:00, and my flight left at 8:50. My brother had to take me to the airport because my dad had to drive mom. So our goodbyes were at the house, rather than the airport. Probably for the best, since I was wearing liquid eyeliner and it could have turned ugly very quickly.
Oh, and the thing I forgot? To print off my boarding pass. So on a plane that holds 137 passengers, I was #145.
I grabbed a bagel and a cup of coffee once I was through security, and hurried to my gate. It was packed. I began to freak out a bit at this point, since I knew that I might be bumped. The next flight out to Seattle would have put me there at 8:00, and Boyfriend has to be at work at 10:00. This would have given us the car ride and maybe a ten minute make out session, if traffic allowed. No bueno. And it may seem like silly motivation when I could have made $350ish in Southwest credits (which would have paid for our airfare for our November trip to OK) I didn't want to give up those extra five hours. So Darling, know that time with you is worth more than $70 an hour.
Luckily, there were enough people that volunteered to be bumped, and I had no problem getting on the plane. I got a middle seat between an old lady and a woman with a baby, but at least I was on the plane.
So here I am now, at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, waiting out the hour and a half between my flights. From here I'll go to Salt Lake, before heading on to Seattle. It feels weird to be in my home town, in an airpory I know so well. Strangely, Phoenix doesn't really seem like home anymore. Tulsa does.
Right now, I'm facebook chatting with Boyfriend, who's inexplicably awake. Actually, it's pretty easy to explain. I couldn't sleep well last night either. I feel like a six year old on Christmas Eve.
When I went downstairs The Bestest and I stayed up for two hours giggling before sleep finally claimed us. I slept rather restlessly, and woke up four hours later to check my bags one more time, put on my face paint and get dressed. When everything was all set I serenaded The Bestest with the chorus of "His Cheeseburger", gave her one last hug, and headed upstairs.
My mom had a dentist appointment at 8:00, and my flight left at 8:50. My brother had to take me to the airport because my dad had to drive mom. So our goodbyes were at the house, rather than the airport. Probably for the best, since I was wearing liquid eyeliner and it could have turned ugly very quickly.
Oh, and the thing I forgot? To print off my boarding pass. So on a plane that holds 137 passengers, I was #145.
I grabbed a bagel and a cup of coffee once I was through security, and hurried to my gate. It was packed. I began to freak out a bit at this point, since I knew that I might be bumped. The next flight out to Seattle would have put me there at 8:00, and Boyfriend has to be at work at 10:00. This would have given us the car ride and maybe a ten minute make out session, if traffic allowed. No bueno. And it may seem like silly motivation when I could have made $350ish in Southwest credits (which would have paid for our airfare for our November trip to OK) I didn't want to give up those extra five hours. So Darling, know that time with you is worth more than $70 an hour.
Luckily, there were enough people that volunteered to be bumped, and I had no problem getting on the plane. I got a middle seat between an old lady and a woman with a baby, but at least I was on the plane.
So here I am now, at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, waiting out the hour and a half between my flights. From here I'll go to Salt Lake, before heading on to Seattle. It feels weird to be in my home town, in an airpory I know so well. Strangely, Phoenix doesn't really seem like home anymore. Tulsa does.
Right now, I'm facebook chatting with Boyfriend, who's inexplicably awake. Actually, it's pretty easy to explain. I couldn't sleep well last night either. I feel like a six year old on Christmas Eve.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Today was my last day in Tulsa.
Last visit with my student, which was fabulously fun. Last time getting my hair done (cause I totally won't be able to afford it for a few years.) Last time hanging out and eating junk food with my brothers. Last time meeting my friends for burgers and pints. Last sleepover with The Bestest.
My day started with a stop at the Post Office and a favorite pizza by the slice joint. A few days ago I went through my 4,000+ iTunes library and compiled all of the 10 year old friendly dance tunes I had in there. I ended up with a 6 hour playlist. We put it on shuffle, ate greasy pizza, addressed and stamped envelopes to each other, and danced around like maniacs. It was phenomenal.
When I arrived home, my brothers and I watched GhostBusters, and had the giantest, most epic milkshakes ever. Seriously. It was a 44oz. And I drank it in twenty minutes. I was regretting it by the time Sigourney Weaver's all floaty and slutty, but great googily moogily was is delicious. Chunks of fresh strawberries and creamy vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm...
After the movie I went and had my friend do my hair. She's ridiculously talented and gives me a pretty ridiculous discount. And we geek it up with Harry Potter and Zombie talk for most of the time. I got my first professional color (a little less Strawberry Blonde, a little bit closer to my natural sandy) with high lights and low lights, and an ultra-fabulous under color. I have no idea what it's technically called. But I call it under color. And then my inner third grader laughs cause it makes me think of 'underwear'. After it was all washed and dried, she asked if she could flat iron my hair. I told her she'd been playing with my hair for two hours, but if she wanted more, she was welcome. So she flat ironed my hair. It's probably the tamest and straightest it will ever be in my entire life. I am loving every moment of it, and hoping I can stretch it out for two or three days of straight, tamey, non-voluminous goodness.
I ran home and finished my last minute packing, checking and rechecking my list. I have everything I put on it (and I've been adding to this list since September) but I still feel like I'm forgetting something. Since the geeky hairdresser did such a good job with my hair, I decided to dress up after all. Granted, dressing up for me means jeans and gratuitous cleavage. And cute heels. The Bestest and I put on our make up together, while listening to The Fratellis with the volume all the way up. Dancing around the bathroom in our underwear between eyeliner applications.
We got to the pub, and The Bestest informed me that she had invited almost all of our coworkers via mass text. I was expecting only about ten people to show up. We requested a table for twenty, but had to get more chairs as everyone arrived. I knew that I was well liked at work, but I didn't realize people actually liked me. It's one thing to get along with everyone you work with, but another to spend time socializing together outside of work. I would occasionally head out for a drink if a big group was going, but there was really only three or four people I would spend time outside of work with. So to have twenty people show up to my impromptu going away party was incredible. I personally consider myself to be an antisocial bore. The kind of girl that hides behind books and words. Observing but rarely participating. I've said it before, but it bears repeating; I don't know how I got so lucky to have so many awesome friends.
When the pub crowd started to diminish about midnight, I got one last round of hugs from everyone and the promises to keep up with Facebook. The Bestest and I giggled all the way home, taking goofy pictures in the car and laughing about the most banal subjects. Hot cocoa for the Bestest, Coffee for me, and one last Tim Tam Slam before I left.
And now I am at the end of my last day. My mother is the last one awake, and it feels strange to be heading down into my apartment one last time while she's still up. But I need to go downstairs and check over my bags and lists one more time, and see if I can figure out what I've forgotten.
I'm sure I'll remember in Seattle.
Last visit with my student, which was fabulously fun. Last time getting my hair done (cause I totally won't be able to afford it for a few years.) Last time hanging out and eating junk food with my brothers. Last time meeting my friends for burgers and pints. Last sleepover with The Bestest.
My day started with a stop at the Post Office and a favorite pizza by the slice joint. A few days ago I went through my 4,000+ iTunes library and compiled all of the 10 year old friendly dance tunes I had in there. I ended up with a 6 hour playlist. We put it on shuffle, ate greasy pizza, addressed and stamped envelopes to each other, and danced around like maniacs. It was phenomenal.
When I arrived home, my brothers and I watched GhostBusters, and had the giantest, most epic milkshakes ever. Seriously. It was a 44oz. And I drank it in twenty minutes. I was regretting it by the time Sigourney Weaver's all floaty and slutty, but great googily moogily was is delicious. Chunks of fresh strawberries and creamy vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm...
After the movie I went and had my friend do my hair. She's ridiculously talented and gives me a pretty ridiculous discount. And we geek it up with Harry Potter and Zombie talk for most of the time. I got my first professional color (a little less Strawberry Blonde, a little bit closer to my natural sandy) with high lights and low lights, and an ultra-fabulous under color. I have no idea what it's technically called. But I call it under color. And then my inner third grader laughs cause it makes me think of 'underwear'. After it was all washed and dried, she asked if she could flat iron my hair. I told her she'd been playing with my hair for two hours, but if she wanted more, she was welcome. So she flat ironed my hair. It's probably the tamest and straightest it will ever be in my entire life. I am loving every moment of it, and hoping I can stretch it out for two or three days of straight, tamey, non-voluminous goodness.
I ran home and finished my last minute packing, checking and rechecking my list. I have everything I put on it (and I've been adding to this list since September) but I still feel like I'm forgetting something. Since the geeky hairdresser did such a good job with my hair, I decided to dress up after all. Granted, dressing up for me means jeans and gratuitous cleavage. And cute heels. The Bestest and I put on our make up together, while listening to The Fratellis with the volume all the way up. Dancing around the bathroom in our underwear between eyeliner applications.
We got to the pub, and The Bestest informed me that she had invited almost all of our coworkers via mass text. I was expecting only about ten people to show up. We requested a table for twenty, but had to get more chairs as everyone arrived. I knew that I was well liked at work, but I didn't realize people actually liked me. It's one thing to get along with everyone you work with, but another to spend time socializing together outside of work. I would occasionally head out for a drink if a big group was going, but there was really only three or four people I would spend time outside of work with. So to have twenty people show up to my impromptu going away party was incredible. I personally consider myself to be an antisocial bore. The kind of girl that hides behind books and words. Observing but rarely participating. I've said it before, but it bears repeating; I don't know how I got so lucky to have so many awesome friends.
When the pub crowd started to diminish about midnight, I got one last round of hugs from everyone and the promises to keep up with Facebook. The Bestest and I giggled all the way home, taking goofy pictures in the car and laughing about the most banal subjects. Hot cocoa for the Bestest, Coffee for me, and one last Tim Tam Slam before I left.
And now I am at the end of my last day. My mother is the last one awake, and it feels strange to be heading down into my apartment one last time while she's still up. But I need to go downstairs and check over my bags and lists one more time, and see if I can figure out what I've forgotten.
I'm sure I'll remember in Seattle.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
One week, can you believe it? I move away in one week to live with my fella and tour with his band as their merch girl/band aide/webmistress. I start my adventure in one week!
If all it took to get magical woodland creatures to pack all my shit and clean my apartment was letting them see a little peek up my skirt, I would totally do it.
That means I also leave behind my parents and younger brothers. My younger brothers are pretty cool people, and I'm sure any big sister mentoring they need they can get via text and Facebook. My parents I worry about, though. They're average, middle aged, overweight Americans. Which means they are going to drop dead of diabetes or colon cancer or restless leg syndrome or ED or something, any goddamn minute.
You know, in all of my favorite fantasy stories, when the main character starts their adventure, it's all suddenlike and 'Surprise! Adventure! Wham!' But I got a count down to mine. Although, I suppose the whole getting-back-together-Jane-Austen-happy-ending thing was a bit out of the blue. My first five years with the boyfriend were a Jane Austen novel, which fades away into the ending when the couple is finally happily together. So I guess now I'm starting... a Meg Cabot novel? A Hunter S. Thompson novel? A Kurt Vonnegut novel? Who knows.
All I know is, with everything I have to do in the next week, my life would be waaay easier if it looked like this;
If all it took to get magical woodland creatures to pack all my shit and clean my apartment was letting them see a little peek up my skirt, I would totally do it.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today I broke the news to the little girl I mentor. I was going to do it last Thursday, but I was a turd and told the school's secretary to tell her I was sick. I thought maybe I could postpone it one more day. Unfortunately, they had Friday and Monday off, so today was the first day I could see here again since I acted like this:
Get it?
When I got to the school today, one of the other mentors was already there, so I didn't want to pull out the gift I had for her (a $3 box of chocolates and a Valentine's card) in front of the other student. We're allowed to get them gifts under $10. And, since it's me, I do this about once a month. It might be a Subway picnic, or a Tinkerbell scrunchie. Either way, I'm fairly sure I give her little gifts too often. So instead of getting the bad news out of the way, I had to wait until the last ten minutes to break the news to her. We've been working lately on her US geography, so while we were filling out the states and the capitals, I kept pointing to Seattle and Phoenix, mentioning my recent trips there. I have been on two, two week trips in the last three months, so she's had a little taste of what it's like to not have me visit every week.
While she was eating her lunch and I was trying to remember whether Bismarck was the capital of North or South Dakota, she wandered over and looked in the locket around around my neck, asking me who the pictures were. My Godmother (who was very much like a grandmother to me) passed away in September. I got one last visit with her in July. During one of the quiet, rainy afternoons we spent with her, she pulled me aside from the family, and slowly lead me down the hall to her room. I can still feel the soft frailty of her skin as she held onto my hand and arm to steady her on the walk. When we got there, she picked up an Italian alabaster jewelry box, and handed it to me. We sat on the edge of her bed and she explained each piece she was giving to me. One of those was the locket I wear almost every day. She had it as a teenager, and it has pictures of her parents in there. I've left those pictures in. They're not as important to me as they are to her, but they were important to her, and that's what matters.
I didn't explain this all to her today. Rather than say, they're my Godmother's parents, and since she was my first cousin twice removed, they're my great-great aunt and uncle, I simply said, "They're my grandmother's parents."
"So your..." she rolled her eyes up as she thought for a moment, "Great grandma and grandpa?" She closed the locket, and as she walked back around the little table to her lunch said, "If I ever get a locket, I'm going to put pictures of you and me in it."
And knife. To the heart. Again.
When we finally got some time alone, I pulled the chocolates and the card out of my purse. As I was pulling them out, I said, "I have bad news." Which in retrospect was probably not the best way to do it. I saw on her face a mixture of 'Ooh, presents!' and 'Bad news?'. It must have been a bit like saying "We're going to Disneyland! Cause your mom died and she had a good insurance policy!"
"I love you! I'm leaving."
"I also killed your puppy."
Then I broke the news, "I'm moving away. To Seattle."
"What? Nooo!" she said. (maybe I'm being a little melodramatic with the exclamation point, but she did draw out the 'no.')
"I know," I said, "I'm sorry. But I won't be gone forever." At this point I handed her the card and the chocolates. I explained the visits I had planned for April and May, and promised that we would do our annual spring picnic. I told her we would exchange letters, and I could call her once a week if she'd like. By the end of our hour long lunch meeting, she didn't seem crushed. Thank god. I dropped her off at her classroom, and she hugged me tightly.
I went back out to my car, and though I knew better, totally listened to Taylor Swift's 'The Best Day' and got misty eyed. That's the second time in two weeks this little ten year old girl has indirectly made me cry! Stupid cute little blond countrified adorable shithead! Making me care so much about you! Damn it! And then I realized, yes, I'm going to miss her, but I was feeling the hurt from the wrong way. I was upset because I was leaving. I was upset because I was going to hurt her. I wasn't thinking about the actual hurt she might feel. I was only thinking about myself. I totally suck.
And just as I had this little self-centered epiphany, this line came on;
"God smiles on my little brother,
Inside and out, he's better than I am."
And then I really lost it. Lip quivering, sucky-gaspy air breaths, lost it. While I was driving. Because that made me think of my younger brother, who yes, can be hot headed and selfish sometimes, but he's also very young and for the most part, is probably the best human bean I am privileged to know. And I'm not going to get to hang out with him every day. And my youngest brother, though his presence is a quieter and more subtle, is just as awesome.
"God smiles on my little brother,
Inside and out, he's better than I am."
And then I really lost it. Lip quivering, sucky-gaspy air breaths, lost it. While I was driving. Because that made me think of my younger brother, who yes, can be hot headed and selfish sometimes, but he's also very young and for the most part, is probably the best human bean I am privileged to know. And I'm not going to get to hang out with him every day. And my youngest brother, though his presence is a quieter and more subtle, is just as awesome.
So with the combination of guilt-of-wrong-sided guilt over my student, and the realization that I'm done watching my brothers grow up close and personal, kinda sucker punched me today. All while I was running errands. I still had to go into the bank and take care of some paperwork. Then I had to go to the post office. And I'm not a subtle crier. That's one of the reasons I don't cry very often. I turn red. And I swell. It's not pretty.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Weeper.
The cute cry is what happens when I watch Grey's Anatomy. The middle is what I was doing in the car. This never ends well. The third is what I look like the day after I cry. Eyes swollen shut, nose three times its usual size, lips looking like Goldie Hawn's. It's usually easier to say, "Yes, I was in a bar fight."
But I cried like that in the car. Not for very long, though. I had to suck it up and finish my errands. I realized though, as I quickly internalized my feelings and stuffed them into the deep, dark place I store my twisty thinks, that somewhere between 10 and 24 I lost a lot of what makes children awesome. I suppose it's only natural, but I've decided I want to try and get it back. I'm not entirely sure what it is, maybe naivety? Innocence? I hope not. Some of those things you just can't get back. Maybe it's hope. Hope that great things will stay great, and that bad things will pass quickly.
Surely, I haven't lost hope, have I? Wow, this blog just went from contemplative to super depressing. I don't like it anymore. I'm hopeful! I'm childlike in all the best ways! I'm a positive person! I'm happy! Look at this:
There. Now I feel more awesome.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Wow, that went so fast.
Is this how it happened to be that one day, I was 14, in a band and in possession of knowledge of everything, and suddenly I'm 24, writing away and thirsty for knowledge, and moving halfway across the country? Time really does fly. It's ridiculous.
Fortunately, I've accomplished a couple of the things on my list. Unfortunately, I haven't done a lot of those things, and I'm starting to think I may not have time to. Today I started freaking out about getting ready for tour. I need to go buy a good hoodie. One that will not take up too much space, but will keep me warm, so I don't have to bring my bulky coat. I need to clean up my living room and my bedroom, so that it'll be crashable when we're back here in April.
One of my uncles said once that a year crawls by when you're six years old, because it's 1/6th of your life, and it flies when you're thirty, because it's 1/30th. That makes a helluva lotta sense. That also makes me terrified of being fifty. Or eighty. Oh, god.
I need to find and befriend a vampire.
Fuck you Stephenie Meyer, you hack. I'd rather get old and die than sparkle for eternity. Even if it means I have to break a ten year old's heart, clean my apartment, build a website, pack my life up to move, and various other insurmountable activities in the next ten days.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
In yesterday's blog I said, "...and kissed me properly. The way I deserve to be kissed." And it made me start reminiscing about the last kiss I had, at the airport. The best kiss I've ever had. The first kiss I ever had. All I've been doing since then is thinking about kissing; how much I love it, how it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, how I won't be kissed for another two weeks. So I thought, "Ah ha! That's what I'll blog about, since I don't want to blog about what's really bothering me today."
The first kiss I remember was when I was three years old. I don't count this, since he was still in diapers. He's my best friend's little brother. He's a year and a half younger than me. I remember the day very plainly. It was one of those rare, early summer days in Arizona. The gutters were full of warm water and perfect for splashing in. We were playing in the rain, splashing and running, and I was carrying a little red umbrella. We sat down on the curb, our toes squishing the muck in the gutter, and we kissed. Someone ran inside and grabbed a camera. That picture was passed around both families. I wonder if it's on facebook yet...
What I would love to consider my first kiss happened in first grade. When I was in preschool, there were two Jeffs in my class. I had a crush on blond Jeff. I don't really remember not-blond Jeff. I was four. Blond Jeff's mom was our teacher, and halfway through the school year, they moved away to Hawaii. I believe it was because his dad was in the Navy. Regardless, blond Jeff became Pineapple Jeff in my mind. Well into my first grade school year, Pineapple Jeff moved back to Arizona. I still remember which house was his on Pepper street. While he was away in Hawaii, Jeff had managed to skip a grade, and was a second grader. I remember he came over to me one day on the uneven bars, and waited for me to finish my turns. He asked if I wanted to go to the swings. At my school, that meant a boy liked you. Especially since he asked me while I was on the bars. The swings were on the other side of the playground, so we walked all the way across the field together. The next day, we met up at lunch recess and played together again. This continued for a week or two, and soon all of our classmates were teasing us. We argued that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but playground politics dictated that we were. One day, while I was playing on the slide, he came over to me with a very determined look on his face. He grabbed me by the wrist and we ran across the football field. He dragged me behind one of the second grade portables, placed his hands firmly on my shoulders, and pressed me against the wall. He kissed me quickly the first time. When I didn't run away, he puckered up his lips again, and put them against mine. I didn't know what to do, but I had seen plenty of movies. So I just held my lips there against his, my eyes clenched and lips pursed, and didn't move. When he pulled away, he looked surprised. He stood there for a moment, then sprinted away. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the week. When he finally did play with me again after lunch on Monday, he told me he was moving away again. I don't know where Pineapple Jeff is now, but I sometimes remember my first cinematic moment, and wonder if he's still as pretty as he was in elementary school. Probably not. If I could remember his last name, I'd track him down, and give him an earful. He would be a lot easier to find on facebook if his name was actually Pineapple Jeff. He helped create my social retardation, making me expect everything to be whimsical and perfect, like my first kiss there against the wall. Damn that little second grade Casanova.
There are mushrooms growing on his cargo pants. What a tool.
The kiss I should probably consider my first happened early in my tween years. I don't remember the poor kid's name, but I remember the circumstances. He was the youngest of three kids. His mother was dating my trashy, trailer-parky cousin, Little Tony. I kid you not. I am Italian, and one of my trashy cousins answers to 'Little Tony'. Har, har. My grandmother and Aunt had just built a swimming pool in their backyard. In Arizona, that was pretty much the best scenario for us kids during the summer. All the swimming we wanted, with normal levels of chlorine and far less urine. Little Tony brought his super sweet but skanky girlfriend and her three kids over a few times that summer, and I noticed that the youngest was starting to get sweet on me. I didn't like him at all, and did my best to discourage him. One day while we were swimming, he challenged me to a breath holding contest. I had just learned how to keep my nose plugged under water without pinching it with my fingers (it took me a while to learn the trick after I had my tonsils out) and so readily participated. We agreed that we would keep our eyes open so that we could make sure the other wasn't cheating. Almost as soon as we got underwater, he put his hands on my shoulders (a running theme, I notice) and tried to plant a kiss on me. I started to swim up, but he was holding me under pretty tightly, and he ended up kissing the corner of my mouth and my cheek instead. I reflexively panicked, and got water up my nose. We both surfaced, sputtering and coughing. The coughing was all me, actually. He didn't say anything for a moment, didn't even ask if I was all right, but as soon as I was sure I was not going to drown, I turned and looked at him. His facial expression was a mix of concern and fear. It should have been. I punched him in the nose.
Luckily, his siblings didn't see this, and all of the adults were inside. He wailed, grabbed his face, and scrambled out of the pool. He didn't even bother to shout a rhetoric, 'What was that for?' He knew. I was nervous about going inside after that, but knew it would look suspicious if I didn't. I grabbed a towel and headed inside. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a wad of paper towels soaked in bright red blood held to his face. I'd broken his nose. We exchanged looks again, and I was sure I was about to get grounded for the rest of my natural life. Both his mother and mine were standing next to him. My mom asked me what happened, and I just kind of stammered and looked back at Broken Nose Boy (I want to say Justin, but I know that's not right.) He pulled the paper towels away from his face and said, "I was swimming with my eyes closed and swam into the wall." I made an excuse to get out of the kitchen, practically ran to the bathroom, and burst into tears. I instantly felt terrible, and guilty, and foolish. I think this is the moment that boys stopped being put into one of three categories (family, crushes, and grossness), and became just as individualized in my eyes as the girls in my little ten year old social circle. Not only had this guy felt the sting of rejection, but he lied to both of our moms, possibly risking being reprimanded for his recklessness, to keep me from getting in trouble. Either this was the nicest guy ever, or he really had a crush on me. I haven't punched anyone since.
The kiss that was my first real kiss, as it was post-pubescent and intentional, happened when I was seventeen. I had graduated High School a year before, I had been in college since January, and I had a tattoo. All of this, and I had never been kissed. I hated myself for it. I was finally beginning to feel the pangs of my social retardation. I was 'courting' a guy from my college classes. We hung out two or three nights every weekend, flirted constantly and teased each other with our words, our body language, and sometimes even our bodies. I was seventeen. He was twenty-seven. We had a party at our timeshare, since my parents had to use the time at the hotel or lose it. I had invited quite a few friends, and we all hung out. That night, however, the old man was running cold. It pissed me off. (On a side note, he was one year older than my boyfriend is right now, and I was sevenfreakingteen. Gross. What was I thinking?) A few people outside of my core group of friends had come over for the party as well. Including my best friend's older sister and younger brother. You remember him. The little boy in the rain. He was now the sometimes drummer for the band I was in, and he was notorious for his man-sluttiness. He had tried to get my cousin (and bass player) to make out with him only a few weeks ago. The older sister, my gay best friend (this was pre-gay-outing for him), me, and Drummerboy all stayed the night at the hotel. It wasn't planned that way, it just happened. As I was sandwiched between a friend I thought was straight (but wasn't) and a friend I thought would never want to do anything with me (he did), trying to fall asleep, I felt a hand on my hip. I opened my eyes to see that Drummerboy was uncomfortably close. Then he did the douchiest, lamest thing possible for a 15 year old boy to do. He made a kissy face, puckering his lips, pecking the air between us a few times and closing his eyes lazily. I'm sure he thought he was being suave. I thought he was acting like an idiot. But he was a boy, and he was willing to kiss me. I thought, "What the hell? Might as well get it over with." and I kissed him. About five seconds in I realized that it was a terrible mistake. Not because I didn't have any feelings for him and was using him, not because it might make my best friend angry at me, not because it might make band practice weird, but because he was a terrible kisser. About five seconds after that, his spit was on my forehead. I don't know what kind of crazy, magically teleporting saliva Drummerboy has in his mouth, but it weirded me out. Though I knew I was late to the game, I was pretty sure I was awesome at it, and that Drummerboy was definitely not. Years later, one of my boyfriends would tell me I was a good enough kisser to compete in the Kissing Olympics, win gold, and go on to have a professional career with lucrative product endorsements. A week after the terrible forehead spit kiss, I somehow wound up playing the longest, kinkiest, dirtiest game of Spin the Bottle. I ended up kissing my gay (still pre-gay) best friend, two good girlfriends, and the aforementioned old man. The gay friend was the only good kisser. Even with all that chemistry the old man and I had, our kisses were just regular old kisses. Borderline boring, even. 
There are two kisses I consider the best kisses I have ever had. Both were with Boyfriend. The first was our first kiss together. We had been hanging out all night, business as usual. Boyfriend, the Gay Best Friend (now post gay, and also responsible for introducing Boyfriend and I) and I had spent the night hanging out, skinny dipping, and having a few beers. Boyfriend's best friend and the Gay Best Friend's boyfriend (confused yet?) had already crashed and gone to sleep. The three of us remaining were watching Kill Bill. As the sun was coming up, the Gay Best Friend went to bed, and as he rounded the corner into the hallway, he turned around and dramatically pointed a finger at us. He said, "If you two don't just kiss, and get it over with, and clear all this sexual tension, you're not allowed back in my house." Then he went into his bedroom, and I didn't see him again until our next hang out, where I thanked him profusely for what he provoked.
Like this, but with a hot gay man instead of a monkey.
Boyfriend and I laughed nervously, but kept watching Kill Bill. We were snuggling under a blanket together, but after the GBF's threat of party house eviction, we had both remained motionless. I kept watching the clock nervously. I knew I had to leave soon and get my parents' car back to them, but I didn't want to leave Boyfriend's side. I finally had my perfect opportunity to finally kiss him. It was June. We'd met in September. It had been nine torment filled months of sexual tension and amazing chemistry, with a couple of near kisses in November and December. Earlier in the night we had joked about having our hair pulled, and I had broadcast to the sausage fest that was my social life that I like having my hair pulled, being bitten, etc. and TMI. When the movie ended, and I knew I was going to have to drive far above the legal speed limit to make it home in time, I turned to Boyfriend. With a torso full of fluttery insects, I jokingly put my hand in his long hair and asked, "So do you like having your hair pulled?" But as I turned my face towards him, he leaned in towards me, sliding his hand into my hair, his thumb stroking my cheek. He kissed me eagerly, enthusiastically. He kissed me like I was Disneyland, and he was nine years old, and had been waiting through the entire school year for his summertime visit. The early morning sunlight made the living room look like a movie set. Everything was golden. I heard violins. When we finally parted, we rested our foreheads against each other for a moment. I don't know about him, but I was dizzy. My head was spinning. I felt light headed and out of breath and validated. I took a slow breath to steady myself while he moved his thumb gently across my cheek and kissed me again. It was probably one of the most amazing moments of my life.
The other top kiss of his, came the night (two years later) that he finally admitted he loved me. We spent the whole night talking and trying to strategize getting officially together (he had a girlfriend at the time, but that's another story... one so long that I'm devoting an entire novel and its sequel to it), and most of it was spent just sitting and being stunned that we had finally said in plain words what was so painfully obvious. The sky was lightening, and we knew we had to eventually part. Even though the word love had been thrown about, we hadn't touched any more beyond the occasional knee bump, or arm graze. We were sitting in a car, and our arms were on the center arm rest, millimeters away from touching. During a quiet moment in the conversation, I extended my little finger and put it over his. He grabbed my hand with both of his and interlaced our fingers, squeezing tightly. After a few more minutes of talking, we fell silent again, and he said, "I'm trying to figure out if we should kiss."
I looked up and met his eyes, only to find them pleading. It was surreal. It was like a scene out of a movie. Again. I couldn't believe it. "I... hold hands with my platonic friends... at scary movies..."
"What about the shoulders? The leaning...?" he asked.
"It's a pretty fine line..." I said, and squeezed his hand. I was running out of excuses and we both knew it. It was ridiculous to postpone it anyway. We both wanted to kiss, we needed to, we should. He told me he was in love with me and always had been. Why the hell hadn't we kissed in almost two years!? "Your hat's in the way," I said, and pushed it up off his forehead. He sighed heavily and leaned in and kissed me. He did that face cradling thing again. After about thirty seconds of the most emotionally packed kissing I've ever experienced, he pulled away, and put his forehead on my shoulder.
"I'm dizzy," he said breathlessly. Even though kissing is (almost!) a daily occurrence for us now, every once and a while, there's one that makes my breath catch and my head sway. Gold Star, Darling!
Lori + Stu = Awesome. It's MATH.
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About Me
- Lori
- Seattle, United States
- During this course of study, you will come to learn much about the strange eating, sleeping and mating habits of the Instrospective Lori under stress. We will observe as she moves halfway across the country to start a life with her own Captain Wentworth, takes a year off of work to pursue a writing career, and incessantly references Jane Austen.