Something it would behoove us all to remember more often than we do...

Jay Brannan, "Man in the Mirror"

Product Warning: The Fires of HELL - In Yo' Face

Unless you are a masochist and enjoy interminable torture, stay the hell away from Walmart's "Equate Extra Moisturizing Nasal Spray."  Trust.  The ONLY reason the shit is moisturizing is because you WILL be sitting there with the water hose firmly lodged in your nose to put out the lake of fire that has since left the bowels of Hell and taking up lodging  

IN YOUR FACE!!!

I have been arguing with a sinus infection for months now.  And it's winning.  I don't know where this stuff came from - it was in the medicine cabinet - I think I recall Kiki bringing it home here a while back.  I thought, however, it was one of those SALINE things.  You know Salt.  Not liquid fucking fire in a plastic bottle.

Roots and Wings

"If I could wish you just two things:  To give you roots; To give you wings."

This must have been someone's wish for me in 2009.  I first recall that quote as a teenager from the tv show Designing Women.  Julia had passed it along to a little girl going forth on her own journey and it has stuck with me all these years.  2009 was a difficult year for me.  I began the year violently ill, and it just seemed to fan out from there.  I learned so much about myself.  Some good.  Some bad.  But more so than anything, I learned a lot about my own foundations.  I learned who I really had to depend on.  I learned some ugly truths about the people and energies in my life.  I learned some beautiful revelations about my own self.  I put down roots.  I began to stand tall.  I realized through trial and error that it really IS all about ME - and what I am capable of...  Not what pleases everyone else.  The mother's words from the book Joy Luck Club (by Amy Tan) echoed in my head all year:  "Do you know your worth?"  And I began to understand what that means. 

It was difficult.  But often times growing is.  I have a tattoo over my heart that symbolizes chaos - not for the melodramatic affect - but as a reminder that even that which is most beautiful must fight through the ugliest of circumstance to bloom.  The I-Ching relates the story of the Lotus blossom and how to grow and become the glory that it is destined to be, it must fight through it's hard shell and all the mud surrounding it to spring forth.  This has been my year.  There's been a lot of shell - and A LOT of mud and muck...

And in the midst of all that I felt something shifting.  Something changing.  Something growing.  I realized last week it was my wings.  I had, in the course of 2009, begun to grow wings.  I was becoming ready - and able - to fly.

2010 is a year of promise.  The end of an era.  The beginning of a new one.  A new decade.  A new start.  It's time.  I have always been afraid of heights.  I have always been afraid of falling.  I clung to my nest of brambles and negativity because, as bad as it was, there was a safety there.  A comfort in the uncomfortable.  As bad as it was, it was familiar and for me, then, that was okay.  I knew what to expect.  But at some point over this past year, I began peering over the edge of that nest high up on that cliff and I saw horizons and sunrises and new voyages waiting...  And I began flexing those newfound wings.  I am still flexing - but my days of soaring are now at hand...  I am ready to jump.  I am ready to give it all I've got.  No risk.  No glory.

“Sometimes the fall kills you. 

And sometimes...  

when you fall...

you fly.”

Here's to flying high in 2010.

I ♥ the Em Dash

Either my boredom — or my geekery — has reached new heights.  Am sitting here in the dark with an ice pack on my foot reading articles online about punctuation. 

Yes, I am that much of a nerd.  (I read the dictionary for fun...) 

But!  In case you are ever on Jeopardy, did you know:

The em dash (—), or m dash, m-rule, etc., often demarcates a parenthetical thought—like this one—or some similar interpolation.

It is also used to indicate that a sentence is unfinished because the speaker has been interrupted. For example, the em dash is used in the following way in Joseph Heller's Catch-22:

He was Cain, Ulysses, the Flying Dutchman; he was Lot in Sodom, Deirdre of the Sorrows, Sweeney in the nightingales among trees. He was the miracle ingredient Z-147. He was—
"Crazy!" Clevinger interrupted, shrieking. "That's what you are! Crazy!"
"—immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide superman."

Similarly, it can be used instead of an ellipsis to indicate aposiopesis, the rhetorical device by which a sentence is stopped short not because of interruption but because the speaker is too emotional to continue, such as Darth Vader's line "I sense something, a presence I have not felt since—" in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

The term em dash derives from its defined width of one em, which is the length, expressed in points, by which font sizes are typically specified. Thus in 9-point type, an em is 9 points wide, while the em of 24-point type is 24 points wide, and so on. (By comparison, the en dash, with its 1-en width, is ½ em wide in most fonts.[9])

The em dash is used in much the way a colon or set of parentheses is used: it can show an abrupt change in thought or be used where a full stop (or "period") is too strong and a comma too weak. Em dashes are sometimes used in lists or definitions, but that is a style guide issue; a colon is often recommended for use instead.

According to most American sources (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style) and to some British sources (e.g., The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed (not surrounded by spaces). But the practice in some parts of the English-speaking world, also the style recommended by The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (due to the narrow width of newspaper columns), sets it open (separates it from its surrounding words by using spaces  or hair spaces (U+200A)) when it is being used parenthetically. Some writers, finding the em dash unappealingly long, prefer to use an open-set en dash. This "space, en dash, space" sequence is also the predominant style in German and French typography. See En dash versus em dash below.

In Canada, The Canadian Style [A Guide to Writing and Editing], The Oxford Canadian of Grammar, Spelling & Punctuation, Guide to Canadian English Usage [Second Edition], Editing Canadian English Manual, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary are all defined NO SPACE before after these Em Dash marks when they are inserted between words, a word and numeral, or two numerals.

Monospaced fonts (such as Courier) that mimic the look of a typewriter have the same width for all characters. Some of these fonts have em and en dashes which more or less fill the monospaced width they have available. For example, "- – — −" will show as a hyphen, en dash, em dash, and minus in a monospace font. Typewriters often only have a single hyphen glyph, so it is common to use two monospace hyphens strung together--like this--to serve as an em dash.

When an actual em dash is unavailable—as in the ASCII character set—a double ("--") or triple hyphen-minus ("---") is used. In Unicode, the em dash is U+2014 (decimal 8212). In HTML, one may use the numeric forms — or —; there is also the HTML entity —. In TeX, the em dash may normally be input as a triple hyphen-minus (---). On any Mac, most keyboard layouts map an em dash to Shift-Option-hyphen. On Microsoft Windows, an em dash may be entered as Alt+0151, where the digits are typed on the numeric keypad while holding the Alt key down. It can also be entered into Microsoft Office applications by using the Ctrl-Alt-hyphen combination.

Fascinating.  I love it!   And now you know!

When Life hands you Lemons, Look in the Mirror.

What a weekend it's been.  Often times we bumble along, lamenting our woe-is-me lives and never once really take pause to look around and wonder on the why of it all.  Sometimes the Universe is really doing little more than giving us a mirror.  "Look at yourself," it says.  "Do you like what you see?"

This weekend was like that for me.  In wandering about the blogosphere I came across a blog that offended me greatly.  A casual comment totally rubbed me the wrong way and shoved me up onto my soap box.  It was a familiar comment: "That's Gay."  Uttered by many without a second thought.  And no, he didn't mean "that's happy and joyous and warm and fuzzy."  It was meant as an insult.  And it was taken as one.

It pissed me off.

It pissed a lot of people off.  

So much so that we almost had a witch hunt on ours hands.  I have asked that those it also offended to leave it alone.  There's no sense in added fuel to the fire and vilifying this asshole who it would obviously be lost on anyway.  Like the Bully on the playground, he would just enjoy the attention.  Unfollow him.  Flag his blog.  But do not play into his hatefulness.  That's not the point of this post.  I wont' go back up on soapbox other than to say this - and be done with it.  The defense of the offender is that he has gay friends (as he commented on the aforementioned post) and thusly they see no problem in it, so it's okay.  This seems to be a common defense of his.  Also on his blog is a rather offense rascist post - but again, he has black friends that think it's funny, so it's okay.  No.  It's not okay.  This hearkens to the "birds of a feather" theory to me.  It doesn't excuse it.  It explains it, certainly.  But it doesn't excuse it.  Just because misogynistic, homophobic, rascist bigots travel in herds and enjoy one another's company does not make it right.

I have a sense of humour.  A rather inappropriate and skewed one at that - as is blatantly obvious to anyone that reads my blog.  Humour is not the problem here.  What this brought to light for me, however, is how I am perceived.  How does what I say affect other that might come across what I am spewing out into the world?  It's really made me take a step back and reassess what I am putting out there and how it may be taken by others.  It's caused - and is causing - me to take some responsibility for what I say - be it in person - or online.

So really, I have to thank the jerk in some way for showing me what a jerk I can be - without ever meaning it.  I am really - from this point on - making a point of making a conscious effort to better myself and my own words.  Consider how it make be taken.  Consider if I want those words or actions to be a reflection of who I am as a person - as a part of this world.  I would be ashamed if I were to be perceived as I have perceived this blogger in this instance.

Ignorance runs rampant in this day and age.  It really needs no help in its endeavours.  Often times if we will take a moment - just a moment - to think before we speak or act we might feel differently about what we are putting out there.  I know this is the case for me.  And it's something I am vehemently embracing in bettering myself for the coming year - and many years to come.

A Year in the Life of...

A little bit of seriousness (it happens) from the tidelands of a mad hatter with no head gear (that would be me).  No snark; no sarcasm (well not too much, anyway).  And I don't think there is a single "fuck" in the whole drawn out diatribe.

With 2009 coming to a close, I have been reflective of all this year has been.  This was to be a "top ten" of the lessons I have encountered over the course of the last year.  I don't think I quite made it to ten, but I have certainly unearthed some very valid realities to give me pause and to consider for the year to come.

It's funny how clearly we can see toward the future in re-examining all that has passed.

Letting it Be

 One of the best Beattles songs ever. I am so there. With my own riots and wars and heartbreaks. It's time that I, too, just learn to Let it Be - though it is proving to be much easier a task said, than a task done...

Stuck between a Rock... And a Rock.

I've been very conscious lately of the energies in my life - good, bad, or indifferent.  The idea that what you surround yourself with becomes your surrounding force.  Problem being there is a lot of negative surrounding me, and I just really am not enough of an asshole to tell them to bugger off (yet).  I've got this "buddy" - and in the course of less than a year he has managed to have major catastrophes with danged near everyone in his life.  Not just little tiffs, but not speaking to one another-slash-'you're dead to me' all out wars.  I've been caught in the crossfire for much of this.  I always seem to be the one that they all run to to bitch and moan.  Which is fine, I guess.  I am a good listener and would much rather be the peace keeper if I can at all help it.  I hate all that bickering and acting a damn fool.  Makes me a nervous wreck.

But, the problem now is, it's my turn to be The Antichrist.  I am the one now suffering the ire.  I've been deleted.  I have been unfollowed.  I have been ignored.  And I feel like the jerk when I've not really done anything deserving of all this.

In stepping back and attempting to look at the whole situation objectively - should I feel poorly?  If this person is constantly having problems with EVERYONE in their life...  Is constantly at war with someone...  Is constantly imbibed in some buulshittery and self-induced drama...  There is always cauldron chock-full of shit being stirred...  There is always someone upset...

Why do I care?

I know if I just let it run its course the wrath will shift and someone else will be in the doghouse...

But is it really worth it?

At what point do you wash your hands clean of it all and just walk away???

Or do you?

Or do you keep on keepin' on because, ultimately, you know it's worth it?

Hello, Pot???

 I was going through my TwitterFox (or Echofon or whatever it is this week) and cleaning out all the old tweets and mentions and DMs - which I haven't done in ages and came across one that said something to the effect of "oh. well you're always so negative..."  and I just had to laugh.  I no longer follow this person because of all their hateful, passive agressive jabs that I would get on a constant and regular basis ALL DAY LONG that had little to nothing to do with the actual tweets they were replying to - other than to just be passive aggresive and hateful.  So, rather than be annoyed I just quit following them and I don't have to hear about it anymore.  However, in cleaning everything out today, their page popped up.  There is not ONE tweet - not one - that is anything even remotely positive.  "I fucking hate my life..."  "I really hate being sick"  "marriage sucks"  "i'm getting too old for this crap"  "Fucked up parenting..."  "I seriously need to find some friends"  Granted it's all out of context - but SHIT...  STFU and have a moment, folks!  And I am the negative one???  Well I guess they would know, by comparison, more than most.

(Is that irony????)

But, the point I was rambling toward is that the things we dislike the most about people in our lives are often times the things we need to work on the most.  I love to bitch.  LOVE to bitch.  I am great at it.  It's usually quite hilarious.  But I HATE listenin' to it.  I kind of touch on it in a previous blog.  So thusly I have made a real conscious effort to NOT bitch so much - trying to take my own advices of STFUing and going to sit in a corner somewhere.  I figure if I don't want to hear it, y'all don't either.  I am also trying really hard not to complain so much.  I asked said friend the other night, "Do you have any good memories?"  Because, again, all you hear is the woe-is-meisms all the time.  And this was a privileged brat growing up.  My childhood sucked ass.  Often times, when it came to suffering I thought I was going to give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money.  But I had good times.  I made the best out of the hell that I knew.  And those times are what I chose to remember.  Not all the morose and mundane.

Gawd, people.  Get over it.  Or go tell it to Tyra and have her buy you some fuckin' crazy pills.  Sumpin'!!!

My question is, when you hold up the mirror that is your environment and dislike what you see, what is it that you need to work on?

My list is long...

But I am getting there.

[Facebookers, please comment at the blog:  Redhead Dancing - Thanks!]

Coming Out of the Pain; Umbrella at the Ready

"It's very difficult keeping the line between the past and the present."

- Edith "Little Edie" Beale of Grey Gardens

My life has never been one of luxury. I have never been one to take the easy route - or even known where that route might be if one such exists. The bulk of my life has been a succession of hand offs from whomever wanted me the least to whomever could stand me for the time being. There was never a lot of effort made to actually rectify the problem(s) as much as it was just "Here, you deal with him." As an adult, I am coming to understand just how much that really has shaped who I am and how I deal with things. Or, don't deal with things as the case in point and truth may be. I just walk away. Let it be and watch it fall all to hell and go down in flames. And always from a distance.  Distance being key.  Next.

So the grande finale of questions now is: "What do I do about it?" How do I stop the cycle? It's all I have known - starting with the funny farm; then my grandparents; my sister's father; my mother; my mother's husbands... Nothing was ever permanent. Nothing was ever dealt with. An endless series of shuffle the problem child. If they couldn't beat it out of me or shout me into submission, I was passed off like a hot and fetid potato gone to mush. Even in school they didn't know what to do with me. I was dubbed Gifted & Special (heavy on the special, I think) and handed off to the Retard Teacher(s)... Lot of good that did, too.

I know this now. I recognize it. It has destroyed what life I might have had up until this point and in its wake most of the relationships therein. I just haven't (had) the tools - or even the knowledge of the tools - to begin building something better. I've needed a raft and have been standing knee deep in the river and dying of thirst... Filthy and unable to scrub away the funk. Unable to float away from it all without the fear of drowning in it.

I often feel like I got beat down with the short end of a shit covered stick engulfed in flames. Like it was all denied me before I even got some vague modicum of a chance to have a go at it. I was described today as Gay (which I am - fine - sobeit) as a negative - in contextual comparison to unwed teenage mothers and cutters; and likened to all as being "trashy." It was a big slap in the face - and quite a wake up call. I forget that such is how people view me. Even, apparently, those closest to me. Just yet another in a string of black marks that I haven't much (if any) control over, I guess...

But perhaps, this new found knowledge - this recognition of it all - is my power. Perhaps this is my key. In knowing, maybe I can somehow stop it. No one wanted to deal with me then (not that anything's really changed in that regard). It's a harsh truth. But that was then.

This is my now.

Mine and mine alone.

I needn't anyone to deal with me any longer. I am my own man, standing (or trying to) on my own two feet - albeit a bit wobbly in my stillettos - but hey, you try standing on Size 12 feet in 8 inch heels. I am standing, damn it. (Okay, maybe I am just on hands and knees, and learning to crawl but it's progress.) The Child Called It became The Man Named Dave and he did alright for himself despite it all. He endured horrors not completely dissimilar to my own and came out on the other side. It was a struggle for him as well, but he prevailed. I believe - I hope - that somehow, someday, I can also.

I just don't quite know where to start. I do know now that I WANT to start. I want to begin to end all this horseshit and drama. First instinct, of course, is to start cutting... Break out the knives and start hacking away like a crazed and hungry hunter salivating over a fresh kill... But maybe all those melodramatic razor blade kisses of the past are part of the problem in the first place.

Who knows, really? I find myself in such a vastly different place for this part of the journey - for this leg of the race.

I have followed a hundred and two roads less taken for my entire life.

Perhaps now it's time to put on my waders and big boy britches and start trudging through the ruts that others have made in their own paths to salvation?

Perhaps if I want to get to the other side, the only way to get there is to go through it? Heavens knows all the bridges have been burnt at this point.... And I sure can't seem to get around the son of a bitch...

Perhaps... Perhaps...

Perhaps...

But, I'll tell you this:  I am bringin' my own damn flashlight, though. That tunnel sure looks pretty fuckin' dark to me.

Relatedly:

After a While

by Veronica Shoffstall

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn't mean learning

and company doesn't mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises.

And you begin to accept your defeat with your head

up and your eyes open,

with the grace of an adult,

not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all you roads on today

because tomorrow ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own

soul, instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure...

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth.

I'm a Cutter

My sister toyed with the idea of "cutting" at one point, though I think hers was more for the dramatic license of teen angst bullshit and a middle child's look-at-me antics than anything. My ex went the cutting route on a balcony in California, bathed in the spotlights of a frantic SWAT team in a broken culmination of an unloved life. I am a different (and worse) kind of cutter - too vain to wear my scars on the outside for all the world to see. It's hard to rock a poker face when you look like you've been gangbanged by a pack of hungry Exactos. I do not cut myself.  My cutting is more permanent.  It leaves no marks.  It does not grow back.  I cut people - entirely and completely - off and out of my life.  It's a cut that seldom heals.

Despite my oft perceived Surly Demeanor, I really do have a big heart.  Huge.  And of Gold.  It bleeds for more lost causes than Saint Jude.  It weeps for more stray and lost children than Sally Struthers.  And it often costs me dearly.

But, when It is over.  It's Over.  I. Am. Done.  Deb asked me yesterday what the song I posted meant to me.  Initially, when I put it out there, it was directed with vehement intent at one person - an ex.  But upon listening to it - really listening to its message - I came to realize that it was something else entirely.

It is my Modus Operandi for failed - or fed up - relationships.  It is my blade.  I have a hard time saying "no."  I have a hard time being ugly.  So I push and I cut.  I hack and dismember.  I make YOU hate ME so I don't have to deal with it.  If I succeed in making you hate me and you walk away from it all, I don't feel like The Bad Guy.  I feel validated in taking my knife and carving out the chunk of my life in which you existed.  You left me.  And now you are gone.  You are no more.  You no longer exist.  So many people in my life have fallen prey to these tactics.  Bled dry and eliminated.  Never to return.  I don't look back (often).  It's what I do.  It's how I operate.

It's how I survive.

Sane?  Probably not.  Healthy?  Not in the least.  But how often is self-preservation really either of those things?  Sometimes, be it good or bad, we all have our own fucked up ways of getting through a day - a lifetime - a cess pool of broken hearts and open wounds.

For me, it's cutting.  (But...  I'm working on it.)

"Maybe I aint used to maybes smashing in a cold room

cutting my hands up every time I touch you...

Maybe it's time to wave good-bye now..."

~ Tori Amos, Tear in Your Hand

Rising on the Winds of Self

I've been reciting this all day today. It's very empowering; magical. Thought I would share...

Enjoy.

[Image: Rise of Dream by "Moroka323"]

Still, I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Flying into the light of the dark, black night.

"It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything."

- Chuck Palaniuk, Fight Club

I just feel broken.

This whole disastrous moving process has really put an incredible spin on the ways of my world.  In so, so many ways, I have never felt more alone.  Inversely, I have never been more aware of who I am, what I can do, and the harsh truths that are my life.  It's a good thing.  I think alone is far better that a festering cess pool of bullshit.  This ordeal has broken my heart, my faith - even my misguided belief system - and believe you me, it needed breaking.

It's made me sit back and realize so many things in the course of the last two weeks.  All the advice and seemingly well-intended suggestions, offers of help and support, so on and so forth, I know now are nothing but empty promise, self-gratifying goodities so YOU feel better about yourself, and so much as whispers on the wind...  In essence, it's all a crock of shit.

"You should do this, Rabbit."  "I'll help, Rabbit."  "If you ever need anything, Rabbit..."

Yeah, well...  When it came down to it, who is actually here?  No God Damned Body.  Yet again, I am on my own.  It's all on me.  I don't know why this struck me so alarmingly this time around.  Maybe because for once I had allowed myself to believe people.  To believe IN people.  I don't know why, really.  As a kid, I was shipped around to whomever hated me less at the time, dropped off at random hotel rooms, left to fend for myself when I made a mistake.  It's the way of things.  It always has been, and - blaringly obviously - it always will be.

And I hate to feel this way, but I am done.  If it is to be only me, the damn it to hell, it's going to be all ABOUT me.  I'm over it.  I. Am. Done.  Remember this folks, when you want your carpet laid, or your car worked on, or your obnoxious snot-oozing child babysat...  When you want a free haircut or website or makeover for your whore of a sister's 19th wedding...

Hell.  Fucking.  No.

I am saying it now.  Take note.  Tweet it.  Post it.  Broadcast it.  Scream it from the fucking rooftops.  Roll it up and stick it in your squishy places.  I really don't care.  You'll all taken all you're gonna get.  It's over.

And from the ashes of all this bullshit, I will rise.

So thank you, and good-night.

I'll fly above.

It's beneath me.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night...

Take these broken wings & learn to fly...

All your life, you were only waiting

for this moment to arise.

Blackbird, fly.

Into the light of the dark, black night."

- John Lennon, Paul McCartney

The Invitation

 This is such a lovely piece that I seem to revisit from time to time, and always seem to get something new from it.  It's such a great reminder especially with Samhain at hand and a new year beginning.  Enjoy!

THE INVITATION

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true, I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, or how you came to be here- I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

May 1994

Howling...

I am truly feeling the pull of the Universe on my life lately.  There is an urgent and impending sense of change.  And I want it more than anything.  I am ready for it, yet I am stuck.  I don't know where to turn; what to do.  The last few years have been terribly troublesome.  I have undergone so, so many transitions.  I went from living the high life, though at the time, I was blinded to it.  I was making beaucoup coin, and a good job with so much promise.  Problem was, I was a raging alcoholic.  I lost my job.  I lost my townhouse.  And I made the mistake of moving back to the one black hole of despair that I fought most of my teenage years to get away from.  The drinking escalated even further (and who would have even thought that possible?).  I became a drug addict AGAIN - meth this time.  I had a breakdown.  I literally just fell apart.  I laid on my futon and let the garbage literally pile up.  There for a bit, I really think I lost my mind.  And something in me just broke...

Long story short, it led me back here.  I am not drinking now.  I am clean.  No drugs.  And I am trapped.  There are days when I miss it so badly, just because it made the world go away.  I am clinging desperately to hope.  Hope that things will get better.  Hope that things will change.  I am in such a state that I really just weep some days because I don't know how to fix it.  My physical being is such that I have difficulty standing for more than the briefest of spans of time.  I have nerve damage in my feet now.  It's a pain unlike anything I have ever endured.  And it is constant.  This limits where I might work.  My back is unsurprisingly not getting better all by itself.  There are days when I want nothing more than just to be still...  To not move...  But, yet, even that hurts.  It affects my entire body.  I have arthritis in dang near every part of me.  Simply things like sitting, typing, bathing are often times excruciating.  I could go on.  Migraines.  Ulcers.  And we won't even start with my teeth...  Or my lack there of...  Pain.  Pain.  Pain.  And then I am told - "Just go to the doctor."  Well, having no insurance or income makes those options limited as well.  The clinic only offers appointments on certain days.  I have to take the bus into town to get there. And wouldn't you know, it always falls on the days when it seems a victory to make it to the toilet and back to bed - much less hours away via public transportation...  I can't seem to win.

But despite it all, I really do try to stay positive.  I try to remember that it could be worse.  I am alive.  I am functional (for the most part).  I believe that what you put out, comes back.  Truly.  But I am surrounded by a barrage of negativity from every angle...  It's like a constant attack.  My roommate does not like me very much.  She likes herself even less.  And, I guess, were I her and living her life, I wouldn't either...  But I catch the brunt of it.  It seems she is constantly trying to break me down; keep me beaten.  I get constant snarky remarks thinly disguised as humour, though they never are.  It's blatantly apparent passive agression.  Which, because I recognize for what it is, I am usually able to deal with.  Usually.  But after a while, it does wear you down.  It does break your spirit.  It's so disheartening because when times were good, they were great.  We were once fearless and reckless and ready to take on the world.  I keep hoping it will come back to that.  That one day it will be THAT again.  The queer and the crazy girl.  But now I find it easier to just hope the world will end.  I got an actual compliment - not a back-sided cutesy insult, an actual compliment -  yesterday and it startled me so that I literally dropped my spatula into the eggs I was scrambling.  I mumbled something incoherent because I was just so stunned...

And then, in its own cloud of the negative, there is my family which has become a constant cess pool of drama.  Everyone is ALWAYS fighting with someone else.  And guess who hears all of it from all sides - and gets caught in the crossfire?  Yours truly.  Earlier this year, one sister and my mother weren't speaking.  People were dead to one another.  Absences were felt at the holidays.  Now, it's the other sister.  Petty, bullshit drama.  This family is so attention deficient.  Sooner or later if everyone keeps getting angry with everyone else for not paying enough or the proper attention to them, there will be no one to be angry with anymore!!!  Gonna run out of people to be upset with.  It's exhausting.

So how does one stay positive in the middle of all this?  How, exactly, do you just say "Fuck It!" and stay sane in the midst of all the chaos and funk and drama and physical restrictions???

Is it even possible?  I am beginning to have my doubts.  It seems so much easier to just be as ugly and dramatic and chaotic and negative as all those around me.

But that is not me.  I, in and within myself, am actually a really happy little creature.  I sing all day long.  I dance (well more kind of wiggle stumble) whenever the mood strikes.  I love living colour.  I never used to be this destroyed...

I want that back.  I just don't know how...

Lessons (being) Learned

One of these days, I am going to learn.  I am going to quit doing shit for people.   

Period.

Every God damned time I do - every single time I open a can of worms - it comes back to bite me in the ass...

Those worms have some sharp fuckin' teeth - lemme tell ya! 

And then I, the Dumbass Deluxe, get upset by it. It's my own damn fault.  I need to learn to keep my mouth shut; SHUT THE FUCK UP, and go sit in a corner somewhere...   I either volunteer my services - or concede to a request - knowing full fuckin' well what is about to happen.

They either don't like the (FREE) hair cut.  They don't like the (FREE) garment.  They don't like the (FREE) website.

Get the picture???   

"I don't want to pay for it or anything...  And I don't mind you doing it for free and everything...  But I am going to nit-pick the fucking hell out of it in the mean-fucking-time...  Thanks."

And then, nine times out of ten, I have wasted my own FUCKING time and energy because though go along and FUCK it up by jacking with it when they have not a damned clue one what they are doing...

Done.  Done.  Done.   The can opener is in the trash.

I don't have time for this shit.

And I've no one to blame but myself.

Go fucking figure.

Hi, I'm an Asshole (apparently)...

I have learned today - well, over the course of the last couple of weeks, actually - that I could never be a Teacher or Instructor in any way, shape, or form.

I have the patience of a rock and am wound tighter than a hummingbird's asshole.  I don't think short-fused and high-strung even begin to cover it.

I am great at doing it myself and handing it over to someone once it is done - as long as someone does not jack with, alter, or fuck up my hard work after said passing of the baton.

That is when my cute, little, rabbity ears shrink back into my head to be replaced with the horns of a snot-slinging fire-breathing demon.

What I am also NOT good at is explaining it - especially in Lehman's Terms.

I get frustrated.  I get hysterical.  Then my chest hurts. The tension in my shoulder tightens and pulls them up to my ears.  I grind my teeth.  I break another tooth.  It's not cute.

How's that for a visual?  A toothless, wheezing hunchbacked bunny with devil horns...

It's about par.

[Image Source:  Disapproving Rabbits]

The Mirror Has Two Faces

Don't you just love it when people in your life tell you one thing - offer suggestions - which when you actually listen to and follow they then bitch and moan and talk shit about to whomever will listen? Oh, my eyes ache from rolling.

Okay, enough of that. You get it. I get it. Bored with it. Point made.

But it is good motivation, I will say... Have to go to town today to talk to someone about a (paying) project that I am rather excited about. Am a bit nervous as I have to be a Real Person (well at least one that functions normally in the "real world") which is not something I am apt to do all that often these days. Hopefully all will go well.

School should be rockin' and rollin' soon too. Talked to the gal earlier this week and I was in the process of being processed so the September 9th start date should be a reality! Wow.

Also, my first assignment for PureSYTYCD has been submitted this morning. Just pending approval and it should be up. It's crap. Not at all up to par with my normal writings, but I was stressed and out of sorts and not near where I needed to be to write it but I think it still holds its own. The next one will be better. Of that I am certain.

But anyway, this is really just breadcrumbs so I can look back on the journey and see where I was when. It's been such a dark and strange few years that it's kinda nice to see the sun again.

I don't know how I allowed myself to get so far into the woods - but I am, at long last, finding my way out of the witch's oven - and onto the right path.

"Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes."

Awareness

The Matthew Shepard Act

The Matthew Shepard Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act or LLEHCPA), is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would expand the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The bill would also:

• remove the current prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity, like voting or going to school;
• give federal authorities greater ability to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue;
• provide $10 million in funding for 2008 and 2009 to help state and local agencies pay for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes;
• require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track statistics on hate crimes against transgender people (statistics for the other groups are already tracked).^[1]

At the federal level, then-President Bill Clinton renewed attempts to extend federal hate crime legislation to include gay and lesbian individuals, women, and people with disabilities. These efforts were rejected by the United States House of Representatives in 1999.^[24] In 2000, both houses of Congress passed such legislation, but it was stripped out in conference committee.^[25]

On March 20, 2007, the Matthew Shepard Act (H.R. 1592) was introduced as federal bipartisan legislation in the U.S. Congress, sponsored by Democrat John Conyers with 171 co-sponsors. Matthew's parents, Judy and Dennis, were present at the introduction ceremony. The bill passed the House of Representatives on May 3, 2007. Similar legislation passed in the Senate on September 27, 2007^[26] (S. 1105), but then-President Bush indicated he might veto the legislation if it reached his desk.^[27] He did veto the bill in 2007.

On December 10, 2007, congressional powers attached bipartisan hate crimes legislation to a Department of Defense Authorization bill, though failed to get it passed. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said she "is still committed to getting the Matthew Shepard Act passed." Pelosi planned to get the bill passed early in 2008^[28] though did not succeed in that plan. Following his election as 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama stated that he is committed to passing the Act.^[29]

The U.S. House of Representatives debated expansion of hate crimes legislation on April 29, 2009. During the debate, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina called the "hate crime" labeling of Matthew Shepard's murder a "hoax." Matthew Shepard's mother was said to be in the House gallery when the congresswoman made this comment.^[30] Foxx later called her comments "a poor choice of words". ^[31] The House passed the act, designated H.R. 1913, by a vote of 249 to 175.^[32] The bill was introduced in the Senate on April 28 by Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, and a bipartisan coalition;^[33] it had 43 cosponsors as of June 17, 2009, and is currently on the route to being voted upon.^{[citation needed]} The Matthew Shepard Act was adopted as an amendment to S.1390 by a vote of 63-28 on July 15, 2009.^[34]

[via Wikipedia]


Update on the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act


July 24, 2009

The U.S. Senate late Thursday gave its final approval to federal legislation that provides grants and law-enforcement assistance to local governments to prevent hate crimes based on victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity, and allows federal prosecutions where local authorities cannot or will not secure convictions.

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act was attached earlier this week to the annual military funding bill, which then cleared the chamber on an 87-7 vote at 10:30 p.m. Thursday. The bill now goes to a House-Senate conference committee to work out differences between the two versions of the legislation.

The Matthew Shepard Act is one of those differences, included only in the Senate version of the bill. It would allow the federal government to prosecute anti-gay hate crimes when local authorities cannot or will not, in the same way the Justice Department already can intervene in racist hate crimes. It also authorizes grants to local jurisdictions to back up their own efforts against bias crimes.While conferees will have to decide if it remains in the final compromise version, expected to face a vote in September after the upcoming congressional recess, the House is on record strongly supporting the Act in a separate, stand-alone vote back in April.

Congressional leaders have also stated their commitment to make sure it remains in the Pentagon spending bill that the president could receive as early as September.

Conference committee members will also decide the fate of other amendments to the Act, including requirements for new Justice Department rules on the use of the hate-crime prosecution authority; the addition of military personnel, their families and their property to the bill’s protected classes; and most controversially, the authority of federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in some hate-crimes cases, a move opposed by many of the Matthew Shepard Act’s supporters.

Also, while the Senate removed $1.75 billion in additional F-22 fighter jet purchases which the Pentagon does not want and over which the president threatened a veto of the Defense bill, the House version still contains a smaller $389 million F-22 purchase, to which the White House still objects. That too will be a key negotiating point between the two sides.

[via Matthew Shepard Foundation]

If it's all about the damn climb...

I think I must be going the wrong fucking way.