home.

I closed this blog a few weeks ago. Firmly and with great resolve. Something bad happened to me while I was blogging here - a lot of really great things happened, but the other thing was so big and fucked up...it just felt like I needed to start over. This place felt tainted. It felt sad. 

So. I re-opened another blog, HERE. But I'll be honest: that blog feels foreign and unnatural. That blog has cooler features - like I can do those Twitter card thingies on Wordpress; and I can write something up, hit publish, and everything just automatically...goes. Goes to Facebook, goes to Twitter, goes to Google+ (who the hell ever uses that place??), goes wherever I've checked a little box telling it to publish to. LOOKS awesome. Very fancy pants; could never figure out how to do it here because I just don't have the HTML skills. 

And yet. That new blog just doesn't FEEL like "home." 

And I really need to be somewhere right now that feels like "home." So much as happened over just the last month, I really really really need to be somewhere that feels like home. 

When I started this blog two years ago, I was in my old house, where it felt like home. And so when I come here, it feels comfortable and familiar and I feel like I'm home. I need to be somewhere where I can write, not caring about who the hell is reading what I type because when I started this blog, I really didn't care who the hell read what I typed. I was typing down the bones, for me. I was here for ME. It was never about other people, and somewhere along the way, it changed. It became about other people and who was reading or may read what I typed. And so maybe that's why the other place doesn't feel quite right. I set it up because I was going to use it to write for other people, and not me. I set it up because I was being defiant, and forging on. Or wherever my psychology was at when it told me: Let's start fresh! Let's start fresh and shiny! But that didn't feel like home. Because I am not fresh, and I am certainly not shiny.

I would like to write about what happened to me in great depth, because I have lingering ick about it, but I have a feeling that's a bad idea I need to save for a really rainy day years down the road. I think the person has finally gotten the message and (hopefully) has moved on or is currently moving on. I don't bear ill will toward that person; I hope they find their happiness and someone more suitable to draw their energy from. Taught me a lot about what I don't want in a friend, as I'm sure it taught them. Still. It was an experience that has altered me drastically - I am still trying to decide if the altering is a good or a bad thing. I feel like I'm sort of forcing a lot of what I do online now and that wasn't the case even a month ago. A month ago, if I felt a feel, I wrote about it. Sometimes I was completely wrong about my feel, and then I felt really dumb. But other times, my feels were right on target and that's always good. Which is the whole point of this place - to live my life out loud, and whoever wants to grab some popcorn and be entertained, great, or maybe someone will see something and recognize it and feel less alone. Now I measure what I say out loud, and that's never been who I am, really. I'm someone who strives to be authentic; what you see is what you get. So other than carefully being careful not to say or write anything that would get me fired? I said whatever was in my brain, I wrote about things that mattered to, or bothered, or angered, or helped, or elated ME. And now I don't know how well I'll be able to do that, but it's important to me to keep trying. However, I now think about things like audience - what person may be reading what I'm writing, and what intentions might they have? I'm only saying this out loud because if I ever come across weird or paranoid or bizarrely skittish, that's why.

And that's something that has drastically altered me in my online interactions but also offline to a certain extent...and I am still sorting out how I want to feel about that.

At any rate. I am not the same person who was writing here a year ago, or even two months ago. I am skittish. And weird and paranoid. I can be overly dramatic in ways that are extremely unattractive...I really feel like, up until about a month or two ago, this trait was fairly cute and one of my more endearingly quirky qualities. But now I think it's a little darker, maybe? On Facebook recently, I unfriended two people, two really nice and perfectly lovely people, over a couple of things of a political nature - one person I disagreed with, and one I agreed with but who disagreed with my mom in kind of a rude way. I mean, yeah, what you said was true but that's my MOM. Only *I* get to be rude to my mom. I think that, now, after the stalking (and it WAS a stalking), I just feel like: hmmm, how well do I really know you? If I don't know you all that well, and this internet area is for people I actually know, then...bye. But they were perfectly safe and fine and I completely over-reacted. I did the same thing on Twitter - if you freaked me out in ANY way, shape, or form at the height of that shit fest? Blocked. And I feel really bad, because I know for a fact I really hurt one of the people's feelings. (This would be the online version of what the military calls civilian casualties during shock and awe.)

This totally bites, you guys. And I've certainly altered how I look at social media and who I interact with on it and how; I no longer see it as silly and ridiculous and a place to meet a lot of potentially nice friends. I mean, I do...but I also see the slippery and diabolically seductive darkness to it, and I now completely understand - and believe me I write this with the deepest and utmost sincerity - why notable people, be they actors or singers or authors or whatever, refuse to acknowledge every individual's attempt to get them to interact with them. People are scary AF. I have met some really lovely, awesome people on it. I have made some friends I'd invite into my home without a second's thought. But going forward, that novel's probably finished. Because people can be scary AF. The end.

So I'm going to re-open this blog, simply because that other place didn't feel right and I need to feel that I'm somewhere that's home. I need to be able to type and spew and vent my spleen somewhere that's simple and mine. I'll forego fancy pants for awhile, because fancy pants feels forced and unnatural. I may change my mind (are you getting that this mind changing thing is a big problem for me?) a few months down the road, but this is where I'm at for now. I'm at a place in life I need people to be consistent with me, because I need to be consistent with me...and changing a whole bunch of things feels wobbly and unstable and inconsistent. This place feels homey and consistent, and so I'm going to park my ass right here and write. It's where I've thought out my thoughts best, for over 2 years. This place holds MY thoughts, MY stories, MY history, however screwy and tainted and misguided and totally off course and weird that may be. I like it here, and so I'm coming home. 

Scary people can come hang out and read however much they like - enjoy it, drink it all in, get your daily or weekly or monthly dose of whatever fucked up energy you feel is necessary to continue your process. If I'm somewhere I feel safe, then. Scary people aren't real. I'm also at a point where I quite frankly don't give a single flying fuck what other people think or how other people feel about anything I do be it online or offline; I question and hyper-criticize my own self enough every day, thanks. Be assured whatever negative, judge-y thought you may have about me I've already had myself, and about ten times before you thought it. Or maybe you're not judge-y and negative at all. We're all just living a life, right? Making choices that take us left or throw us right or send us deep into the murky wells of our deepest lows or lift us up to our highest highs. I've chronicled all of mine here, and decided I'm going to keep doing that until I no longer feel like it. Most blogs last about 5 years, I've read...I bet I've got about 3 more years of oversharing my emotional wranglings out loud here. 

Hoping that, 3 more years from now, I'll be back to the more open, carefree kind of girl I was...and I'll be somewhere that really feels like home. (And there, in that last bit, I am not talking about online anything.)

This pretty much sums up what I need right now.

sing your song.

L. Frank Baum would be proud.

It's been a weird week of twisty, fucked up turns. I'll be honest: I've had the holy living shit scared out of me, and the experience turned me weird and skittish - quite frankly, I'm not sure who to trust right now. I am still trusting in people to do the right thing, but on a constant, contingency plan basis. Waiting for the other shoe to drop and somebody to take off a mask and reveal the Scream guy underneath. And we've still got about 2 weeks till Halloween. Maybe it's just this month. Maybe in November, the month of Gratitude, the feels will be on nicer things. And in December, the month of Light, they'll center around hope and spirit. (Kumbayah, my mofos.)

But this last week. Jesus god. Holy nefarious, Batman. At this point, I completely get why (for example) on Twitter well-known people not only get to get themselves a little blue check but often also refuse to interact with other Internet people on a regular basis. It's dicey out there, sweet Reader(s). Live your lives, but don't let anybody in too far until they really, truly prove to you who they are and exactly why they want to know you and what their intentions are.

For someone who got to deal with a crazy Internet stalker 10 years ago, I've been pretty open to people and fairly unafraid to be real on this blog...I try to use my best judgment on what to tell you, how much to share, and how to do it in a way that won't land me on the 5 o'clock news or in court. I have regularly opened myself up here to judgment, scrutiny, mocking, enemies disguised as friends/friends disguised as enemies, the mentally unstable and the absolutely disturbed, and all the ass crazy, fucked up Internet stalkers planet Earth has to offer. 

Because I refuse (REFUSE) to be forced into silence. I will NOT live my life in fear, though I do regularly make sure all my doors and windows are locked and all my important accounts have secure passwords. 

I just think all the stress and freaked out moments are worth it in the end if something I say or share connects to or helps someone else out there. We are a storytelling species; I don't know any other way to be and quite frankly if I'm NOT writing or telling my stories, I'm very serious: I'm not okay. So I come here to tell stories, my stories, and whoever decides to stop by can read about what's going on in my life if they're interested, as well as how I'm dealing with all of it and the thought processes - however messy or all over the place dysfunctional - that are sorting it all out in my brain. I put it all out there knowing whoever stumbles upon me and my writing can judge me, hate me, love me, (mis)understand me, or find me ridiculous and pointless and go get some fresh air. I think Humanity is a big, stinkin' mess. And I like it like that.

That's the whole point of blogs, and writing. Vent your spleen. Be openly ridiculous. Haphazardly joyful. Live freely. Ask for help. Plead for mercy. Try your hand at comedy writing. Be dramatic. Write down some of your own little soap operas. Make mistakes. Make friends. Make enemies. Earn fans, score haters. Gain stalkers. ...All of that. Isn't Life one big, glorious chaotic mess? I do love it with all of me, even the moments that find me sobbing uncontrollably in a fetal position clutching an empty tub of Sea Salt caramel gelato and/or a half-empty bottle of wine. I don't like them as I'm working through them, but when they're over I appreciate them for the spiritual muscle-building moments they are.

And if you - like me - are an expressive creative and so inclined, you can live it all out loud on a blog and occasionally social media if you can be concise. It's why Al Gore made the Internet, sweet people...He did it for all of us. (Blessed be his name.) (Where IS Al, by the way? I hope he's well and busy at work creating the next big thing that will guide us all to more navel gazing and the leaving of sociopathic-level comments in comments sections of online news blog articles, comments that clearly indicate we didn't even read the whole article because who has time for reason when psycho judging is so much fun?) (Sorry...I was reading some comments sections of education articles on HuffPost earlier today and lands, fellow Internet users. Logic is your friend, use it.) 

...Though I've heard some people start blogs to earn money and/or gain notoriety and fame. Which is not why I started this blog. Because you have to get enough readers (which I do not).

So. Whoever wants to can come here and read, judge or not judge, like or dislike me, wish good things for me or cast curses upon me and all my descendants. Doesn't bother me, because ultimately I'm going to keep on keeping on. I've spent a long, loooong time working hard to figure out what matters most to me and who I am. I know myself. I know my quirks, I know my pathologies, I know where I usually flunk at Life and where I tend to soar. At the end of the day, I'm a nice person; I am who and what I say I am no matter what you decide to think. If someone wants to hurt me or hate me or wish me ill because they didn't like something I said or did or whatever their reason/s, that says more about them than it ever will about me. You shall not destroy my faith in Humanity's ultimate goodness or the power of connection via storytelling. 

(That all sounds very dramatic and cryptic, I'm sorry. But it's how I'm doing things right now. Dramatic and cryptic.) (We are now in Phase 3 of Amy's Big Life Changes, FYI.)

Can I tell you a story that I love a lot? 

There are a people in Namibia, on the continent of Africa, called the Himba. The Himba believe a person's birthday isn't the day they're born or even the moment they're conceived. When a Himba woman decides she wants to have a baby, she goes away from the village and sits under a tree (or wherever she will not be eaten by a lion). She doesn't move or leave that spot until she hears her baby's song. Once she knows the song, she goes back to the village and to the man who'll be the baby's father. She teaches him the song, and they make love, singing the baby's song until it's created. And even after that, they sing the song to the fetus as it grows.

When the baby is born, everyone who helps bring that baby into the world sings the song. As a Himba child grows up, people in the village constantly sing the child's song to him/her - if they fall down, they are picked up and their song is sung. When they get sick or scared, someone sings them their song. As they grow, they constantly hear their song - through every milestone, every rite of passage, every sickness, every celebration, every sad moment, every happy moment.

And, as a Himba tribe member lays dying, every person in the village who knows their song will come to their side to sing it to them as they leave the world. So, in Himba culture, your song is sung to you at every moment, from the time before you are even conceived, to the moment you take your first breath, to the moment you take your last. And even after you are gone, those who remember you will sing your song. 

Another time the Himba sing someone's song is when a tribe member does something that upsets the balance. If a member of the tribe steals something, hurts someone, or violates any other societal norm, they are brought to the center of the village and everyone who knows that person's song stands around them in a circle and sings it to them over and over, until they are brought to their knees in repentance. Because the Himba don't believe in good or bad, sin or salvation. They believe that, when we do bad things, it isn't because of a God or a Devil or because people are bad or good. It's because they believe that when people do bad things or make poor choices, it's because they've forgotten their song. Because their songs are who they are; their songs are their souls. 

You are your song, your song is you. What's your song? Mine is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It defines me, it has been with me for a very, very long time, it is almost a part of who I am. I chose it for myself when I was seven, from the moment I first saw Judy Garland sing it on my family's 1970s television. I was spellbound and it was stamped on my soul for life. When I hear it, all of the happiness and goodness from my childhood wrap me up and make me feel safe and hopeful and loved and warm. Any version of it - the original movie version, Israel kamakawiwo'ole's version of it, The Ramones' punk version, Jimi Hendrix's rock star god take, Ray Charles's blues-y interpretation. When I hear that song, no matter what box it's wrapped up in, I feel love. 

You know what's really interesting to me? The Wicked Witch doesn't have a song. She's the only main character in the movie who doesn't get a song. I think that's kind of important, for some reason. If you don't have a song, you ought to think about maybe finding you one. I asked Miss M the other day what she thinks her song is and, after dealing with a lot silly flippancy and ridiculousness and one gigantic emotional power struggle meltdown, she decided she liked Three Little Birds. Good choice, though I do not anticipate this sticking as her song...I bet she's going to finally end up with Madonna's Bitch I'm Madonna featuring Nicki Minaj which she likes to watch on YouTube over and over until I have to beg her to switch it to Katy Perry or One Direction. 

At any rate. Stories matter. Not living your life in fear matters. Being real matters. Being kind matters. Being careful and protective of yourself also matters, too. Staying open matters. But so does quietly closing a door if you discover you've opened it to something unsafe. And songs matter. So go get you a song if you don't have one, and sing it or listen to it sung to you whenever you need to feel safe or loved or remember Who You Are. Don't forget that Wicked Witches never win, and that a single, well-placed kiss and a comfy pair of sparkly red shoes can have more power over all the fucked up evil in the world than the entire nuclear arsenals of all the countries in the world. Or that sometimes all it takes is choosing a good song that speaks to your soul to remind you who you are and why you're here. It's all good, because we are Music. 

Unless you're a Wicked Witch. (But this a water-y planet, sooo...we'll see how that works out for you.)

vlog on my blog

Alrighty...I've had enough people come to me to express concern. Sometimes things get lost in translation, or I do a sucky job at really communicating what I'm trying to communicate, or tone of voice is lost. At any rate, I had the thought today: what if I SPOKE? What if...I...used my real face and voice and intonations to reassure everyone, shit's just fine over here? 

I just have been feeling a tad dramatic.

So I'm putting a V-log on my B-log so you can see: just a little bit more bizarre and melodramatic than usual, but I'm actually doing just skippy. 

........not at 5 AM though.

.......or on Monday mornings.

.......or on rainy/gloomy days.

........or at 5 AM on rainy/gloomy Monday mornings. 

But other than that, woo! I got this. Here, watch (oh, and! I read you some poetry, too. You're welcome!):

living out loud in some red, sparkly shoes.

Before I start, I want to share the website/organization information I was given to start the process of...dismantling...whenever I'm ready to start that process. Just in case anyone reading this or stumbling upon this is in a similar situation, go HERE: www.visionsanew.org. They have lots and lots of resources to help you.

Okay, that's done. Next!

I've put my underpants on backwards two times this week and three times last week, Internet, and not noticed until well after 9:00 AM. I left crucial items for science experiment lessons at home. Yesterday, I almost walked out the door with only one earring in. I think it's safe to say my mental state has been somewhat frazzled.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to every single one of you who reads this dreck. I'm sorry for all the existential bullshit your eyes and brain have had to endure over the last several weeks. If it makes it any better, please know it's not exactly been a wildly fun party on this side of the screen either. 

I'm just going to chalk it all up to Growth Phase Part 2 (Growth Phase Part 1 being when I initiated the separation). Let's all pray Growth Phase Part 3 is less fucked up AND I'm able to dress myself for public consumption more appropriately.

Have I written here about my most favorite movie for grown ups of all time, Living Out Loud? I think I have, but a long time ago and I bet it was very discombobulated. I re-watch/review it every time I need a reminder about what matters most in Life (foreshadowing: not what other people want). 

So the story is about Judith, a 40-something, recently divorced nurse, who gave up every dream she'd ever had to help her unbelievably douche-y douchebag of a doctor husband achieve his. And then he left her for a younger woman and that woman is having the life Judith dreamed about but was asked to sacrifice it all for someone else's happiness.

She meets Liz, a jazz nightclub singer, and Pat, the doorman of her swanky Manhattan co-op. She strikes up a friendship with Liz who teaches her about strength, and Pat who teaches her about true friendship. But ultimately, Judith learns how to love and forgive herself by making peace with the damaged child within, and when she does that she figures out who she is and where she needs to go next. And she does.

The story was written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, who has said it's based on two short stories by Anton Chekhov, "The Kiss" and "Misery." Film critic Roger Ebert (may his lovely soul RIP) loved it to pieces, and if Roger Ebert loved something, then I love it too. 

(Side note: if you write and/or love short stories, you should see this. Character and dialogue matter most, and every reviewer who's ever reviewed it always makes some comment about how it's like watching a short story in motion.)

When I first saw this movie in 1998, I was no where near married; I think Steve (he of the box of darkness) had just broken my heart, and so maybe that's why I was drawn to it. It was about a woman done wrong, and I most likely felt I'd identify. But sitting there in the theater, I remember thinking: oh. oh, this movie is going to stay with me for a long, long time. 

What's funniest to me about the fact this movie has meant so much to me is that, in 1998, I had absolutely no way of knowing that one day I'd be in situations like the one scene of the film where Judith is drunk, on the floor of a nightclub bathroom, telling Liz: "I am soooo tired of agreeing to things I never should have agreed to." And, back in 1998? I had no way of knowing that, one day, I'd be in situations where I'd have to make tough decisions and let go of things I never thought I'd ever have to let go of. Isn't that funny? How things like this are brought into our lives, and then they stay with us for unknown or un-thought-of reasons...and later on, we find out how insightful and meaningful they were all along? Things like this are what convince me Something Greater Than Ourselves is at play in our world; whether It cares or not is up for debate. But I do often feel like It's moving things along on Its schedule, as It demands they move if for no other reason than just to keep the order of things fluid and constantly propelling forward through time and space.

There are only two movies that have ever done this, that have stayed with me for almost a lifetime or half a lifetime, as Whatever It Is has propelled me through this life I am having: The Wizard of Oz and Living Out Loud. And I've been thinking, lately, about why that is - why THOSE two films? I decided it's because they're both growth movies; bildungsroman tales. (A bildungsroman is a coming-of-age story.) And what's most fascinating about THAT to me is that both of these bildungsroman tales are female-centered (which is very unusual in the world of bildungsromans - most of these stories are male-oriented) and both are stories written by MEN. And what's fascinating about THAT to me is that both of these bildungsroman tales written by men are about journeys, and finding out where your core center lies, and doing what's best for YOU...in the end. They are both empowering stories, full of the message: Don't listen to what other people want you to do or have or give...go do what's right for YOU. And that's big, because this planet loves to tell its females they're doing it wrong if they aren't constantly giving in, shutting up, and being a good little girl so others can be happy.

I've loved The Wizard of Oz since I was 7. I lived it, I dreamed it, I breathed it, and it anchored my soul all throughout my childhood. In my saddest moments, there was always the thought, the knowledge, that Somewhere Out There, there might be an Emerald City. The background music of my childhood is Somewhere Over the Rainbow and We're Off to See the Wizard. The colors of my childhood are technicolor yellows and greens and blue gingham. 

And I've loved Living Out Loud for almost 20 years, and have loved it long before I knew that one day I myself would be a divorced woman who'd be sitting on floors in tears, beating herself up over and over for agreeing to lots of things she never should have; who'd given up some dreams along the way to make other people happy or because she didn't really trust or know herself; who'd one day have to start picking up and re-gluing the fallen pieces together. And this would be HARD, Internet. Oh my god, this is so incredibly hard. I can't even tell you. (But I do! And I do it here! Airing out my dirty laundry, including backwards underpants, for all to enjoy on a regular basis.)

Fascinating.

At any rate, that's where I'm at currently. My status update is: re-gluing together the fallen pieces. 

Sometimes you sacrifice things that make you happy so someone else can be happy; the world says that's what real love is. But I disagree, dear Reader(s). I think that's the worst kind of sacrifice to make; that it is not what real Love looks like at all. I'm not talking about not going on a fishing trip because your spouse broke her foot and won't be able to take care of a 4 year old by herself (or, you know, whatever...go ahead and go on your trip anyway, don't mind me. I'll just be icing my 5th metatarsal for 10 weeks)...I mean sacrificing what matters most of all to you, being asked to change your very essence and being told that's what people who love each other do. Which is a lie. 

Love is gentle and open, kind and honest. It's not demanding; it lets go when it needs to, because it trusts that whatever it let go of will come back if it's meant to be there and if it's not,then real Love just releases the object, the person, to the Universe and lets that bird fly free. Love is deeply wishing for someone else's happiness, even if that means you don't get to be a part of it. And that is not a sacrifice; that is simply...letting go. 

And so. If you are asking someone to sacrifice their own happiness so you can have yours, why not just go ahead and stab them in their soul repeatedly with a homemade shiv while you're at it? That's not love. 

Also: Love isn't heroic; it doesn't save anybody else. It doesn't fix anything. All the love in the world cannot unfuck up the fucked up. Love just IS. And you let the people around you fight their OWN battles, and stop trying to fix other people. I mean, you can hand them water and wipe the sweat off their brow now and then. But their fight isn't yours, and that goes for your children as well...let your children fight their own fights. You can only fix yourself; when the oxygen masks drop take care of yourself first - you're no good to anyone if you're passed out dead.

When Dorothy says after fighting to get back home, "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I shouldn't look farther than my own backyard," I don't think she means: stick with what you know and is safe and give up; I think she means: listen to your own heart; be true to yourself. Because Dorothy always had the power to get herself where she needed to be; she just needed to learn how to do it herself. And I bet, I just bet, if Dorothy decided her heart's desire was still in Oz, she'd be on the next cyclone or traveling carnie worker's hot air balloon to go get it. Your home IS your heart. And that's where your power is. Take it with you; use it wisely.

This is what I have learned. Because when I reconciled with C in 2007, I remember thinking: Oh this is nice, I'm home, just like Dorothy; I'm not going to go looking further than my own backyard from now on. But that didn't really work out, did it? That's not what was actually going on, was it? Because, again, I was sacrificing to make someone else happy. And Whatever It Is that's driving this big boat we're all on was propelling me onward to where I am now, just as It's propelling me forward to where I'll eventually end up six months from now. And so I couldn't stay where I was, because I hadn't really learned what I wanted, or what I needed, or who I was, or what really mattered to me. And when I get to where I'm going, there will be more to learn, and more challenges to endure. Because this is the process of learning and growing, and hurting and healing. But I couldn't stay where I thought my home was, because my home was and is and always will be my own heart. And my heart was always sad, and still is, when it's in a home that doesn't fit it well.

And so here I am: Back at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road, trying to figure out how to get to the Wizard...who's probably going to screw me over and take off without me. Sitting, drunk, on the floors of nightclub, in tears, smacking my forehead for once again agreeing to things I shouldn't have agreed to in the first place. Looking to other people or things to make it better, to fix it. Or! Maybe it's finally sunk in. And I'll just...let go.

Here is what else I have learned, Internet: In the end, there's really nobody but yourself who knows how to find your own heart's desire and nobody but yourself with the power to get whatever those desires are. And that's the central, driving theme to both of those movies that have stayed with me throughout my childhood and then my adulthood. My soul chose stories that are about longing, and journeys, and believing in your own powers.

(This is what I think I need to do, is what I'm saying, Internet. I think I need to figure out what my heart's desire is, actually, and then summon forth the power to go get it.) (If it involves a pair of sparkly red shoes, then awesome! And all will make sense, this journey of nearly 40-something years.)

I kind of like the idea of sticking my hands in my own gore
to make peace with the pain of the past.
I bet this would be like combining Halloween with Valentine's Day:
a dripping, still-beating heart in my hands, but with love.

patterns of messes.

Walk your talk, or you're useless.

When I was a little girl, I was terrified of men. I don't know why I was afraid of them. I just remember being very nervous around men. I remember having to try on shoes and not wanting to, because the shoe salesman was, well, a man. And I remember walking by the bus driver on my first day of Kindergarten, shaking, because the driver was a man. And feeling oh so proud of myself for riding the bus every day after that, in spite of the male presence.

Why was I afraid of men? Where did I learn to be that way? Was it because of my dad's big, booming voice? I don't remember being afraid of my dad. Maybe skittish when he was angry or seemed angry. I don't know. I just remember always being afraid of them.

Yet, as I grew up, I preferred to play with boys than with girls. Maybe this was because there were more boys than girls in our neighborhood. Maybe it was because I just found boys more interesting than girls; not necessarily more fun, just more interesting. Girls are dramatic and emotional creatures; I could never really understand them, though I'm dramatic and emotional myself. But I never took my dramatic emotions out on other people, like girls tend to do, so maybe that was why. And boys seem to be straight shooters; most boys will just tell it to you like it is. If they have a problem, they say so or they punch you; problem solved, let's go play Star Wars guys.

I appreciate that. I used to not to - my insecure ego would get its panties in a wad. But as I've grown older, I really appreciate honest feedback; I just wrote a note on a recent evaluation thanking a boss for it...I never mind honest feedback that's trying to be helpful, and help me grow in whatever I'm doing. And I'm fairly adept at recognizing feedback that's there to help, and feedback that's just put out there to check off that feedback was given.

I think I've written here before about how dads of daughters should hug them, tell them they're beautiful, and say I love you. It's because I think that when girls grow up, they go looking for their dads to fall in love with. Even if they grow up lesbian. I think all girls go looking for their daddies, in one form or another. And if your dad didn't hug you or tell you you're perfect as is or say I love you, then maybe you grow up a little terrified of men. Maybe you grow up looking for a man you can MAKE say I love you, hug you, and tell you you're beautiful. 

That's been my pattern, at least.

When it comes to Y chromosomes, I prefer big and strong like my dad, but also someone who seems damaged in some way. Someone I can make say I love you, hug me, and tell me I'm beautiful. The problem is, my dad did love me (just never said it), did hug me (in his heart), and did tell me I'm beautiful (in his actions). But in my grown up life, what that did to me was to cause me to go diving for men who aren't available in one way or another, men who will either make me feel beautiful and then go completely wonky and cold on me...or men who will say they love me and then try to cage me. So I end up with men who won't say I love you...or they'll say it but try to control me. 

It's depressing, Internet. I'll just be honest: it's very very depressing. These men end up leaving me in an emotional wreck of a tailspin, where I either hate myself (once again) for giving them too much too soon and end up compromising my integrity...or they end up making me incredibly angry and resentful, and end up losing my sense of self.

And the thought of going out there again, into the fray, as a 43 year old woman who's, quite frankly, growing more and more exhausted of humans and their exhausting issues, is really exhausting. 

So. Question. When do you know you're ready to deal with that crap again? Wading through the lost, the tired, the damaged, the con artists? People tell me I need a good year or two to recuperate and heal from a broken marriage, that that's what a separation period is for - to make the divorce part more focused, to make the looking for new love part more rewarding. But what if the marriage was always broken, from the start? And what if the last 3 years in the broken marriage WERE the separation? And what if the healing and recuperation and self-discovery took place in those 3 years? When I left, it wasn't in anger; there wasn't any kind of I've HAD it!! moment, where I packed bags furiously and slammed my way out of there. This was a slow burn, a gradual process.

And other people tell me not to go looking for it; it'll find me. But doesn't that seem lazy? And what if what shows up is more of the same? Am I doomed to living alone forever? (I will not get a cat, I will NOT get a cat!)  

Also, now that I am out on my own, I kinda like it. I miss so many things about being with someone else, but I also really like being on my own. I like the quiet (when Miss M's asleep). I like not having to ask permission. I like not having to be on a team and follow the team rules, even when I disagree with them. I like not feeling judged and criticized. I like not having to hear how I'm a diamond...in the rough. I like not having to be anyone else's mirror but my own. 

But I will also be honest and tell you I would like to be physical with another human being before menopause or whatever. I'm still relatively young, with a healthy libido, and I would like that. But here's the problem: I'm picky. I don't want it to be with just anyone. I want someone I genuinely like, but I also have to be able to trust them not to use me; someone who's not got nefarious intentions...but has a sense of the nefarious about him. (How's THAT for fucked up, Internet? Wonder how many smooth criminals I'd get responses from at an internet dating site that announced: Be kind of nefarious and dangerous but not. Internet dating seems like a depressing meat market; so I'm sure telling someone to bring me danger but be safe about it isn't playing into that psycho mess at all.)

The thing is, I don't like romance. Quite frankly, I think romance is contrived and stupid. I'm sorry but I do. Men complain that women complain that chivalry is dead and then they say: Well, you ladies made it that way! Bullshit. What women SAID, men, was to stop infantilizing us. So I don't mind men holding open doors and letting me go first and walking on the side of the road that'll make him get hit by a car and not me...but pulling out chairs is a bit much and placing a napkin in my lap will make me give him a WTF look and ordering FOR me will get a glass of beer thrown in his face. 

But romance? That's...meh. Chocolate? I eat all of it in one sitting and hate myself...thanks for making me hate myself. I once had a man bring me a teddy bear...I. No. Just no. NO STUFFED ANIMALS. Why not just bring me a Barbie doll and her Dream Playhouse while you're at it. (Who decided stuffed animals were romantic? I want to hit them over the head with one.) Flowers are nice and all, but they die and why not just go for a walk in a botanical garden and enjoy them instead. People who think flowers are romantic are the same kinds of people who'd drag down stars from the constellations if they could, and not even think about the fact they were missing the whole point of their beauty, not to mention the fact destroying, literally, light years' of history. 

Candy or fruit bouquets? Gag. Sappy cards? Eh. I'm not into rhyming poetry, non-sappy/funny cards are cool but they better have a handwritten note inside of them that's not sappy. And I'm not into jewelry, I'm not into....okay, fine. Yes. Yes, I am into jewelry. But only from men I've grown very close to, so I won't be forced to take it to a pawn shop to get its energy out of my space when they betray me and I can't have that piece of jewelry on my person anymore.

And that's my biggest issue: I have a terrible, horrible skittishness about being betrayed. It's happened so many times. Where you let someone in, and then they show you that you let the wrong person in. They go cold or weird or wonky or say they'll call and then they don't. That's when I realize: Ah, yes. There you are, Dad. Still can't fix you and me, can I?

So my problem is that I end up with versions of my dad: men who aren't available either emotionally or physically or both...men who like to tell me who I am or what to do and try to cage me or control me...or men who use me and toy with me and then leave me in an emotional tailspin. For the life of me, I can't figure out the last kind because my dad was the utmost honest and most loyal human being I've ever known. He once accidentally broke a neighbor's mailbox in my presence and I watched him struggle with his moral obligations, and then do the right thing. He knew I was watching. 

What I don't want - in any human being I bring into my space, my life, right now but specifically a man - is someone who'll betray me. Whether it's tossing me aside, or trying to isolate and cage me, or just using me. I don't want that; I have so many things to deal with right now, I simply cannot handle someone else's fragility or chaos on that level. And people who use other people are the most fragile of all, by the way; the using of others is to make themselves feel far more in control than they actually are. 

What I mostly want right now is someone who's kind, smart, irreverently and ironically funny, confident, secure, and available. If he's tall and a Creative on top of it, most excellent. If there are blue eyes and a UK accent involved, I'll know there's a God (or maybe a small Martian with a really kick ass remote control). 

But that's all with a caveat, because I'm not even sure I should be looking for somebody right now. I mean, I'm having a hard time managing to keep my living room straight; would managing a relationship be any better?

I'm pretty simple. I don't ask for much out of life - I just want to raise a strong, happy girl and do work that brings me peace and purpose. ....have I told you I write letters to the Universe regularly? Because I think once you write it down, once you put it out there, that which you seek will seek you. The Universe will conspire to bring you exactly what you asked for (so be careful what you ask for...which is why I've decided to keep my requests very very simple). So that's all I'm asking for (are you there, Universe? It's me, Amy): help me raise a strong, happy girl, do work that brings me peace and happiness, and maybe send me a kind man who won't cage or use me. Please stop sending me people with Y chromosomes who try to cage or use me. And I suppose if I had to pick between people who try to cage or use me, I'd pick the people with a cage....because I can at least escape from that. The worst thing in the world is to feel tricked by someone who said they weren't going to trick you. Bad form, tricksters. Bad form.

At any rate, that's where I'm at on the man front. Probably better to be alone for awhile. But eventually, I just want someone kind who's smart and makes me laugh. Oh, and! He should be good at swearing. I think people who know how to use the word "fuck" creatively are the most honest kinds of humans. 

On a related side note, I just finished Season 1 of Breaking Bad. I totally get Walter White. And I love this show because of its complicated, messy human nature issues. And because of Bryan Cranston who, in interviews, makes me smile hard. I'd be okay with a Walter White (maybe without the meth lab)...he's a mess, but he's an honest mess. Be a mess, but have a damn good reason. Is my motto. And walk your talk. That's my other motto. (I actually have about 10 million mottos. These are just today's.)

weird and paranoid sick chick.

I'm home sick today, Internet. Last night was a long night of achy body, headache, fever/chills. Thank god for ibuprofen, thank god for it. About 3 AM I finally felt more human. Quite frankly, I don't know how I got through yesterday afternoon managing a large group of children plus my own later on. 

(Newly single mom confessional side note: I did not manage my own. I bought her a Happy Meal dinner, stuck her in front of Netflix, and went to bed. At 8 PM I woke up and made her run her own bath, brush her own teeth, and put her own self to bed. Independence Boot Camp Training, is what I call this.)

(As a New Age-y, hippie side note I'd like to say: I think, sometimes, when things like this happen, it's the Universe telling us: ooookayyyy...you're done. Time to stop running around so cray cray and go to bed. Get off the Internet, close that email, stop worrying about that data, forget that softball practice, that person will just have to figure him/herself out themselves, etc etc etc...you go to bed. Time to reset.)

Today, I'm slightly better but still off. Tomorrow, I have another day off because of doctor appointments (irony). So this morning, at 6:30 AM, I drove to work, dragged myself inside, and high fived myself for making all those copies at the end of the day yesterday. Pulled everything together for a substitute teacher today and tomorrow, and now the pieces get to fall where they may. 

The substitute teacher for today was already in my room. I look like I feel - sick crap. He recoiled from me in horror, and I'll be honest: it made me want to laugh and laugh. I can only imagine. On the plus side, I got to correct some misconceptions he has about 7 year olds. And now I'm pretty certain he'll take them to the cafeteria for lunch AND pick them up. I'm going to assume he knows he also has to take them to Art today, too, that helpers don't just show up at the door to take everybody everywhere. This is PUBLIC school, yo.

I had a really rough weekend, mentally and emotionally. It's hard to know who to trust sometimes. I am loved, and I am grateful for it, but sometimes it's just hard to know who to trust. And because I don't always trust my gut instincts, I can be easily swayed from one side to another...back and forth, back and forth. I'm telling you about this because what it does to me is make me weird and paranoid. And I don't like feeling weird and paranoid. Because then I get weird and paranoid about feeling weird and paranoid. It's a problem. 

Basically, for my life right now, I have a very simple agenda, a very uncomplicated, six-point Life Road Map:

1. Stop being weird and paranoid.

2. Figure out who's trustworthy, and who's not. 

3. Stop being up and down. One or two times of up and down per year is plenty. Not every week.

4. Give happiness, be happy.

5. Give love, be loved.

6. Achieve ultimate Enlightenment. (Or at least the ability to stay calm and focused amongst all the dysfunctional, needy, crazy people around me.)

That's not too much to ask. I don't think.

You know what's most ironic to me right now? Work. Work is actually going really, really well this year. I am in deep love with my class. I'm just besotted with them, really. If I had more disposable income, I'd take them all on a fabulous learning trip somewhere. And I like my bosses. I think my bosses ask me to do crazy things, but I've become absolutely convinced it's because their bosses ask them to do crazy things, and that's because THEIR bosses ask THEM to do crazy things. Bosses!!! STOP!! Stop it. Stop asking for crazy things.

So I'm still overwhelmed at work, but a routine has been established, and there is a lot of love there, so we're plowing through. 

It's my personal life that's bizarre and out of control right now. Here's what'll happen: something will happen, I'll feel weird and wonder about it. So I'll phone a friend. And that person will tell me Thing A, which kind of freaks me out. So I'll phone another friend. And that person will tell me Thing B, which freaks me out more. And before I know it, now I'm existing entirely inside my own head, overthinking, overanalyzing, trying to mind read and...weird and paranoid. It's exhausting, and makes me want to crawl into a cave and tell the world to go fuck itself.

At some point, the real Dark Night of the Soul will come, I know, and I'll have to make one of the hardest changes to myself I've ever made. It's around the bend, I can just feel it. Hope I'm up for it. (Dear Universe, please don't send it today. I need to sleep most of this afternoon and re-balance my body.)

my many colored days (+1 crazy monkey tale).

My emotions are like a stinkin' roller coaster, y'all. Like Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days, only more effed up. I swear - one day totally awesome, the next day kinda bummed, then just sort of greyish, then fine and dandy, then easily annoyed, then worried I'm going to end up eating out of trash cans/sleeping on sidewalks, then complete and utter despair, followed by goddamnitsonofabitchareyoufuckingkiddingme??!!!??!!! and then full-on guilt complex, finishing up with a good dose of self-hatred and doubt, circling back to awesome.

What. The. Crap.

You know what else is pissing me off lately? Leadership. Listen: I am no leader. I am not a born leader, I have never had a wish to lead, I am not a control freak (unless it comes to the grey in my hair). Yet I read Colin Powell's book on leadership, and while Colin and I don't see eye to eye on much of anything politically, I do admire his stance on What Makes a Good Leader. (Which is why, I'm 110% certain, he resigned from the Bush Administration...some people simply aren't trainable.) (And I think you know who I'm referring to...not mentioning any names, but his rhymes with Forj Sub-o-you Tush and he had an untrainable sidekick that rhymed with Sick Pain-y.)

Here's what I think good leaders should do: 

1. Trust in your people. 

2. Trust in the process.

3a. Be a good listener.

3b. Don't have an ego.

4a. Don't micromanage.
4b. Treat your employees like the grown ups they are.

5. Encourage fun.

The end. It's as simple as that. Are you going to have lazy dickheads in your employ? Of course you are. Everybody has bad hires, every profession has dead weights. But the vast, VAST majority of your people are going to be doing their very very best for you. And you know how you know they want to do their very very best? They come through for you. Because they know you trust them. When they know you have their back. When they know you believe in them. Right now, I do what's required of me via my contract. The end. They've exhausted me, and I don't sense they trust me; and when I sense you don't trust me? Guess what? I don't trust you. Vicious. Circle.

I see it in my students. I get MUCH more work out of them when I just let them do it the way they want to. The work doesn't turn out necessarily the way I'd envisioned it, but my students actually have some pretty good ideas sometimes. I instituted a Caboose job because one of them noticed kids were fighting over who was going to get to close the door/turn off the lights when we left. Line Caboose job started, in-house fighting problem solved. Onward, little soldiers.

I don't understand this new way of thinking, this new way of seeing people as things to be micromanaged, pieces of data to be honed and pounded upon, molded and manipulated. I don't like how it feels, and it's making me angry and stressed out. The only thing I can think of for why it's happening is there appears to be a Noxious Culture of Pervasive Fear everywhere these days, and people think if they just make more rules and dictate more things, everything will be okay. If we just give teachers a script and tell them exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and we make everything and everyone THE SAME (except then turn around and tell them to differentiate to meet everyone at their various different levels...except make sure it's THE SAME), then the data will be achieved. The children will magically overcome their home lives and genetic issues etc and so forth, and Nirvana will ensue. If we just combine 10 jobs into 1 then people will be more productive and we'll save money and make money and Nirvana will ensue.

Meanwhile, teachers and Corporate America friends I know are popping Xanax to get through a year. That doesn't sound like any kind of Nirvana I want to live in. And here I am dreading Mondays and hitting up monster.com now and then to see what else is out there for a 43 year old woman overly skilled in teaching verbs and nouns and adjectives. Preferably something that doesn't involved data, dickheads, or drudgery. Three Damned D's.

The irony being, of course, that usually the very thing you're trying to control and contain ends up controlling and containing YOU. You try to fix it, and you break it more in the process (here, I should put up a picture of the holes I drilled in my bedroom wall when the wall wouldn't cooperate with the curtain rod. I "fixed" it...i.e., put a band-aid on it. And now the whole frickin' thing is collapsing...meanwhile, I get to stare at all the big, gaping holes I gouged in a wall, every time going: jesus god, THAT'S gonna cost me when I move out). 

I'm not advocating mass anarchy; we need rules to keep the sociopaths in check. What I'm saying is: loosen up, trust your people, and watch some magic happen. Will there be dickwads who take advantage? Yes, of course. But those dickwads will eventually move on or you figure out who they are and make their lives a living hell until they're encouraged to move on. Everybody else? Ice Cream Mondays! Nap Time Tuesdays! Wear What You Want Wednesdays! so on and so forth. I have tons of these. I think Congress needs to start a Ministry of Fun Day Events Planning. I won't even need a staff. Just a comfy work chair and peace and quiet. And let people do what they're best at: their jobs. You do your job, I'll do mine, and let's call all this weirdness off. 

Just some thoughts I'm having on this exhausting but insomniac night.

But I want to end on a happy note, or at the very least an amusing story. Sort of as a reward to you for getting through all the crap I spewed above. There are happy things going on in the world, and so I'm going to end on a happy note plus one fun story:

Once, a long while ago, I was at a South African friend's apartment (sadly we were in Buckhead/Atlanta, NOT South Africa). She was from Johannesburg, and while she was dressing, I watched a news story about the baboons of Johannesburg. Apparently, they're all thugs. People have built up Johannesburg so much over the years, it's encroached upon Baboon Territory, and so they've all come down from the hills to walk the streets and mug the humans. Baboons are bullies. Bullies and gangsters and thugs. They'll walk right up to you, in broad daylight, and snatch your purse. Or open your car door and start rifling through your things, not even caring. Cops schmops! Go ahead and make a baboon's day. Very Planet of the Apes.

So I'm watching the baboon news story, laughing my ridiculous butt off, and I call to her, "Hey! This is hysterical! Baboons are robbing people in your hometown!" And she comes out of the bathroom, very very somber, and goes, "Oh no no, Amy. No. It's not funny. It's a very serious problem. I was once mugged by a baboon. He stole my sunglasses, some gum, and a very expensive pen from my purse. I was just thankful they're usually not interested in money. They can be very frightening. One time, my cousin had one open up her car door and go through all of the things in her glove compartment. Every time she moved, he growled at her. She was terrified. And they can't even arrest them. They bite."

Whenever I need a pick-me-up, sometimes I just close my eyes and try to envision what this looks like. I'm sure it is very frightening as you're experiencing it. I'm sure. And yet, honestly. HOW many people can go around and God's truth tell people: Once upon a time, I was mugged by a baboon. I mean, seriously. 

And in Japan? Maquaque monkeys use coins to buy snacks. I don't know where they get the coins from, but if they're mugging people in Tokyo to pay for the snacks, that is just going to make my whole damn year I'm not even kidding.

Go HERE for more Happy Facts.

the question of longing.

Rob Bell! Another prolific, thoughtful
person about desires and human
complexities

 Years ago, I was obsessed with a show called The L Word. L, for lesbian. Lesbian love. All about the lesbians. But more than that! It was about human relationships and how complex they can be. And also, I completely and utterly identified with one of the main characters, Jenny Schecter. I still do, actually. There was one scene in which Jenny goes to an Aquarium and sits, all dreamy and thinking, in front of the white belugas. I really, really want to recreate this scene for myself. And every time I go to the Georgia Aquarium, I try to. But the Georgia Aquarium is typically an overcrowded place of chaos and crowd rage for me, and so all the other human beings always muck up my scene recreation. Stupid human beings. Same thing at the penguin part, and the dolphins. It's quietest near the jellyfish, though. Maybe I should start there.

Anyway. On the show, the character of Jenny Schecter was a writer who moved out to Los Angeles to (a) become a famous writer and (b) marry her love. Except her love was a man when she first moved to LA. He owned a little bungalow next door to lesbians. And there were a lot of lesbians running around all over this little area of LA; it was like Little Lesbian Town. And they all hung out at this coffee shop. And then Jenny met the coffee shop owner Marina (a lesbian), who rocked her world, and so Jenny became a lesbian. Or she was bisexual, but later by the time the show ended, Jenny was just a lesbian. I don't know. Plus, I personally believe love is fluid, and so is sexuality. Plus also, the first season of any TV show is always so, so strong. By the final season, sometimes it's gone completely confusing or you forget what some of the characters' original goals were because now their goals are totally off the wall so the show writers can keep a dying vehicle going so the network can keep making money. And thus, the problem with American television. Sometimes a story needs a strong beginning, a really interesting middle, and at some point everybody at the network just needs to recognize: we've milked the middle for all it's worth, time to come up with a real strong end. Go out with a bang. Story arc. It's how stories (are supposed to) work.

But The L Word is actually not the point of this blog entry. This blog entry is actually about the concept of Eros, which is not erotic necessarily but really just longing, which is also an L word. And if you have Netflix, you can watch all the seasons of The L Word, which I highly recommend you do...at least amazing Season 1. (And here, sadly, I am compelled to add...Dear gentlemen: yes, there are boobies in the show, and yes there is a lot of girl-on-girl in the show, and yes many of the girls are very very attractive and nice to look at. But please. Please! This show was not designed for YOU, or for you to get your happy endings off of. It really is about the complexities of relationships, and finding your place in the world. Just really feel the need to put that out there, because I remember having to talk about this with male heterosexual people and really rolling my eyes really hard back then.)

So at one point in the show, Marina is kind of sort of hitting on one of Jenny's new love interests (like I said: it's a show about human relationship complexities) and she gives Jenny's new love a book that I think maybe actually inspired the show to begin with. It was a book by Anne Cameron called Eros, The Bittersweet. Eros, in Greek mythology, was the god of falling in love. Cameron wrote about the concept of love, basing her philosophy about it on Sappho's (Sappho was the person to first write that love was a bittersweet kind of feeling). Sappho thought that to love another person involved a mixture of pleasure and pain, which well...yes. Or why do it? I mean, Life (and Love) can really suck sometimes and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nobody wants to read a book or see a movie about The Village of the Happy People (credit to Jason Isaacs for that thought), and so to really appreciate the good things, you have to have a little bad every now and then. To truly understand the gorgeously brilliant sunny day you have to endure about a full week of shitty rainy ones. I'd think the same concept applies to loving another human being - whether they're a lover, a friend, a parent, or a child. People are complex, and they fuck up a lot and they have weird quirks that'll drive you batshit crazy. Sometimes you figure out you can't live with them anymore; you work better away from each other. Sometimes they won't follow directions and get into your make up and make a huge mess and it makes you scream a lot of crazy things at them...and then later you kiss their sweet, sleeping cheek most tenderly and wonder what the hell you did to deserve them. That's love, right?

But the Greeks, when talking about eros, weren't necessarily always referring to desire between people; they also thought eros was a longing to learn, to know, to understand. In ancient Greece, gods weren't just men and women who existed somewhere far off, controlling all that happened to human beings and nature, gods and goddesses were human states of mind. For example: Eros was the god of falling in love. BEING in love was a completely different matter, and therefore controlled by other, hopefully wiser, gods. 

I'm writing about this because whenever I think about longing, I always think about the exchange between Marina and Jenny's new love interest (I forget who this was and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, sorry). Marina quotes from Cameron's book, and the quote goes like this (I did look this up, because it was worth it):

The Greek word eros denotes want, lack. The desire for that which is missing. The lover wants what he does not have; it is by definition impossible for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it is had, it is no longer wanted.

Aren't those three beautiful sentences, one beautiful thought? I mean, she's talking about love (or is she? "The desire for that which is missing..." maybe he's missing chocolate), and the show used her thought about love because the L word...L, for love, lesbian, longing. But I'm more interested in these sentences because of the concept of Eros as longing. Desiring that which you think you want most in the world but knowing that, once it's yours, you won't want it anymore. Or as much. Or you'll move on to something else. 

I'm not talking about falling in love or sleeping with someone. I'm going full Greek here and talking about things like: thinking you must, absolutely MUST, take a trip Edinburgh, Scotland and then getting there and it's not as awesome as you built up in your brain (or maybe it is! I hear you really are amazing, Edinburgh). Or thinking you must, absolutely MUST, have those new Prada shoes and then getting them and now you think you like Louboutin better. Or meeting one of your life's greatest heroes and they turn out to be an asshole. That kind of thing.

So once you get the thing you desire most, DO you? Do you grow disillusioned with it? Or bored? I'm just wondering because I'm spending an awful lot of time in tears at night talking to the air, begging it (which I personally think is listening to me, in the form of Ohm, the Universe) to help me be where I'm not dying inside just so I can pay rent. You know what I mean? 

And are these the right things to long for? Why am I not longing for my daughter to grow up healthy and strong and happy? Why is THAT not my longing. Or why am I not in tears begging the great Ohm, the air, for religions to stop killing each other and terrorists to stop terrorizing everyone. Why are THOSE not my longings? 

Probably because I'm weird. And self-absorbed. Although, wait! Maybe...maybe! Maybe if Sappho and Plato and all the other Greeks were right about eros, the mindset of longing, and we DID get our peace on earth, we'd get bored. Maybe constant battling each other is for a purpose. Maybe the point of longing is to keep us going. The point of possibility is the proverbial carrot, to keep us all growing and getting better. We are so much more advanced than back in the Dark Ages, when most people believed in changelings and spectral hounds and a flat earth and that the sky was actually a sea and real Science wasn't yet a Thing. 

At any rate. That's a lot for a Sunday night, and I have to enter some grades in a gradebook because now I'm not just officially behind I'm WTF behind. 

But before I go! Can I give you a list of my innermost longings? I'm trusting you with this, please don't share it with a lot of other people:

*To tell stories for a living (or, alternately, if I can't do storytelling, I'd at least like a job I can't wait to do every day, not one that makes me want to go back in time and kick the shit out of my college girl self's ass)

*To live by the sea

*To always be surrounded by art and music and literature and nature

*A consistent, constant sense that I'm okay, Miss M is okay, everything is okay

*To travel, a lot

There's a quote by Rumi that I've burned into my soul, that a sweet friend sent to me in the form of a ring I wear on my thumb most days of the week: What you seek is seeking you. I think this essentially defines longing for me: to be seeking something, hoping it's seeking you. 

And I hope the Greeks were wrong about eros, because I'm not kidding - if I had a house by the sea filled with music, art, literature, and things of nature; that if Miss M was strong and happy and healthy; that I got to take a lot of trips and loved my job in ways I can only dream about right now...I'm quite certain I'd never get bored with any of that. I don't think I'd start to wish for other things instead. I do think I'd find other things to wish for, but I wouldn't wish for more or instead of what I'd gotten. I think I'd be pretty fucking happy and I think if I had any further longings beyond what I had, it would be to find a way to help other people have their longings come true. 

.......and maybe someone out there is reading all of this, going: be grateful for what you do have; someone else out there wishes they had what you do. And they'd be absolutely right. Unless they'd seen me last Thursday or Friday. And then I think they'd probably want to get themselves a different set of desires. Quandries of being human.

But I think longings, desires, are a lot different from dreams. Dreams are wishes. Longings are possibilities. I'm all about possibilities right now, not dreams. 

Christopher Poindexter! I have no idea who he is, but he's all over Pinterest.
And sometimes he's got quotes that encapsulate how I feel.

body condoms.

You can actually buy this. And yes, thinking about it.

There's a lot going on in Atlanta today. Dragon*Con and The Decatur Book Festival, both things I had every intention of attending in some capacity, this Labor Day Weekend of 2015. But some things happened: per usual, I procrastinated and the tickets to hear Erica Jong and Roxanne Gay give the keynote talk at the Book Festival all sold out. (Internet, can I tell you how upset I was when I found out? It was the ONE thing I would have gone to last night, in spite of the entire week...Erica Jong taught me about the Fear of Flying - which is about how to stay open to everything and everyone, and Roxanne Gay is just...amazing. Roxanne is just amazing and funny and stunningly talented and uh-MAZING.) 

I never got Dragon*Con tickets either. Confession 1: With Dragon*Con, I didn't know what I'd be buying tickets to, or if I needed multiple tickets to different things, or if it even mattered...maybe tickets don't even matter. And there were the large crowds. 

Confession 2: I hate crowds of people. They bring out my crowd rage and they drain me, especially when I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going or why I'm there. I always need an exact purpose, and then I can deal. I do not just...mingle. 

And then I got my ass kicked by work and by life. Confession 3: my ass is sore.

So instead, I'm doing laundry. 

I mean, there will be fun this weekend - Miss M and I are about to start packing to go have a fun afternoon of awesome followed by a sleepover of joyful with my sweet friend and her family. So my sweet friend and I can figure out how to write a TV show, get some producers to like it, sell it, collect our Emmys, and then go hang out on a tropical island somewhere sipping Coronas and margaritas, coming up with our next big scheme. Or whatever people get to do after they win some Emmys. 

Certainly we won't be welcome back into any public schools any time soon if this goes the way we want it to, and we may even be chased around with a lot of angry pitchforks and stuff by Teach for America fans and state lawmakers or whoever, so I figure we'll need a safe, tropical, hiding spot for awhile.

But mostly, I'm just trying to pace myself. I don't want the weekend to fly by, and then to be in this place on Monday night mourning my life (as I am wont to do lately). I just need to pull it together, and find a way to body condom all this bullshit so I can just get through it and figure out where to go next, and what I'm going to do if there IS no next, or there IS no where to go. Because at some point, this bullshit clearly got some pushpins and poked a bunch of tiny little holes all over my body condom and now all the bullshit sperm is everywhere. One giant spermy mess of crap. (I have a friend -hi, E! - who says some people wear body condoms...invisible, big condoms that make them impervious to the emotional intrusions of other humans. Confession 4: I wear a really thick, neon green and blue body condom. But synthetic, not lambskin. And no ribbing, sorry. This is about keeping ME happy, not YOU.)

I'm also struggling with staying open-minded and non-judgmental. I saw a fabulous quote by Brene Brown the other day that said how to do this: "All I know is that my life is better when I assume people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, not what should or could be." 

Isn't that insanely brilliant?? If only we could all just...do THIS. There would be peace on Earth. I just know it. Love Brene Brown, so much. 

And yet I assert body condoms are very, very important to have on you, at all times. Because so many many people focus on what should or could be with you. And these people, though doing their very very best, are exhausting. 

Confession 5: I'm a very MY space, YOUR space kind of person. I don't do a lot of hand holding. I can't handle a whole lotta expectations. Not unless you're under the age of ten. Because I can barely manage my own; and I am CONSTANTLY managing my own. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll see my weaker moments with this come out now and then. I don't post this as much on Facebook, but it'll take too long if I explain why. I just have come to see and prefer Twitter as my spewage place of ill.

I mean, I'll help you if you need me to. I love to help people. But once I figure out the help you're seeking from me is both endless and exhausting, I slip on my body condom. And I'll coddle you and love on you and let you know how much I care about your well-being - I have a deep and compassionate maternal streak. But once I figure out the level of coddling and love you require is both endless and exhausting, on goes my body condom. 

The problem with my body condom is that 1) it keeps me from asking - or even knowing I need to ask - for help (which Brene Brown says is being judgmental...if you'll give help but won't ask for it, you're judging others...which I think is an interesting thought), 2) it sometimes shuts people out who it shouldn't, 3) occasionally I run into the wrong people, and usually these wrong people have porcupine skin that poke holes all over my condom, and by the time I figure out that happened there's a big ol' mess. I need someone who's gotten good at putting on and taking off body condoms to teach me how to weed out the porcupines, and to teach me when and how to put mine on and take it off. (Actually, I have an extremely long list of people I need help from, but I don't know how to ask for it.)

So it's the #3 one that trips me up. Like what happened last week that I wrote about in my last blog post. Gotta put the body condom back on. But still ask for help. While not shutting the right people out. Because I want to protect myself, but I also want to love and be loved. And I want to do this freely without parameters or restrictions or rules placed on me by society, myself, or other people. Because I think kindness and love and staying open are so very, very important. But I don't want to be a doormat. But I want to love freely. But I don't want to be chewed up and spit out. (Public education is chewing me up and spitting me out right now.)

Jesus god, Life is complicated, sweet friends. Maybe instead of a body condom I just need a big, comfy tropical deserted island. (But there should be a 5 star luxury resort there with cabana boys because I don't do camping.)