The Fundimental Unfairness of Addiction

God, this is awful. Horrible that this exists. Some of the logic I just can't grasp or totally endorse. But so beautifully and painfully written. As the adult child of an alcoholic/substance abuser, I find my empathy strained. I have been hurt. I have been neglected and abused so that my father could use, so that he could serve the unholy twin gods of whiskey and cocaine. I have my challenges in life, but I have never been reduced to helplessness, and for that I am grateful. Truthfully, I want someone to blame.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/mar/09/russell-brand-life-without-drugs

Some artists have to contend with this unending misery in order to create. And then some get swallowed by it. My own brother went down the rabbit hole of drinking too much and I watched helplessly from a far distance as he went missing and turned up dead on the floor of his own apartment. I had said that he was burning too intensely to carry on for long, and rightly predicted that we would have to contend with putting him in the ground. The circumstances surrounding his death are clouded partially in mystery, but it is well documented by the Navy that he was having a major drinking problem before he died. He was 25.

I want to blame my father, or his father who schooled him in the ways of the bottle and emotional abandonment. I want to rage at the loss of my brother, my college fund, at my hopes for family normalcy. I want to show him how he made me feel worthless. I want to level these things at my dad. But then I look at him, and I see a frail, sickly, and finally sober shell of what my mom says swept her off her feet in hopeless romance. I don't see the man who wrote her drippy romantic, soulful poetry. I don't see the young man who pushed me on the swing as a very small child.  I see someone who, if faced by the full measure of my experience, would crumple like burnt tissue. He's there, burnt already, and holding his shape by sheer force of will. A whisper would scatter him.

Really, that dynamic, romantic artist is gone. Like the angelic boy soprano he was, when he hit puberty he did not mellow into a mature tenor. He cracked and was no more. He couldn't ever after carry a tune any more than he could carry responsibility or joy. He couldn't deal. He was a lead pencil in a broadband world. His capacity was reduced to nil.

I hear from him every few months now. I see that he is trying to be somewhat present in my life. He calls after months of forgotten or failed attempts to remember I am a part of his family. I hear his remorse. If I wanted to reconcile with my father, he is still here on this planet. I see his desire for my forgiveness. I blankly and without much feeling absolve him, my hands in a nonmagic gesture of benediction. I tell him I need nothing from him, not so much because it is true, but because I know I will never truly get what I need, not from him anyway. I am letting him off the hook. I have given what I can to him. I have thrown years of love down a dark hole to him, but he never took my lifeline. He only memorably told me that he wished I was born male so he could punch me in the face. No amount of telling me feebly that he loves me now will erase that. That takes bigger, more fearless and transcendent love that he just cannot produce or hold in his heart. I am left to work on it within myself. Despite being told I am worthless, I have to believe in my worth, love myself, and somehow forgive a man who probably was too wasted to remember saying that to me and shattering me into fragments.

Maybe only other addicts can really understand him, really help him. I am from the other world, with all my judgements and moral superiority for having never fallen prey to the bottle or the freshly chopped line. The hole in me mirrors the hole in him. I fill it with minor peccadilloes, perhaps. I am no saint. But somehow my need to consume Chex Mix doesn't seem to interfere with my ability to love others, although perhaps parts of myself. I am sometimes driven by the desire to be perfect, even though that conceit is the worst form of self-loathing.

But, lacking perfection, how am I to offer myself to the world? How do I consider myself worthy of the love I want in my life? I can bake a killer cake, save the life of a sick person, and even comfort the dying. But what if people knew that I couldn't save my brother? I couldn't heal my father? I couldn't be enough to stop the gnawing monster of addiction from greedily devouring the people I cared most about? Does it matter how kind or good I am? I will bet it does, to people with the capacity. But some people lack that. You can call down to them forever, and ultimately have to rise up from the chasm's edge and step back, lest you fall in yourself.

I am not an addict. I know I can go to Al-Anon for support if I wanted to. I just don't want my father's failings to define me.

I am trying to resonate with kindness and compassion in my life. This lesson is a hard one. It is going to take a lot more work. But I am alive today. I am aware today. I am grateful for that. The frustrated tears I shed over this are just part of the landscape. I don't have to be perfect. I just have to be trying to be good. That is enough. That is a lot more than others may have. Just by virtue of looking at this and attempting to unravel the Gordian Knot , I am better than I was on days when I merely felt sorry for myself. One day I will claim my destiny and cut the knot with one stroke and be done with it. Alexandrian solutions are not lost on me. In the meantime I hope I can at least see it for what it is: a yoke bound to an ox-cart. Just a symbol of what could be. Can I combine my conqueror's heart with the will toward compassion? I can try.

Angry Old Fat Women Need Love,Too!

RANT ALERT!!!!

Hey, guess what? I'm feeling a little pissed off today and here's why:

According to our popular culture:

It is okay to be fat as long as you are funny.

You can be hot if you are older, but only if you are skinny.

You can be sexy if you are curvy but not TOO MUCH.

You can be a feminist, but why be so ANGRY?

It is okay to be angry, but for cryin' out loud, get some botox so you don't LOOK angry. And don't be fat and angry.

But if you are middle aged, overweight, and dare to try to feel even the slightest bit attractive, good freaking luck. You can be old and hot or fat and hot, but both??? Nobody wants to see that.

I'm pitching fits. Culturally speaking, there is no place for me. Sexually speaking, at least in terms of popular culture, I am dead in the water, and any complaining about it is just old-lady bitching. Women who are younger than me seem to come away with the impression that because I look like a soccer mom, that I never had any fun when I was younger. I actually had a girl tell me that she just can't picture me ever being the type to wear a short skirt and drink and generally get into trouble.

In other words, I have become harmless. My femme-fatale days are over to other people, and apparently I was the last to get the memo. Whatever sensuality I possess is now expected to be subdued, refined, or, you know, invisible.

Not that I haven't mellowed with age, but that is just crap. I have no desire to be compared to a fine wine that gets better with age. I am different, but like all women in their forties, I am deeply aware of and interested in my sexual life. Like many women with naturally curvy bodies, I want to enjoy mine.

So here it is:

I'm aging, just like you are. ALL OF YOU. I'm also fat by many standards. I have little wrinkles from worrying on my forehead.

I also really enjoy sex, and I am probably better at it than you are. So there. I'm not self censoring any more for your comfort.

The Trouble with Fashion

It occurred to me recently that now that I wear scrubs to work, any clothes that I wear outside of work can be truly for fun. In other words, I can wear WHATEVER I WANT. Gone are the days where I have to buy "business casual" clothes. I could buy clothing that expresses who I am in my purest form. I am free to dress like a freak if I want. I could skip down the street in a pink tutu as long as I don't mind humiliating my son and possibly my husband.

So, with a $50 gift card (a graduation gift from my mother-in-law) for Macy's in my pocket, I set out to find a garment that just spoke to me and said "Stacie" in no uncertain terms. That's where I hit a snag.

Either I have no idea what clothes are really "me", or Macy's had a slim selection of shirts that were not hideously ugly, or I am just a frazzled mom, but I was having a ton of trouble finding anything interesting. Add to that the fact that I am evidently invisible to the sales staff at Macy's. Literally nobody seemed interested in enhancing my shopping experience. Oh, and I guess I should just go ahead and mention that I am in my early 40's and shopping in the plus-sizes.

The fact that I was having trouble seemed to be something I took personally, like if I was thinner I would have had both more choices and more saleslady attention. I was feeling super-dejected. Eventually I picked up a pair of pants.

Beige pants. Beige capri pants.

Here I am with the world at my feet, personal expression-wise, and that is the best I could do? Or has it become, after years of corporate casual, the only thing I feel comfortable with? Have I BECOME freaking BEIGE?!?!?!?

Did it take me so long to get a career clue that I now have no personal style of my own? Am I doomed to look like a soccer mom until I succumb to some kind of granny cruise-ship gear? What the hell? Will I be buried in beige capri pants?

Oh, I suppose that shopping at a really mainstream store is at least part of my problem. I need to branch out. I need to learn to sew. I need to worry about more important things. Maybe I also need a pink tutu, just in case. What goes with a pink tutu?

Being a Mother

Image: Gustav Klimt: Mother and Child, 1905

Being a mother is a big deal. Not that it shouldn't be, because it is just about the hardest thing there is to do. There are about as many kinds of mothers as there are children to parent. I'm going to be a foster mother again very soon, and that brings up all sorts of feelings. Bear with me while I sort them out in writing.

Yes, being a mother is a big deal. Our culture idolizes mothers to the point where it is generally accepted that being a parent is by default just better than not being one. It is assumed that until you have had a child, you are incapable of feeling or expressing unconditional love or deep empathy or protectiveness for other people. Women who are unable for whatever reason to give birth or choose to not have children are creatures to be pitied.

I'm pretty sure being pitied is one of the worst feelings there is. Being pitied when you have suffered a great loss such as losing a child is so dis-empowering. For as long as people pity you, you are pitiful, no?

We have pictures of Little A all over our house, reminders of when we were her proud parents. She was a beautiful daughter and adding Little J to our family will not make me stop missing her or wondering how she is doing with her family.

I have been not-a-mother yet, a foster mother, a former mother, and now a foster mother-to-be again. While being a mother (and I was that in almost every sense to Little A) taught me many things about myself, it didn't make me better than anyone else. I am proud to say that I already knew about love and empathy before she became part of our family. I am a purposeful person and examine myself and my motives on a regular basis, so there was no big a-ha moment there.

It is a little hard for me, around holidays like Mothers' Day, to not feel a little annoyed at the cult of the Mother around me. That in-club that I have both been included and excluded from. It is a rite of passage to be a parent, and it is almost like I am not considered fully a woman unless I am a frazzled mother.

But having a functioning uterus doesn't make you a woman any more than having a functioning appendix does. All sorts of people have babies that have neither the coping skills nor the interest to parent. As a foster parent, I see that side of it and just can't wrap my head around it.

I will say that I have known people who have suffered illness and loss and personal tragedy, and not one of them would trade places with me for a million dollars. I carry my loss of Little A like a piece of secret shame, even though I lost her due to no wrongdoing of my own, but to a court system that places a higher value on her biological mother's rights than to what was clearly making Little A happy and healthy. I can't tell that story out loud without being like a black raincloud that brings unwanted sadness to anyone who hears it. So most of the time I just gloss over it, or say nothing at all, even though to do so makes me feel like less of a mother, like it was all a dream that ended badly. I'm like the mother that other mothers must not touch for fear of my bad luck rubbing off. I honestly try hard not to touch pregnant women, just in case.

In a few hours I get to meet the little boy who will hopefully be my forever son one day. He is his own person and is not coming into my life to heal my hurts, but to have his own soothed. He has his own issues and cannot bear the burden of my anxiety. I have to teach him that I can be trusted to provide comfort, as if he were a newborn. Today I will start slow, like a first date, hoping for love but not letting a show of it overwhelm. I cannot merely claim him and expect him to fall into my arms in gratitude. In fact, at first, he may reject me for moving him away from his current foster mother or the even more distant figment of the woman he never sees but who gave birth to him.

Being a Mother is a big deal, but not in the ways popular culture would have you believe. It means being a whole person and showing a child how to rise above pain and still have an open heart. It means accepting a child as a person with flaws like any other. And ultimately, it means eventually saying goodbye to that child, hopefully because you have successfully raised them to adulthood and not some other, sadder reason. It means becoming an archetype in the life of another person, expanding beyond yourself into mythic proportions before you even have your morning coffee. It means dead-lifting cars and making healing food that, if you are lucky, will be remembered long after you are ash in the wind.

The World is My Matador-*Rant*

I never did play well with others. Lately, I am finding that I chafe at the yoke of all this stress that I am under. The pressure to do well in school, the pressure to be a good wife, the pressure to be an upstanding citizen. The ordinary things that people do when they are grownups. It is ridiculous.

I think this happens every semester about 3 months in, when I still have a month to go before finals. It is just my nerves talking. But too much conforming to professional standards and good manners and decorum when what I really want to do is go around pitching fits has got me daydreaming at every possible turn.

The world is my matador. It is like the universe knows I am tired and cranky, and then just for fun throws all kinds of intolerable people into my path just to see what I will do. Wave that red flag and see if I charge.

I already don't approve of people that are both dumb AND mean, so I have been running into a lot of those lately. Usually I am somewhere that would make it impossible or just ill-advised for me to take them to school. So I have to attempt therapeutic communication with someone I would rather just eviscerate. And I doubt they even understand or take to heart the things that I say, so I end up feeling powerless-a feeling that makes me ticked off.

So I have fantasies about throwing out all of my clothes and buying only things that are red and black and leather and satin and plunging-neckline/Mae West retro-fabulous. I dream of chucking it all and running away to live as a beggar poet on the streets of Paris. I want to start up a home-based assassin business. Who would ever see me coming? I look like a soccer mom, a Midwest tourist on her first trip to the big city. I look like your auntie that bakes cookies. I could make a killing.

What is it about being ultra-responsible that makes me want to wear way more black eyeliner and fishnet stockings and carry a concealed weapon? The sick part is that by the time I gut out the next month of exams and my pediatric rotation, I will be so exhausted after finals that going out and making trouble will take a distant backseat to sleeping in.

Rawr, Bitches! I am being PC for now. One of these days I am going to snap the tether and gore that matador, skewering him and his fancy gold pants. So there.

That is all.

Back Off! **RANT**

Hey world! Yeah, I am talking to you! Take a big step back and give a sister some room, huh?

Here's the new rules. Consider yourself notified.

1. If you don't know me and can't be constructive, you don't have permission to yell at me like I am some kind of moron.

2. If you are both dumb AND mean, don't bother talking to me at all.

3. I am as sexy as I get at any given moment, and I am not required to be saucy for anyone's benefit but my own. If I like you and feel like being playful, then lucky you. But I am not a one dimensional creature. I have brains and stuff too.

4. I am as thin as I am getting today. I am working on being healthy. I am exercising a lot and eating pretty healthy. Maybe that means I will lose weight. Maybe not. The stress is killing me and I just need a breather from all the pressure about it.

5. I might be an earthy girl with a bawdy sense of humor, but please treat me like a lady if you want me to be nice.

Failure to comply with the above will result in immediate dismissal. That is all.

I don't approve-Corporate Radio Edition

If I slip into a coma at my desk any time in the next seven weeks, blame the soft rock emanating from the radio in the next cubicle. Some of the songs are alright, but I wonder if it is turning my brain to mush to hear “Hotel California” every day. Not that there is anything wrong with that song in and of itself, but the radio station plays the same stuff over and over day after day. It is making my eyelid a little twitchy. If I have to hear Bette Midler’s “Wind beneath my wings” one more time, I can’t quite be responsible for the violence that is sure to ensue.

I have a lot of complaints about radio stations in Reno in general. I don’t know what it is, but we seem to be at a lower rung on the new music ladder. All I know is that when I visit my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hear songs I never heard before on the radio. BETTER songs, too. Songs I am sure to just about never hear in Reno. What the hell? Who decided that I don’t get to hear that? Did some market-survey test group flunkie make the choice for me? I disapprove.

And while I am at it, allow me to complain about the talking. Who the hell made the brilliant choice to create the “morning show”? What was wrong with playing music in the morning? Why is it all yakkity-yak-yak when I haven’t had that much coffee yet? Ugh. And they are so never funny. I have a job that involves listening to people talk all day, so I don’t need to get a jump on the “listening to people bitching” action during my commute.

I wish I could listen to my ipod at work, but no dice. The earbud competes with the phone I have permanently affixed to my ear. Plus, listening to music I actually like might make me smile. You know that would just never do.

As it is, I rely heavily on my coastal-dwelling friends in SF or Seattle or Boston or LA to provide me with tasty treats for my ipod. Thank goodness for my friends. I would have absolutely no cool at all without them.

General Malaise

It must be the job.

Or something in the water at the job.

But I am kinda cranky.

Being at school is totally stressful, but also entirely wonderful and autonomous and fantastic. After being off work for four months, I am back at the office for a few weeks during winter break. It is annoying. That, in and of itself, should not be worthy of a blog post.

But I am crabby all the time right now. The dogs are driving me to distraction. The husband and kiddo are conspiring to make messes everytime I get things cleaned up. The Dachshund keeps jumping into the dishwasher when I am trying to load it. I feel snappish.

I need some Zen, sitting on top of a lonely peak, by myself time. I can't even be alone at home, since for some reson that labrador retriever has decided I am her servant and I think she has dementia because she asks for food two seconds after she eats. the house is decidedly not quiet with the near constant barking and whining. Grrr. That is me growling.

I wish I could say that there is at least some comic relief here in my being generally annoyed. Maybe I am having perimenopausal hormone imbalances. Fuck it, I don't know. I feel like I want to back a truck up to my house and get rid of a bunch of stuff. Either that or I need a bigger house. There just seems to be no place for all the effluvia. Even my desk is a bloody mess of papers and I would set fire to the whole thing if it weren't for the fact that SOME of those papers require action on my part. Feh.

I need a bulldozer. I'd like to lighten my load for the new year. When I was a youngster, I moved to my first apartment with only what would fit in the bed of a pickup truck. Not anymore. Last time I moved I had 53 boxes just for the kitchen.

I love my stuff and I hate my stuff. I'm drowning in it. I feel like I am complaining about being too rich or too skinny or something. I have no reason to be crabby and every reason to feel blessed. So why do I want to torch it all?

This being forty thing just might be for suckers. Midlife crisis? How cliche.

I Dissaprove-Mail Fraud?

Ok, so this is messed up. I got a handwritten letter in the mail addressed to myself and my husband by name. I didn't recognize the name or return address, but it came from someone with a Reno address.

Inside was an earnest note on loose leaf binder paper encouraging me to consider this person's offer to come to my home, for free, to study the bible with me. Hmmm.

Regular readers of this space will understand that this is not considered a valid reason to invade my privacy. Bible-thumping Apocalypse Cheerleaders give me the willies worse than just about anything else. All I could think was: how did these people get my name and address? Is this the beginning of a disturbing trend? And generally What the Fuck?????!!?!?!?!?

Is this considered mail fraud somehow? I have never filled out any kind of card inviting people to preach to me via mail. How did my name come up? We have an unlisted phone number, so it is unlikely we are in the phone book. Bizarre. I don't approve.

Back to Work

During the winter break from school I am obliged to work back at my old desk job. It is a small price to pay for my generous scholarship, but going back to the cube farm after four and a half months of semi-autonomy was pretty jarring.

The truth is that when I am in school, there is a sort of built in feedback system. I mean sure, there are tests and homework, but there are GRADES. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much, but at least someone is paying attention to how I am doing and giving me feedback to improve.

Going back to work, where I am reminded by my boss what a cog in the great machine I am was a real letdown yesterday. She didn't ask me how my semester was or even really welcome me back, but immediately went into the old song and dance about how our department was shortstaffed and outgunned. Nothing has changed here. I am doing a bit better today because I am back in the groove more, but yesterday dragged on and on.

I sound like a big baby here, but after getting such nice compliments from my professors and academic advisors, I felt like a snowflake: a unique and beautiful thing that is learning new things with grace. Yesterday I melted into a little puddle with the rest of the drips. It was a yucky feeling.

All this coming on the heels of my spectacular birthday cocktail party and dinner is a bit hard to swallow. I know it is just my bruised ego. But I am reinventing myself, or at least doing some major career refurbishing, so this feels like a step back, although admittedly a temporary one.

Yeah, at least I have a job to complain about. I need to be more grateful, and I really am. I will be even more grateful when school starts again. For about a minute. Then the stress of that will be a culture shock to me again.

I like school, though. I miss it already. And I will be glad to see my new friends there again.

I Disapprove-Office Holiday Party Edition

Oh man! There isn't enough free Bordeaux in the world to make me happy about being at a party with card-trick magicians, clowns, stilt-walkers, and MIMES!!!!

Ok, so Tony's company holiday party wasn't that bad, even though it did in fact contain all of the above objectionable performers. As corporate parties go, it was pretty cool, in fact, even if I did go a bit overboard on the quiche. Tony works with some pretty nice people, and I had a highly entertaining conversation with Juan's feisty Dominican wife. She's from New York and is just abrasive enough to be totally adorable and interesting to me.

But I found myself actually changing course when walking across the room a few times so I wouldn't have a run-in with the mime and the stilt-walking guy. I actually almost broke into a horror movie "running in high heels" moment to avoid that stilt guy. He creeped me out for some reason, and after my third cocktail, usually I am pretty friendly with everyone.

I am not a big fan of card and rope trick magicians, and this party had a number of them roaming about to entertain us. I am in agreement with my friend Ted, who believes that magic tricks are just fancy lies with silk handkerchiefs up the sleeves. I am such an honest person that I don't appreciate lies of any kind, least of all for my amusement.

I know, I know. What is the harm in an innocent little card trick? No, man. Fuck that. You gotta draw the line somewhere. Otherwise, the terrorists win. And by terrorists, I mean mimes.

Public Service Announcement-War Movies

Photo credit: From the movie "Flags of Our Fathers"

It is official. I never need to see another war movie. At first I was going to say that I am fed up to the gills with movies that touch on the Vietnam War. But when I thought about it some more, I think all war. Yup. I'm cooked on war movies in general.

It isn't that the violence bothers me per se, but I think it is fair to say that I never want to see "Saving Private Ryan" ever again. That movie upset me. I just think that there are so many films that do it poorly. And I just crave more original stories than those that seem to come out of that genre.

I don't have a specific thing that set me off about this, and I guess I am not really that mad, but I just threw up my hands when I saw that the movie "Across the Universe" veered in that direction. I just didn't get that movie. The music was cool (who doesn't love the Beatles?), but I was just annoyed with the story that they wound around it.

Feh.

So, that's it. I'm over the whole Vietnam Era. Yup.

That is all.

Just Because I am Obnoxious Doesn't Mean You Have To Be A BITCH About It!

If I have one major personality flaw, it is that I talk WAY too loud when nervous or excited. All those years of doing choir and theatre have given me the dubious gift of theatrical projection, perhaps in situations where being more quiet is warranted.

The funny thing is that I am sort of sensitive about it. I get upset when people give me shit about it. Maybe because they really mean it and are not playfully teasing. I don't know. But if you want to see me get pissed off in record time, give me shit about how much or how loudly I talk.

So, Colin and I went to the movies yesterday to see "Twilight" (the book is better, isn't it always?). Before the previews, we were chatting animatedly, like we generally do. Colin and I have the gift of gab together and have great, funny conversations about everything under the sun. The topic had veered onto a discussion about a friend who is very sick with a mysterious illness, and actually was a little serious.

But I guess I was talking too loud, and this woman sitting behind us kinda exploded at me. It went a little like this:

Me: So, they don't know what is wrong and they have done tests on about everything...

Colin: I hate to say this, but have they tested this person for Syphilis?

Me: Oh, I don't know if I could ask them that...


Crazy Bitch: Well, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!!!

Me: : Excuse me...

CB: You talk way to loud (hateful tone of voice and facial expression)

Me: Don't worry, I'll be quiet as a mouse during the movie.

CB: You'd better!

Me: (sarcastic, acid tone) Well, thank you so much for letting me know your concerns.

CB: (even more sarcastic and dripping with malice) You're welcome.

At this point, I notice the woman's young teenage daughter, with a face full of righteous fervor. I was just winding up to take this nutcase to school, but I saw that it was just going to get me kicked out of the theater, and it just wasn't worth it.

So I did some seething through the whole movie. I had let it go in terms of not having a major public altercation, but I was still pissed.

Why did she have to resort to totally hateful approach right off the bat? If she had approached me politely, I would have apologized sincerely and quieted down. I know I talk loud. I would have been embarrassed but not angry. I could have saved a little face, at least.

But no, she had to go nuclear as a first course. Honestly, I think that makes her the rude one. That made me defensive and bitchy. I have no patience for that. I was still mad when the movie was over and was prepared to confront her in the lobby, but they skedaddled as soon as the credits started rolling.

They are probably high-fiving at brunch today about how they bitch-slapped me. But don't piss me off, or I will probably write about it. Jerks.

I'm a sweet person, really. But I have a temper.

It is her loss. She's the one with the ugly wrinkles from frowning and the daughter who will turn out to be a judgmental bitch. I wonder how that is going to work out for her when the time comes to pick out her nursing home?

Or maybe her daughter will get syphilis. Seems her mother wants her shielded from hearing about it. I don't think purity rings guard against that, though.

Lady, Do I Know You?

I just love how October is over so the ghosts are quieting. But now the living people want to chat.

But only the crazy ones.

I was walking across the parking lot into the grocery store. I was low on Perrier, if you must know. And this tall woman passes me, walking faster. She decides to speak, and here's how it goes.

Crazy Lady: I hope those Democrats are happy. He's just going to get assassinated.

Confused Stacie: That would be totally sad.

Crazy Lady: Sure it would, but that is what is going to happen. People have already tried twice.

Confused Stacie: Do I know you? Why are you saying this to me?

Crazy Lady: (mumbles something and throws her hands in the air and keeps walking)

Was it my clothes? I was wearing a sort of conservative looking outfit today because I was coming from a nursing conference. Why would this person look at me and figure me to be sympathetic to her tirade? Note to self: consider donating that beige skirt to charity.

I just wanted some French fizzy water, lady. Not yer damn conspiracy theory.

That is all.

Next Up: The Freak Show!

Maybe I am a freak, maybe not.

I have a fair bit of psychic ability, even for the people in my family, where such abilities are more the norm than the exception. My grandfather and his mother were both known for having startling premonitions that came to pass. My mother can see auras. As for me, I got the mixed bag of things that I see and hear that sometimes give me the Heebie-Jeebies. I get the dreams, the visions, the auditory input, you name it. And as the veil gets so thin in late October, everybody without a body wants to chitchat. I feel drained. The world is so full of fear right now that I would very much like to stay in the house and burn sage and not enounter any of it. Honestly, sometimes I am on more of a psychic level than a literal level with people, and I'm talking about something deep inside them when they didn't ask me to dig in there and they only want to discuss the weather.

"Ohhh! How INTERESTING!" You say.

or

"What a flippin' bullshit artist." You say.

or

"What a sissy-girl, scaredy-cat, panic-ridden FREAK." You say.

or

"Are you just trying to get attention?" You ask.

or

"How the hell do you know that about me?" You ask

or

"Who the hell do you think you are?" You demand to know.

The answer to all of that, or none of it:

I'm just me. Maybe sometimes socially out of sync. Maybe loving and maybe dismissive, depending on who I am dealing with. Maybe worth your time as a loved one if you can put up with my serious side long enough to make me laugh. Maybe your soul sees something in mine, and we could be kindred spirits and boon companions.

But don't call me to ask for my take on which pony is gonna place in the 5th. It doesn't work like that, and even if it did, it would just offend me to be used like a human Magic 8 Ball.

I'm just the girl in the third tent down in the sideshow of life. For a dime you can take a peek at me, but to see my underpants will cost you ten grand.

That is all.

I Disapprove-Littering

I usually avoid the use of the phrase "pet peeve", since I generally disapprove of a lot of things. That is a lot of pets. But one thing that really gets my dander up is people who litter.

I can't tell you how many times I have been in a beautiful setting like a national park or hiking trail, only to see other people's trash out in the middle of nowhere. It makes my blood boil.

When I was a kid, two of my favorite friends were Woodsy Owl and Smokey the Bear. My grandparents were careful to instill the value of a well maintained campsite in me. Whenever we arrived at a new campsite, my grandparents often would be about the business of setting up the camper and would hand me a small trash bag so I could tidy up. I seem to recall getting paid a penny for every piece of trash I picked up in the campsite. Sadly, I always had money for gum, because I often found discarded bottle tops, etc. to pick up. We always left our campsites in better condition than we found them, without fail.

One of my walking routes around my neighborhood takes me past McQueen High School. I can't tell you how much damn litter I see around there. Not just little stuff, either. Whole red bull cans, pizza boxes, ice cream cups, plastic spoons. If I chucked my litter out a car window or just threw trash on the ground like that, my grandfather would come back from the dead just to kick my ass. It bothers me a lot.

That sounded dangerously close to a "kids these days" comment, didn't it? I think most people are just pigs. I would seriously have to rethink my friendship with a person if I saw them litter in the street. What the hell is wrong with people? Grrr.

Rawr!

This is how I feel this morning.

I'm okay, I just have an exam today and didn't get much sleep last night and am running on adrenaline, pretty much. So I am roaring.

Since we are at the time of the year where the veil between the world we can see and the world where the discarnates live thins to the point of easy crossover, I don't get much rest. I am extremely sensitive to the activity of the people around me that are without bodies. Most of the year I take it in stride or brush it back or whatever. October is always hard.

So, unless you fine people have the answers for my nursing school exam, kindly shut the hell up for a few hours. It isn't my fault that people on the other side aren't paying attention to you. I am not in the mood to perform parlor tricks today.

And if you don't know what the hell I am talking about, don't sweat it. I'm fine, just annoyed.

Doggie Jekyll/Sasha Hyde

How is a lab/sheltie mix like a refrigerator light?

Oh, how I wish that was the beginning of a really funny joke, but this dog is driving me batty.

It is probably because I am at home a lot more often during the day now while Tony is at work. Sasha is a total Daddy's girl and has been from the moment I (yes, me) brought her home as a gift to him. She LOVES him. Unfortunately, she also is very neurotic and nervous when he is not around.

Honestly, it is like she is two different dogs. When Tony is at home she is mostly chill and just hangs out by him. When he is gone she barks CONSTANTLY. Worse, when she wants food, or to go out or some other thing, She chases me around near my heels and barks at ME! First thing in the morning when I haven't yet had my coffee that is really annoying.

No amount of obedience training has ever made an impression on this dog that I am above her in the pack hierarchy. She drinks out of the toilet, gets food off the counter in the kitchen, and even tries to steal food from Little A. Mama Ferrante is not bloody amused.

I used to say I was a dog person. Now I would say that I do not love all dogs. Just some dogs. Oh, Sasha is okay. She's very friendly and cute-to Tony. But to me she has been a giant pain in the ass lately.

Okay, not just lately. We are talking about the dog that jumped on the bed one time and peed on my head. We are talking about the dog that has gotten into the garbage and eaten the bones of a roasted chicken, and then barfed ALL OVER the house. We are talking about a dog who has eaten more loaves of bread than I can count, including a festive loaf of homemade braided apple bread that I made from scratch.

I want a divorce...from this dog.

Before you get all uppity on me, please know that I am mostly just venting here. I love all my pets, and Sasha is a good dog for the most part. It is just that when she chooses to act up, it isn't while Tony is home, and that seems highly unfair to me.

And to think that I saved her life when she was a puppy. Thankless dog. She got Parvo and I was going to have her euthanized so Tony wouldn't have to do it, but she looked up at me with those liquid brown eyes and licked my nose and suckered me into paying the vet a huge sum of cash to try and pull her through. It worked and we rejoiced.

But she is getting old and senile now and has mistaken me for a 24-hour food dispenser. I swear, she would eat round the clock if we allowed it. I have actually taken my books and left the house just so I didn't have to listen to her. That's right. I allowed the dog to chase me out of my own home. She is whining at me as we speak, even though I fed her an hour ago. *pulls hair out*

Tony will be home in an hour, then she will mellow out. In the meantime, I can listen to Sasha whine and Little A beg for innapropriate snacks, also in a whiny voice. By the time he gets home I am going to be whining, too.

Calgon take me away?

Holy Hell-Anyone want some SPERM?*meltdown alert*

*Cue Stacie's head falling off*

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!!!

I just got around to opening the mail, and I got a letter from our old fertility specialist. It seems that, despite our request that they destroy it, they still have a specimen of donor sperm that they kept in cryo storage for us. Ugh, They sent us a hefty bill for the storage fee and asked us what we wanted done with it. AGAIN.

Mind you, we stopped trying to get pregnant almost 2 years ago. Me and my modern fucking problems. I am not in a place emotionally right now where I want to make decisions about what to do with live (albeit frozen) sperm. Seems an easy solution to just bin it, right? Yet I find myself doing a double take over it.

I had to really wrestle with the decision the last time this came up. I really thought that was over. After numerous unsuccessful tries with two different donors, a pregnancy was just not forthcoming for us. Now, I am 39 and about to enter a challenging nursing program and we are dealing with the emotional upheaval that is the situation with Little A.

Oh, bloody hell! Why is the subject of pregnancy coming up so much lately? Two of my sisters-in-law just gave birth to beautiful baby boys. The family is not hurting for grandchildren.

I might as well face it that I am going to go into menopause without ever having given birth. I thought I was okay with that. I thought I had grieved that and put it behind me with a disingenuous but cheery wave. I joked to myself about the superior muscle tone of my pelvic floor. I joked to myself that out of all my in-laws, Tony and I have the only girl in the family. My reproductive life, although not productive, is over. Taking their essentially clerical error as a sign that we should try again is a dangerous recipe for heartache that I would not be able in any way to tolerate. It ripped my heart out to do that stuff when I was really motivated to do it.

This fucking sucks. It is like a huge, cold slap in the face. I didn't need this right now. Obviously we are going to have to deal with this: fighting with them over the bill and getting that sperm chucked out. If I really have to pay the bill on that I am going to be pissed.

And yet when they do throw it out I know I will be unaccountably sad. Not that I attach any romantic ideas to it. I was always ambivalent to entering into potential parenthood in those science experiment conditions, instead of an act of love. It was painful, clinical and devoid of passion. But scant hope though it was, it was all we had in the way of options. Really, I have no business passing my DNA to anyone, anyway. Maybe it would be nice to have a kid that looked a little like me, but I never really placed importance on that in the first place.

I did not know this still had the power to cause me this much pain. It is just bad timing, really. Just a stupid mistake. Somebody stop the ride, I wanna get off.

Things I don't approve of

Sometimes I love being a misanthrope. Some of my cranky reactions to the world make me laugh.

I am a judgmental, disapproving little thing. Some Examples :

1. Strawberry-Banana flavored stuff: Strawberries are great and bananas are great, but why mix them? Actual fruit strawberry-banana smoothies are pretty good, because they taste like actual fruit and the banana gives it a nice texture. But candy, yogurt, or other stuff just tastes fakey-fake and nasty.
2. People who spoil the endings of movies and then ask "Oh, were your going to see that?" *slaps forehead*
3. People who laugh at my joke and then say "I don't get it." Conversely, those same people tend to start off telling a joke and then forget the punchline midstream.
4. Walnuts in brownies. I would think that was gross even if I weren't drop-dead allergic.
5. Why do so many products that are ostensibly for children have to be filled with food dyes and high-fructose corn syrup? I don't buy that stuff, but sheesh, it sure takes up a lot of room at the store, and Little A sure sees it where it is placed at her eye level. Then I have to be the bitch mommy who says no all the time.
   
6. Mixed bags of jelly beans. Who the hell takes a random handful that would have possibly cherry and lime and black licorice in it? Then again, my OCD forces me to sort even my same-tasting M&M's by color.
   
7. Companies that market padded bras and thong underwear for six-year olds. Oh, google it yourself.
8. Companies that think it OK to give growth hormones to cows, causing 6 year olds to need bras.
9. Parenting magazines. For the most part they are just the same as Cosmopolitan is for single people: bad advice and stupid ads to make you feel guilty/insecure/vulnerable to sales pitches for cellulite cream and children's lingerie.
   
10. "Womens'"magazines. I didn't start having a good love life until I gave up on reading Cosmo et al. Besides, I don't need the "20 tricks he wish you knew in bed" article. Here's the gist of it. Guys like more head. That's pretty much it.