Transmutation

I am becoming so unbelievably, insufferably weird that I can hardly stand to be inside myself...

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's...Glenn Beck!

I strayed into the Dark Side last night and this morning reading the articles and blogs that spilled from the shaking fingers of shit-scared libs reporting on Becks' rally yesterday.  I - almost - feel a bit sorry for them.  Really - you can smell the rank, damp desperation pouring out of them.

Tee-Fuckin'-Hee...

I can't see what they can find to complain about in regards to Becks' speech.  From what I heard, Beck just wants us to stop acting like greedy, self-involved, intolerant assholes; remember who we truly are, and where we came from; and strive to rise above our own flawed natures to become something fierce and bright.

But...I guess them be those "fightin' words" I hear tell about to them there Democrats...  (BTW, all of us racist, Islama/homophobic, kitten-stomping conservatives are gap-toothed, Klan-loving, warmongers whose poor English is always heavily Southern-accented.  Oh, and we drool, too.  We are the droolingest sons'a'bitches you ever did see...)

I, for one, am grateful that I have some small sense of spiritual assistance.  That, and a healthy fear of ending up in prison having Flirty Gertie carving her name into my rump keeps me from being the nasty, venom-spitting, little Death Badger of Mayhem I am in my blackest heart of hearts.  It's God (Gertie and my proctologist) who keep me humble, remind me that - without guidance - what a little toad I am, and it's that helping hand from a God who watches over fools and drunks (and domesticated - kinda - Death Badgers) that keeps me from drinking a gallon of gasoline and inhaling a match.

Becks' speech asked two simple questions:  Can you be a better person?  Will you try?

I'm sure we can.  I'm much less certain that we care enough to try.

....so there....

I gave this rant (different words, same sermon) while I was helping out in the kitchen at M.H.  I got to the end (or ran out of breath?) and I realized it was one of those moments when the entire room is still and everyone is looking at you as if you had just taken a crap on the floor.  Sandy, a large, golden woman, was standing next to me and she said, "Good Lord - I don't think you've ever spoken more than ten words the whole time I've known you!" and Chad, one of the regular cooks, spoke into a silver ladel and said, "And that was DuhVeeDuh coming at you live from the soup kitchen we all know and love.  Next up - Sandy W. will sing 'God Bless America' while playing the accordian with her knees!"

I don't know.  Mebbe its a sign I'm coming back...  Yeah, but I've been there before, and I'm not sure it's what I want to return to anyway....

The Library

I went to the library today.

I did NOT have a good time.

The library is only about two blocks away.  It should be easy for me to stroll down, return/grab a few books, and come back.  However...

I have to cart a very heavy portable oxygen pack and a very, VERY heavy messenger bag holding my books.  I had ten, so it was like lugging a bag of dead badgers.  I need my walker to do this - I can't carry both - and maneuvering the walker around cracks in the sidewalk and stray rocks leaves a lot to be desired - every few seconds I was getting my wheels hung-up or it was threatening to tip over on me.

When I got there, it was a bitch getting into the place.  I'd press the large button for the automated door, but by the time I got back behind my walker, it would already be swinging shut.  Okay, there's the revolving door, right?  Well, YOU try to get a walker through a revolving door and tell me about it...  Finally, there's the regular, garden-variety door.  I had to turn my walker sideways, open the door, lodge my walker in it, and force everything through doing this weird inch-by-inch step with the oxygen container on the edge of falling out of the basket, and the messenger bag alternately smacking me in the knee and getting stuck.  I was red-faced, sweating and in a pissy mood by the time I wiggled, grunted and forced my way in...

...with easily two dozen people standing around doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs and watching me.  "Thanks for offering to help, but I can do this all by myself, people!  Thanks anyway!" I said, and I was rewarded by watching them all get the same, "Oh..." look on their faces.  I hope they all develop boils on their genital.

Then, I found out my books were late, and I owed them $2.40.  I didn't mind paying the fine, but I DID mind not realizing they were late - I don't forget things like that until, well, I forgot something like that. 

I struggled through the place trying to juggle the oxygen, the messenger bag, my purse, and the walker.  I ended up grabbing books I didn't really want just to get something to read and get the fuck out of there.  I suppose I can spend at least one evening reading about one Chinese familys' odyssey adjusting to life in San Francisco in the '80's...and I'm afraid to look at the others I have in the bag...

I had the same problems with exiting the building with a small crowd of different people watching me struggle without offering to simply HOLD THE FUCKING DOOR FOR ME...  (What's happened in America?  Have we all become so fucking self-involved that we can't hold a fucking door?)

I managed to make it back home where I was sweating, in pain, and in the mood to poke infants with my bony fingers just to hear them cry.  Because I live around lowlifes who can't be trusted, every door in the place has three locks - a regular lock and two deadbolts.  Having to unlock them all is a bitch, but I want to protect what little I have from folks like Michael who have no qualms about lifting anything that isn't nailed down or protected by a guardian troll, so I had to put down the messenger bag, pick up my purse, dig for the keys, unlock the locks (all the keys look alike, of course), open the door, pick up the messenger bag, drag my walker inside, unattach myself from the portable oxygen, find my regular oxygen, and sit my irritable ass down for a few minutes before putting everything away and remembering that I FORGOT TO STOP AT THE STORE FOR SOME FUCKING MILK...

I had my oatmeal plain, thank you, and my tea the same...

I'm Holding Myself Together...

...but I'm still knee-deep in pieces of raw davida...

Yesterday, when I saw S.B. and she asked me how I was doing, this is the image that bounced into my head.  I think I'm going to make a 'real' pic out of this little sketch...

I'm getting a bit tired of seeing her twice a week, to be honest.  Okay, okay - I understand the therapeutic actions resulting from talking through the pain you're feeling, but - do we really need to talk so fucking much about anything at all?  I think about my evil shit all the time, so having to think about it out loud twice a week doesn't seem to be the right thing to do for me.  Some people might respond to, even like, vomiting out all the bad juices, and it cleanses them.  For me, it's only puts them into another set of ears who can't, honestly, know how it feels.  Yes, they can empathize.  Yes, they can offer suggestions (all of which I'm familiar with).  While it might help if I had something dark to confess ("I've been meaning to tell you, Steph, that most of my problems stem from my overwhelming and undeniable urge to peel corpses and make lederhosen from their skins..."), but to continually dwell on the same shit, over and over, doesn't seem to do anything but stir the pot, agitate the evil sewage...

Yesterday, she just happened (yeah...) to have her lunch ready when I arrived, and suggested we share it while we talked.  It was a nice gesture, but I knew where she was going.  "I'm not losing weight because I can't afford food, Steph.  I'm losing weight because I just don't feel like eating.  It all tastes like wet newspaper..."  To make her happy, I had a cup of tea and a slice of canteloupe...

I appreciate the gesture, though.  In her mind, she was helping, and that's enough.

BuHsi

BuHsi was the perfect little dog for me.  She was a comic, a bundle of fluffy love, and an enormous pain in the ass... I loved her.

Most of her things are gone now.  Her little bed has been given to someone elses' beloved pet.  her clothes (and, yes, she loved to get dressed up on her walks) as well.  The shameful amount of treats I had for her (bags of unopened yummies) were taken to her groomer, Margaret, whom she loved enough to allow her to perform such personal humilations as having her anal glands expressed (don't ask), and I hope other little dogs will enjoy the treats after being similarly imposed upon.  Her binky - a small quilt handmade by my sister, Elizabeth - has been washed and stored away.  Her food dish has been washed as well, and is wrapped in that quilt along with her favorite leash - the Bye-Bye leash that made her light up like a rocket each time she saw me take it off the coat rack (A RIDE IN THE CAR!!!!!), her collar and the only stuffie that she loved to sleep on, Jaro.

I have her ashes, and a lock of her silky, white hair to remember all the years she gave to me (and all the times she peed on the floor, barked in my sleeping ear, walked on my sleeping face, begged mercilessly for my food, etc.).  It's not nearly enough, but - it's all I have left of her besides the yawning hole her absence has left me with.

One day, I might be able to only remember the wonderful things, and how she made me laugh, made me feel warm and squishy.  One day.  Not today, not tomorrow, but one day.

Wait for me, baby girl.  Stay close so you can find me.  Mum will never forget you, and all the love you gave me for free...  Miss you, baby girl...

27 Names for Tears

Every time I think I'm coming to grips with losing BuHsi, it sneaks up and gets in my face again.  I've accepted that I'm going to cry myself to sleep until I'm 109 years old, but I thought that I was doing better during the day.

I'm tired of it, really.  Tired of crying, tired of people looking at me That Way, tired of going through enough Kleenex to stuff the Grand Canyon, tired of having eyes that look like I spend my evenings getting punched...  Just tired of grieving like this.

I wish that something helped.  I'd drink drain cleaner and pound nails into my forehead if it would stop.  I'd eat glass and listen to Celin Dion for the rest of my life if it would stop.  I'd vote Democratic, for gods' sake...

I can't forget her last breath......

Bad Moon Rising

I was looking at the moon last night - almost full, and - if scientists are to be believed - shrinking, growing smaller with age - and thinking that I'd like to take up drinking heavily and doing drugs again.  Was I any happier then?  No.  Um... NO... but I rarely knew this.  I spent so much time in an altered state of mind that I only realized I wasn't unhappy until I was sober, and that is a state of mind that can be easily remedied.

What stops me?  I don't know...  Actually, I already have so many drugs running through my system that I'm not sure if I've been able to count myself as 'sober' since the age of ten (I was such a precocious child).  I know that the doctor told me, more than once, that taking up with my friend crystal meth would kill me, but the medical profession has been telling me I'm dying for years now, and, yet, here I am - ticking away whether I want to or not.

All I want is what every person who embraces drugs and booze wants - to stop feeling what I'm feeling.  Why can't they make a fucking drug for that?  Most of the junkies in the world would become Wall Street execs and surgeons if they could swing that; street whores would all but disappear; teenagers would take up rugby or some other shit.

I think tonight I'll be content with getting very, very drunk on Southern Comfort and I will suck the soul out of my bong.  I would very much like to become unconscious before nightfall, and stay that way for a long, long time.

My Inner Child is a Monster

My Inner Child really is a monster, I think.  From now on, I'm abdicating all responsibility for any bad behavior I might indulge in simply because it isn't my fault, but the fault of this wicked and maladjusted creature who refuses to grow up or be restrained.  Anyone who has a problem with my Inner Child will simply have to pay for the extensive and expensive therapy required for them to, finally, sit down and confront her. I myself wish you all the best, but I can no longer be concerned with what she does, why she does it, or the consequences thereof.  Let it be known that this is my final word on the subject, and that anyone who disagrees with me is, in her words, a 'mean poopiehead'.  Also, I have it on good authority that she is training a squadron of highly-venomous wasps to sting them on their assholes, so - well, let's just say it would be prudent to simply nod your heads and agree with anything she says.

The above entry is not my fault.

Again and Again and Again

I just finished reading WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson.  I don't know how many times I've read this book since I found it when I was ten years old, or why I've read it so many times, but I love the book.  I love Jackson.  I love the way her words fall on the page, in my minds' ear.

There are a few books that I read over and over...

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVITCH by A. Solzhenitsyn.  This book never fails to lend me some strength.  This one, as well as CANCER WARD are two, I believe, of his best.  They both speak of mans' incredible power to  overcome adversity and shine on through whatever darkness is inflicted on him.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE by Somerset Maugham.  This autobiographical novel rings like a bell, and, again, I love the lay of his words.  He writes so well and so effortlessly (or so it seems) that I will sit reading the same paragraph a dozen times just because it sings to me.

GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell.  Okay - fucking sue me already.  I just like the book, I like Scarlett, and I am deeply and profoundly in love with both Ashley and Rhett.  Bite me...

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee.  This book knocks me out every time.  It's such a shame she only wrote one book because her words take you right... there... and you can't ever forget them.

IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote.  Capote wrote a lot, and I like most of it, but this book truly is his masterpiece.  Every other true crime book strives to be as good as this, and none of them has, as yet, even gotten close.

Anything by Tennessee Williams - plays, short stories, interviews.  I love this man, and his wounded characters are the heart of the American south.  No one can do brooding heartache the way he can.

There are others, but it's after three in the morning, and I'm too tired to write about them.  My point is this:  Why do those of us who read feel drawn to certain works and keep them close?  I do notice that the common thread among the ones I read are adversity, and emotional turmoil.  Sometimes, the characters 'win' - like Solzhenitsyns' people  - but, most of them, fail, but fail gloriously, beautifully... you almost feel they sacrificed themselves just for the beauty of their destruction in the end.

Boxed-In Again...

Once Again...

I'm asleep and dreaming my way through this one this time...