Articles for the Month of April 2012

… Grandma’s balls of steel

My favorite Grandmother ( I TOTALLY had a favorite… no contest) always said “You know the saying… If you don’t have anything nice to say…” she would then trail off and tell me everything she hated about everyone in my family… and I would sit there and admire her … Not only for being able to capture and hold the heart of the man who I thought walked on water…. But for having the balls of steel she appeared to have… and say exactly what she thought… and couldn’t have cared less what people thought…. That was a hell of a lead in to me not saying anything all today…

Cheer up little duck… It will get better

 

Zipper Trivia… just the word… not the actual mechanism…

G-Chat conversation.

Mr Amazing: so bfgoodrich invented the word zipper

me:  what?

Mr Amazing: yeah, he coined the term zipper

me: I’m not really sure how you found that out… although I suspect google has something to do with it… or why anyone would want to know that

Mr Amazing: the google zipper yesterday

me: Although… Inventing the actual zipper…not the word… well that would mean something

Mr Amazing: don’t worry, I sent the same message to a random co-worker and then pretended like I really sent him a random retarded message about bfgoodrich inventing the zipper… ROFLMAO

Epic

me: ROTFLMAO!!!

Mr Amazing: And then I just immediately switched gears and asked about the deployment of his app to production

smooth

me: LMAO! OMG! I am trying to cover the fact that I am laughing so hard I am crying

Mr Amazing: Next I will IM him about something really awkward

Mr Amazing: like a lump and the doctor and then pretend like I was really talking to him… “what do’ya think man… ”

pretend even

wow

I meant to do that

me: LMAO!! stop… my co-workers are looking at me

Mr Amazing: Hey … so my mother told me that she is going to stop talking to me, since I totally told her about the whole leaving the closet thing….

and… well I thought that was interesting…

so about that software deployment….

me: ROTFLMAO!!! I have to walk away… and apparently pee!! brb

me: There! much better

Mr Amazing: He still hasn’t responded…

He is probably thinking…fuck… was I too nice to him? Does he want to be my friend… creepy… shit what do I say? Do I just pretend like I don’t see it? Should I close the window? fuck….

me: ROTFLMAO!!!

Mr Amazing: just leave the window open and don’t respond… and never talk to him again

fuck

me: Stop! LMAO!

Mr Amazing: zipper? what does that mean? Is that a come on? Oh God, what if it is?

me: I just swallowed my gum!! dammit!

It’s not like you can walk over and be all “that was meant for my wife”… because then he would think you were talking zipper trivia with me

Mr Amazing: He hasn’t said anything else? what if he comes and talks to me? Is he going to talk about inventing zippers…

me: it’s better he thinks you’re hitting on him

Mr Amazing: Tomorrow I’ll ask him if yesterday meant anything to him

me: uhhhh

Mr Amazing: and then tell him that my feelings were hurt

that he never responded

I just tried to make small talk

like who invented zippers

what is awkward about that

me: “I just tried to make small talk” LMAO

Mr Amazing: nothing

zippers are healthy and normal

me: quit omg..

Mr Amazing: and he won’t talk to me about zippers?

me: I am going to die

Mr Amazing: Fine, I am not saying hi to him anymore

not even if he rubs my shoulders

I just simply refuse

me: creepy!

Mr Amazing: what is zippers?

or shoulders?

Do you think I should try to hug him? To make things seem less awkward?

you know… just reset things and let him know that we are okay

a two pat hug

me: ROTFLMAO!!

Mr Amazing: and then a shoulder squeeze

and then just walk away

me: two pats and a shoulder squeeze?

Mr Amazing: that would make things not so … weird

me: Why don’t you ask him?

maybe he has a pat preference?

Mr Amazing: oh yes, great idea

hey… do you like shoulder squeezes? you remember me, the zipper trivia guy

 me: ROTFLMAO!   Exactly

Mr Amazing: yeah, I’m on it

I am going to pray to god the whole thing just goes away

I may pray tonight

And create an altar of shame

me: I will help you.. I have candles

Mr Amazing: He just walked over and asked me to deploy his app again

he looked very troubled

me: ROTFLMAO!

Mr Amazing: but, hey … at least he is talking to me

 me: Pretend to zip your lips at him… like you can keep a secret 

Mr Amazing: Yeah, I already did that  he ran

I winked too was that going too far?

me: <Speechless>

Mr Amazing: anyway, I think we will be okay I just may need some counseling

Mr Amazing: and not type things in the wrong F*ing chat window

Mr Amazinghttps://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=coined+the+word+zipper&safe=on


… TWLOHA

A few years ago a friend of mine… Who has been my friend since the dark days (High School LOL) was staying at my house and upon getting out of the shower… Towel still wrapped around her head, pulling her eyebrows up and making her look like a Vulcan… Tracked me down and in “that” voice (you know that voice right? the I’m really concerned about you, firm because I think you’re doing something wrong, but scared your going to go off the deep end if I mention it voice… I hate that voice) 

She:  ” Do you need to tell me something?”

 Me: “Want to be more specific?”

 She: “I found a piece of broken glass in the shower”

Still Clueless as to what the point is ME: “I don’t think i even own a glass shower product? What happened? Did you get hurt?”

She: “I was just concerned… Do you have anything to tell me?”

….. OOOHhhhhh I get it Me: ” About the glass? You don’t seriously think? Still? Its been almost 18 years”

She: “Are you okay?”

Me: “Never Better”

 She: “Let me see your arms”

………………… I raged inwardly a little bit, but it really has been long enough and I at this point have raised a teenage daughter of my own and understand the fear that something could be wrong… warning signs could be being missed… did I do enough?…. and I raise my sleeves and show her the skin… Scars still jagged and criss crossing over almost every inch… but they have lightened with time, light like the color of my skin…not purple and raised… and screaming out the pain and shame I never spoke out loud….

She breathes a sigh of relief and states “You know I had to ask”

… and I hugged her and looked at those arms … excused myself to my bedroom and then checked my shoulders, my stomach and my thighs… Cutters are creative…. and noticed that all of them were right where I left them on my 19th Birthday… The day I decided that no one was going to hurt me anymore… that included me…. I deserved better. I’m 38 years old,  a mommy! I am a “Recovering <insert several different options>” and I survived…. Okay, continue to survive, sometimes barely.

 Most days I struggle still, but I find myself looking at new ways of dealing with feelings and situations, one of them is finding help on the internet… Several years ago, when feeling super self-destructive… I googled a few choice phrases, that I was feeling, and surfaced a page www.TWLOHA.com… And I found what I was looking for that day, to get through whatever it was at the time, and have used that same resource several times and this week, as I found myself sifting through this amazing organizations site I realized that maybe I should tell someone about it… Maybe someone hasn’t found it, hasn’t talked to their preteens and teens about it, and hasn’t found another way to deal with things yet… So inspired this blog.
I remember clearly the first time I saw someone with cuts on their arms, I was fifteen, she was a friend of mine, I was already in a tailspin of drugs, drinking, running away, being in all the wrong places at all the wrong times… but we were “friends”… and I told her, that if I ever saw something like that on her again, I would cut myself too, Thinking this would deter her, because I didn’t want her to hurt herself… She did it again, and I kept my word, I don’t even think we were friends for more than a couple of weeks, but I carried something from that friendship… a new coping skill… an escape route… and the single hardest thing I would ever have to leave behind to this day. It continued for years with me… Sometimes just to feel in control, sometimes to deal with what I was feeling, eventually just to feel anything at all…

Sometimes it wasn’t so bad, Sometimes I needed stitches, Sometimes I was angry when people tried to stop me, Sometimes I was angry when no one stopped me, Sometimes I resented the “body checks” Sometimes I wish they really knew what they were looking for, because I was finding a way.

I remember clearly why I stopped… Finally someone looked at me, not with fear, not with sadness, not with concern… but with a quirky little smile… She said to me “You know, this is a choice for you, some people don’t have the choice, but you do… You don’t have to be like this… you don’t have to be sick… you could right now choose to not be “that” girl anymore… But if this is what you want, we will always be here… open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year… even on Christmas, with our Styrofoam bulbs… because you can’t be trusted with glass… and we will take care of you.. But what you want is to be loved, and no one can love you until you learn to love yourself” … No one could love me unless I loved myself… I don’t know, now as a mother, if I agree with that… because I love my children unconditionally, regardless of if they love themselves or not… but I know it is hard …. Something about that rang really true to me then… and it still does… I didn’t stop right away.

 Oh god forbid I let her think she had gotten through to me, or helped me… But it changed from then.. Suddenly I thought of myself as a the little girl they were looking at… a little girl that I wouldn’t let anyone cut into her skin… she deserved better than that… no one deserved that… and I started treating her/Me differently.. it was slow.. and I had to try one more time… several more times… to see if I could still find the release I needed… but it was gone… I didn’t want to hurt anymore… and I stopped.
Once a year, My Friends… my children… and I write “Love” on our arms (Sometimes it turns into an art contest)… To remember and raise awareness for those who are hiding this horrible secret… and to remind ourselves that all we want… and we can learn to Love ourselves. You will never find me in short sleeves, or really short anything… I don’t run up to strangers and show them my arms… And I’m sure 50 years could pass… and I will still have to bear skin if there is broken glass or a razor blade in the room… But it’s because they love me…

 But I can show you my arms, I learned to love myself.
So there is my random story… and my random promotion of TWLOHA.

… That didnt go exactly as planned… sigh.

Picture if you will… the night I ran out of bed in my sleep…. The first time successfully since being married… Mr. Amazing caught me… but not before my hands were on the ground in the two foot distance between my side of the bed and the wall… My legs tangled into some mess of halfway still on the bed… and knees touching the carpet… Mr. Amazing has me by the shirt… and quickly scoops an arm around my waste pulling me back into bed… back into his arms… and back to sleep…. Picture if you will the next two weeks of me pretending nothing is wrong… that maybe it is arthritis showing up.. the weather is all over the place… and they did say when I got older the knees would suffer from that roll over… or that time I was hit by the car…. But I finally decided to have it checked… you know… make sure it’s not some bone cancer hanging out  there or something…. skip forward a couple of office visits… because the knee and its injury is not the story here…

Picture if you will… Mr. Amazings sister… (she is going to need a name… hmmmph… lets call her crazy pants… because thats what I call Mr amazing when he wears my penguin pajama pants… and well… its his little sister… whom is the object of much adoration from all of us…)

Picture if you will … Crazy Pants and Small Child coming along… because they gave me a Valium to get through the MRI… and require me to have a ride home… I pop said little pill… and don’t really feel anything but calm…. I lay in the white chamber… comfy and the voice in my ear says they will play me some music and its okay if I doze off… and I laugh to myself… because this machine makes crazy electronic noises… and jiggle randomly… and I’m an insomniac… and ….

SCREAMING!!!! the screams seem to be coming from my toes and traveling up and out my mouth for the range on them…. Flailing of untethered limbs… the face of a very distraught… bordering on terrified imaging technician… more of them entering the room swiftly…. sudden awareness of where I am and what must have happened slams into my thoughts… like my face hitting a wall… I leap off the table… ask if they got the MRI done… they did… I assure them I am fine… and walk past them all to get dressed again…

They stand outside my changing room… are you okay.. how do you feel… are you doing okay…. I am trying to reassure them at record pace… quickly before they decide they are going to tell crazy pants… who has no idea… I get out into the waiting area quick as I can… and there is the very shaken looking imaging tech telling her not to leave me alone… make sure if I sleep someone is right there… he thinks it is the Valium… he doesn’t know this who I am…  Crazy Pants looks terrified as we walk to the car… I try to laugh… I try to joke it off… I tell her “you should have seen their faces”… and laugh… I’m already dialing Mr. Amazing… forcing him to tell her I am okay… and can be left alone…. All I want is to be left alone to process this…

Its been two days… I still cry every time I think about it… I can’t sleep…

I have a sick sense of humor about it all…

…. Earworm? Top 7 embarassing song lyrics

Ever pop in your earphones and forget the world around you can’t hear the music you are singing too? Here are my Top 7 embarrassing song lyrics to get caught singing…. Love love love!

1- Artist: Corey Heart
Song : Sunglasses At Night

Don’t switch the blade on the guy in shades. Oh No

Dont Masquerade with the guy in shades. Oh No

2- Artist: AirSupply (Lets be honest.. I chose the worst song… but any air supply lyrics are embarassing )

Song : Making Love out of Nothing at all

The Beating of my heart is a drum and its lost and its looking for a rhythm like you

You can take the darkness from the Pit of the night, and turn into a beacon burning endlessly bright

3- Artist: Kelis

Song : Milkshake

La,La,La,La,La
Warm it up
La,La,La,La,La
The boys are waiting

4- Artist: Divinyls
Song : I Touch Myself

I Search myself… I want you to find me

I Forget myself.. I want you to remind me

5- Artist: The Beetles

Song : I am the walrus

I am the eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus

6- Artist: Presidents of the United States of America

Song : Peaches

Peaches come from a can,
They were put there by a man,
In a factory downtown.
If I had my little way,
I’d eat peaches every day,
Sun-soaken bulges in the shade…

7- Artist: They Might be Giants

Song : Birdhouse in your soul

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

… This moved me

One of my favorite things about spring and summer are the festivals… Art festivals to be exact…I attended an arts festival last year and wrote this post then… I wanted to reshare on the shiney new blog… I enjoyed it so much that I don’t leave the festival until I have experienced everything it has to offer…. I was standing in line with two beautiful children waiting for the face painters when the smallest angel started to fidget… I left Mr amazing with my son, and took his daughter to wander a little… Right next to the line was this booth, with the colors and textures and visuals screaming my name…  I first caught sight of this jump suit… bedazzled and bespectacled over every inch of the surface, and I guided said smallest child towards it, as the darling four-year old loved beads and jewels and anything sparkly really… she ooohhhhed and ahhhhhed enough that I dared take her in further to this booth… cautioning her not to touch anything…. Amazingly enough she listened… maybe she was moved by what she saw as much as I was….
You see the sweet artist in this picture, She was so kind


http://www.kathyross3d.com/

There was a little haven from the world in this booth, every worry and stress I was carrying with me melted away as my senses normally used to focus on them was distracted by the sculptures… I forgot about how I was going to pay the bills, How in the world I was going to manage all the upcoming events… What I was going to make for dinner… Hurt feelings… Anxiety… Physical aches and pains… and entered what could only be described as the world of a Book.

You are what you read… This is the one I would want to be… The secret garden

We spent a good 15 minutes in there, mesmerized, and captured before rejoining our group to tell them about the magic happening over in that little tent, in the heat of the day, and we returned the next day… so the boys could see it this time… and they too were awed, and touched…. Sometimes I think we forget to look at things from a different view, that there is more to this life than bills and worries… There are still beautiful things to show our children… and that it can’t be found in a classroom, or a bank account, or a clean home….


This was my personal favorite, It reminded me there is more out there, than my small little view… Better things are coming… and the world still can be beautiful.

I needed that… and it moved me…. I will be saving up for this piece.

… Its a rough day to be me … Here’s a Glimpse

Ever have one of those days where you step out of the house and realize your Shirt/tunic isn’t as long as you had thought it was and your sweater isn’t really covering everything you thought it should….  

So, now you are wearing what appears to be an oversized t-shirt with leggings that aren’t as dark in bright office lightning as they were at home through half closed eyes and soothing lights….

None of which you should be wearing in the first place because your too fat?

Unless (in my head at least) The tunic is so dazzling and just long enough to cover your thighs and the roll of fat around your knees…. and the leggings are not a second skin, or mistaken for tights… and are dark in color…

all of which these leggings apparently now that I have had a cup of coffee are not…. 

So I sit at my desk… not wanting to walk anywhere… like to the bathroom… so people wont see me… and think I don’t know how unflattering the whole ensemble is … and I start researching surgical options… and then wishing I had the will power to just not eat at all….

This is where good intentioned people try to support me… and tell me to eat smaller portions… small snacks all day… drink a lot of water.. exercise… Do you think that there is anyone left in this world that eats 4 slices of pizza and HONESTLY doesn’t know better?

Of course not

But by all means… please keep dispensing the advice… as obviously I must need it.

while I go on an inner rampage against everything that is wrong with me… and choke back tears… even as I scream in my head that I am too weak, and cry too much….

Yes… keep talking please…

And this walks me through cravings of each of my overcome crutches…. I want to smoke… I want to drink until I don’t care or feel anything…. I want to exhibit some sort of self-destructive behaviour….. I acknowledge the cravings… but never act on them….

This cycle.. The one you just read through (even though I really do look like a stuffed sausage in these tights) is how I deal with fear…

My Fear generally has absolutely nothing to do with the cycle of self deprecating I put myself through…

Today it was my body… but there are other choice topics… My mothering skills can just as easily fall under attack… and the list is endless

Self Loathing comes way more naturally to me than Self Preservation… or Self esteem… Or well…. musical talent …

It’s a rough day to be me.