Tuesday Three

(on wednesday)

List three items of clothing you'd hate to part with:

1) my carhart hoodie
2) my light blue hoodie
3) my rainbow sparkle KISS (the rock band) tee shirt

List three TV shows you wish would come back:

1) Dark Angel - oh Max, where are you?

2) Grey's Anatomy - HOW COULD YOU KILL DENNY?? I LOVED DENNY! I WANTED TO HAVE 10 THOUSAND BABIES WITH DENNY.

3) Dead Like Me


Political affiliations aside, list three people who you wish
would run for president:

1) Oscar the Grouch, I like his life philosophies.

2) Oprah, of course... even if I diss her sometimes.

3) Myself. :D

Weight Watchers

I just want to say; I'm going to give it a whirl.

Thank you Jeannine for the wonderful email; and I will write you back as soon as I possibly can. I got to work at around 10:30am yesterday because I had to go to the emergency room and get a q-tip bud pulled out of my ear (omg) and worked straight through until I left at 10:30 at night... And I hate writing tiny little emails in response to big, moving, insightful ones.

So I'm gonna try weight watchers... I'm gonna try not to gain any more weight as I sit her like a bump on log all day.

The new ww online interface is pretty cool, yes?

Yeay!

I just published my first book. Sure, it only took me two hours to lay out and I will probably be the only one to ever own one, but I think it's going to be a nice thing to have, if only for novelty reasons. How cool is that to have a whole hardcover book of your photos?

I am really into photography right now. Part of it is because it's spring and everything is beautiful, and part of it is because I am developing some actual skills. Meaning, what I am TRYING to photograph is actually coming to fruitation more and more often. For years and years that never happened. The photo I took never matched the image in my mind.

I have a million photos of blurry cats, blurry flowers, and blurry gi joe's being attacked by blurry monsters. Overexposed pics of the sun, underexposed pics of the moon... a hundred wasted rolls of film trail behind me like peanut shells at a circus.

Thank God for digital cameras. I can't imagine how people ever learned to take decent pictures back in the days before you could guiltlessly shoot 100 shots, delete them, and shoot a hundred more. Some things really rock about being alive right now. Digital Cameras, Instant Messaging, Self Publishing, Blogs, CD burners, cell phones, microwaves... funny I'd include microwaves, I have a catalog from 1975 because I thought it'd be cool to have one from when I was born and there are microwaves in there already... pens that have ink that dries instantly.. bic razors.. denim with stretch.. ahha.. but not too much stretch...

I know I am going nowhere here.

My sister is coming in 2 weeks to visit me! Yippeeeeee! We're going swimming,and to the zoo, and to sweet lorraine's for dinner, and who knows what else. My girlfriend is having her own 'girls night out' that night so it should be just me and my sister. Never know tho... I mean, I don't mind if someone joins us.. but it has to be someone who likes the zoo and swimming and eating at sweet lorraines!

WOW I am a ramblin' mother fucker...!

Lucky Me

This is probably the 100'th four leaf clover I've found in my life. It seems everytime I even get AROUND clover, I find a four leafed one. This one, as you can see, is smaller than the tip of my index finger, yet I found it. In fact, I think it found me. I was laying on the ground trying to get a picture of the clover forest in our back yard, when out of nowhere, it reached up and started waving at me.

I don't know if I'm really that lucky. I did win that $500 in vegas tho... and I did sort of fall into a job that I love, doing exactly what I wanted to do when I was five. I also stumbled upon all of my best friends... and think I have really great family. My sister rocks... so do my brothers, but I wouln't know what to do without my sister.

So maybe I am a little lucky. Or maybe I just put myself in positions to find these little guys. Maybe fate plays a roll - or maybe not. Maybe my great grandma was a leprochan. She was adopted and had BRIGHT red hair and green eyes. I suppose it's more likly that she was just Irish, and not a leprochan...

Here is what some people say about 4 leaf clovers:

The four leaf clover is a universally accepted symbol of good luck with its origin ages old. According to legend, Eve carried a four leaf clover from the Garden of Eden.

"The clovers also occupied a position in the cultural life of early peoples. White clover (T. repens L.) in particular was held in high esteem by the early Celts of Wales as a charm against evil spirits." Clover Science and Technology". N.L. Taylor, 1985.

Druids held the 4 leaf clover in high esteem and considered them a sign of luck. In 1620, Sir John Melton wrote: "If a man walking in the fields find any four-leaved grass, he shall in a small while after find some good thing.

The mystique of the four leaf clover continues today, since finding a real four leaf clover is still a rare occurrence and omen of good luck.


Well. That's just facinating.

Lucky, lucky me!

Mother's Day

I don't even know what to do with myself today. I realize there is an ebb and flow to the pain - I realize that this is exactly the way humans deal - I know that I am not unique right now. I know Mother's Day is hard and horrible for so many people I know. Lesa, who was my best friend in high school, her mom died of breast cancer a year or two before my mom. Karen, Lester and Joey - my favorite cousins EVER.. lost their mom when Karen was 12, Joey 11 and lester 9. I was 11. It was rough.. I was there, literally, the night my parent's came and told them. Both of their parents were in a car accident and Sharon had to be pryed out with the Jaws of Life. They flew her to Ann Arbor to try to save her but couldn't. The last words she said were asking my mom to take care of her babies. So there we all were, sleeping on couches in the living room, curled together like kittens, when the news came. I knew it before they said it - that kind of news can't be prettied up. Just walking through the door told the story we didn't want to hear.

So many people are living this with me.

Really, so many people...

and so many people who might as well have no moms, because the kind of mother's day I remember was never there for them to begin with.

I had it good while I had it. When I was a kid I'd always take my mom to the school play, which always happened to land on Mother's Day. Actually it was a musical, and normally really cool. Bye Bye Birdie rocked... really they did a great job on every one I'd seen. We wouldn't do things like that, being country bumpkins on all, but we did on Mother's Day.

Then we'd all get together, ya know, the whole family.. and bring her presents and just be with her.
Lots of food, lots of happiness. She really loved the basket I gave her one year, show showed everyone. I took a big wicker basket and put in it bath stuff and a bath robe and slippers. I'm not normally into that kind of thing but I have to admit it was fun - and it looked like a SUPER expensive gift even though I bought everything at Marshalls. No, I'm not saying I was a cheepskate... just saying it looked more impressive in the basket then it would have not in the basket. It looked waaaaay more impressive than if I'd have left it in the Marshall's bag. :}

Anyway. I was thinking of honoring her in some way, today. I thought I'd might clean my house because she'd freaking faint if she saw how I've been living. Then I thought, I dunno, doesn't seem meaningful enough. I thought of eating her favorite candy and then I thought that just sounded mean - like why the hell would she want me eating her favorite candy? Then I thought maybe I should learn to thread my serger, her fancy sewing machine that I inherited, and then I realized I'm no better at it now that the trillion times I've tried since I got it. I don't know how I'm going to learn. I bought it a cute little sewing table at the Salvation Army for $5 so at least it looks cute sitting in the corner. *sigh*

I don't know what I'd do to honor her, really. I wish I lived closer sometimes, because I'd like to start the day bringing some flowers to her grave. It's a 3.5 hour drive round trip tho.. and of course I'd have to spend the day with my dad if I did go.. and I'm really not in the mood for that. At all.

I could garden, but it's raining. And you know, it never was my thing.. so far anyway. I have a suspicion it might kick in later.


So I don't know what to do with myself.. maybe there isn't anything I can do, really. Maybe I will go read my new book about photography and wash some underwear. Maybe it'd be honoring her to be a better me, meaning, a whole me with clean clothes and friends and hobbies and a happy life.. not that I can obtain all that in one day.. but it does make sense, I guess, that living how she taught me to live would be a lot more of an honor that doing things she liked to do. I think every mom hopes their children will grow into happy, considerate, caring, self sufficient adults.

So to honor her what I really should do is smile more, be friendly to strangers, work when it needs to be done, relax when I can, care about baby things, care about adult things, care about growing things, care about pretty things,... and ugly things too. Laugh as much as possible - but not to the point where it's insincere. Capture the moment because it's our most precious gift and it's so VERY fleeting. Capture it in memory - capture it in pictures. Visit with friends. Forgive. Accept things that you can't do a thing about.

That last one I realllllllly need to work on... some things are hard to swallow. Some things are very, very hard to accept.

Forgiven.

Around five years ago my mom was coming down to visit. She asked me before she left if I wanted some of her Irises, and I said sure... not thinking much more of it. When she got to my house she had a big bag of iris roots that needed to be planted, that she had dug up for me. She sat the bag under the eves of our house telling me to make sure I get them in the ground as soon as I could. They needed earth, they needed water, and if I got them in the ground soon enough the next year they'd bloom.

The weekend passed and so did the weeks afterward. I never touched the irises. It rained on the bag, I looked at them and felt guilty, but not guilty enough to plant them. I walked by them every day and thought, "shit.. I should plant them."... and then kept on walking.

My mom's disease worsened. Life grew crazy. Life grew unbearably hard. Everything was a challenge.. cooking, washing clothes, breathing. Even looking at the crumpled bag was hard. I noticed each each day how it looked worse and worse. I felt helpless and hopeless about everything in my life; the iris roots were no exception.

Finally the bag tore apart. They had been trying to grow inside of it. Some animal ripped the bag and spread the roots around the driveway. Some were chewed on, some were eaten. Some got kicked into the earth, most died. Like baby birds that left the nest too soon, they lay spread drying out and dying on the cement.

Almost every day for the past five years I've felt the most intense shame, sorrow and pain for not planting them. For asking her to dig them up for me when it winded her - asking her to teeter on her knees when it caused her to lose her balance... asking her to find the roots in the brown dirt while she was fighting to see, and doing it all for me.

About two years ago, the year she died, in the middle of the fall, in the bed where they had lain, two small sets of baby iris leaves started to come up from the ground. It was the wrong season. They had no earth over them, they were bare roots in the frozen ground. I cried for what I'd done - the pitiful and struggling irises were never going to make it.

They kept trying. Winter came and they shone green through the snow. Spring came and inch by inch they grew. Never as big as they should grow, never as robust, never producing a bud or flower. Then summer came and when all of the other plants around it wilted and died in the hot sun, they did not.

Little by little, the two lone irises grew. All the next fall.. all the next winter... taller and taller into the spring.

This spring they stood as tall and strong as any iris anywhere. They'd overcome it all. They'd been abandoned, and frozen, scorched and gnawed upon. They'd struggled all their lives and now they stand tall gracing my garden. Deep purple and vibrant yellow, showing no signs of the abuse they'd suffered. I wonder now what it means. I wonder if she's there - I wonder if she saw them grow. I wonder if she had a hand in helping them along. I wonder if she's watching my back, saving my flowers, and telling me it's all okay.

These are the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen.

Rough, rough weekend....

I spent the weekend copying old family videos to dvd.. I wanted it done, wanted it archived, yet feel as raw as a slab of tenderized serloin. I feel tired, I feel ripped apart, i feel overwhelmed with the kind of sadness that you don't know exists, until the moment when you do.

All I want to do is spend about a week in bed, curled up with a 12 pack of diet grape faygo and the remote control.

But, as I'm sure everyone can identify with - thats not my life.

Not that I really want it to be. Laying in bed won't solve this.

I just want to wake up and realize I just had THE WORST nightmere of my life... I just want to wake up and realize my mom is weeding her garden or having tea with her friends, taking a class, hanging up clothes, decorating cakes, watching the grandkids... something, anything....

anything at all except where she is. I want my mom back. I feel like screaming it, bawling it, skywriting it... pissing it in the snow, writing it in the sand.. why can't He hear me? Why can't He make this all better?

I just want her back. I want her back. I want her back. I WANT HER BACK.

Lilacs

lilacs smell like spring
dirty feet, pretty dresses
clothes on line flapping

Concept stolen from Jeannine...

Who I believe she stole from someone else. :} Oh well, I still like it. All's fair in love and blogging. Although... Thursday Three sounds a little better. Gotta get that alliteration going ya know.


List three celebrities you'd like to knock upside the head:
(but in a nice way, since I love them all)

1) Oprah. I love her and hate her at the same time. She's being a know it all this season. Guest Expert: I believe the ozone layer is depleteing more rapidly than originally thought, the seals are getting trapped in cracked iceburgs... OPRAH: (interjecting) "OH YEAH, exactly, my DOG got trapped in an iceburg sort of thing last winter..." UGH Oprah, let the experts be experts PUHHHLEESE.

2) Angelina Jolee... I'd like to tell ehr "YOU HAVE ENOUGH BABIES!! STOP STEALING BABIES, ALREADY!!! " ( (sorry Jeannine, I know you want to marry her) )

3) Queen Latifah ... She's been pissing me off doing crappy movies. What is she trying to do, follow in Whoopie's footsteps? I'd like to see her beautiful self doing movies that show that Black women can be powerful and multi-faceted, unlike that fucked up movie where she was the nanny or the one where she was the taxi driver.... the list goes on.. and I really wish she'd check herself.


List three material possessions you'd hate to have to live without:
1) My digital camera.
2) My truck.
3) My dishwasher.

List three things you learned from your mother:
1) I learned to change my underwear every day, more if nessessary.
2) I learned that kindness and compassion matters more than almost anything else, including having money or your reputation. Doing what's right matters... and what's right should be defined by you.
3) I learned from her, in a million different ways, that you should cry enough heal, cry til your eyes run dry, and the purpose of that is to get it out and be able to move on. Don't bottle things up, don't stew, don't repress, don't destroy things... just get it out, get it done, and get it over with. Tomorrow will be sunny, but only if you take off the shades.


and one more catagory....

Three things you'd rather be doing right now:

1) Cleaning the litter box. Really. I'd rather be doing that than sitting here at work right now. Amazing, isn't it?

2) Getting off the plane in Las Vegas with a grand in my pocket and 5 days vacation time.

3) SWIMMING

Back from the Dentist

Wow man. Don't wait to go to the dentist! This was the first time I had any work done in about 12 years and it was some crazy shit.

For two and a half hours, I was poked, prodded and reefed on by tiny blonde haired keebler sized dentists. It wasn't too horrible, but it wasn't as fun as it sounds, either. Whenever water backs up in my throat I automatically want to swallow. So I did... and then she'd yell.. "BREATHE THROUGH YOUR NOSE".. I still don't make the connection. Like, I don't want to gag or barf or gurgle murcury laded water, so I should breathe through my nose?

Then she told me I'm a weird mutant because I only have two wisdom teeth and two of my other teeth grew in completely backwards. She said they are still in line like they should be, just backwards. Hmm. And I thought my only mutation was my extra head...


but finally it was done... I got a free toothbrush, I got some floss, I even got a sample of sugar free chewing gum.

I actually survived. I wasn't sure I would. WHEEEEEEEEWWW.