March 2007 Archives

That's a lie. I mean, not counting shows or stuff that would just have you up then. Now.

The last time I wound up up this late was a night I just couldn't sleep in my apartment in Hamden, about five or six years ago. (I have to measure years by apartments, otherwise I can't figure out what was going on in 2001, or 2003, or whenever.) So, I was just up, rolling around in my space, staying up on the couch watching television and smoking cigarettes because I could. Dashboard Confessional was on The Late Late Show with Carson Daly, and I remembered being like, wow. This must be fate that I happen to be up tonight, of all nights.

I just realized how much I don't think about typing. Weird, how you just like, know where things are.

So, after that, I wound up watching this documentary on channel 13 or whatever - public television - about these lesbians living in the woods with their dogs. And not like, hot lesbians. Like everyday people kinds of lesbians, these two older women, and they had dobermans. And one of them had begun to get sick, cancer or the doberman equivalent of it, and they had decided to document the process, as kind of an homage to their pet. And there were slideshows and conversations and sicknesses and painful scenes at the veteranarian's office, and shots of the other doberman, paused, paw in mid-air at the top of a hill in the woods someplace. That was when the sick one had just died. I can see it clear as day.

And I fucking lost my shit. I cried and cried and cried. I've referred to that night many times since, about how the greiving went on in advance. Because my dog was old and sick and would get up in the middle of the night and throw up and I'd just sit with her and she'd be heaving and shaking and she'd have some water and settle back down eventually. I'd take her outside, thinking she was going to - I don't know what. Be more sick, or something. And I can just remember her standing there looking at me, crying, because I couldn't do anything. It almost made me mad in a strange way.

So I fell asleep, and a few months later my parents showed up at my apartment to tell me she had died. I had made right with her (the dog, that is) and had loved her and taken care of her and made a point of saying goodbye everytime I was at the house. And I had told them, my parents, to tell me afterwards, if it came down to having to take her to the vet's office. Because she's sick and she's old (15) and you know she has to go, and you're sitting there with her, and when would be the right time to say, "Okay, I'm done now. You can take her." I knew I wouldn't be able to. And that's exactly what my parents did, and they wound up not getting to tell me for like, a week.

I miss them both terribly. The dog too, we had her from when I was in fifth grade until that year, and it was a long, long time. My whole growing up, my whole coming of age was with her in the house. The house we moved to because my parents seperated for a little while, and the timeline that recalls that the therapist mapped out for me. See, look here. This is when things began to fall apart. Divorce really does fuck kids up, even though it didn't get to that point with my parents. We moved there, I started yelling at my mom, she tells me how I told her how much I hated her and hated the house and how she was turning me into a statistic. Knowing her so much better now, I realize all of a sudden how hard it must have been to take those steps for herself in the first place... and how I didn't help things much. Right after that (I was 12 or so) was when drinking and pot and tripping eased in (but not in that order) over that year and a half, two years and it's all history from there. Come by a meeting sometime, I'll tell you all about it.

Jet Blue robots are calling. I'm writing my life story. I'll have to pick this back up later.

morning pages, kind of. what's three pages in longhand condensed to typing? I have no idea. I just know I need to get up and write.

I missed mary and tom brosseau last night, they were at bar and were supposed to come and stay here, and I was too sick to let them come. tom, having to sing for a living, and probably doing a fine job of it last night, just shouldn't be anywhere near someone who has turned into a frog (or at least sounds like one). I'm so sad that I couldn't be with them, and that I couldn't have them stay here - there's always next time I guess.

I have to be honest here, I'm scared about money. really. it's not like raf doesn't provide for me, or that there's something I need that I'm not getting - but there's just something about your parents, that back-up, that just in case kind of thing... it's just another level of fear that's floating to the surface in all of this mess. my sister and I will each be getting a check in a few months, and I'm going to throw half of it at a credit card and put the other half in like, a cd or something, but to think that that's it - done - fini - is almost paralyzing. I'm a big girl and everything and I can take care of myself, it's just... it's more of an emotional thing at this point.

I have a whole bunch of stuff to do today that I don't want to do. real life stuff, work stuff, art show stuff, sponsee stuff - and raf's sister is having her baby... I think about now (scheduled c-section). like I wrote last night, it's hard and good to leave the house all at once. I've been doing close to nothing, and as I start to function again, it feels good - and at the same time, the more I do, the more real it makes it that my mom is gone. because it still feels like underwater, like a movie, like it's happening to somebody else. and then I get these moments and these snapshots and I'm like, fuck - this is real, isn't it? and I lose it. this morning is one of those times where it feels kind of abstract, which is how it is most of the time.

it's cold out. I hate the weather here. I can't wait to go to arizona, even though I tried on some bathing suits yesterday and it made me want to kill myself. what else is rattling around in my head... oh, I want to write my life story I think. I'm realizing that the shit that I've done and been through would make for some pretty interesting reading, for me at least - from growing up like a square peg to driving cross country with a part-time stripper to recovery and all sorts of stuff inbetween. I feel like I'm in a movie all the time, so I might as well write one, right?

I'm going to put in a few hours at outside world stuff and see how it goes. more to follow.

v.

all I wanted was time. there was always so much to do and so many places to go... now I have all the time in the world and I'd give anything to have all the busy back. like an old guy at a meeting put it recently, I have to stop hoping for a better past.

so what I have managed to piece together (because it's up in my face at however many decibels would make it really loud) is that leaving my house is good and bad all at once, but moreso that I'm treating raf like shit and taking things out on him that have nothing to do with him. this is for two reasons: there's a part of me that feels like I'm scared he's going to leave, so I halt at a point and I want to stop working on the relationship. like this wall we keep hitting, in a couple of different arenas. but it's the same wall. the other is that the last few years have gotten progressively more difficult, and I've been dealing with varying degrees of depression and reality - and it's caused me to "lose interst in my activities" as the psychoanalyst tests put it - and I've identified doing that with dating him. when it's not him at all. and knowing both of those things is a huge, huge relief.

I don't even know why I'm putting this out on my blog, mostly because it's easier to type than to write and it's all right here and it's sunday night at almost 11 pm. I'm tired and sick and my head is exploding. the whole time my mom was sick this last month, like, sick sick, it's been about taking care of her. and my sister has been visibly more upset than I have, and it's because I wouldn't let my head go to "well what do we do when (blank) and mom's not there?" and now my head is starting to do it. who's going to call on my birthday? or make easter baskets? what happens in like, ten years, when something is going on - where do I go, what do I do? and raf was like, well, you could go to your sister's... what if something goes wrong? this huge emotional, mental, and at times financial security blanket has just been ripped off of me and I don't know what to do.

man up, I guess. tomorrow is monday, and it's a good day to start. it better be, because I don't think I have a choice anymore.