13 Years Old

My son has this habit of late.  He sneaks up on me.

He's driving me crazy.

I am trying to take back the wheel by keeping my promises.  Promises like, going to school with him, and making sure he Repeats 8th grade if he continues to flake out no matter how bright and capable he is. 

Life's a hammer.  I hate being part of that.  I am a Mom.  I want to protect and defend.  I want to be a safe place from that harsher part of life.

Yet, it is my place to teach him how to navigate as much as I can. 

I feel I am failing my sons terribly.

#1 truth of parenting no one tells you.  #2 truth of parenting, even if they did your stupid ass will still have kids not realizing the internal turmoil you are handing yourself wrapped in a bundle of guilt and neurotic worry.  #3 Truth of parenting, now that they are here...while you might fantasize about all the things you'd like to believe you would have done if you'd only had a clue how much their existence would change you... You'd Do It All Over Again, Or, You Wouldn't Change A Thing.

I wish I had a village.

My City Smells Like Orange Blossoms

I like to drive fast on the highway, with the windows down and a favorite cd playing.  Lately it has been a metal band.  This is not my usual style but does increase my speed.  I like feeling the wind in my hair, and the sound of the tires on the road.

The weather is warm, leaning toward hot, and sunny.

I like it when while I am driving I hit pockets of fragrance.  Particularly orange blossoms.  The heady fragrance always makes me smile and feel relaxed.  I guess it just triggers the good synapses in my brain.

Tonight I went to a local nursery.  I loved the earthy smell of damp soil, water, and plants.  The flower scents mingled gently with food and music playing in the background quietly.  Jazz.  I am glad it was quiet because it wasn't my kind of jazz. 

My girlfriend and I were catching up.  She had a spicy chicken bowl and I will say it, mine was better.  It was a pesto chicken hogie.  Seriously, delicious. 

There are these gourmet food trucks that hit different locations in and around the city and I occasionally go.  This location is in my old neighborhood so it was fun to walk to the nursery (which has been hosting this as a dinner venue on Friday and Saturday nights) from my friends house just up the street and around the corner. 

I haven't been to this one yet,  The beer garden and live band were nice touches and made it special.  Usually I go on the weekend, they set up about a block from my work on Saturday's and Sunday's at a business that sells fresh and dried fruit and nuts, and fire wood cut from old orchards.  I went with my oldest son on Sunday and it was so nice to just spend time with him alone and eat some good food.

I wouldn't say it is the cheapest food, but it is a nice change from the norm and it never disappoints.

When my friend, her daughter, and I sat to eat and catch up we were over off of the beer garden and I had my my back to the other people milling about or sitting and eating and talking.  I don't normally do this but I was focusing on my friend and trying to read her as this is the first time we've spent time together in months.  It was really relaxing, though I wish I could have done more people watching.  I would have happily stayed longer just relaxing and enjoying the scenery, watching everyone come and go, the kids playing among the adults and the rows of plants and flowers.  This nursery has an almost a park-like setting with little sitting areas, areas for pots and areas for flowers, a few small gazebos.

There had been a band playing jazz when we arrived.  Soon after we got our food and sat down they'd finished. 

Aside from being tired from work it was a really pleasant day.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does, Ergo, I Am Stupid

I say this, with humor of course, because I have been so filled with sunshine and delight of recent that rainbows shoot out of my eyes and I'm so joyous I skip everywhere I go.  So I am facetious, I am glib, I am flip.  I have to make the fears funny if only to me.

Why, you may be asking, am I am Stupid?

Because I recklessly throw myself into situations that make me the butt of the joke.  Even if only a few choice (and proven to be cruel) people know it.

I confessed my crush to a friend that could, if she should so choose, screw me. 

Why have I done this?  I am asking myself the very same question.  Old friendships, old habits.  Perhaps the feeling of risk and disaster appeals to me. 



Oh well.

Maybe it will be Wonderful.

Does that happen when you are 40+? 

Does wonderful happen?  Take a risk and find success...

I was hoping to use ergo in a sentence.  So that's good.

The Real Conversation

I keep dreaming of the beach.

I could feel it.   
The fine grains clinging to my skin under little hairs of my arm  
How the sand makes its home in my cuticles
Under my nails and between the webbing of my fingers.   
It's settled into the lines on my palms.   
I can feel where the blanket falls short of my calves 
How the sand shifts all warm then cool under my legs that extended past the towel. 

I feel the sun on my skin and bright in my eyes as it shines off the water, the sand, the sky.

I'm looking at the Gulls.  

They are just there.  

Chatter.

The real conversation was the sand and the sun and me.

Peripheral Vision.

When backing up my car I look over my right shoulder.  I have found I can move quite fast and accurately this way, when driving backwards.  Including backing into my narrow garage.  I find I like to challenge myself, how fast and how accurate can I do this without running into anything?   I haven't run into anything yet.

Peripheral vision is a wonderful thing.  I remember once having a conversation with a Ninja.  He was explaining his peripheral vision was quit honed.  He could see more than the average person and was able to 'see' his environment more thoroughly, see details others ignore or never register.  He explained it helps him see and/or recognize a threat as well, as in sparring.

I feel I have a decent scope in my peripheral vision.  Compared to every else in my known family my vision is also quite good.  It must be reading in dim lighting and those weird exercises the eye doctor had me do with a pencil after I explained to him I could change my focus at will.  Strange man.  I don't think those exercises did anything but make me an excellent eye crosser to delight of my youngest son who at almost fourteen still likes it when I make faces at him. 

I have found recently if I am too close to something it tends to blur and strain my vision.  That sucks.  I now have thoughts of me with a gigantic magnifying glass while I sit with my house coat settled above my knees and my support hose making my legs look like sausages while I try to read USA today, or coupons or something.

I don't cut coupons.  I don't because when I tried in the past I always forgot them, or they were for items I didn't really care about anyway.


I've started writing to myself in Word Document.  I find I can be brutally honest there.  Something I have had a terrible time with that even when blogging anonymously.  I still hedge on the full monty info sharing.  So writing in word, I started yesterday, is an outlet.  Yay for me.  Besides, what's the Meme I saw?  Don't tell people your problems.  80% Don't Care, and 20% are Glad You Have Them.

I am well acquainted with that 20%.  I had a brief moment yesterday where I was giving the mental finger to a 'friend', then wondering if he was right, then my eye became tear-filled as well as a 'friends' that read the abusive things he'd written to me after I reached out to him in frustration over something, and then that calm that descends over me... that calm decisive moment when everything opens up... my spiritual peripheral vision...

The Armour of Spirit linking up Resolve. 

You don't treat me that way and see it pass without response. 

It just won't pay off like you hoped. Whatever creepy thing you hope to accomplish...

Sadly I understand it is a pathetic male response to sexual rejection.


Anyway.  For every nasy little boo out there I experience there is light shining on several others.  Some temporary, like my friends empathy at reading what had been written to me, and some sustaining.  I suppose it depends on each and every one of us to 'see' those lights and not let the shadows overtake us. 

Is it human nature to feel more poignantly to darker things in life?  To have to fight that back, battle constantly?

I like those sunny people.  Those people that find joy and hold it and share it.  You wouldn't notice it here because I have often used this place to vent or work out some of the stupid overwhelming drama that has gone on...but I tend to be optimistic.  This year has really challenged me.  I have been a deeply injure optimist that is trying to find her way again.  However that may be the case I am at my best when I shine a light of joy, hope, excitement, newness, and opportunity on another. 

This is probably why I am not so great at my job. 

That is why I am going back to school, at some point, and trying to figure out a path.  I give myself away a lot.

I need a practical platform to work from so that I might still give and not be personally bereft in the process.  I guess my rude and inappropriate 'friend' wasn't wrong in that. 

It's interesting, in a way, that someone can be so successful in some areas... so creative... and so horrifyingly impulsive and destructive in others.

Loop

I'm overthinking again.

Conversation

I miss it.  I miss talking about music, art, ideas. 

I'm not a fan of participating much on topics of politics, religion...people often become rabid dogs when those subjects come up.  I also feel terribly uninformed (politics) because it is such a Pandora's Box of nightmares.  As for religion, I think it is the work of the devil and I think he is getting a good and possibly endless belly laugh over it.

Tonight I am chatting with the lead singer of MGT, that metal band I saw Thursday night.  He's smart and cool and chill.  He knows what Star Bellied Sneeches are.  No one knows what I am referencing.  I'm absolutely stunned. 

You know what this feels like?  It's like when someone is neighborly, or just polite.  It is so shocking a joyous a moment.  A simple thing, a thing that should be Normal and everyday, a thing like neighborly politeness is almost miraculous.  It is a moment when my faith is restored in humanity.

What happened?  Was it the news only reporting awful, sad, negative, sensational things that started the decline of old fashioned normalcy?

Why am I so incredibly impressed by a good conversation?

The Ripple Effect

Drop a stone in a still pool and watch the ripples disrupt the surface in ever growing rings from the center of impact.

Multiple stones, multiple ripples.

I know everyone has a still pool disrupted by ripples.  From the small and insignificant things that tumble into your moment, they are quickly responded to and then forgotten, to the big things...the things that create waves.  The large stone, the landslide that alters the landscape of the lake, the flow of everything.

Eventually nature incorporates everything.  Even when the landscape is become unrecognizable.  Life grows from death.

It can be painful and revealing to see how the impact can ripple out and touch everything.

The last year and a half is changing more than I realized.  I'm not sure I want to see any more, but I am sure I will.  The little losses.  The little failures.  The things I just became too overwhelmed to process that began to ripple into the things I needed to control and succeed in doing.  Some of those things I couldn't. 

I can only hope that further down the line I can look back and say to myself, 'More good than bad came out of it.  Those ripples, those losses, those failures propelled me here.  I like Here.'

Maybe I'll see I wasn't in the water being pushed down by every ripple that moved over me.  Perhaps I will find myself on stepping stones, creating something greater and stronger that helps me rise above it.

I can't help but feel sad though...seeing some of the loss of this last year or so.  I try to tell myself that what has passed was meant to pass.  But couldn't I have done better?  Then I wonder why do I try to take that on?

Letting go can be the very best thing I can learn to do.

So today, I let go.  

I met up with my girlfriend, had a long walk through some of my old neighborhoods, checked out a funky junk shop, talked about nothing much and laughed.

I like my life.  It's weird.  It's definitely in transition.  The things that are behind me will stay there, even the ones I regret.  When I think about regret I realize, past a hurt feeling or me being hard on myself, I am not so regretful.  Those things are gone for good reasons.  Moving forward I'll let go of a little more, let a little more good in.

Hey, I patched a hole today.  It's been there since we moved in.  It started out as a bit of dent caused my the corner of a big drawer my son was carrying in.  The Moron Cat has been working it over until it became a mess.  The patch kit cost less than $10.  I live in an apartment and I want to paint...

I'd also like new couches but there is NO Way I am buying new couches with these stinking teen aged boys that like to eat in the living room.

See?  Life moves forward... I'll be moving to my room now.  One of my sons has decided to watch Last Action Hero.  No thanks.

  

Audies Oddities

The Exhibition.  Six photographs were my favorites.  One model in particular I really love.  She translates as though there is no photographer.  As though She is Joy.  Lovely.

I ran into his sister and her friend coming in, which made me happy.  Inside there were a few people milling about enjoying a bit of wine, a taste, some art.  A few friends liking his work. 

After the showing I guess a few bands were playing at a local dive so we decided to have a beer.  I figured I'd have one and leave.  Two punk bands were set to play.  We stayed.  One was very seventies punk, kind of Black Sabbath but with that screaming death metal vocal thing.  Damn, if these boys would just mellow the lyrics they'd be phenomenal.  The second band...I bought the CD.  They just pulsed.  I really like a band that comes together, whatever genre of music.  I like the base and drums to be a strong foundation with lyrics and lead/rhythm guitar weaving and tying it all together.  This Kansas band did it.  I was impressed.  My son will really like them.  I thought the Local Natives were good, but on CD they translate so much quieter than what they were live.  I really like them, so does my youngest.  But my oldest son likes metal.  He's a drummer and he would have loved this band. 

I met the lead singer after.  Very personable guy.  Likes to play metal, but listens to blues and anything but metal.  I liked him.  He's great.  Speaks French, Norwegian, and Swedish. I could have spoken to him longer.

My ears feel it still, but not so bad.

The very cream of it came just after.  Adam.

I turned and he was there.  He was speaking to one of the guys that had been at the exhibition, and a friend of my friend.  Everyone knows everyone in this town. 

I made eye contact.  For me this is a pretty big deal.  I didn't speak to him.  I'd made eye contact that first time but still did that thing where I don't acknowledge it, this time I know he knows who he's looking at.  I listened to him as he spoke.  He's kind of goofy.  I wanted to say hello but he was so chatty.  Just two stools away.  It's like we are in a motion we can't even see, circling closer and closer.  I am not a stalker, ha, it's just fun to consider.  And safe.  Daydreams and fluffy clouds and daisy petals falling one by one.

Then this incredibly plain girl walked up to him.  My friend had gone out for a smoke and came back about the same time she showed up.  I can't say anything about Adam to him because he pretends he likes me, spends time trying to either kiss me or convince me he really does like me.  Which I Again explained is not where I am at.  So I figure I am on my own. 

When she arrived I unhooked my purse from under the bar and told my friend I was going to head home, my friend walked me to my car, as friends.

It was a great night. 

I enjoyed some art, not just my friends photography was displayed in the studio.  I saw a couple of punk bands and had a couple of beers.  I felt pretty.  My friend always throws it out there but it is hard to take anything he says seriously as he is sort of known for being in love with Everyone, you know what I mean?  I'll admit it was nice to see I had an effect on others.  I felt like honey.  Nothing creepy or uncomfortable, it was refreshing. 

And after it all Adam walked in.  So what if it is just sugar floss and fragile and silly.  It's kept a smile on my face since I sat in my car to drive home until now.  The Romantic in me is stirring and the Jaded and Injured girl is sitting down for a spell.

I'd like to think that admission he made when we were seeing each other will still be rooted in him, but in a good way.  That he'll find himself thinking of me, asking after me.  That I become a quiet constant.

I don't know if the girl that arrived is his girlfriend or not.  I think it is likely.  I want it to be a passing thing, however long it lasts, or has lasted. 

If I'm just fantasizing I am okay with that too.  It feels innocent and fresh...something I haven't felt in a long time.

One Big Run On Thought

Registered for Community College to see if I can get my AA and maybe transfer with a purpose. 

I think it's a little sad that I can't figure out what I might like to do.  Famous actress isn't an option.  Neither is independently wealthy world traveler.  Disappointing that!

So I simply clicked Liberal Studies.  Maybe I'll check into being a therapist.  Or perhaps... Darn it I have gone blank.  I think therapy because I do it now and work harder doing it.

I have a client that wants me to be a life coach/organizer.  i think it costs about 10G's to be a life coach, a certified life coach.  I believe she perceives me as a resourceful and organized person, everything in it's place.  Not.  She should come to my place and listen to me yell at my sons to put their giant smelly shoes in their room as I add my delicate non-smelly ones to a growing pile under the "Rooster Table" on the wall between the dining area and the lounge where we all just melt into the couches and watch Netflix.

Rooster Table.  I will explain that.  I used to have a lamp that was a rooster base.  It was iron.  Actually kind of awesome but it had this fussy shade and a fennel that looked like amber crystal.  My youngest, liking all things that sparkle, stole it and then stripped it of the threading that held the shade on properly.  I think I got rid of it when Johnny and I found that new place together that symbolizes the destruction of my dreams of our life together before he die and confirmed it.  Dick.  *this is meant to be humorous, but I realize my funny might be kind of obscene

So yeah, we call it the Rooster Table to this day. 

My son just walked in.  His pants are slipping because his backpack is so heavy he's certain his shoulders are Bleeding and prevented him from hiking them up.  I told him if he were in prison he is offering butt sex.  Now he's eating his ice cream because, Sugar.

So, Scary! Finally taking this simple online step toward some other future than the one I paid over $20,000 for to find out is a cool hobby and saves me a lot of money on products of which I am am a little too liberal in buying for myself.


I tried on Levi's today.  The pair I have are too tight because I like pasta and bread.  I am working on that because my ass looks great in them and I'd rather wear those with the pure pleasure of knowing I lost a bit of extra curve to fit into them and sparing myself a stiff new pair at the WTH price of $70. 
And Chuck's, why are Converse $50?!!?  Chucks and Old School Vans have to be the most cheaply made shoes on the planet and they are damn expensive.

Oh well... I'll keep my Vans, wait on the Chucks, and lose a little bit (damn it! Just a LITTLE bit) of weight to fit into my nice ass Levi's.  They are also the Perfect length and wear.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Levi's or jean in general in my size and length?  32"  I used to be a 32/32... now I am a 33-34/32.  How hard can it be? 

I bet I do it in two months.  So I think I should avoid the vanilla gelato I bought myself yesterday and take a smaller portion of the grilled chicken penne pasta I am making with friends on Sunday.  I don't have to give up soda.  I'm not a crazy milk and cheese person.  Since my almost DUI the thought of drinking causes and anxiety attack.  I can't help laughing now, but it is threaded with a healthy fearful respect for how vulnerable I am to a police officer that decides to mess with me just so he can talk to a pretty girl and take his shortness out on her.

Tonight I am going to my friends photography exhibition.  His first.  He's actually quite good.  This will be the only kind of going out I will be doing for now on, unless I get the Heck Out Of Dodge...then I will go to showings (of some sort) out of town.  The whole bar thing is just not my thing.  I'll have to figure out how to get my live music fix in other ways.  Summer will be good for this.  Santa Cruz free concerts, music on the mall (here).  Things I can take my sons to if I like.

My recent crappier than crappy days, though driven to intensity by hormones, have shown me just how much I Really need a vacation.

I can't help but wonder if my friend that moved to Iowa will still offer to bring me over to see some wheat fields and Boise.  I'm sure it would include his hoping I'll appreciate him with sex.  I can't say that in those moments in the dark quiet of night when I can't sleep that I don't think about it.  That thought followed by either what is wrong with me that I am sort of but not attracted to him.  He has great hands, soft and firm lips (I know because he kissed me goodbye, longer than a peck and not demanding more), and he sees me...I think. 


I'd love to get away.  I have never had a vacation, not in my adult life.  When I was about 9 years old I went to Hawaii with my 'parents', and Baja California/Puerto Vallarta when I was 13.  I've spent a weekend in Seattle, Texas.  Driven into Oregon.  The usual weekends at the Coast, San Francisco.  All with John.  I haven't been back alone since we gave his ashes to the Sea.  I'm a little afraid to face it, afraid I'll go and not be able to breathe.  I need to go.  I need to go soon.

Spring break is coming.  Grab my boyo's and take a ride to the Bay.  Monterey, Pacific Grove.  Maybe I could stay with my in-laws in Salinas.   

I need a personal get-a-way.  More than just a weekend, and on my own.  I really need some 'Me' freedom.

Okay... so this is what I am doing after accomplishing college reg, buying wall patch for the hole my cat is making bigger and bigger (moron), and ...


I'm posting without editing this...because I can and if I look at it later I am sure I will cringe.

He Stares At Me When I Am Naked

I feel a little subconscious after my shower standing there at my sink.  I apply sunscreen to my face and neck, decolletage and shoulders.  Then lotion everywhere else.  Looking at myself in the mirror...

He's sitting there, just outside the door watching, so silent.  So intent.  Unwavering.

I'm listening to Silversun Pickups radio on Pandora.  Mazzy Star Fade Into You.  I sway a little with the music.  I didn't wash my hair today.  I blast it with the blow dryer set hot and fast.  Then I curl it a little with the iron.  I'm not always confident in my skills doing my own styling, it's awkward, but today I think it looks pretty good.

I apply my make up wondering how I must look to him while I do.  What does a lover think when they watch you following simple rituals?

I learned a long time ago not to point out what I don't like about myself.  I don't want the man in my life to focus on those things.  He doesn't see what I see. 

I often try to see myself, outside of my own minds eye.  Alone with myself I find the way I look agreeable.

How different I feel under his scrutiny.  Standing there vulnerable.  Sometimes bold.

I can't help but think about all the times I have stood in the kitchen and he'd come up behind me, arms around, draped over my waist.  Lips and five o' clock shadow under my hair brushing my neck.  My God, there was nothing better than that with him...it felt like the after glow.  Pure happiness.  The golden shine of it infusing me.

What does he see, when he stares at me?  What does he think?  I wonder if it is at all similar to when I watch him, when he is unaware?

Do I make him feel the way he makes me feel when he catches me watching? 

Does it frustrate him when I notice his stare and grow shy?

He should crawl into me when I am alone.  See me as I do, feel me as I do when I am uninhibited when I am alone.  Know all those little things I do I do for myself and for him.  Know himself as I see him, how I resonate in his presence.

Can't I move within him the same?  How cruel and how kind I can not.

Would I caress his mind if I could? 

I would.