who you are, March 21 visitor. Thank you for reading!
Mar31
Category Archives: Writing
Mar26
Depth in a Spider’s Web
I got all overcome with a poetic impulse at lunch today.
I don’t write poetry! Okay, I have a few times when super stressed and depressed. But I don’t read poetry.
But maybe that’s a sign, a good sign, that my creativebrain is waking up again?
Maybe it would have been a depressing poem. Donno, I didn’t write one. I didn’t have any time to think of lines or wording. Lunch is only 30 minutes and I have to actually concentrate on eating during some of that time, right?
Anyway, I have a spot that I have my little lunch moment in. It’s outside, come rain, come shine, come snow and below zero temps. It’s behind a door, in a corner, where the big air conditioning units are. Cozy, right? ‘My’ spot used to be a few feet away in front of a window, and I’d put my drink and iPad on the sill. But that sill was for a window into a stall of the ladies’ room, and someone told me I scared the crap out of them (literally?) by standing RIGHT THERE and being a big creepy pervy shadow. After that I moved and now hide behind the door with my iPad on top of one of the AC units. Suits me better as the ‘shelf’ is higher, anyway.
Why do I have lunch there? Because I’m anti-social and I don’t want to talk about stupid TV shows in the ‘canteen’ with people I barely know. And I smoke. And I don’t smoke in the car unless it is moving and the window is down. I hate the way it makes my hair and clothes – and the car – smell.
An aside: we hired someone new and when I went to lunch she was outside smoking in my spot. I was not amused. I made sure she saw me reclaim my territory as soon as she moved out of it – and she apologised a few days later. I didn’t even need to pee on anything!
A second aside: people coming out of the door don’t always see me there, even though it is a glass door. As evidenced by the man who came outside and walked off, farting loudly and copiously. Eh. Better out than in, big guy, and I’m sure the woman in your office appreciates that you held all that in. At least there was a good breeze and my only sensory experience of his farts was auditory.
In my usual long winded way, I’m leading up to why I was waxing poetic.
There’s a spiderweb, you see. Oh wait, you can see!
I have looked at this thing at least three times a day, five days a week, for many months. I’ve found that the corpse of the crane fly (daddy longlegs over here, I got no idea why) particularly draws my eye. His legs are scattered and broken, but still stuck fast. I especially notice the one leg that is entirely removed and off to the left of the body. It annoys me that it is out of place, and not with the rest of the shell that used to be a fly. Just sort of a fleeting irritation, but I don’t want to touch it, remove it, duh, it’s a filthy dead bug. And I’m meant to eat with those fingers – and touch my iPad. And the sink is pretty far away.
Not that I actually plot all that out every day… I’m making myself sound more nuts than I am. I look, and look away. The decision was made months ago to leave it be – until today. Today, there was a new bit of…something…stuck to the wall. I just had to pick that whatever it was off the wall. And lo and behold, that one action got me started really, really thinking about the old spiderweb (and blathering about it on the Internet hours later, apparently).
I began drawing correlations between that web and myself: my thoughts, my history, and my future. The dead bugs – are they evocative of bad people in my past that I have managed to break free of? That was my initial idea. Thinking about it now… maybe they are something much darker. Maybe they are the guilt and regret that I feel about the people that I have made use of and then left behind when I moved on. The blown dirt and rubbish stuck there for so long made me think the things in life that have been thrown at me, the ones I was powerless to stop. The cigarette ashes… they are mine, both figuratively and literally. My mistakes, my stupidity, my many years of daily pig-headed obstinacy to keep doing things that are bad for me. That one is easy.
That is one seriously abandoned web. Nobody’s lived there in a while. No one has been tending the strands or cutting loose the detritus. No one cared enough to cut loose the strands that are coated in dirt and useless material – the crud that has blocked the web’s true use, its true purpose. Okay, for a real spider that’s mostly just catching dinner. But on a deeper inspection, it is also a home, a safe haven, and a place of security that a living being worked hard to intentionally create, for the purpose of bringing good and necessary things closer.
Maybe it isn’t poetry, but I think I have a mental image of needed change that finally makes sense to me.
I hope that someday soon I can post a photo of that same place with the useless net of garbage wiped clean and ready for new threads to be woven in place.
Mar23
Deep Thoughts By Spiders
Do you want an interesting life? Or would you rather your life be settled, routine, ‘normal?’
The supposed ‘Chinese curse’ is may you live in interesting times. That is by no means the same thing as may you have an interesting life. Interesting Times happen TO you. An interesting Life, hopefully, is your choice.
What would you define as interesting? What is interesting for some is tiresome, tedious, or downright horrifying for others. I think crocheting is interesting, but I’m terrible at it and it makes me angry that I suck at something creative that I also want to do. I think mountain climbing, or rock climbing, is fucking dangerously stupid and why would you want to do that!?!?! But, I have a friend who loves it.
I’m reading Koontz again, his Odd Thomas series. Main character, Odd, is constantly approached by dead people needing help. He’d rather be a short-order cook, or a tire salesman. Well, he is a short-order cook, because the rest of his life is just a bit too interesting. But, he makes the case that he would never want to be famous. I don’t think I’d want to be famous either – not with the lack of privacy and the downright creepy attention people pay to everything you wear and every wrinkle or bulge on your physical body. Perhaps that’s only something famous women have to worry about? I can’t really care about my body’s appearance when I live entirely in my mind. And, if I had a choice, and lots of money, I would dress like a three year old goth: Spongebob and skulls. I don’t want to ever be put in a situation where millions think way too hard about the crap I’m wearing. And I will only wear makeup these days when it is socially expected (which I resent heartily) or I feel like hiding behind it.
There are innumerable women who stay with abusive men because (combined with other reasons) the excitement, the passion! involved is interesting. If and when these women break free, they absolutely miss that excitement. I totally understand that. Adrenaline is addictive.
So. All this comes about from a comment on my Gory Story Time post. Tom basically said that my life was too interesting and he had nothing close in his history to what I’d gone though. And my first reaction was to laugh – because that’s not a big story in my life at all. That’s an amusing side note, a small anecdote, a bit of nothing in the larger history! My life has been truly interesting – but I’m only now realising that it’s pretty much all been by my own choices. These, for the most part, have been pretty stupid choices. But goddamned exciting, nonetheless.
After I grew up a bit, I thought my biggest problem was that I have a tendency to run away. And I do, going back to childhood. But as a ‘growedup’ I would find a great relationship and stick for years – until I got bored, and/or cheated, and used that as an excuse to run away. I’ve also never worked a single job longer than four years straight – pretty impressive as I had my first ‘real’ job at about age 10. I’ve a history of moving around America, town to town, job to job, that finally ended up with me moving entire countries. On a whim, in retrospect. I didn’t have to. Not that I don’t love my husband. But I could have moved him to the US instead. Truly, it made sense for me to move here. BUT – and that’s a big but, that’s why it’s in all caps – I went looking for a man in Ireland intentionally. Because I was bored. I didn’t know that then, this is a new insight into my own motivations. I thought I just didn’t really like the US, and had finally realised that moving from redneck Lower Alabama to Big City Ohio didn’t make a difference – I still didn’t “fit in” with American culture.
Well fuck me, but I sure as shit don’t fit in here, either. After nearly eight years (an all-time record for me staying with one person and a growedup record for living continually at one address, since I was about…14), I’m bored again. I don’t know what is my trigger this time! Do I think I’ve learned all I can about where I live and this culture and all the people that I know? Is it just that the job I’ve had for the last year+ is one I dislike intensely? Am I, deep down, just a lazy feicer and I really, really miss the almost two years I was unemployed as it finally gave me a chance to feel that I had a right to be creative – to write, to draw, to start this blog?
Is it all of the above? How am I supposed to know? Is there something else I’m still missing? I’ve had a few shrinks and therapists, and not one ever pointed this rather important bit of insight out to me.
I know this much: Tom’s comment was a revelation for me, once I gave it some thought. I was pretty damn surprised, because it gives me hope – if only I can figure out what I can do to save myself that doesn’t involve running away. That’s a hard one, as the feeling of being trapped is, for me, something that inspires fight or flight. I fight for a while, but in most situations in my past, I have picked flight. The fight right now has nearly deserted me, leaving only a serious dearth of flight choices that gives me depression in spades. You can guess, if you’ve had depression, what the ultimate choice for flight is when all other options appear to be closed.
But, for now, I’m at penultimate. Because I am still fighting this! I had nearly given up, until Tom’s comment. I’ve fought before when things got this bad: I once decided that getting in my truck in Florida and driving to Maine, with nothing – nothing at all than would fit in the cab (including a very angry and upset Siamese) was better than suicide. Why? I’d never been to Maine, and Stephen King lives there. Those were my only reasons. My point being that I can still see that insane changes will make a difference, for me, rather than the one, irrevocable, change that I will come to, eventually, by choice or not.
I understand that this truly is a revelation, and I don’t expect deep thoughts or even good advice. I needed to write, and this is my outlet. I have written my thoughts and discarded them so many, many times over the last few months – because I don’t want this to be a negative space. This blog is my happy place and I just couldn’t ruin it. I hope I haven’t ruined it now? I still have a lot of stories to tell and – maybe – some art still left in me.
Mar8
I need
I need to howl. Like a lonely dog. Like a wolf looking for her pack.
I’m sitting outside, it is cold, it is breezy. Some of my fingers have turned white, bloodless, from the lack of circulation.
I don’t want to go inside.
I tilt my head to the sky. The black, moonless sky. There are only two stars strong enough, bright enough, to shimmer in the black.
Head back, looking up, throat exposed stretched grasping I feel the need to howl. To howl loud and long. Howl for the pain and the frustration.
I can not. I have neighbours who would not understand, would not appreciate my song of loss.
I bottle it in, again, still, until.
Mar1
Gory story time!
My current life is so… uninteresting, for lack of a better description. But I feel the need to write. So here’s a true story that is educational, and quite disgusting if you’re squeamish. Don’t say I didn’t warn ye.
When I was 16, I kept getting colds and bronchitis all the time. It got annoying. So my parents and I talked it over and decided that I should finally have my tonsils out. I was sort of old for the surgery, but I have been a lot less prone to that sort of illness since having them out.
I don’t remember much about the surgery itself. I know they made me take my shirt off, and I clearly recall my surgeon saying to the others in the room as he moved the sheet down (why!?!?) to expose my chest, that I was “very mature.” That bothered me for years. I was ashamed to even speak about it. It felt like visual group rape. I’ve often wondered: did he/they give me a suggestion to not talk about it when I was all the way under the anaesthetic? because after I told someone the first time, it got easier until it didn’t bother me any more.
What will bother me until the day I die is that not that he was a bit scuzzy and inappropriate, but that he cut too far down on the right side. Really, really far down. I have a pocket between my tongue and what should be throat-meat, but isn’t. Quite often, food that is small and hard gets stuck in there (peanuts and popcorn shells are the worst) and the only way to get it out is to fish it out with my index finger or suck it out while making vile-sounding slurping snotty noises. Thanks, doc.
I haven’t even gotten into the disgusting part yet. Honestly, it gets worse!
We were given a slip of paper with post-operation instructions. It said: ‘about a week after your surgery, the incision may open up and bleed. This is nothing to worry about if the amount of blood is a teacup or less.’
What the leaflet failed to mention is what to do if it was more than a teacup.
I have a mental picture of when it started: a combination of my actual view and a sort of distanced movie of where I was and what I was doing. I was outside, at the end of our driveway, right by one of the odd, light grey, cinderblock-and-concrete-stucco pillars that lined the road in front of our house. There was a small popcorn tree behind me, and I was facing toward our red-clay driveway. I was talking to one of the two beautiful, white long-haired cats that ‘belonged’ to a neighbour (my grandmother adopted one later, the other was a tom and went feral). I leaned over to pet the kitty, who had trotted across the street to see me, and suddenly I had a strange tickle in my throat.
I opened my mouth to talk to the kitty and blood sprayed on to the driveway.
I can no longer recall if I ran right inside, or gave myself a moment or two to figure out what was going on. I’m not prone to panic, and blood has never bothered me, so I’m guessing I didn’t scream for mom and run inside immediately. When I did go in, we found the leaflet and read it. One of us grabbed a smallish coffee cup (no tiny teacups in our house) and when I had filled that up, mom brought out a massive, three-quart, square Tupperware container from the cupboard. The very same one my sister and I had puked into for years when we were small and very sick. It was so deep there was little chance of splash-back, you see. Mom was practical like that.
Even better, this thing had measurements on the inside of the bowl so we could see just how much blood I was losing. The measurements were in quarts. We dumped in the coffee cup-full of blood, in the interest of accuracy. It had jelled already – perhaps due to the properties of saliva, perhaps that’s what blood does anyway – and it slopped into the bowl, keeping the shape of the cup. That was when I first realised that what was going on wasn’t “normal.”
The spray was at the very back of my throat (probably coming from the right where Dr. Inappropriate had cut too deep; it directed to the left). My mouth was constantly full, and I swallowed quite a lot without meaning to. That didn’t bother me, either. What did bother me is when it finally stopped, and I discovered that I had clots of blood everywhere inside my mouth – the worst were stuck in the top surfaces of my teeth the way potato chips do sometimes. I had to pick them out with my tongue, and swallow or spit.
The bleeding had stopped, so I grabbed the relevant Encyclopaedia Brittanica off the shelf to see how much blood someone of my age and size should have inside them. I’d lost almost a quart, according to the awesome Tupperware bowl. Brittanica said I should have about 4 quarts (a quart being about 950ml). Current Googling gives me a lower number.
In any case I was fine, it had stopped, no panic, and we’d all learned something interesting.
Then a short while later it opened up again. We rang the doctor, and he said to go to the hospital. I kept spitting into the container – good data for the hospital, right? Before we left, it had stopped again. I had closer to two quarts in the bowl, and I now knew that wasn’t a safe amount.
It was a small Florida town, and we had a (new at the time) hospital in town so the drive was short. I was fine, cheerful and chipper as I could be, and the bleeding had stopped again for the longest time yet. They decided I should to to another hospital in the next town over, and have Dr Inappropriate cauterise the area to stop the bleeding. They put me into an ambulance.
They strapped me down, as they do in ambulances apparently (this was my first and only experience inside of one). I started bleeding again on the way. I was tied down on my back, spraying blood at the back of my throat, not even able to talk because I would choke, and unable to sit up and spit it out. I always thought from movies that when a kid was in an ambulance a parent was allowed inside, too? Stupid movies. I remember feeling a bit of panic at that point, waving my arms as much as I could under the straps and gurgling for help. I swallowed a lot more blood before they let me up and I could spit. Into my mother’s bowl, still keeping track. I know I had lost over 2 quarts by then – over half my blood supply in a jellied square mass on my lap. That’s not counting the amount that I had swallowed.
By the way: ‘human’ vampires are bullshit. I know, for a fact, from this experience, that the human body can not digest fresh human blood. I will never forget what it looked and smelled like coming out the other end.
I might have gone a bit light-headed by the time I’d arrived at the other hospital for the cauterisation. I don’t remember anything else.
I know that my mom was irritated that she never got her awesome Tupperware bowl back, though.
Dec31
Happy New Year!
I raise a glass to you: to all of you who are fabulous, funny, fur-covered, intelligent, photographic, creative, lovely, loving, sarcastic, punning, gourmets and gourmands at once, giving, colourful, kind, artistic, and wordsmiths every one.
Thank you all so much for being a part of my life in 2012. Here’s to 2013!
Dec3
QuickQuiz
Hey, do I go to work tomorrow or not? Took the day off for a medical appointment, came home to find it cancelled. I have 12 holiday days left before the end of year, which they will pay me for if unused, but I’m also about 2 months behind as there’s so much work.
Answers by comment please, I can’t seem to put up a poll!
Nov18
What I learned this week Nov 11-17
I learned that the chicken processing factory that I drive by twice a day smells worse, now that it is cold, than it ever did on the hottest days this summer. Gag.
I learned that the dog’s nails are way too long. But I have yet to do anything about that.
I learned that I really, really need to check between my toes before getting in the bathtub, especially when it’s cold and I’ve been wearing socks constantly. I haven’t learned just what socks I might own that are full of magenta fluff, but it wasn’t easy picking it all out of the water.
I learned it was past time to bring in the big rain umbrella for the winter. It didn’t go flying over to the neighbours, but it might have smashed up one of my blueberry bushes. It’s too nasty out there for me to tell how much damage, if any, was done.
I’ve learned that I don’t care for the Lemony Snicket books. Bummer. Yes, I know they are for kids, but I wouldn’t have liked them as a child, either. I don’t like the style and I don’t like the author constantly interrupting the story to define ‘big words.’ And if you are going to have children invent things, maybe have them invent things that might actually work? Heating up fire tongs to white hot in an oven that won’t close all the way, then carrying the tongs in one oven-gloved hand while climbing down a rope for two hours to use it to melt steel bars? Ugh.
I’ve learned that I’m so lazy, I poured beer on the cat to shut him up. And it worked. I wouldn’t get up to fetch some water to dump on him instead (he’s on to that trick, anyhow). And I might be about to do it again if he doesn’t shut the hell up.
I learned that burning inedible bits of an orange in the fireplace does not make the room smell nice.
I learned that eating an orange while using an iPad is a messy mistake.
I learned that somehow, after blogging over a year, I wasn’t signing up for email updates on all the other blogs I follow. Durr. Sorry, I really wasn’t being an ass, I was being…an arse.
I learned that the toenails on my left foot grow faster than the ones on my right. This came about because I also learned I’m too lazy to take off the polish from the summer. I trimmed my nails and noticed that there’s more still left on my right foot.
I learned that I can hang two shirts in the hot press to dry faster. Sweet! (The hot press is Irish term for the little closet that has the house’s hot water tank in it. And usually all of the linens and towels. That’s your Irish lesson for the day: now I’ve taught something, too!)
I’ve learned that hubby will wash the halogen oven, as long as I wash the metal grate that the food sits on. Win-win for both of us! I hate cleaning the bowl and he hates cleaning the grate.
Nov11
What I learned this week Nov 4-10
I’ve just now, just this instant, come up with an idea for a new weekly post. And now you get to see if it is worth a shit or not! Introducing:
What I Learned This Week.
I learned via the blog that I’m not as weird as I thought I was. Or, I learned that I know and like a lot of weird people. I’m guessing it’s a bit of both.
I learned that raw pumpkin in its natural state rots fast – but if it is cooked it a bit to get the skin off, you’ve got another week before you have to freeze it.
I learned my mother-in-law has room in her freezer for a ton of pumpkin.
I learned that eating too many roasted pumpkin seeds gives me a tummy-ache and a sore tongue from the shells and salt.
I learned that if you goose Lokii when he is all hunched up, low to the ground, ears flat, butt-a-wigglin’, ready to attack something (be it a toy, a ball of paper, his brother, or something only he can see), he will forget that he was about to attack. I totally expected that when he was so focused he would jump a mile.
I learned to be super-careful wearing the new socks with built-in soles that hubby bought me. I didn’t smash my face when tripping up the stairs, but only a fast elbow jammed into the baluster saved my nose (I was carrying something and only had one hand).
I learned that it worries me more when I don’t want to bitch to my best friend. She’s not judgemental: it isn’t her. But if I start closing myself off from her…well, that can’t be good. Or maybe I’m sick of hearing myself whine. Hmm, maybe I didn’t learn anything there, yet.
I learned that my dog has started shitting in the middle of the lawn, instead of just around the edges. Ick.
I learned the new John Irving book is too much like his others. I’m sad about that.
I learned that my coworkers had no idea who I would prefer to win in the US presidential election.
I learned that people here ask me, very cautiously, thinking they are being clever: ‘who do you want to win?’ because they are totally going to judge me on my answer.
I learned I always gave the answer they were relieved to hear. But I’m a bit sad that they ever thought I might be for the other guy.
I learned yet again that people can be cruel on the Internet. Even when apologies are offered and explanations given.
I learned not to look in the shopping bags until after hubby finishes unloading the car. Dangerous new socks were supposed to be for me, for Christmas.
I’d like to learn why Lokii is currently upstairs saying mmm, mmmm, mmm, mmmm, over and over and over…
Oct26
Blowing through the cobwebs of my mind
Ever wonder why I subtitled my blog, ‘blowing through the cobwebs of my mind’?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. No one has ever asked, anyway.
But I never let that stop me. Here’s my thought process: there’s a song like that, sort of. It sounds cool. Wonder if anyone will get it?
Since either no one got it, or everyone got it (either way no one said a woid), I am now talking about it. See what happens when I make an effort to do this daily? You get this sort of shite! Aren’t you sorry now?
And I thought the song I had in mind was Windmills of Your Mind, a beautifully melancholy song, the corrupted lyrics of which I read in a version in Cracked Magazine circa 1980-something. I still have the magazine, but it’s up in the attic and I don’t love you enough to climb the Ladder Of Doom, stumble over a million bits of junk, find the box, and dig through it just so I can prove that I still own it, and type out their version of the lyrics. But after a massively failed attempt to Google it, I could be persuaded. I’ve got some treasures in that box.
But there’s another song which clearly works better. Since AlienRedQueen reminded me how much I like their music, I’ve been listening to a lot of Type O Negative, a band described as ‘Gothic Metal’ (a big part of what they did, but they were more flexible than that category). I love their version of Seals & Croft’s 1972 hit, Summer Breeze.
The video is shite, just listen. The band was gone before the ‘net exploded into what it is today.
I mentally hear that wonderfully bass voice singing ‘cobwebs’ instead of ‘jasmine’. Even if you hate this sort of thing (Sled, I’m talking to you) give a cursory listen, just for me?
If you don’t, I might devote a whole post to how you can get my hubby’s Halloween podcast. It’s pretty damn cool…
heretherebespiders 