Coke and naps.

I had a nap today, my night time sleep is interrupted and I wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning.

I am moving to an apartment for 3 weeks, then in a hotel for a month! I need to deep clean the house, pack everything up and move my stuff to a storage locker.

Thankfully, Aimee is coming over tomorrow. 4-5 friends coming over Wednesday.

I am completely overwhelmed and needy. I bought totes, have been blowing money, need to pay the electric bill, buy a storage locker, etc.

These are first world problems. Need to eat less, it helps deal with stress but I have no desire to gain weight.

I think I need to call comcast and get the cable turned on at the apartment. I also need to call DTE to get the electricity here turned off and I guess it wont be till August that I will have it in my name.

I love this house and will miss it. Its the prettiest house I've ever lived in. Going to take some getting used to, living in a smaller house. Onwards and upwards and give me energy to do what needs to be done.

Almonds and orange juice

That is what my day entails. All the while I am ignoring the big issues. Moving in a week and a half, needing to pack again, the 2nd time in 4 months, to go to a new place that isn't as child friendly as here. It isn't easy. My lot is not easy. I can't seem to bring myself to pack and clean. My daughter is over and out with her friend. I am missing my boyfriend. Its been a month since we were together. I asked him to help me move and received silence in response. If I can't count on him when I need him, then what is left to do?

I have to leave my house more often, being here reminds me of all my responsibilities. Heavy with anxiety and pins and needles and sleepiness.

But being too worked up to sleep during the day.

I noticed tiny scratches on my glasses. I worry too much. I have to keep telling myself 'This is your life, make it good.' For so long I just put my head down and marched forward, waiting for the day my star would shine.

Now I realize that I have to shine my own star and have faith someone will notice.

I was thinking about Rand today because Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill' was on. I want to stand outside his house playing that song in hopes of reminding him of how brilliant he is and that I
hold him the utmost respect.

He could of been a guru. Instead he married a woman with cancer and draws faces on his kids lunch paper bags. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

It seems so undoable to have to move in 14 days. I am starting to fill totes but still, dang, its overwhelming. I must march on though.

It has been a rough coupla months. Dealing with my own bad chemicals and trying to be the best Mom I can be. I feel the distance in my daughter. I am so tired of taking medicine. Each morning I have to ready myself for the pill onslaught. 3 pills for depression, one birth control, and a anti anxiety med. That said, Ive weaned myself off 2 meds in the past 6 months. Less IS more!

I have a typewriter on my arm and the word 'Write' below it. The word is in my own handwriting. I should look at it to get motivated. Writers write. It is that simple. Making my dream of writing a good book is within reach. Just need to get past all the emotional baggage that keeps me from it.

When I lost you, I couldn't pin a time or place.
More like an old beaten up car, pieces kept falling off.
We came together, tightly, then sprung back.
The days became weeks and I held on tight.
Till I realized for the 100th time that day, you
have to live life to its fullest. You can't hide.
We all have a right to be loved as we wish to
be loved. I simply cant love at a distance all
the time.

I'd shake your hand but I will probably never see you.
You'll marry someone less colorful, succumbing
to missionary position and watching tv in bed.
It will seem like quite the life.

Warmth

Quiet moments drawing close
We pause and remember the
beauty of warmth,  from
hearth, campfire,

We give each other warmth
A hug is warm
A handshake
Bodies meeting bodies

Somewhere my warmth awaits
No longer heater blanketed
I stand out in the chill
Waiting for your warmth. Thank you.

I was laying in my bed, watching the sun go away, with sunburnt promises of tomorrow. The ravioli marched down through my intestines and with every stressful thought my heart pounded.

I am the queen of finishing nothing. The prince of self sabotage.

I had this guy and then I didn't. He would never come to visit, it was weird. We would text all day, then he would say that he had his kids, every single day, he would also not come over till 7 or 8. It is was weird. I am sure there is alot more to it.

Usually we text each other all day. I didn't hear anything from him today though I texted and emailed him.

He is a nice guy. Has been there for me in his own way. He never came to the hospital.

Trying to untangle himself from me. Yeah that must be it. Less and less, like how you wean yourself off anything.

Taking less and less till there lingers nothing.

I always thought I was a great Mother. Till I realized that my teenager has a list of stuff I did to harm him or whatever, he doesn't see the 80% that was good.

This is a time of reckoning and transition. 

Please God, show me the way.
 

So you want to be a writer

Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Autographed copy

he books I buy often are autographed copies, not on purpose do I choose these, I am mainly looking for titles. With that said, writers tend to get autographed copies, it is like the super book gift. The author with a stack of a hundred or more sat there and signed his or her name over and over.

Somehow having someones name on their own book is better. I don't believe that. How well read the words are, how they pounce on you, stay with you, when you recommend the book to someone else, that is better then a autograph.

I have one autographed book I took with me while my house burned. Once my kids and animals were out, the book I got smoke in my lungs for is a Kurt Vonnegut book. "Cats Cradle" - I trace the letters of his name, hastily scrawled. Perhaps thinking along the same lines 'Why do they want my name? Read the book that is the treat!'

In my day which is now, 2010, I am more then halfway done with a book of stories. Maybe once you have one done then the rest follow in quicker sequence. Birth isn't like that. Love isn't like that.

Books are somewhere else. Their own galaxy. This writing.com site tells me I haven't logged in, in 8 months. I always subscribed that writing was a solitary pursuit. That self aggrandizing and editing others works were somehow a selfish endeavor. It keeps the writer from the primary excuse for living, which is to experience and to write.

Worse

Monday, I'll know Monday what the story is medical wise. I know that I have lost alot of muscle since the big bad surgery in March, which supports the joints. I know but I hope. I want my uptight funny surgeon to tell me it is nothing. To march out of there with just a brace and no plans for PHYSICAL THERAPY. PT is a sentence, it is a sentence of daily pain and it is mental as well as physical. Physical therapists are chirpy creatures, their job is to cause you pain, be your Nirvanaesque cheerleader. You will make everyone else feel as ease, crack jokes. Smirk through the pain. You will go sit in your car afterwards and look at yourself in the rearview 'I am Rose Hill I am Rose Hill' - it means nothing ancestorially but I have always pretended I descended from good brave people with some kind of magic about them.

One thing or the other.

Sometimes it squeezes me that at 38 there isn't alot of time left. I look like a youngster but my insides age, right?

I love life to intently that I know something will come up for the winter, right? Where I can be gone after Christmas through Jan someplace with sun so the darkness doesn't return.

I need a webpage. Which, if you know me, I was a web designer from the ground up for 9 years, and to not have a website is sacrilege! Actually it is freeing. But I need to have a solid space on the web where I put solid pieces so people can see my work and get to know me.

All the stuff I write is personal, I don't know how to get that distance.

All this will come, I pray, I pray.

Better

Erase the aches gurl
We all wanna see you soar
To have to put on sunglasses
You shine so bright
Especially at night
Our own lightning bug

Suck it Jon Bon Jovi and the cyclops japanese woman

Jon Bon Jovi thought he was not going to be recognized at some odd mall and started going on about how Alice Cooper is not a innovator, I had enough of his fluff rock bullshit and thus began the mockey and musical education of Jon Bon Jovi and his hair.

Prior to that I was sitting with a very tall friend at a restaurant and this little ill behaved beast of a child cracked me in the head, purposely. I looked around and found the mother to be a cyclops. I didn't want her to think she was going to get a parenting pass just because she had one eye in the middle of her head. She didn't seem to keen on schooling her beast but they did help me find my other shoe.

All the while, I kept thinking 'why aren't I wearing a bra?'

Dreams people. You get to wake up.

My little dog pigged the electric blanket last night and I in my sleeping state kept moving as she kept getting closer as I do when my child is in bed, to give them more room. Woke up cold, aching.

I think only one knee can hurt at a time its a universal rule like a before e except after c.

Humility

Sunday paper will become my nemesis littering my bedroom in no time. I see it peeking out the bottom of a box of wet wipes (used for cleaning my cpap mask nightly) and everything else. Wet wipes are wonderful.

I made 3 phone calls today, which is rare, for someone who doesn't even answer the phone and usually doesn't know where her cellphone is. I like emails and text.

My brother delivered an invitation to his fiancees bridal shower. I think she has a few more scheduled for the love of God. I hate small talk with white trash strangers who smoke while holding their babies and chow down on shit food. I smile and nod and tell the babies that one day they will grow up and have the chance to escape.

I did. I escaped. Mostly.

I have never smoked, I can eat less and less. I am down to eggs, popcorn and liquid protein. I get an MRI on my knee in the afternoon. I called my GP and spoke to 3 people about a pelvic exam. My library fines were overdue and I paid them, finally. When I went to reserve books tonight I found that I couldn't. So I will need to go into the library and plead my case I guess. Some hold on my library card.

I am going to California and I have a few people to see, mostly though I will be on my own. Not sure how long I will last unless I find a place I really like to explore. Not hard to do. I'm alone all the time really. The only adult I talk to is the kids Father. Who isn't a conversationalist, is somewhere on the autism/aspergers spectrum.

My daughter smashed me in the face with my camera today. It hits me hard when she is so full of rage (this time because her Father told her that he would take her to the carnival, found out that it was closed and then thought it was open and then found out it was closed and told her all this throughout the day).

He will be leaving for 4 days next week after being gone on Friday. Work is always busy and his consulting business is always busy. Lydia spends most of her time with me anyway, its okay, because I am her go to parent, her primary caregiver, its just so hard some days. He wont even take his laptop to watch some Scooby Doo with her unless I say something. He thinks he is doing the noble thing by bringing in money and I think there is more to life then money, there are these days we never get back.

My mood is dipping its the pain medication, I take as little as possible but it just kicks me down. The Father of my kids wont understand that I have another torn meniscus and some kind of arthritis till he sees it in paper form. He is like that with everyone my son says. If he had come to the doctors appointment he would know. There are torn meniscus tests that can be performed in office, they are like being made a human pretzel and the sounds that come from my knee are serious and bleak.

So, knee is back to fuckled like last year. Need another esophagus opening as I am unable to eat just about everything and I have no one to help me out.

Sounds about right. My best friend is in Texas. I need solid help but it wont come. I will overtax my son but it will help him grow. I will walk on this gimp leg till it gives out and carry on. Hopefully sometime in there I will dream of good times and love and picking cherries at my Aunts house. Beating the birds to their sweetness.

I will complete the MT training and get a cert and a decent job. I will keep working on my book and will get some writing gigs. The Universe will shower me with blessings, I will pray nightly and Thank God for my life and my childrens lives.

And thats about all. Pain, lone ranger with glasses, dreaming, dreams and family bullshit.

Keep this in mind, people who seek change

For the Young Who Want To

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Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting. Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job. Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don't have a baby, call you a bum. The reason people want M.F.A.'s, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some- body else's mannerisms is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you're certified a dentist. The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved. Marge Piercy

Go

Subversive, sweeping changes.
Camo pants old and older
Without emotional pinnings
So much without navigation
What do you do with a head full of ideas?
What do you do with feet that wanna walk?

Plan.

Cane, Torchwood, Kicking Ass.

No denying, no walking it off, rubbing dirt on it, forgetting about it. See I had this operation on my knee to repair a tear and whilst in there my doctor found something called plica which involves leftover fetal cells and made my knee bones grind on each other. He fixed what he could.

I was good once healed, so glad not to hobble, not to have to use this leopard print cane. It went into the closet by the door with the winter things and shoes galore.

May comes and I start having shooting pain. I can no longer take NSAIDS which lowers swelling due to my abdominal surgery, so I use homeopathics, ice packs, elevation, wishful thinking. By today, my knee is not holding my body up. My bed is my work Mom center. My rooms are located off the main house, it is quiet here with the hum of the a/c and fan and my cpap.

While I have been resting my knee I have been watching Torchwood. Usually when you watch a show, you get a week inbetween to process it. I have watched both seasons in 2-3 days. I am traumatized. I need to talk to the actors who were killed to make sure they are okay. Then I watched the Torchwood movie? And it was painful to watch the children being forced from their Mothers arms, as an offering to aliens. They ended up okay, all of them except one. But it brought up the nazis and when the main character Captain Jack said, 'This whole planet is a big graveyard.' I thought yes, yes it is.

We sit on strangers bones daily.

I went on a roller coaster, I rode it and laughed and laughed. It was close to joy. I thought of my friend who says that when she rides her particular ride she laughs and cries and I really got it.

Tornado warnings here tonight, in the basement with a worried but clear headed 7 year old and two teenagers. This is a new friend of my son, he looks like Flapjack from that one cartoon but he has no sweetness or charm. I am glad to have a basement. Growing up we had a ditch to lay in when the sky turned green.

Back to my knee as it makes itself known. I missed my appointment yesterday morning. I called my surgeons gatekeeper and told her, she said they had no openings for two weeks. I am going to call again tomorrow and let her know I don't have the option of swelling reducing medication. Gatekeepers aka secretaries who wield power and lord over it like some fat king on a throne need to be handled with care. Nancy and I go way back, I used the same surgeon when my shoulder stopped working, I couldn't lift my arm, my left side, my writing and punching side. So there are 2-3 years of history. I know Nancy has my doctors back. I need to see my doctor so I can get a scan of my knee and make sure all structures are in place. Cortisone shots in my knee do not work well and that is too bad, maybe he will have another kind of steroid that does not explode like so many icicles all around my knee? We will see. I WILL get in to see him before two weeks, oh yes.

I don't care much for authority, up there with celebrities, all flawed humans pretending to have some power.

Tonight I listened to my brother as he explained the huge wall cloud descending on his neighborhood, the wind changing directions, the hail, the silence. I could hear the joy and awe in his voice and I felt proud. We saw Twister together so many years ago, I think that inspired him to love the weather like I do. We are just these little thoughts with skin on the outside, the big game is always the weather. It dictates everything about our lives if you think about it.

Our bodies break down, our minds deplete, my body sheds its extra weight, skin, and my appreciation for life accelerates. I have days of depression, it comes with being creative. I wanna be Kurt Vonnegut who grappled with the horror of war and made it tolerable through humor, who loved everyone without thought of some big present from God when he died. To be a humanist, to live in spite of the horror of humanity.

Tomorrow I hobble to the lake to stand in the water and watch my feet sink in the sand, enjoy the perch, listen to the kids play, the smells of Summer, suntan oil, something meaty on the grill, lake water.

My mother sent me a card. I don't speak to her, she asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness is important in life, most things can be forgiven, some things are so awful that forgiveness is not given. It is a gift, to be forgiven.

The last conversation we had was on speaker phone, someone dear to me got to hear how my Mother speaks to me. It was a treat that ended up with my dearest getting me some ice cream.

Haha. This is par for the course with her. I no longer expect her to care about me or mine. It feels good to let go.

We are moving towards moving within two years, probably Oregon maybe California. Mountains and the ocean and a quiet place to write and sleep are my basic needs. Creative good natured folks who live without drama and with joy and gratitude. Not that fake ass shit and all the clawing and one upping and rampant consumerism.

I grew up poor and I can say that money is not my no.1 priority in life. To be a good person and help others, to be the best Mother I can be, thats up there. Money is nice and it buys LUSH and vacations and BOOKS and I am more content with some pocket money but what we really have and own is inside us, the people we are, what we have, what we give.

It is a time of people leaving my life, and I honor that. Someone I deeply love and appreciate hasn't written or called, or reached out or reached back when I reached out. It makes me sad for a bit but maybe people are put in our lives for certain periods and then they move on or you move on. There are no hard feelings, it is just life.

So keep moving, keep loving, love more, grow, love God, love yourself, break free from what hinders you, swim don't sink. Hobble if you need to but keep walking.

I don't care about the truth, I want the naked truth

A person has to cull the herd of people in their lives. That is how it is and how I choose to live my lifetime.

This is all a good thing. These people who are "family" have never shown that they are worthy of being my family. Its all take and who has the biggest television. I have given them love unconditionally. I raised my brother and sister, I have encouraged them to better their lives, by being positive, by loving them and telling them that I love them. It has no effect, their upbringing was entirely different then mine.

So I move on, glad to be on my way to incredible adventures with my kids this Summer. Good people find their way to me and I dance a happy dance and gratitude instead of satitude fills me up.

Allow people who give into your life. Most people are takers, selfish, self serving, unable, unenlightened, unwilling to reach out to anyone else. It is those of us who make a difference or try real hard that gives me hope for this world. The rest of them? They will go on polluting with their words of hate and consumerism.

All around us people are obsessed with money and bigger and better. To me bigger and better is that last 10 lbs I lost and how I am coping through these trying times while being a good parent, being as in the moment and as focused as I can on my kids.

If I can make it through today, I can probably make it through tomorrow, I know every version of pain from heartbreak to a shoulder torn from its socket.

Enough pain, I don't want to spend anymore time in Painville. Some people, all they have is pain to give. They are merely ghosts that pass through us and they are gone.

I am onto pleasureville. It started with a mango smoothie today and a ripe nectarine. Followed by the consuming scent of a overgrown rose garden. I know I need to trim but it to me is gorgeous in its intense color and wildness.

Embrace it. Love anyways.

Mezilla

Every thorn has a Rose

The key is to not take deep breaths. To take small breaths, to lay as still as possible. Absolute dark helps.

There is the body and then there is Rose. The body is just that, a body that has required alot of pain to get right. Rose is always going, always growing, writing, I remember in the hospital borrowing a sharpie and taking some notes on my hand.

Morphine pain pumps are pretty sweet.

My Mom is my Mom. Meaning, she gave birth to me and I am thankful for that. She forgot she has two grand children once my sisters baby was born but that is her choice and not something I gotta dwell over or take on. When she comes to town it is for her newest grandchild. When my daughter asked me why grandma didn't come over I told her. In not so many words. Truth hurts but it really sets us free.

I love all the stages my kids went through, sure babies are fun, but I am biased, I love my kids.

My son is covered in a rash and sleeps all day. He made a little cross to put in the flag holder (that didn't have a flag in it) and that was really awesome of him.

I have found that if you don't depend on people you wont be disappointed. So few people are to be trusted, it is not that anything is wrong with them, it is just that the majority of people are so self consumed they are incapable of being trusted.

I picked some roses. I sleep. I wait for the thunderstorms to come. I keep dreaming of moving and finding my new home and packing and fitting my stuff in. Dunno how I end up in Chicago.

More likely to end up far far away from others, thats what satellite wifi is for, right?

Less people more creative goings on. Some fruit trees, some gardens, solitude.

I think the general population needs a television, I am happy without it. In the hospital the nurses were pushing watching tv, I had no desire to watch it. If I want to watch a show, I download it. No commercials.

Shawn and her group are partying it up this weekend. I tried to go but not dice with the free air miles.

Here comes Lydia again to get me to head outside in the heat and mosquitos, which I will do with a smile.

I am not sure where we are moving but we are, new friends, a family we make ourselves, a small bubble of society where everyone cares about each other helps.

Right now I am doing it all myself.

People who eat alot and constantly

In fancy restaurants while others are spending 14.99 at the grocery store, hoping just fucking hoping that it will be enough for her family to eat till Friday when the check comes.

I throw up and I throw up some more. Today in a public bathroom, in my car. In the privacy of my own hell/home.

I have to sleep because I can't stand my reality. I can't stand how shallow and indifferent people are. How people only care about what you can give them, how wanty people are, how most people are takers and will walk right over your broken body to get what they feel they have coming.

You don't know poor. So few have gone without. I can't even think about my childhood and having nothing new for school each Fall, it shames me to no end that we were poor. I remember my Mom leaving us in the car for hours while she stood in line to buy Coke syrup, the cheapest medicine they had. My brother peed his snowsuit, I lost my mind with fear. I zipped up his suit and I cut his chin. We froze a little that day.

I never want to be poor. I never want my kids to go without. I am feral in that respect. I don't mean fancy clothes, I mean clothes that fit. Shirts too short, pants out of fashion, trying to make buttons closed with safety pins. Walking in the snow with polyester pants. My snow boots falling apart, my small feet open to the elements.

No one intervened. No one cared. Jesus was nowhere, he wasn't carrying me, he was hitching a ride on my back. Suffer ye little children.

I read some where that poor people are kept poor because they freely share resources in their neighborhoods. If someone needs some food they give it. If someone needs to see a doctor they all go in and pay.

The rich will never know these kindnesses. The rich will eat and eat and then when their arteries get blocked they will hire some fancy cardiologist to make them better.

The only rich people I give a shit for are the ones who give their money away.

Fuck money.

My sister told me that love is priceless. Love has a price. Today it involves swallowing puke and continuing to read my daughter bedtime stories while trying not to feel too sorry for myself.

California state of mind, my pants

A rented house. I can see it. Its wood shingles, flowers welcoming. A good sized fenced in backyard. Neighbors that are kindly. Kids playing outside.

The smell of the ocean. Riding my bike to the indie owned grocery store or WHOLE FOODS. People around me who are quick to become friends. BBQ's, good music. Good people.

Good people.

I don't want to get all Jimmy Buffet, as this isn't a Rose Hill booze cruise, I will make a difference in whatever community I live in.

My friend hit me with a sad truth, all the hot little mens I see in uniform who are around my age are ALL married or too young. There has got to be one warrior waiting, eh?

I gotta find a photo of the perfect house.

Some of you know of my love for vintage looking dresses and funky skirts. As of right now, nothing fits, except somehow my tittays have moved up. My pajama bottoms fall off as I walk. I wear yoga pants with a tie waist, I have 4 pairs of these and a tshirt. I have so few tshirts,

My feet are definitely 7.5 and no longer possibly 8.

Yep.

Im shrinking!

However, 140 in Michigan is 250 in California.

A woman with a figure has got to rock her curves. Especially when I am working out for the 3rd time of the day with my fellow Steppford Wives.

NEVER!

Show me where the do gooder lovely freaks live and we will make it home.

Just promise no earthquakes so big that the Leviathan rises from the sea.

Kindness.


Truth.


Friendship.