Thank God For Free Night And Weekends

I feel electric. There's really no other way to describe it. I haven't been this exhilarated in... years, honestly.

I spent 10 hours (yes, you heard right, TEN. FULL. HOURS. That's 3 phone changes because my battery ran out and I had to switch to the house phone and vice versa, and innumerable disconnects because of my crappy cell signal) on the phone with Evan yesterday. He didn't call me and I couldn't stand the anticipation, so I called him. We were on the phone for not even five minutes and we just clicked again. It was as if no time at all had passed since we last talked. Is it possible to have chemistry from three time zones away? Because we did. And I mean some serious chemistry. It was simply electric. We covered virtually every topic under the sun, and just kept going. He's the only person I've ever met who can stimulate my mind in such a way. It was incredible. Neither of us wanted it to end. We kept talking and talking until finally it was imperative that we get off the phone because I had to get ready for work in 6 hours.

How do you not talk to someone for three years and suddenly start talking again and end up acting as if there was no time in between, as if the relationship had never ended in the first place? That's how it felt. I felt so completely energized, like a battery that had been recharged. All day I've felt that way, this overflow of power and energy. I want to do everything all at once. I want to swallow the moon whole. I want to draw, write, create. WTF is wrong with me? I can't seem to wrap my head around it. My thoughts are in a blur and I can't slow them down. I feel so deliciously electric. Somebody save me before I do something stupid.

--Dragon Read more!

Upchuck Seven Up

I don't know why, well, I sort of do, but today I feel insanely nervous. It's rediculous. I feel far more nervous than I ever do about getting up on stage. It's the hollow nervousness in the pit of my stomach that keeps hinting that it may decide to cause me to throw up any moment. I sort of know the reason, but even that is incredibly rediculous.

There's a guy, Evan, who I dated a few years back. He was essentially the perfect boyfriend (for me). He was hilarious, fun, spontaneous and above all, an effing genius. He's the only person I've ever met who had the capacity to make me feel stupid. He is just so inordinately intelligent. He never did anything to make me feel stupid, but I know he is perfectly capable, and he doesn't even realize it. He is charmingly self effacing and while he isn't the most attractive guy in the world, I found his personality incredibly alluring.

We never had a single fight until the day we broke up. I'm still rather confused as to what happened, but as far as I figure, too much changed too fast. I had moved to Kansas and he didn't come with me. We were still together and he might have come out to Kansas later on, but I moved back here after only two months because I was miserable. He had just gotten used to the idea that I was gone, and I suddenly came back with almost no warning. We met working at the same place, and I got my job back there when I came home. The first time I saw him when I came back my boss was there, and I didn't want to be all affectionate with him in front of her, so I just gave him a quick hug. I think that upset him. So we weren't able to talk for a few days, and for some reason he was really cold to me until one day I purposely met him after work, and he just didn't seem to want anything to do with me. So I got upset and dumped him so he couldn't dump me (yeah, I know, WTF is wrong with me, right??)

As I said, I still don't get it. Ironically, shortly thereafter he did end up moving to Kansas with a friend of his. We emailed back and forth for a while but then I didn't have a computer so we lost contact. I recently found him again on myspace, (I'm kind of a myspace whore) and he was really excited to talk to me again, so we exchanged phone numbers.

He's supposed to call me at some point today. I never really got over him. We broke up so suddenly, and before that he was literally the perfect boyfriend. His only flaw was the fact that he doesn't do change very well. I mean, he was 25 years old and I was his first girlfriend. (I was 18 at the time, by the way) So while I'm really excited to talk to him again, it's kind of weird.

I mean, I know what attracted me to him in the first place, and I never really stopped being attracted to him. I moved on, dated other people, but now I'm single and there's nothing to stop me from feeling that way again. And right now he lives in Ohio, so that would be a bad idea. Not to mention the fact that I don't think he feels that way about me anymore. At least, I would imagine he wouldn't, the last time we talked was about 2 and a half years ago. He made some allusions in the messages he's sent me, but that's just Evan for you. The boy is a hopeless flirt and he doesn't even know it.

So yeah. That's what's going on. I don't get me sometimes. I think I've got myself all figured out and then something happens and I react in some unexpected way, like getting super nervous about a silly phone call. What a freak I am.

--Dragon Read more!

Only Rock And Roll Can Save Us Now

Went and saw Chevelle on the 28th. It rocked. They played with Tyler Read and 2 Cents. Very good show. I got to meet Tyler Read and have my CD signed and my picture taken with them(that's Erik and me in the middle). It was on Erik's phone though, so not a very good picture. Still, it was awesome. They were very nice. One of the guitarists gave me a quarter to buy their CD because I was short. How cool is that?



I got into a fight with my mom today. It was over Sam stealing a dollar from me, of all things. An effing dollar. It wasn't that she denied that he stole it, no, she was upset because I was pissed off that he stole from me. Yeah, cuz I'm just supposed to sit back and let him steal from me. He does it all the time, and this is the first time it was money. It wouldn't be such a big deal, if he wanted it he could have asked and I likely would have given it to him, but he lied and said he put it in my mom's purse. There was no way he put it in her purse. There were $10 in her purse when I checked it, all folded together. If he had put it there, he wouldn't have pulled the money already in there out and folded it up together. That's just not how he operates.

She of course called me a bunch of highly uncalled for names and accused me of all kinds of things, namely being lazy and having a bad attitude. Yeah. Ok, cuz it's ok that she treats everyone like shit because nothing is going her way, but if I get pissed off that someone is constantly stealing my stuff from my room WHILE I'M ASLEEP mind you, then I am an effing evil bitch. Uh huh. So now she's saying she won't help me with college and I'm not even sure if she's going to watch Chase when I go back to work on Saturday (I have today, Thursday and Friday off). Just great, right? And I don't know whether or not she is just being pissy or if she really means it. I don't think she means it, because she doesn't stick to her guns (note that this is the reason Sam is a criminal-in-training who never actually gets disciplined because he simply ignores her). But if she does, then I'm royally screwed.

I'm so sick of this crap. I absolutely loathe relying of anyone else, because people constantly stab me in the back or walk all over me, even my own mother. I should have seen it coming though, she started kicking me out when I turned 17 and as such caused me to get kicked out of high school so I had to go to an adult school. I had to work my ass off to make sure I graduated. I got no help. But dear precious Sam, that's a different story. She is doing everything she possibly can to see him pass. The brat is 17 and in 10th grade. She pulled him out of school and put him in home school because obviously regular school isn't working. Of course it isn't working. He's a spoiled brat and doesn't give a damn. He doesn't care about himself, or anyone else for that matter. He wants to fail because he could care less whether or not he actually becomes a productive member of society. He thinks that mommy is going to support him when he turns 18 and is still in high school. She probably will. I hope she doesn't though. He needs to get kicked out and see what life is really like.

It's not fair. I stayed because I wanted to make her happy. I never went to live with dad. I chose to stay. And I got treated like crap, kicked out, grounded all the time, and of course I never got anything good except for a bike that she left down south to make room in the Uhaul for an effing queen size bed for Sam. Like he needed a damn queen sized bed. He ruined it within months of getting up here anyway. But Sam comes back and lives with her when he's 12, about as effed up as a person can get, and he's the flipping prodigal son. He gets all kinds of stuff, a TV, a nice stereo, PS2, PSP, all that. And of course he never got into trouble because she was too afraid he'd go running back to dad. God I hate emotional people. He would never run back to dad. He beat him and made him believe he was a complete idiot. And look, now he really is one.

I'm so sick of this. I need out of here. I need to be able to take care of myself and not have to deal with other people and their stupid irrational emotional bullshit. I am so sick of other people.

Oh yeah, other than that, I had a nice Hallowe'en. I dressed up as a witch and dressed Chase as the Jolly Green Giant (pictures forthcoming) and went to Kim's and then Sara's. It was nice.

--Dragon Read more!

Love Shouldn't Hurt

I had a post in mind today about being poor and how tired I was of never having enough money. Then I read Granny's newest post and found this:


My father is friendly, charismatic, funny, helpful, and entertaining. He is also an abuser. People who have met him often can't believe that he could be capable of some of the things he has done. So often people believe that they would know an abusive person if they saw one. The sad truth is that no, you can't. People like that are very good at hiding that part of themselves from the outside world.

As he was a trucker, we didn't see him often until he hurt his back when I was about 10, so I think there was much less of it before then. I'm not sure whether it had to do with it being pre-accident, or just that we didn't live with him on a daily basis. I suspect it was a little of both. I think that I saved my brothers from a lot of it growing up. I was always trying to protect them. I was the oldest, I felt it was my responsibility to keep them safe. My mom had it much worse than we did, though. I probably don't know the half of it, but the things I do know make me sick.

He was both emotionally and physically abusive. Especially after he hurt his back. He was on medication that made him hallucinate and paranoid. He believed my mother was cheating on him with a multitude of other guys while she was at work. He saw phantom numbers written everywhere- on the walls, under the mattress, on his power tools, in chalk on the sidewalk. He would show my brothers and me the numbers he thought he saw, and threatened to punish us if we "lied" and said we didn't see them.

I was constantly telling him no, daddy, there were no numbers. He was imagining things. He didn't believe me and I would get in trouble. I tried so hard to protect my brothers from that, but I couldn't be there all the time. They weren't as strong as I was, and so he would get them alone, they would agree with whatever he said. They were too afraid not to.

Once, when I was about 11, I did something bad (I can't for the life of me remember what), and he instructed me to go out to one of the trees in the back yard and cut off a switch. Then he had me stand on a chair in front of the dinner table where my brothers were eating dinner, had me pull down my pants, and beat me with it until all the leaves came off. It's funny, even now I cringe at using the word "beat". I know I didn't deserve it, and I never felt as if the abuse was my fault, but I still feel some bizarre need to protect him, to make light of it.

There are other incidents that I can think of, but this is the one that always stands out in my mind. Not even so much for the pain, but the sheer humiliation. I couldn't look my brothers in the eye for days afterward. There was name calling, being belittled for mistakes, being told I was fat.

I so wanted to be perfect. I wanted to make my dad proud. I did the best I could in school because I knew I could and because it was one area where I excelled. I was daddy's little helper, I was always there to help him out. I wanted to be useful. It hurts, to think of the stark contrast between the man who beat me with the switch and the man who taught me to use power tools and let me design and help build an easel for my birthday present. How could they be the same person? How could that kind, funny, charming man that was my father turn into the raving, angry asshole who would hit his wife and his kids?

I hate that I have experienced this. The worst part of it all is that I know I am capable of it. I have a violent temper and when I'm angry my words are like daggers. I try so hard to avoid getting angry, because I hate the person I become. The meds have helped, but I still see the tendency and it comes out far too often for my liking. I have such a hard time talking about it, admitting that I could do something like this. I don't want my son to grow up ever knowing that kind of pain. Love shouldn't hurt. Mommy and daddy should be the embodiment of safety and happiness for a child. It's so hard to say something like that about yourself, though. When I am in public, talking to a stranger, even a counselor or psychiatrist, I change. I am suddenly happy, charming, friendly, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly. It's effortless. It's also why my bipolar went undiagnosed for so long. And digging beneath that, showing someone the black marks on my soul is just about the hardest thing I can imagine doing.

I have been a victim of domestic abuse. I don't really talk about it often, but occasionally something happens to remind me. Yesterday my brother and I were talking and he casually mentioned a time my dad beat him. It occurred to me that normal families don't have those kinds of conversations. It made me so sad to hear him say that. We need to find a way to stop this-- to protect those weaker than ourselves from those that would hurt them. Sometimes we even need to protect them from ourselves. We need to stop the cycle. Every victim is a potential future abuser-- how's that for irony?

--Dragon Read more!

Zero Hour

So this is it. The zero hour. I have to be there tomorrow at 5:45am... in other words, too frickin' early. I'll be in the hospital for 4 days. After tomorrow I'll no longer be just me. I'll suddenly be me + 1... what a strange thought. How do people deal with the sudden transition between only having themselves to take care of, themselves to think of, to having a whole other person who depends entirely on you for everything? I wonder what the person I will become would have to say to the person I am now. I hope that I like the new me.

--Dragon Read more!

Weak and Powerless

I haven't written much lately because I've been afraid to write about the one thing predominantly on my mind.

I am a control freak. I admit this. Perhaps because there has been so much in my life outside of my realm of control, I have become someone who craves order and organization. I need things to be logical and timely. I need to be able plan and anticipate. I hate surprises (except complete surprises, those are nice. But when I know it's coming, it drives me nuts) and I loathe being caught off guard. Because of this, I'm terrified of labor. I can't think of an adjective that seems to really convey just how scared I am.

There is very little I can plan or even really expect regarding labor. No two people experience the same thing. I could be in labor for 6 hours. I could be there for 36. And there's no way to tell. I could tear or have an episiotomy. Then again, I might not. There is so many variables, and no real way to predict them. This frightens me to death.



Throughout my pregnancy, my midwives and anyone else I talked to about it kept assuring me that I would be ready for it when the time came, that I was not physically ready for it, and so I wasn't emotionally or mentally ready for it. I wanted to believe them. I tried to ignore the fear for a while, to no avail. Then I thought perhaps if I knew more about it, I would feel more prepared. Not so-- it only made it worse, because everything I read made it more and more clear that there was no way for me to know what would happen.

As such, I have not been a nice person lately. I've been anxious and stressed out and worried beyond belief. This has led me to be a total bitch to pretty much everyone around me. I was so afraid that I couldn't seem to think of anything else, and the fact that everyone seemed oblivious to the kind of torment I was feeling. I kept fighting with my brother (but really, he is a great big effing asshole anyway), fighting with Erik, even fighting with my mom. My mom got so angry at me that she said some incredibly horrible things that she had no right to say, but it convinced me to stop dwelling on it and do something about it.

So finally I discussed it with one of the midwives. I made a list of everything I was afraid of, and believe me, it was not a short list. But the main thing came down to the fact that I feared the loss of control. We talked about the kind of options I had, and I told her I wanted a c-section.

I told her that I had been researching it for weeks, and I felt confident that I understood the risks. I also know what to expect. I know what happens when, I know about how long it will last, and I know what to expect while recovering. I understand that it will take longer to recover from, but in the long run I feel like it is worth it.

I was afraid she would tell me that I couldn't do it, that since there was no medical reason for it. She talked to me about the risks and the fact that she wasn't even sure if one of the OB/GYN's they work under would even consider it, but she said she would talk to the doctor and see if he would even consider it. We talked to the doctor and he agreed to do it.

I was so incredibly relieved. I know it's major abdominal surgery, and considering that I have never been in the hospital and the only surgery I've ever had was to remove my wisdom teeth, it's a rather scary thought. But I am so much less worried and afraid about it than I was about the thought of going through labor. Now, the only thing I have to worry about is not going into labor before I'm scheduled for the c-section on the 7th. That likely won't happen, but it's still a possibility.

I know some people may think that I am being selfish for wanting to do this, and that i just need to suck it up and deal with it, but it's my choice. I don't care if you think I'm a terrible person because I feel the need to control everything and the desire to avoid injury to my private parts. It's my decision and I have to live with it. If I'm comfortable with it, then that's all that matters.

--Dragon Read more!

Question?

Why is it that every single pregnancy site tells me that I am feeling huge, clumsy, ugly, blah blah blah? I mean, this pregnancy thing pretty much generally sucks, but I don't particularly feel like any of those things. In fact, one of the few upsides of this whole alien transportation receptacle deal is that I have had virtually no acne (never really had it to begin with, but there was always a pimple or two hanging out somewhere), and now I have an excuse for being rather rotund. The funny thing is, I have only gained about 4 pounds from my initial weight, thanks to the oh-so-lovely experience that is morning sickness. It's not as fun to walk, because it hurts, but other than that I don't feel any more prone to mishaps than normal. So I don't know. Maybe they're talking about all those skinny wenches who freak if they gain 5 lbs. In which case, yeah, they might feel like a (insert large ungainly object here). Considering all the other crap going on, though, I feel like I should get some recognition for what few benefits there are to this whole ordeal. Just something to wonder about.

--Dragon Read more!

From Hell To Breakfast, Part II

Scattered through the box you will find about 6 pairs of glasses: a child sized pair with round frames and a blue tortoiseshell pattern, a larger pair of silver half frames , a pair of reddish brown plastic half frames with chips in the lenses, a brown plastic pair with squarish lenses, a blue plastic pair with even squarer lenses, and a wide purple metal pair with very square lenses. These are all the glasses I’ve owned since I began wearing them in sixth grade. Each of them represents a period in my life and reflects a slightly different version of me. I wore the first pair from sixth until eighth grade. They were definitely glasses made for a preteen. They were sort of dorky and bookish, which is what I was in middle school. Around the middle of eighth grade I got the silver pair. They were sleeker and more grown up, but still had that nerdy look to them. Then in ninth grade I started wearing contacts almost exclusively. I was very “goth” and didn’t feel that heavy black eyeliner went well with glasses.
I continued to wear contacts until eleventh grade, when I started wearing glasses again. That was when I got the reddish-brown pair. I still wore contacts, but I liked the option of wearing glasses if I chose. They were sort of nerdy but by that time it was cool to wear thick rimmed glasses. The next pair I got I was pressured to get by a friend, and I never really liked them. I didn’t feel they fit my face and they were too narrow, so I took to wearing my old glasses even though the prescription was expired. Interestingly enough, at that point in my life I made a lot of decisions based on what others thought, usually to similar results.
The last time I got glasses I actually got two pairs: the blue pair and the purple pair. I like the purple pair the best, but I do wear the blue pair on occasion. I picked them both out myself and I like them better than any pair I’ve previously worn. They are distinctive and unique, but aren’t weird looking, which is what I strive for. Each pair of glasses embodies a different me. With the first pair, I was just beginning to establish a separate identity for myself. Prior to that point, fashion and the way one looks never really affected me. With each progressive pair of glasses, however, I refined both my outward appearance and my outlook on life. The bolder my choice in eyewear, the more definitive my personality became. I see my glasses as a very recognizable extension of myself. It is almost that a person can see my glasses without me attached and just know that they are mine. For me, they are a definitive accessory, and a necessary one at that. I look to each March (the month I get my eye exam) as a chance to renew myself. As such, I look at my old glasses as monuments, however small and inconsequential, to all the people I have been.
Buried deeper in the box is a black Sharpie. I rarely make tentative statements. Generally, when I say or think something, it is the next best thing to being written in stone. It takes a lot to convince me to change my mind once it is made up. Sharpies are very permanent. You don’t write something in black permanent marker unless you intend for it to be there a long time. Not only is it permanent, it is thick and bold. This very much embodies my habit of making bold, certain statements.
At the bottom of the box is a folded up piece of black canvas. Upon closer inspection, one discovers that it is a full length trench coat. If pressed, I would have to say that this is my absolute favorite possession. My mom bought it for me for Christmas a few years ago. It has survived a move to Kansas, a trip to Mississippi, and about 5 moves within Butte County. When I could bring only what I could carry out on my back, I have brought this coat. It is a shield, insulating me against the world. It acts as a buffer when I don’t want to be bothered and grabs attention when I feel unnoticed. It is dramatic, worn, sturdy, and unique. This is the single most defining item I own. I intend to own this coat in some incarnation or another for as long as I can stand up to put it on. Often I wear clothes that are distressingly normal and I feel like a fraud. It’s only when I put on my trench coat, my Converse shoes, my black eyeliner, that I feel like the real me.
My belongings are scattered from hell to breakfast. I have left pieces of myself in nearly every county in the state. But there are a few things I will not leave behind. The reason why these items are so important is not based on their usefulness or practicality. None of them is particularly valuable. If I were in a bind and decided to hawk my most precious belongings at the nearest pawn shop, I’d be lucky to get $50 for the whole lot. The value in these objects lies in the fact that they are irreplaceable. Sure, I could buy a new Sharpie or a new pair of chopsticks. A quick trip to Hottopic in the mall and about $80 would buy me a new trench coat. However, it wouldn’t be the same. My trench coat is missing all the buttons and is faded thanks to the time my mom thought that “dry clean only” was merely a suggestion. My chopsticks were bought in an oriental specialty store in Starkville, MS. These things have stories. They remind me of me, a person I all too often forget. I can buy new dishes. I can buy a new bed, a new computer. These things mean nothing to me. Each time I move and have to leave more and more behind, I realize that everything is cheap and replaceable. The memories and dreams that each of these represent are not. That is why I always pack these things first. Read more!

From Hell to Breakfast

A few months back while I was still enrolled in school, I had to write an essay for english. Now, I've always prided myself on my superior essay-writing abilities (yes, I know that was a terribly immodest comment) and I was particulary proud of this essay. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to turn it in because the week I finished it also ended up being the week I dropped out (more on that later). So in the hopes that this poor essay will actually see the light of day, I've decided to post it here thinking that at least one person might read it, and also in the hopes that if anyone ever reads it, they can learn a little bit about me. I'm going to post it in a few parts because it's rather long (about 4 pages) and that's a bit much to read in one sitting. Unless of course one is like me and reads through the entire archives of other peoples blogs in one afternoon.

(The Essay prompt included a paragraph from an essay we had read in class where the author compared herself to a "crumpled paper bag of miscellany", which is what the intro paragraph responds to.)
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From Hell To Breakfast

I am less a bag of crumpled paper than I am a cardboard box, bent at odd angles with the corners worn, the seams taped and re-taped over more moves than I can count on my two hands. It is box hastily packed in the twilight, stuffed with seemingly incongruous artifacts of an implausible existence. It is a scene played over and over in my life. The setting may change, but the act does not. Though the scene in itself is curious enough, the question arises as to what it is that may be found in the box. What is it that makes these items so important that they absolutely must be packed, as opposed to something more practical, more useful in a quick getaway such as this?

It’s not that there is anything very special to be found inside the box, but memories and dreams that are yet to be. A small wooden box filled with letters to a boy who forgot to become a man. Letters that span 6 years, every one I ever wrote. Drawings, photos, a scrap of napkin with half a poem. Notes passed in class and a journal kept for the 6 months he was far away. I cannot bear to part with these memories of my past. He was my first real friend. He was my first love. He was my first betrayal. And so I keep them. They remind me of so many things I have done, how I thought and talked. My art and first real attempts at serious writing. They don’t just represent a dear friend lost, they represent the entire person I was for over 6 years. It seems strange to say that a bunch of letters and other junk is me, but it is. It is a different me, but a me nonetheless. How many other people have a such a clear record of a defining period of their lives?

Another item in the jumble that stands out is a pair of ornate ebony chopsticks with mother of pearl inlaid dots at the top. Other than being a very fancy set of eating utensils, these embody my love of culture and hunger for things beyond myself. I love oriental things, especially Japanese, and these chopsticks remind me of what I love so much of a culture so foreign to me. I love the formality and tradition of Japan. I love the language, written it is art in itself, and spoken it falls melodically on my ears. In America we are sometimes lacking in the beauty of ritual and custom that many other cultures employ. In a merging together of so many different ideas, many are lost. I hope that I can create a little beauty and tradition in my own life, even if everything around me is a whirlwind of chaos.

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I'll post the rest of the essay tomorrow or the next day.

--dragon Read more!