california is a recipe for a black hole

I Know You Think That I Shouldn't Still Love You, Or Tell You That, But If I Didn't Say It, Well, I'd Still Have Felt It, Where's The Sense In That?

2009-11-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

--"White Flag", Dido

Continuing the Dido motif...

I love Tuesdays. It's my favorite day of the week. Even better than Saturday, even better than Sunday, Tuesdays for me have long been unofficially my day. And I'll tell you why.

It's the one day of the week I get to nap.

I'm not talking about a short catnap that lasts all of fifteen minutes. Hell's bells no. I am talking about the quality kind of nap that little 'ole me can't get enough of. Ever since I was sixteen I've set aside four to six hours every Tuesday for the last thirteen years just to sleep. Now this doesn't mean I get four to six hours of sleep every Tuesday, but I sure as the sun comes up in the east make sure nothing of any great importance is attempted to the time. I have the same routine each and every single time. I turn off all the lights in my room. I turn off all my phones and computers, anything that could be a distraction. Then all I do is lay in bed willing my mind to surrender to the great stillness of life. I sleep the sleep of a gal empowered enough to know that the most powerful choice a person can make about their life is where and when to slow it down. For all my talk about being the one who's always going, Tuesdays have become the points in my life where I can afford to just stop it all for a second. For one day a week I become as still as a lake in the morning hours just before dawn. For one day a week Breanne is less than she could be willingly.

The other great part of my Tuesdays is that during these naps I have these wondrous dreams that make me feel ever full of hope and contentment. Every time I wake up, it's like waking up from a vacation that you didn't even know you were on. I just wake up with a smile on my face, a carryover from the bliss that has become my weekly visitor as well.

For instance, yesterday I dreamt that somebody loved me and her name was Shelly. I dreamt I was fourteen again and she was turning eighteen. We were in my room and it was eight at night. I was dressed like Snow White and she was dressed like Rebecca Howe from Cheers. And for some reason we were ordering food from the market down the street even though, for the most part, they have never delivered to my parents' house ever. I remember reciting whatever foodstuffs that Shelly would tell me to get, from Arizona Ice Tea to Chee-tos, from Cupcakes to Beef Jerky. It wasn't even a long list, but for some reason the boy on the other end of the phone couldn't keep up with each entry. I had to repeat myself two or three times before he got the gist of what exactly it was we wanted.

I just remember how surreal it was and yet familiar at the same time. The way Shelly would scrunch her voice just so, pretending she was already bored with the activity at hand; the way I would emulate her exact pitch as if monkeying her words would somehow make me as refined as her. Even the red tank top and yellow shirts I wore in the dream were the exact pair I used to wear all the time.

But what I remember the most was how comfortable the scene felt, as if it were some kind of play we had rehearsed for months and now were finally being able to perform. I remember how my words felt crisp in my mouth. I remember how straightened my room looked. I remember smelling the hint of jasmine floating through my balcony window, every so often mixing with the orange scent that was coming off my body, a scent that I often wore when I was at that age.

Most importantly, Shelly was still my cousin and not some long lost relative of my own. We were talking like we were still family. She still loved me and I didn't have to pretend so diligently that it didn't matter at all what she thought of me. We were just two nightingales singing the night hours away, chirping for some food, but mostly chirping at one another in playful reverie. Every smile we wore was genuine, heartfelt even. It was like a scene straight out of my memory, but it also felt so new as if it was happening for the first time.

When I finally woke up I almost had the urge to call Shelly right then and there. Then I thought better of it. The dream had already made me so happy. Why should I ruin my image of her with the dull reality of what has become of the two of us. That's the good thing about dreams and Tuesdays; you don't have to let the real world back in until you're damn good and ready, you know?

Breanne

I Won't Leave, I Can't Hide, I Cannot Be, Until You're Resting Here With Me

2009-11-09T23:06:00.000-08:00

--"Here With Me", Dido

Contemplating my upcoming second visit to Kentucky this May, I've come to the realization that the majority of the trips I go on turn out really damn well in the end. I'm not stuck with bad memories of long stretches of boredom with whomever I might be traveling with at the time. Nor do I have a stockpile of stories of how everything went wrong from the word go when speaking in regards to the dozens of trips I've taken over the years. Maybe it's just because it doesn't really take much to make a vacation successful for me--good food, good company, and some sort of purpose in being even if that purpose is only to take in a baseball game or attend a friend's graduation, as the case may be. Or maybe it's just because I've had great luck when it comes to everything falling my way when it comes time to sally forth from my perch in Southern California.

Indeed, the only horrifying trip I believe I've ever taken was the drive up and down the coast we went on in 1998. That's the only time that I can recall that something might have been off from the very beginning and continued to fester until we pulled back into my driveway. Even then, I still possess some pleasant memories of that trip. Even then, I would hesitate to label it an unmitigated disaster. It remains the one time I fell closest to completely canceling a trip entirely, though.

However, it's not even close in comparison to the trip that on the outside sounds like it was absolutely horrid. That honor goes to a trip I took in February 2003 with my ex at the time, one Miss DeAnn.

For starters, you have to understand, that the two of us while we were dating had the bad luck to have our first long-distance trip get off to a rocky start. Back in 2008 about two months after we started going out we were supposed to have taken a car trip to San Francisco. However, somewhere over the Grapevine my car had decided to overheat and completely leave us stranded on the side of the road. We had to wait for an hour before the tow truck came and two hours before my dad could pick us up from where they had towed the car. And yet, that time still turned out okay. I borrowed my parents' van and the two of us took a shorter weekend excursion up to Santa Barbara, where we spent most of our three days looking out over our balcony which was literally one hundred feet from the ocean and pretty much eating and strolling throughout most of the beach community. In fact, I'd daresay it was a complete rescue of what could have been a disastrous excursion.

Keeping that in mind, there was a precedence for us having somewhat bad luck when it came to going on trips. The intermediate trips between that road trip and the D.C. trip, which turned out to be the last trip I took with DeAnn had all gone smoothly (yes, even counting are planned trip to New Orleans on 9/11/01), yet there was alway the potential there that we could have had a repeat of San Francisco all over again.

My first clue that the timing may have been off was the fact DeAnn's body decided to come down with appendicitis a week before we were supposed to take off. Granted, we only decided to go to D.C. two weeks before the date of departure so it wasn't like a huge gap for something to come up, but it was almost like her body was trying to tell us something was destined to go wrong with the trip. We talked about canceling when she got out of the hospital four days after she went in, three day we were supposed to leave. A lot of her friends and family counseled us against leaving. Most of the people I knew thought it was a bad idea to even still be hanging out with an ex two years after we had broken up, let alone pay for a trip for the two of us, so I wasn't about to disclose that she had gone to the hospital at all. In the end, though, we decided that four days in D.C. was too much of an exciting prospect to pass up.

So, despite her doctors giving her a strict warning that exerting herself so soon after major surgery was a bad idea, we left for D.C. that Friday morning. Everything went smoothly after we landed. DeAnn was a little tired so all we were able to do when we landed was go to dinner in the hotel restaurant. Happily, though, that restaurant turned out to be a Shula's Steakhouse, which please me to no end since we had an awesome steak dinner (ordered off a football, no less) to begin our stay in Washington, D.C. We came back to our hotel room, watched a little TV, and DeAnn soon knocked off within the next ninety minutes. I stayed up for another couple of hours, but turned earlier than usual since I too was tired from the flight and the fifty minute drive to our hotel in the midst of the city proper.

That's probably how I missed the start of what could have completely ruined our trip.

During the night the city received three feet of snow. While we slept the city was slowly being layered in white. What's worse, it just kept on snowing the next day off and on. By the end of Sunday, newscasts were calling it one of the top ten worst snowstorms they had seen in the last hundred years. By the end of the weekend almost eight feet of snow had been dumped onto where we were staying.

When we woke up Saturday, I thought there was still a chance they might have the roads cleared up by the afternoon. Hell, even if they had gotten the buses or trains running, I would have been happy. We had so many places I wanted to show her--Smithsonian, Congress, Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument, Monticello, &c...--that even a few hours delay was enough to make me antsy. We'd already been pressed for time when we thought the weather was going to be good, but missing the morning was like torture for me. It worked out for DeAnn, though, because despite her protests to the contrary, the surgery had knocked her out more than she had let on. When she heard the roads were snowed over and that they probably wouldn't be getting around to plowing it till the afternoon at the earliest, she used it as an excuse to stay in bed sleeping for another few hours. She probably needed the sleep, but all I could think of was how all of that was not what I had carefully planned the week before.

I think the only thing we ended up doing of any interest was go out to dinner at a restaurant a few blocks up the street since the roads were still too dangerous to drive. Aside from that momentary distraction, we stayed in our hotel room and watched TV. Well, I mostly watched cable on TV. DeAnn pretty much drifted in and out of sleep till it was time for dinner and then pretty much the same after we had returned to the hotel room.

Sunday's weather was no better. Fairly soon I realized that we weren't going to be able to do anything at all that was on our list of activites. Fairly soon I realized I had just wasted $400 dollars on a trip to see the inside of a hotel room and on a van that would pretty much drive us from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel back to the airport. We wouldn't be seeing any of the sights. We wouldn't be reliving any of the memories I had made when I had gone to D.C. in sixth grade. We wouldn't be doing anything new and different than what we could have been doing in any hotel back in California.

I should have been pissed. I was annoyed, for sure, but a funny thing happened on the usual path to me losing my temper. It turned out not having to do all that driving and all that touring forced the two of us to spend time together in a way that we hadn't spent time doing since we'd gone out. Rather than me trying to keep her occupied all the time so should we think of how much fun I was and the fun times I could pay for, which was the real reason I wanted to go on the trip, we ended up having a decent time all by our lonesomes in the hotel room. We were relaxed, something that I don't think we would have been if we had attempted to keep up with the hectic schedules we had planned for ourselves at the trip's outset. And I know we avoided a slew of fighting from the simple change in plans of not having to decide what or where we would go first. Yes, we were already broken up, but I have the funny feeling that if that trip had gone on as scheduled we would have been at each other's throats like we had been when we had been seeing each other.

Truth be told, it was nice just laying in bed with her, waiting while she slept. It was nice just taking care of her while her body was recuperating. It was nice just being in the same room with her without having to worry about what the status of our relationship was. In the hotel room we were just two friends trying to make the best of a bad situation and, for the most part, succeeding on sheer will.

By the time the roads had been cleared and the sun was shining again on Monday, we were both talking and joking like we had been on Friday morning when we had flown in. DeAnn, not surprisingly, was doing a lot better--way better than she would have if we had actually tromped around Virginia and Maryland like we had wanted to. Also, it was a point of joking of just how bad of a weekend I could have picked to go flying to the East Coast. Instead of going somewhere, you know, warm for February, I had decided to go to a place already known for snowstorms, blizzards, and just plain mean weather. All of this helped to relieve the disappointment at what the trip could have been. We were joking that this had to go down as possibly the worst trip in human history. To this day, I still think she jokes about it with her family and friends.

But as aforementioned, I don't consider it a disaster. If anything, it goes a long way to proving my theory that any time can be a good time as long you're with the right company. If anything, it only asserts the distinction that I'd much rather take a nap and watch cable with a close friend and confidante than scurry around all over our nation's capital with a stubborn and mean ex-girlfriend... even if, by coincidence, those were one and the same person.

No, I don't consider that trip a disaster.

I recall that trip as one of the many good times that I had the privilege and honor to share with her.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

It's Like Running Away With The Wind In My Face, It's Like Flying, And You And I Are Open Wide

2009-11-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

--"Running Away", Polyphonic Spree

Marion was stopped the other day at her church service by somebody who reads this blog and recognized her picture. She, like me, has only been used to people she willingly gave out the web address to reading her posts here. It took her rather aback because blogs are a curious thing in that you think you're writing them for yourselves and a select group of people, but anyone and their mom can read them (if it isn't locked, that is). There poor delfty was, thinking she was writing for less than a handful of people and she finds out that not only are certain classmates reading here, but that it's also spread two generations across by now in reaching people she doesn't know directly. She could have reacted differently, but she took it in stride as befitting her newfound confidence. She thanked them for their patronage and went on her way.

Me? The only people I know who read here are people I've suggested read it. I know people from both when I worked at Bally's and people I know from my current job at Eclipse read it. I know people from my boardgaming group also read it. Hell, I know people from almost school I've attended has read our blog at one time or another. Does that alter what I write? I can't say for certain, but I believe I would have to answer no. While I might have intended the audience for this site to be limited, I learned a long time ago that there won't be any controlling of who has access to my thoughts which are posted here. It'd be a losing battle if I tried to fight that fight. As of now, I just write like I write my letters, picturing as if I'm chatting with one of my friends or telling an anecdote to someone I may have just bumped into at a party or something. One strength I've always had is that I'm able to write about personal ideas and events without a sense of propriety. I attempt to write everything as I remember it or as I think of it, without editing and without hesitation.

Yes, it bothers me a little bit that there are certain groups of people who are reading this that have frankly no good reason for reading it. Certain people I know who I know I've grown out of touch with and who have made it clear they want nothing to with me still read this blog. That doesn't make any sense to me. And, yes, it makes me a bit nervous that my full name is associated with this site, meaning that my vendors from Eclipse can, if they want, find out some fully embarrassing tidbits about me. What they would do with this information is beyond me, but it is out there to color their assessment of my capability to do my job. That bothers me some. And, yes, ever since my parents upgraded to their laptop I'm sort of curious to see when they'll finally stumble across my blog. I'm anticipating a call from my mom that will be long and in-depth about what certain facts about me that I may have hid from them. That's not going to be a fun call, explaining each and every indiscretion and questionable choice I've made in the last thirty years.

That doesn't mean I'm thinking about taming anything down here and I'm encouraging the other SFoM members to do the same.

The way I see it is that, first and foremost, this is a place where I can relay what I'm thinking and what I'm remembering so that there is some kind of record of what I was going through at any given moment of my life. I'm basically telling stories to myself before I forget that they were once important to me. Also, it's a place to get certain skeletons in my closet out into the open before they stink up my psyche. I have a problem deciphering what I'm supposed to feel about certain poor choices I've made until ten or fifteen years have passed. I tend to hold reflecting on what a mess my life has sometimes become until an acceptable amount of time has transpired. That's usually when I come to write it here, so, again, there's some kind of record of the lessons I've gleaned.

To stifle that simply because I'm worried what other people might think would be disservice to this whole exercise. I'm pretty sure Breanne and Toby would say the same. What's the point of writing down your feelings and telling your secrets if you're only going to be embarrassed by them later on? If you feel that way, then you might as well keep them inside until they fester. Part of the process of unburdening yourself is the restraint to not care who later rifles through those burdens. It's like throwing away trash; you've just got to let certain things go into the world lest you hold onto too tightly.

That's why if a similar situation were to happen to me where a friend of a friend or long-distance acquaintance were to disclose to me they've been reading about me, I'll try not to take it personally as well. I've opened that Pandora's Box a long time ago. I've let my stories and Lucy's stories and Marion's stories remain up here for over five years now. During that time over 100,000 people have shuffled through them. I'm sure of those 100,000 people quite a few them could recognize the name of Patrick Taroc before they even came here. I'll just try to thank the person for reading my stuff and try not to dwell on which potentially unsympathetic story they may have glanced through.

After all, this is a place for my words to be read. I can't back down now because I may take umbridge with the quality of those selfsame readers. I either let everyone read it or let no one read it.

Right now I'd much rather have the problem of too many readers than too little.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

These Days Are All, Share Them With Me, These Days Are All, Happy And Free, These Happy Days Are Yours And Mine

2009-11-04T04:05:00.000-08:00

--"Happy Days Theme"

Ask anyone who knew me when.

They would agree that I used to be the most carefree spirit the world has ever known. It's not by accident that I was given the nickname Little Miss Chipper at an early age. I was that gal. I was that gal who smiled at everyone walking down the street. I was that gal who danced around in class, swung from the trees, climbed roofs, played ball with the neighborhood kids, and went to Sunday service because I enjoyed it. I was that gal who wrote thank-you notes and letters to all her friends and kinfolk all the time, each one more heartfelt than the last. I was that gal who showed up early and left late to everywhere. I was that gal who played everyday, really played as if the whole world were a giant set of swings and seesaw all rolled into one. I was that gal who heard music in her heart and wanted to share it with her mouth and eyes and hands. As my mother used to say, I had the joy in my heart which was brighter than even the noonday sun.

I couldn't even tell you why. It isn't that I woke up one morning in my bed and decided I was going to be cheery all of a sudden. I never made the conscious effort to improve my mood. That's genuinely the state of mind I took up residence in. It was the simplest of tasks. Aside from my many issues with my mother, I was as happy as an afternoon softball game played at a family reunion. I had a comfortable life where I was taken care of by my adoring parents, spoiled even some might say. I was well-liked at school. People claimed I was the "prettiest sight they ever did see." I was intelligent, even clever by half, according to all my teachers. I never wanted for anything. I never threw tantrums or complained publicly. I was well-behaved. I knew my etiquette and was taught the finest of manners. Everything seemed like the picture of idyllic bliss. How I was supposed to be, that's how I was. That's all I knew to be.

Maybe that was a slight problem in the beginning. I had been told all these different routes to being a happy, normal child that I took to like a duck takes to water. I didn't fight it at all when other kids might have had to be dragged kicking and scream. Where others chose to resist, I believed. Where others chose to question, I took people's answers at their word. Perhaps all this joy I felt in my formative was all predicated on the lie that there were people older than me who knew better for me.

One would have had only to taken a look at my early pictures to glean the depths of my complete immersion into the life that was planned for me. I took dance lessons that I never thought I needed, that even my dance instructor Mrs. Harvick said were only sharpening a knife which could already cut through glass. I studied and got grades which were reflective of someone going through their senior year in high school, not third grade. I volunteered with my Church group starting at the age of four. I dressed with fancy ribbons in my hair every day of the year and tied it up with an even fancier ribbon at night. And for what? To make myself happy? Sure. But it wasn't all about me either. A lot of the bliss I experienced during those years of my life were invested in the prospect of making everyone else happy. I can see that now. I'm not going to lie. Parts of those years were a hoot-and-a-half. But those times were more associated with choices I made to make myself content. All those other times, all those other choices I made, were made with the specific intent to please someone else; be it my parents, my teachers, my friends, or, yes, even my God. If I were to compare all the times I actually made decisions to please myself with the times I was just going along to appease someone else, my share would be altogether miniscule. It would be ridiculous even making that comparison.

That isn't to say that I don't take kindly to assisting others. That's a part of my nature too. But the stronger part of my nature, I can see now, is rooted in the belief that I need to be in control of what I do. When I help someone out I want to be secure in the knowledge that it was due to my choice and not out of a sense of obligation to others. All my years seem nothing more than community service and time served for the crime of being born to high expectations. I never even had a chance to complain because, frankly, I was never taught properly how to complain.

I was happy because I didn't know I had the okay to be angry or dissatisfied.

I smiled because I was told good girls don't make that other face.

I couldn't cry because it would ruin my complexion for the whole day.

All those times I got in trouble for being "wicked" were maybe the way my subconscious was rebelling against the way I was being raised. I didn't feel it at the time, but I a collar around me that was keeping me in line. Sure, I possessed the longest of leashes, but it was a restraint nonetheless. I was happy but only because that was the only sort of happiness I had ever known. It would be awhile longer before I saw for myself what it's truly like to experience happiness on my own terms and on my own timetable.

It was the same with my friendships. Those early ones, the ones with the likes of Fawn, Hanna, and, of course, Torry--they were built upon the strictures of the way I was taught friends were supposed to act. There were the play dates carefully choreographed among my mother and the other mothers. There were the subtle ways we were influenced not to allow anyone unsavory into our small group. There were the constant reminders from my parents how a good friend was supposed to act. And I stored it away like a mother bird building its nest. I utilized these little 'ole pieces of information to intricately construct what I thought was the perfect, yet small, circle of friends. About the only time I ever improvised my way through the adventure of having friends and keeping them back then were the few minutes of recess and lunch us girls shared everyday. That was when it was real, that's when I truly felt close to them all. All those other times, when we were taken shopping, when we were paraded around in pageant after pageant, when we were told we would be attending the Church picnic--they all felt dictated to us, or at least to me. It felt like everyone else had the blueprint to this wonderful house I was expected to live in except me.

Towards the end I picked up enough to know what I wanted out of confidantes and I can honestly say I started to experience what it was like to grow true friendships in the absence of expectation. It's only towards the end that I put together a real bond with all three of those gals that genuinely endures today (just ask Fawn). Those last two years when all four of us were together, that's some of what I thought was real happiness.

However, it took my friendship with Eeyore to show me what real happiness with friends is supposed to be like. In the beginning I thought we would make a good set of friends because we had similar interests and a somewhat similar perspective of the world. We both liked writing and we both by that time had developed into truly headstrong people. You would have thought it would be calling down lightning itself to consider pairing up two of the most stubborn cusses in the world, but in the beginning it worked phenomenally. During that so-called honeymoon phase of the friendship we would talk on the phone just about everyday. There wasn't anything I wouldn't share with him. We were joking and compassionate and even a little bit infatuated with one another. It's no big secret that my mother wasn't too appreciative of the amount of time I was spending on him and I reckon that Patrick's parents were entirely thrilled either. But it was new. It was exciting. It was what I thought the whole experience of having a mature friendship would be like. We could have the intellectual discussions about the latest art films or the current nonfiction bestseller, but we could also share our passion for baseball, barbecue, and bestiality (just joshing). We seemed to have it all. We were shaping our own destiny as a couple, us against everyone else, and in the beginning it was relatively stress-free. I thought all our days together were going to be the happiest days I would ever experience.

Hell's bells, was I ever wrong on that call.

You can't have two people that stubborn in close proximity to one another and maintain a semblance of control for any lengthy of period of time. The fights, when they did come, came quickly and often like a flood that just never seems to let up. It wasn't more than a few months till it seemed like we were having a fight every week. We would fight. We would yell. Phones would be slammed down, words would be exchanged, and a lot of feelings would get trampled upon. I'm usually a tough person. I usually don't let the world drag me down for too long, but I'm not exaggerating when I say there would be days when I would be scared that he would call me that day to begin the latest fight anew. It was almost as frustrating as the days when I would be scared that he wouldn't call me at all. For a long time there, years even, we had hit the period in our relationship we like to call "the Troubles". We're not the type to keep our feelings bottled up for very long. When they came, they came hard and fast. Whatever emotion you could start a fight over we would start them repeatedly over. Jealousy, revenge, paranoia, skepticism, and even plain spite--we weren't strangers to leafing through our rolodexes to happen upon a good reason to get something off our chests.

Even when we started seeing each other, that only made it worse. Then we had a whole other set of reasons to be disappointed with one another.

I can't even tell you when exactly we left "the Troubles" behind us. Part of us still believes that we won't ever leave that state of friendship. There are some days where we'll talking and an old wound will just fester again because of some joke he just made. There are some days where I specifically tease him too long or diligently for pure amusement. That's the way it is with old friends. Old fights never really die; they just get postponed until a later date (or year).

But what I have learned in the last five years, the last five years since we had a fight which led to us not speaking for eight months, was that there isn't ever going to be a fight with him that'll be more important to me than preserving what we have here. Yes, I'm a very proud little 'ole lady. I don't suffer losing with the easiest of spirits. A lot of my being comes from the steady confidence that whatever I say and what I believe is what I stick to. I haven't gotten this far by remaining that witless puppet who let her mother dictate to her her every action. But now when Patrick and I fight, it's different. At the end of it all, I don't see me sticking to my guns on general principle. We've gotten to the point where it isn't as important to be right as it is to be together. I can't speak for him, but I reckon we've reached the point where we see that a bond like ours doesn't come around everyday. The priority is in keeping that alive rather than keeping old grudges going.

I used to think the perfect friend would be the one who said and did everything to make me happy.

Now I just think the perfect friend is the one who brings out the best in me, who makes me want to say and do everything... or at least a great deal... to make him happy. I don't mind being wrong as long as it's to him because in a lot of ways being wrong with him isn't being wrong at all.

I have nothing to prove. I don't have to show how smart I am to him or how my ideas are entirely foolproof. I don't have to defend everything I do. And I don't have to explain myself in fear of him judging me. When you lose the need to constantly try to your best self to a person it makes it easier to concede that you aren't always at your best and that you're going to be wrong a good deal of the time. When you don't have to be perfect in front of a person, it makes dealing with your own imperfection a lot easier, you know?

I used to think happiness had something to do with being right all the time. Now I see happiness has more to do with being able to be wrong sometimes without being judged at all. That's such a wonderful feeling which I can't even explain to you.

It's the same with Greg and I. In the beginning I thought I had all the answers about how love was supposed to work. I was the one in the relationship telling him how the relationship was going to proceed. I was the one guiding the ship. Greg was content to be my subordinate. According to him, he was just so relieved to have found me he decided it was easier to allow me to take charge than to give me all the input he could. That suited me just fine. In the beginning I had constructed a perfect scenario of how I wanted my relationships to go. Partly based on what I had read and seen, and partly based on the mistakes I had made with Patrick and a few other of my starter relationships, I thought I knew how my one true love would proceed. It was that simple to me. I was a twenty-year-old vain and stubborn jackass, who thought she knew all the answers. Woe betide anyone who got in my way, including Greg. I had a plan and no one was going to stop me from completing it.

It's a recurring theme, but I let my vanity get the best of me. I thought love, like most things, was done best when there was one clear voice in charge. I thought that, if anything, my rising to the forefront of accepting responsibility for the success of our relationship would relieve some of the pressure off of Greg. I thought he'd be happy not to have to work so hard. I was willing to work entirely too hard for the both of us. We used to discuss that as one of the reasons we hit it off so well. I was domineering and shrewish; he was supportive and submissive. He was everything I didn't have with my previous relationships, someone malleable, someone pliant. I thought he was wonderful for his generosity even as I was taking full advantage of it. I thought he was delightful for his lack of drive when it came to us even as I was spoiling myself upon it. It just felt great not to have to butt heads like Patrick and I. It just felt like a relief to stand tall as being the authority in everything regarding the two of us.

I didn't see the pattern for what it was. It was just another example of my believing the initial phases of our relationship would be the template upon which the rest of the relationship would be built. My father has a phrase about me that I'm sure I have written about before. He says, "Breanne doesn't think. She just goes." And that's what I do. I don't think much about the repercussions of my actions. I do what I do because I think it for the best and I don't let anyone hold me back. Very often it doesn't work out the way I think it would, but the majority of the time I'm more than happy with the results. Yet it's the times that I fall far short that I'm known for. I've erred so often on the side of rushing headlong into walls that it's become something of a joke that I don't possess even the slightest amount of patience. That's what happened with Greg. I took our initial dates as a sign of things to come. I made those crazy days and wonderful nights the basis of how the rest of our lives were going to look like. No matter how you slice it, I was jumping the gun. The next few years while we were dating, while we were engaged, and while we were married, I would compare it to those days of halcyon and sunflowers. When the plan didn't seem to be proceeding as I expected, I didn't blame my high expectations. I blamed Greg for for not believing in my ideas. I blamed him for not being supportive, the one thing he's always been.

Worse yet, I blamed him for not doing enough.

When those first years weren't as happy as I told him they would be, I became discouraged. I started to look more and more in his direction to help out, which wasn't fair to him at all. All that time I'd been telling him he didn't need to do anything. That I'd take care of it. All that time I'd been scolding him for wanting to put his input in. That I wanted to be in charge. Then all of a sudden I make it his fault for not doing or saying enough. I put him in the worst possible position of telling him that standing back and giving me wasn't wrong, and then I crucify him for doing that very thing.

I thought he wasn't making me happy when the truth was that I told him not trying so hard to make me happy would, in fact, make me happy. It was a terrible position to put him in. I was such a wicked wife when all this happened.

That's why I went to Chicago. That's why I cheated on Greg. It started to look very appealing to me to be with someone who wasn't afraid to stand on his two feet and give as good as he got. It started to look like I wasn't cut out to be with someone who was entirely passive. I was tired of being unhappy with someone who apparently didn't give a damn about making our marriage work. I was tired of doing all that work on creating the happy home scenario all on my own. I was just plumb tuckered of being the perfect wife.

It wasn't until after the trip and after Greg had finally forgiven me that I figured out where I went wrong. I'd based our relationship on me being the boss. I was so afraid of being overruled by my husband that I didn't let him have any power at all. I didn't let him contribute enough to make the marriage he wanted. When he responded to my domineering ways by retreating even further, it only set up a vicious cycle of me telling him he was worthless and him becoming a ghost in our very house. Greg's not like me. He doesn't respond by fighting back then running. He runs first and then he just keeps on running. My first option has always been to insure my ideas are heard. Only if it becomes apparent that I'm going to be given the short shrift, then I run. I only fight the fights I want to win. Everything else becomes expendable. Greg is so docile that he'll give in just to make me happy. He responds to conflict by doing everything he can to make sure there is no conflict. There we were, two people fumbling at being married to one other and neither one of us having the first clue how to expertly talk through our inconsistencies.

When we started seeing our couple's therapist she explained it to me.

She told me that my plan for the perfect marriage was faulty from the very beginning. Any plan that isn't shared by both people in the marriage is no plan at all. It's not like a film or a novel that soars from having one clear vision. It's more like that seesaw from the playground of my youth. I can't just push and push on my end, expecting it to work. I needed to give a chance for my partner, for Greg, to give a chance to push back. She said that I was too intent on blazing a path through the tall grass just to make it to the other side of them that I had neglected to make sure Greg was right behind me. And she was right. I thought happiness from a marriage was the by-product of doing it right. I thought of it as the pot of gold waiting for me at the other end of the rainbow. Now I can see that happiness isn't the goal of a good marriage. It's the definition of a good marriage. Happiness in a couple isn't the result of planning everything to perfection or executing everything flawlessly. Being happy is just what good marriages are all about. Being happy leads to a good marriage. What I should have done is made sure that we were happy as often as possible rather than where we were headed as husband and wife. I was so caught up in having a stellar marriage than I couldn't see how much of it I was allowing to fall apart. My tunnel vision almost led to me to getting divorced from the only man who truly could make me happy.

Now I finally understand what it means to be Little Miss Chipper. It doesn't mean I have to be 100% perfect. It just means I have to be 100% invested in whatever I'm working at. I can't let my perception of how things are cloud where I want them to be. That only leads to me working too hard at the process. I need to remember that it's not all up to me to make everything good. Like my daddy says, "You can either drive or be driven; you can't do both." I can try very hard to do all the work in this relationship, but eventually I'm going to find it's too much for one woman to handle--as intelligent, beautiful, and stubborn as she may be. Sure, most of the time I like being out front and taking charge. But there has to be some days where I can let him take over and just sit back in the buggy to enjoy the ride for once.

Being Little Miss Chipper doesn't mean being on all the time. Sometimes it just means being content to enjoy the stillness every so often. I can still be that little 'ole girl with the joy in her heart that my mother saw once upon a time. All it takes is showing that joy to others... and not shoving it down their throats. I can't force people to be happy. It's not my responsibility to put a smile on everyone's face whether or not they like it. It's only my responsibility to put a smile on my own.

Ask anyone who knows me now. They'll tell you I still have a smile on my face almost every day of my life. The only difference it's entirely because of me and not because I'm working all the time to make everyone else happy. I'm happy because I'm happy, and not because I think I can brighten the whole world through sheer will. I'm happy to just let my sun shine and let others seek it if they choose to do so.

After all, I can only be me--no more, no less.

Breanne

I Used To Play For All Of The Loneliness, That Nobody Notices Now, I'm Begging Slow, I'm Coming Here, Oh, I'm Waiting

2009-11-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

--"#41", Dave Matthews Band

"No, I don't want to tell you. You're only going to sass me about it later."

"No, I'm serious. Just tell me."

"No."

"Come on, I'm not going to make fun of you. I swear."

"No. And that's that."

"What was it? Did you hear something?"

"Hell's bells. You're not going to let go of this, are you? You're like a hound dog fixed with a bone in its mouth."

"You sounded upset. I wanted to know."

"It's nothing."

"It's something. I can tell."

"I was sitting here just now and the wall started shaking. Happy now?"

"No. What'd you think it was."

"I have no idea and that's what's got me spooked right now."

"Could your parents be up?"

"No, they would have checked up on me if they saw my light on. I'm nervous that it wasn't them. Forget it. It's probably the wind telling lies again, as my daddy says."

"Wind on your wall. From the inside. Not likely."

"I'd rather not dwell on it, please, thank you."

"Well, it's got you all upset. I was just asking if you were okay, Breanne. I'm worried about you because you sound worried about yourself."

"I was. I still am, but talking about isn't making it any better. Now shush up."

"Okay."

"I'm probably exhausted is all it is, you know? I'm probably making a big deal out of nothing."

"If you say so."

"I do. It only sounded louder than it was because it's late at night and everything else is so still, you know? Silly Breanne--I'm only scaring myself. Nothing else is out there."

"The good thing is you've got other people in the house. I hate it when weird stuff happens and I'm all by myself."

"They're asleep."

"Yeah, but you can wake them. They're only down the hall. They could hear you if you were to scream bloody murder, right?"

"I suppose."

"Then feel better because of that."

"Wait."

"Wait, what?"

"Shush. Hold your horses and be quiet. Did you hear that?"

"Not over the phone."

"Hell's bells, something shook the wall again. I'm getting really nervous here, Patrick. What in gracious Providence is that?"

"Are you scared?"

"Stop it."

"You are scared."

"Don't do that, please, thank you. If you're going to be on the phone I don't want you to be making light of my situation."

"Okay."

"I need you to be a friend right now and tell me I'll be alright. I need you to strive to convince me of that."

"Okay."

"Good."

"And you're sure your parents aren't just getting a snack right now?"

"I'm certain."

"How certain?"

"They would have peeked in. I'm sure of that."

"You could check."

"Leave this room? You're crazier than a mule in a pool."

"If it really is nothing, wouldn't you want to know?"

"Yes. But if it is something, I don't want to know. I want to stay right here until I'm sure it is nothing we are talking about."

"Okay. But it's only going to drive you crazy until you're sure."

"There it is again. This time it came from down the stairs. I'm really getting scared now, Patrick."

"Go see. It's the only way."

"That's just great. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to. Hold on, I'm getting dressed and going out to check. I'm going to leave the cordless here so I ain't distracted."

"Be safe."

----

"Patrick, oh, Patrick. The light's on in the kitchen and someone's walking around downstairs. I could hear them."

"Someone's in your house right now?"

"There is. What am I going to do?!"

"Wake up your parents for one. You should do that now."

"Hell, why is there someone downstairs? What do you think they want?"

"You're not going to wake them up."

"No."

"Why not?"

"If it is nothing I don't want to be their little 'ole scaredy cat."

"And what if it is something? What then? You should dial 911 if you're convinced someone is downstairs that doesn't belong there."

"I'm sure of it."

"Then wake them up or dial someone."

"Talk to me. Tell me I'm acting crazy."

"You're crazy."

"Say, 'Breanne, you're crazy.'"

"Breannie, you're the craziest."

"I'm serious. I'm overreacting, you know?"

"I'm not there. I can't tell if you are or not. I'm just scared what if you aren't imagining things and there really is somebody downstairs. I want you to be safe."

"Thank you. I'm going to wait up here for now. If I hear it again or something else happens you have my vow that I'll wake somebody up."

"Good. That's all I want."

"Hell's bells, I can still hear them ruffling through the cabinets and such. I don' reckon if it were my folks they would be rooting around in their own house like that, you know? I'm really torn up inside right about now."

"You'll be alright."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I think if it were really someone breaking in they would have noticed there was somebody up by now. They would have either gone upstairs to confront you or they would have been scared off. Nobody's going to continue to make noise in a house they're planning to steal from if they know someone's up. It doesn't make sense."

"What do you think it is then?"

"It's probably some homeless guy making a sandwich. He'll probably leave when he eats something."

"That ain't funny."

"I'm serious. It's probably some vagrant looking to eat something."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"It's harmless mostly."

"You're wrong."

"He'll go away."

"He hasn't so far."

"Are you sure you saw something?"

"I came halfway down the stairs and the kitchen lights were on. There was some noise in the kitchen. I tiptoed back up the stairs, checked my parents were both in their room, and high-tailed back to my room and the phone. Someone's there."

"Okay. I believe you. You need to do something, Breanne. Make some noise, call the police, do something--just to let him know you're still up and such."

"Shush up again. I hear something else. Errr! What was that? Something just tapped against my window right now. Hold on again. I'm going to assess the situation, darling."

----

"What on God's green Earth is going on here, Patrick? What on God's green Earth is happening to me?"

"What is it? What'd you see?"

"I'm truly frightened right now."

"What did you see?"

"I don't know how to process this all, at all."

"Breanne. Focus. Tell me what's out your window right now."

"Somebody put two long wooden poles onto my window."

"Wooden poles?"

"Two story thin window poles. I haven't the slightest indication what they're used for. Most of all, I have no inclination as to why somebody would want to bang them against my window."

"Could somebody trying to climb up to your window, Breanne? Is that it?"

"With poles? Two of them? What are they going to do with them, you figure? Shimmy up them hand over hand as if they were circus folk? Why not just use a ladder?"

"That's what I was about to say."

"Why are there poles against my window? Why that window? Why not just come up through my balcony? It'd be a much easier time of it. This isn't making the least bit of sense and it's really got my perplexed, Patrick. I feel like it's midnight at the oasis and all I'm seeing around me are mirages."

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Can you just stay up with me until I get this sorted out? Do you have work tomorrow or anything, sugar?"

"Yeah, but this is more important. I want to at least stay up until I get an explanation. Besides, you have school tomorrow, little lady."

"I haven't even finished my homework yet."

"At least you have an excuse."

"I can't do anything right now but concentrate on this. What is going on here?"

"This is a mystery."

"Wait, I hear my mother up. I'll be back."

"I'll wait here."

----

"First thing she asked me was what I was smoking. Can you imagine?"

"You tell her how scared you are and what you saw and heard..."

"And she thinks I was on something."

"Figures."

"The worst part is she didn't even go downstairs. She just said she didn't see the kitchen light on currently. She wouldn't even wake up my daddy so he could go down to investigate. I just want to know what it was, you know? At this rate, I'll never know. I hate her."

"I'd go check it out if I was there."

"I know you would. You're a good friend like that."

"I'd make you come, of course."

"You always do. Haha."

"You know it."

"At least it's quieter now. I don't feel like a cat at the edge of the bath tub so much any more."

"Do you need me to stay up any longer?"

"If you don't mind."

"Do I ever mind?"

"You never do, sugar. This is true."

Breanne

I Used To Be So Cute To Me, Just A Little Bit Skinny, Why Do I Look To All These Things, To Keep You Happy

2009-10-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

--"Unpretty", TLC

On Buying A Halloween Costume

even pretending
leaves me confused, like a dog

trapped on the subway.
curvy, colored masks never

suited me nor have
disguises ever hidden

me completely. I
can't quite comprehend the need

to shed, like snakeskin,
one's character to open

one's soul to the world.
forgo the cape and leave the

black spandex behind.
hiding your face just weakens

what you can offer.
don a smile the way you would

a golden halo
and the world may just believe

you are every
bit the saint you're carefully

attempting not to
be ever mistaken for.

dw

She Got The Current In Her Hand, Just Shock You Like You Won't Believe, Sun In The Amazon, With The Voltage Running Through Her Skin

2009-10-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

--"Electric Feel", MGMT

I watched Orphan yesterday night with high expectations. It hadn't drawn my interest when it first came out in theaters, but with each passing week I started to hear more and more about how over the top scary it was. Not gory or gruesome, mind you, which I tend to dislike, but out-and-out-we'll-toss-everything-at-you scary. Not to mention I kept hearing how the "twist" for Esther, the orphan in question played by Isabelle Fuhrman, was freaking batshit nutso that it made the film all the more a guilty pleasure for having known the twist right from the start. I had to buy the film the very first day it came out and watch it.

And it did not disappoint. I can honestly say that compared to any other demon child/bad seed thriller or horror films, Orphan truly pulls out all the stops. With every other film in the genre, you still get the impression there's a sense of decency or even innocence at what the children in question are doing. You are still left with the impression that, if they knew more about the consequences of their actions, that possibly they might think twice about committing the various horrifying acts they perpetrate throughout the course of the film. You still believe, like the axiom goes, that they are good at heart buried down below their complex upbringing and whatever forces twisted them into such sadistic creatures.

I believe the point where I knew I wasn't dealing with that kind of child in question in this film was when Esther asks her deaf seven-year-old little sister to help hide the body of the nun she had just smashed twice in the head with a hammer. At that point I was completely thinking to myself that there just isn't an ounce of innocence at all in this little girl. It's bad enough to kill someone... but a nun? And then to trick your truly innocent little sister into becoming an accomplice? There's a whole other level of evil in that scenario.

And what's worse is that's one of the more subdued acts of violence that occurs during the film. As the plot just goes from mildly disturbing to outright menacing and shocking, you as the audience begin to see why, because of her perfmance, Roger Ebert said Isabelle Fuhrman "is not going to be convincing as a nice child for a very long, long time."

do what you feel now

----

While not a box office success, I think the film succeeds on its merits because it plays upon the simple premise that adults severely underestimate the capabilities of children. Even setting aside Esther for a second, Max, as the younger sister who is put in peril constantly by the arrival of the older (much older it turns out) Esther, shows herself just as capable of being deceitful in order not to draw the suspicion of her sister. If anything, it's Max and her older brother Daniel who do the most effective job at stopping Esther before their mother ever gets involved. And their poor father still remains clueless as the Esther's true nature till the very end. For most of the story Esther preys upon all the second chances her family affords her. She uses the very nature of her small stature, the way she dresses, and carries herself to get away with murder, literally. Even her voice and her very inflections she manipulates to the situation. She's a different kind of monster, using the ribbons in her hair and the lack of strength to obscure the fact she is, without a doubt, batshit crazy.

I mean--I never killed anyone (that I'd be willing to confess to, at least), but I believe the same thing happened to me and my brother growing up. I was forever coasting on the fact I got good grades and pretty much stayed out of trouble to hide the enormity of how much trouble I caused when I set my mind to it. I never hurt anyone physically except my brother, but vandalization and stealing all sorts of other peoples' possessions were a lot of the ways I dealt with my frustration. My family still doesn't know how often my "taking a walk" really meant blowing off the steam by destroying or taking stuff.

And it's the same with most of my good friends. Breanne's parents never knew how far and what she did all those times she ran away from home. They didn't even find out about sleeping underneath her friends' old home until like five years ago and certainly have never been told the story of her almost accepting rides from perfect strangers. She's only told them half of what actually happened all those times. Most of the time they were content with her explanation of staying over at a neighbor's house or having one of her relatives hide her away. Rather than think the worse, adults are always more willing to find the more excusable and innocent explanation for what their kids do or say. Nobody wants to believe that their children are capable of deceit and cruelty on par with the rest of the world. Nobody wants to be the one who finds out that their kid is just not like the rest of the kids in their class.

They have these expectations that because they turned out fine, that their kids will as well.

I used to think the same way because none of the kids in my elementary school or even high school revealed anything I'd qualify as horrifying. It wasn't until I got into college and older that the sick and twisted childhoods of some people I knew started to make their way to the surface. From Ilessa being routinely beat up by her older brother for more than five years of her life to Jennifer's brother's own stories of being tossed down their well by kids in their neighborhood claiming to be his friend--I've heard too many stories of kids just being outright evil to think that we're all born good. While it's true that most kids fall somewhere between being good and evil, that doesn't mean there aren't just some bad seeds out there.

Not every kid can be little miss sunshine (or even Little Miss Chipper).

Somebody's kids have to grow up to be the Esthers of the world.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Hold My Breath, And You Close My Eyes, As A Curtain Of Light Drops From The Skies, I Never Knew, My Love Could Get So Far, From Me

2009-10-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

--"Sippy Cup", Gospel Gossip

I was watching Castle tonight do their big Halloween-themed episode. While it was superb as usual--full of the requisite twists and cinematic banter between all the characters involved--what struck me as quite original was the use of Nathan Fillion in the opening scene. Because it was a holiday-themed episode, we see his character Richard Castle strapping on his boots, donning his brown leather duster, and stepping out of the door as... Captain Malcolm Reynolds, otherwise known as the character he portrayed for less than a season five years ago on his other starring vehicle, Firefly. As Lucy would say, it was a hoot-and-a-half to see him unexpectedly reprise, even for a fleeting moment, one of the most beloved characters in all of the Whedonverse.

Two different characters. Two different world views. And yet they were both portrayed by the same actor. While it might have been five years since he last looked like a Browncoat, I can honestly say that even if the show had lasted five years long, I couldn't have pictured Nathan looking any different as Mal than he did tonight. In fact, it makes me wonder how much his character's appearance might have transformed had that show run its full course. Would the Mal I saw on Castle still have been the Mal on Firefly, season 6? Who's to say. It was just nice getting to visit with an old friend again, albeit briefly.

I've written me off, I've written me off

It also makes me wonder what becomes of the affection an actor holds for the character he plays, especially television actors who sometimes have to don the coats of the character for upwards of six or seven years sometimes. After their show has been cancelled, after all the sets have been torn down, I wonder just how much they really miss the invitation to walk in those shoes ever again. I know--some actors treat their roles as the jobs they are. I suppose some actors really are able to jump from character to character, like Sam Beckett, never giving a second thought to the people whose soul they pushed into their bodies, but I believe that with some performers they truly do feel like they've lost a part of themselves when they are told they will no longer be able to be that person ever again. I believe that some actors or actresses just take it that much to heart; just like I believe there are some roles that are harder to shed than others--not because they're more profound or because they are in any way "better" roles, but because there are just roles which are more illuminating, more rewarding, and just plain more fun to tackle than others.

Those are the roles that make me wonder how hard it is to give up the ghost. Those are the roles that come along only a few times in a performer's life.

It makes me think of the precepts we normal folk adopt, the characters we choose to portray. Shakespeare had it right, I'm afraid. One man in his time does play many parts. What he failed to mention, though, is that there are some parts that we seem to take to more effectively than others. Whether that's because we find the challenge in the role ourselves or because the role is thrust upon us and we get pigeonholed into playing that part over and over again; there's just some masks that we wear that over time blends into the face we wore before, and just becomes a new face. The more we put on these masks, the more we hide behind them, the harder it gets to separate us from the costume. That's what I've come to discover over the years. It isn't so much who we are as people on the inside that defines us, but what the world sees us on the outside as that defines us. It's really like the difference between a person's story and a person's backstory. The backstory may be able to explain why a person does something, what their motivations are, but the only thing that matters is what a person's remembered for, never mind the reason they did what they did.

When a person changes identities--when that awkward teen in high school tries to become that easygoing college student, when the weakling runt of the litter takes up martial arts to become more proud of himself, when the stubborn tomboy grows up to become the earthly mother of three--sometimes there's a struggle involved. Sometimes the struggle is external with the world not knowing that person as anything other than what they are known for. Sometimes it takes an extended period of time for those closest to the person involved to see them as the person they are trying to become. Sometimes the struggle is internal with the person not really sure he or she wants to change anything about himself at all. Sometimes it does take outside forces and outside pressure from people around them for that man to become the person they are meant to be.

Often, though, it's more than that. Often, despite the acceptance that their transformation is for the best, a person will still struggle with the process of letting go of their old identity. They could have been known as a boldfaced liar, a notorious violent person, or even the scourge of the seven seas, and even though they see for themselves the need to metamorphose into something grander, they still blanche at changing any more quickly than they have to. It's not that they really want to hold onto the viler aspects of their character; it's merely that they had to live with that facet of themselves for so long it's really become all they know. Even though they know it isn't working out for them, they really lack the experience to be any other way in the beginning.

That's why people hold onto their old monikers for so long. That's why the class clown often becomes the wearisome jokester long after his jokes have stopped being funny. They don't know what else to do if they don't do what they've always done. If I'm not funny, they say, then I'm nothing.

That's why I can empathize with actors who still revisit with their more well-known characters. I know what it's like to be thought of in a certain light early on... and then suddenly lose that quality that made you special. I know what it's like to lose all definition of who you are, to be a performer without a new role to play. I know what it's like to fall back into old routines, old conversations, because you know who you were when you were playing that part. It may not be who you are now, but when you're still struggling to figure out the "new" you or the "improved" you, it's all too easy to wonder if you simply weren't better off going your whole life being known for one part of your personality and that one part only.

At least you were somebody and at least people talked about you.

When you have a purpose in life you tend to hold onto it strongly, sometimes longer than you should. It beats not having a purpose and feeling like you need to grab onto whatever you can that passes near to you. When you have your role set for you, you sometimes stay rooted to that role rather than look for the part you really were supposed to play. Sometimes its easier to get stuck in the rut rather than wander off directionless.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

It's The Colorless Picture, In A Heart-Shaped Frame, The Silhouette Of A Doe-Eyed Girl, Who At One Point Had A Name

2009-10-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

--"Common Reactor", Silversun Pickups

Sometimes I receive invitations from people to "friend" them on Facebook or Twitter. Now, I'm usually inclined to accept everyone who asks me just as I'm usually inclined to invite people I barely know. But, even so, there are just some people I'm still surprised even ask me to accept them. It's still amazing, given my history with certain people, that they would even think of me as someone they would want to know every facet of their business. It's not like they don't know that a lot of what I read or hear ends up being posted on here in some fashion or other. And it's not like they don't know that I don't usually actively engage many people outside of a small circle of friends. What they expect me to say I have no idea.

I've also come to realize, even though I'm constantly tweeting throughout the day, I've turned facebook into a place where I really allow a lot of who I am to shine through. I mean--I may share my most poignant or serious stories that I possess here, but on facebook I kind of let loose of what a big geek I am. I post links to songs I may be listening to, stupid ideas I may be working on, and just random crap that really captures how random my thought processes are. I do that a little on twitter, but twitter is usually employed more to capture what I did during my day--where I ate, who I hung out with, where I was. But facebook is more closely associated with daily adventure of being me. Quite frankly, that's a collection of information I would rather certain people didn't have access to. That's why there are certain people that I routinely turn down friending me on there. It's not because I think I have anything to hide, but because there are certain people that I just don't feel like sharing anything about myself with--so deep is my animosity with them.

It's a strange feeling. It's like I don't care that people know what I've been through, even if I don't know them that well. But I also do hold grudges. I also do take things personally. Knowing that, I realize that I'm prone to fits of pettiness. I can't take away what people already have in terms of knowledge about me, but I can withhold as much new information as possible from ever being gleaned by them. I can't control much, but I can control somewhat of who and what I share with people. That's what I've taken as a personal lesson from dabbling in the new era of social networking.

I know the 192 people I have listed as friends on my facebook list aren't all truly my friends, but I'm more satisfied knowing that of those 192 people, none of them are people I wouldn't want to be friends with in real life. It would really ruin my whole perception of being a part of the great facade that is social networking if I ever included somebody I truly despised in real life onto one or all of my friends list. That would just be too facetious, even for me.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I'm Releasing My Heart, And It's Feeling Amazing, There's No One Else That Matters, You Love Me, And I Won't Let You Fall, Girl

2009-10-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

--"Forever", Chris Brown

By the Lake by Herself

so she sits with the
sun on her shoulders, silver
gown falling off her
shoulders like airy whispers.

so she wonders what
the silver scarecrow she calls
her sister will be
once she's able to exhale.

so there's the lake, waves
turning over; so there's the
cake, rippled and white;
so there's the trouble anew.

so she stands alone,
neighbored by tables of friends,
chairs of family,
and wonders what's the meaning.

then they lose their lips
in each other and she sees
what guise forever
may don for her sake as well.

dw

----

There are days when I feel unfortunate to have been born last in my family, when it really eats me up inside that I'll be the last to experience just about everything. I know it's a common refrain among the youngest children, but it's a refrain that I never thought I'd be singing myself. I was always happiest when I was trailing in Tattie's and Chopper's footsteps. Like our namesakes I was content to blindly skip along behind my Scarecrow and Tin Man playing their Dorothy. They knew the road because they had travelled it years before me. Who was I to argue with such hard-fought experience? For much of my life I couldn't imagine myself wanting anything different than what they had.

But lately I've been wondering if it's all going to be milk and cherries the way it was for them. I've been wondering if the same conceits, the same pleasures, are going to be what fulfill me in the end. I have a feeling that what they wanted to make out of their lives isn't going to be the same brass sculpture I want to make out of mine. I'm already beginning to see that I might have a different treasure map to follow when it comes to planning out my ultimate adventure--my last crusade, if you will.

And from what little I've experience so far--and it has been little--I'm not so sure the whole wrapping myself up in the cocoon of love and marriage and kids and family and commitment is going to fit all right in. What little I've experienced of the fruit of passion has left with a somewhat bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I know I haven't experienced everything every man, young or old, has to offer, but it hasn't left me rearing to charge the gates all that soon again. For now I'm content to play the wary bystander, blithely picking her battle to engage in but not finding much to engage her just yet. I'm not saying I've given up on the prospect of love as much as it's shifted in priority for me for the time being. I have other matters to attend to. Other sirens are calling out delftwaves' name.

Still, I can't help but think of Nora and Harry's wedding and how happy they looked. That was a day I was glad to be last in line. It gave me the chance to see what my future might be like in six or seven years when I get to be Nora's age without having to go through all the bullshit. It was refreshing to see the prize at the end of the race and not just the course itself. Maybe, perhaps, possibly, it might've been enough incentive to get me to swing the needle of true love's compass back northward someday.

I can't guarantee it, I can tell you that much. But it's still nice to know what's waiting out there in the jungle should I ever decide to brave its breaches again much later in the future.

Stay tune. I still have hope for my love life yet. LOL

dw

And It's Sad To Walk Away, With Just The Memories, Who's To Know What Might Have Been, We'll Leave Behind A Life And Time, We'll Never Know Again

2009-10-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

--"Please Remember", LeAnn Rimes

The two of you were standing out on her balcony. She started throwing over the stuffed animals first. The first to go was your older than the hills stuffed koala bear, Mr. Shrimps. Both of you had swaddled him tightly in a navy blue blankie that had somehow survived Shelly's toddler days. After peering over, you watched her toss Mr. Shrimps in the air casually as if she were lofting a baseball to another child to hit with a baseball bat. The only difference was she was lofting this particular baseball over the railing of her parents' balcony and this particular baseball soon was plummeting a full story down to the trampoline below.

Success. You both laughed that your test run had been met with a rousing show of support. Even though they had been against the idea in the first place, your aunt and uncle, once they had seen how close the trampoline was to the balcony begrudgingly has to admit that it did look like fun. Mr. Shrimps, bouncing his way halfway up to the balcony again, certainly looked to be having a hoot-and-a-half. Even while your aunt and uncle stood behind the doorway filming you both for posterity, they were the perfect witnesses to what could only be described as your latest stunt. And it wasn't even your idea. They could blame their own daughter for that one.

You looked over to your co-conspirator. Both of you had the same chestnut brown hair and both of you had the same Holins' features to your faces. In those days it was as obvious as the sun that the two of you were related to one another. You were proud to notice the resemblance too. You especially loved it when the folks would mistake you for sister because, more than anything, you had wished she could've been your older sister. You both had on your morning robes, hers in navy blue and yours in your characteristic orange, over your nightclothes. You thought it best to wear something comfortable. You didn't much see the point in changing or getting ready just to hurl yourself over the edge of your uncle's house. That would make as much sense as buying a new dress to jump off a bridge. For all you knew you were just going to rebound off the trampoline's surface and onto the grass beside it. It would have been a real shame to waste a perfectly functional outfit when your whole motive was to muck around on the trampoline any way.

You watched as your favorite cousin then tossed her robe over the railing, watched it as it bounced (not as high as your koala, but still) up, and then finally come to rest on the trampoline's surface again. It was like watching a blue ghost hovering for a few seconds in the air.

You loved watching every second of it.

Then you watched Shelly climb over the railing. She glances over her shoulder behind her to line up her intended target, the area upon which she intended to fall, before scooting an inch this way or that way. Then she just looked at you, smiling. She was telling you, this is it, my dear. This is where all of your planning the night before becomes real. You watched her hands as they let go of the iron railing. You watched her body fly away from you like she was an actress in a movie, plummeting to her demise. You heard her scream your name in an almost ecstasy that one can only achieve at that age. A million things could have gone wrong. She could have banged her head against the metal frame of the trampoline. Worse yet, she could have fallen awkwardly and snapped her neck. Or the trampoline could have broken. A million things could have just happened to make the experience end vastly differently.

But they didn't. You watched as her body recoiled on the contraption below. After that she was just a brunette tressed Irish jumping bean, a particle caught up in the winds of her folly. And you couldn't wait to join her.

Soon it was your turn to join her. She was calling your name from far below. "Breasy, come and get me," she said, daring you to follow her in her madness. She was willing you not to be scared. Your aunt and uncle started to repeat to you that you din't have to jump if you didn't want to. "Simply because Shelly's a daredevil, don't mean you have to be one too, child," your aunt warned you again. But you had to show Shelly. She had to know that she could count on you not to be scared. You had to show your cousin that there wasn't any place on Heaven or Earth that you wouldn't follow her to. She had to know that you were willing to do anything to be in her company. You had to jump. You had no choice, you know?

"Clear off the robe," you yelled down to her as you begin to climb over the railing. "And clear away Mr. Shrimp," you added.

"Like that?" she asked as she pushed them both to one pile on the side of the trampoline.

You stood on the other side of the railing by then, hands grasping the rail behind you. "Please, thank you," you called down. You still had on your orange robe. You thought it might look spectacular flaring about as you fell. It would be your cape or, in the worst case scenario, it would be your parachute--you weren't really sure which. "I'm going to do this facing you," you shouted down. You thought that would be the braver manner in which to fall. Shelly had set the bar. You were intending to go over it. You would watch yourself as you fell back down to Earth instead of looking up at the sky like Shelly did. You wanted to feel that rush of emotion. You wanted to see how crazy as a polar bear in the desert you really were.

the time was yours and mine
and we were wild and free

You jumped down and the whole world jumped down with you. You didn't so much feel you were rushing to meet the trampoline as being pushed into the ground, into the Earth, with a velocity you hadn't experienced as of yet. It was a rush of motion that seemed to go on for hours even if only took all of milliseconds to reach the ground. You landed in a sitting position, with your lily-white ass striking the trampoline before the rest of you. Then, just as violently as you had fallen down through the air, you were rising once again through it. It was like you were as weightless as snow once again. It was like you were flying under your own power. It was this close to being heavenly, you thought. Even when you inevitably fell again, you were laughing at the sheer joy of it. You were smiling at the thought that this is what it's like to be a young girl and carefree. Some part of you knew, just knew, that times like these weren't long for the world and that it wasn't going to be every day of your life that you would be able to just jump from a balcony without repercussions. Some part of you knew you had to savor that day because it was going to be one of the last few days of childhood you would have left.

What you didn't know at the time, what you couldn't have known, was that this was going to be one of the last few times you would be spending with your beloved cousin like this--so amenable and so talkative. You couldn't know a few years later that you'd be looking at times like these spent with Shelly as being the highlight of your relationship with one another. All you knew at the time was how much you looked up to her and how glad you were that she had talked you into jumping off a balcony for no other reason than it was there... and the unmistakable fact that the two of you were bored. You had done something incredible. She had been the direct cause of that. That's all you knew at the time as the two of you rolled around for awhile atop the trampoline. And that's all you cared to know.

You now realize that sometimes that's all you get with people. Sometimes all you get is that one roll in the hay, that one swim to the lakeshore, and you've got to make do with the time you've got. Sometimes, as much as you wish you could leap again and again, all you get is that one chance to make a connection with somebody you care about before it's over. You just have to take the leap, eyes wide open to the fact that you might only get that one chance to do it right. You might only get that one day when everything's perfect--the sun is shining, your aunt and uncle are in the right mood, and you're just young enough not to know how dangerous what you're planning is--and you know you have to take your shot at immortality. You don't get second chances to do things over all the time, so often times you just have to make do with the time you have and know deep down that, like the saying goes, it was fun while it lasted.

As your daddy says, you can't keep the fireplace burning forever. And you say, you can't keep hoping it's going to come roaring back to life either.

Breanne

As The Storm Blows On, Out Of Control, Deep In Her Heart, The Thunder Rolls

2009-10-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

--"The Thunder Rolls", Garth Brooks

Ever since moving to Long Beach, I've had trouble with watching television in my room. As I've explained before, watching tv in my room has always been a time-honored routine of mine. For the better part of twenty years, I would tune it into ESPN or some other non-intrusive show, and let the ambient noise soothe me into falling asleep. Well, that just isn't possible here with the way my cable box breaks down with regularity. Most of the time I can't even count on it to turn on, let alone change it to the channel that I thought I needed to sleep. Indeed, for the last six months, I've had to make due without it when I'm trying to fall asleep.

What I've been doing instead is listen to those nature CD's people like to employ. I'm talking about those rather soothing sounds of wind blowing through wind chimes, rivers gently bubbling, or the surf crashing lightly into shore. I've always thought one day I would check them out as an alternative to leaving the TV on in sleep mode, but it has only become a necessity in the last few months. Starting with a set of 2 cd's of the surf crashing into shore in Hawaii, I've made leaving the stereo playing me to sleep a nightly habit. While I haven't bought too many of them, it's helped quite a bit with my not being able to relax my mind long enough to succumb to slumber. In fact, it's gotten so that I think I should have been doing this all along rather than trained my mind to only fall asleep to Sportscenter or some other show. It's far more easier to fall asleep to waves crashing or the sound of distant wind chimes than some guy's voice droning off in a meek whisper. I daresay when taken measure against the speed with which I fell asleep to the tv before, I'm drifting away a half-hour quicker with the CD's--if not quicker. I can definitely say I'm getting better quality rest now than I did before.

That is until I bought my most recent nature sounds CD.

Under a friend's suggestion (ahem) and due to the fact that I've always thought a rain CD would work the best for me, I bought a soundtrack of about a hundred minutes of rain falling on a rooftop called Suburban Thunder. I thought it was going to be quiet like the other CD's. Also, I thought that was rain was kind of soothing, quiet even.

Boy, was I wrong.

The track starts off fine. It starts off with a hushed whisper of rain falling on a rooftop. The thunder, when it does hit, registers a medium-level crackle. The first time I listened to it, I thought I could get used to this CD and this isn't so bad. There's something about rain falling that reminds me of when I was a kid. It reminds me of afternoons where the weather was too bad to play outside, but not bad enough to fall asleep too. The patter of water hitting the gutters and sliding down the drain had always been a constant companion during those afternoons where I would just nap beneath the sounds of the subdued storm outside. All in all, the CD starts off as very soothing.

It's when it hits the thirty minute mark that all hell breaks loose. There is a crash of thunder that goes on for so long and hits so loudly that it woke me out of my sleep. Not only that but, because it emulates the sound of pounding on the walls, scared me half to death that first night and every subsequent night I've listened to it. It's funny, I never fully understood Lucy's terror at the sound of thunder, but I get it now. The reason it makes more sense is because, like her, I even know the thunder is coming in the duration of the CD. I even know the exact time it starts, and yet it still makes my heart leap each and every time. There's something instinctual, almost primal, at my recoiling at something so basic. No naturally-made sound should be that loud or last that long. It really does feel like some other sinister force at work here.

Now I'm rethinking my whole stance at falling asleep to nature idea. If all future tracks turn on a dime so quickly to be so menacing, then I don't want to risk my comfortable sleep to chance. I mean--what's next? Listening to hurricane-force winds destroying peoples' homes or maybe a nice 7.1 earthquake working its way through the speakers. No thank you. LOL

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Will Always Hold Your Hand, I'll Never Let You Fall, 'Cause Nothing, Nothing Else Matters At All, If You're Scared Just Think Of Me

2009-10-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

--"Cricket", Dance Hall Crashers

I saw Paranormal Activity on Saturday, which just happened to be my birthday too.

It is without a doubt the scariest movie I have seen in the last ten years. Never before have I seen people scared to leave their seats at the end of a movie, but that's what happened on Saturday. I have also never seen a film where half of the audience screamed at the same part loudly. Usually one or two people get jumpy, but that film had everyone on edge for the last two or three key scenes. I went to go see it with Case and Laurel, and they remarked how into the tension the whole audience seemed to be. At various times during the story, you could just hear everyone holding their breath in anticipation. Truly, it's an experience not to be missed.

Of course I was fucking scared out of my mind. Not only do I hate thinking about ghosts (even while I love ghost stories--go figure), but I already have enough trouble sleeping on a good night when nothing preoccupies my thoughts at all. This movie totally pinpricks at the idea that somebody or something could be messing with all of us while we are sleeping. Not only that, but it suggests that we are right to fear about going to sleep because seemingly that is when we are at our most vulnerable. Watching the couple in the movie endure night after night of something torment them was like watching one of my worst fears come true. But what made it even more frightening was the idea that any scary monster can be made doubly worse when one is attempting to confront it while under the duress of lack of sleep. I couldn't imagine trying to bolster my courage to face whatever terrors might await me in the evening when all I want to do is get a good night's rest. That's like a disease which both debilitates you while at the same time striking down your body's defense. Paranormal Activity does an excellent job at conveying the couple's inevitable decline into paranoia as more and more of their nights are given over into fighting an enemy they don't understand and can't even see.

Needless to say, I couldn't stay at my place alone on Saturday so I just stayed over at Casey's.

just close your eyes and ignore
the dark that troubles you most

I felt like an idiot carrying on about how I was too chicken to go home, but the truth was the truth. I wasn't about to attempt to face an empty condo alone--not when I had seen literally someone dragged from their sleep. I wasn't about to put myself in the position of having to relive that nightmare with no one around to rescue. I'd rather face ridicule. I'd rather admit that a film got to me where I'm bothered the most than later wish I hadn't been so proud. For their part, though, Zig and Zag, were most gracious hosts. I only had to ask them once if it was alright. I brought it up at dinner while we were still in Irvine and they didn't make me jump through hoops to get them to agree. Other friends might have been less than kind and taken advantage of the situation, but Case, true to her past form, just let the situation unfold naturally. I asked. They agreed. And no more was said of it.

I suppose I could chalk it up to them being on their best behavior because it was special day and all. And Faye even suggested that they did it partly because they were scared too so they wanted a third body in the house as a precaution. Also, it wasn't like I haven't spent the night in their spare bedroom before, right? But I think it went further than that. Birthday or not, scared or not, I think they both could tell that this was one of those times where logic simply wouldn't work with me. Yes, I know it's silly to be scared of something as hokey as ghosts, but that doesn't quite change the matter that I am scared of ghosts. And it doesn't change the fact that, like it or not, it takes me more than a few hours or even a day to be able to put such a fear at the back of my mind. Casey especially could see that it wasn't so much a request to be amongst friends that night while I slept; it was an entreaty for asylum. I honestly don't know what I would've done if they hadn't taken me in. I might have put up the money for a hotel room; that's how real my fear was.

I've been spending a fair amount of time with Z and Z lately. I'm almost always over at their place on the weekends--at least two weekends out of the month. Originally, I thought it was a matter of convenience. I'm coming from Lake Forest and Irvine. Their house is about ten to fifteen minutes away from there, a lot closer than where I live. It was convenient to call them to see if they wanted to hang out since I was already out there.

But this past weekend has proved that it isn't merely a matter of convenience and that the two girls aren't simply people put in my life to pass the time. They're really turning out to be two great friends in every sense of the word.

There's not a lot of people who would put up with a person who gets this worked up over a scary movie. There's not a lot of people who would understand me when I said that the fear is real. Most people would send me away with words of scorn, that I should grow a pair or face my fears. Only a true friend would be able to see that what I needed most on Saturday wasn't someone to tell me what the adult thing to do was; I needed someone (or someones) to hold my hand and tell me that everything would be alright by the next morning.

Lucky for me that that's exactly what I got that night.

My advice? Go see Paranormal Activity as soon as possible. Just make sure you take a friend with a spare bedroom with you... just in case.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

If There's Any Good In Me, It Must Be Plain To See, 'Cause It's Your Fingerprints Inside The Very Heart Of Me

2009-10-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

--"Wonderful", Jump 5

To Marion on her 17th year of living...

When I met Toby back in 2007 she was a very self-conscious and pragmatic fourteen-year-old, prone to periods of doubt. Now that she has reached the ripe old age of seventeen I still find her very self-conscious. I still find her very pragmatic. And those moments of doubt still creep up upon occasion. And yet--it's been an interesting span of two years, getting to know her better and also getting to see how much she has transformed her since then. It's been like watching a river work its way down to ocean. There were bumps and there were twists. And, sure, there were times where it became rather difficult to hazard a guess as to where her journey might take her. And, sure, I don't exactly know what lies ahead of her. From where I stand, though, she's already covered so much ground that to reflect upon it is certainly breathtaking.

I never thought I'd be writing about her two years later or that she would come to be one of my closest confidantes, but the facts stand where they're placed. She has become all those things. I, in return, have accepted the fact that I may have just learned a trick or two about her myself in those intervening years. For one, it's plain to see she's blossomed as someone who questions the world. I've seen those peerless lenses with which she once only viewed only her problems and only her concerns turned outward a bit more. I've seen her open up to the possibility that there is more to the world than good 'ole Lorryville and more to concern herself with than just plain Toby Claire Frisson, a feat I've never been able to accomplish all that successfully. People always concern themselves with how they are perceived, what they look like to other people. I think it's a brighter sign of maturity when one can start to begin to see how they perceive others and how others look to them is far more worthy of investigation. She hasn't gotten all of society figured out just yet, but it's an interesting development to see her in the first footsteps of that pursuit.

It's also been interesting, yet sad, to see her lose some of the innocence that first made her noticeable. She isn't quite the doe-eyed impassioned youth that I first met. She's gotten a little rough around the edges. She's also become a little more skeptical, even cynical about the world. While it's all fine and dandy to think ideally about everything, it's also a sign of becoming older when pragmatism becomes applied to more than just studies, religion, and personal philosophy. I'm a bit saddened to see the little girl who used to accept everything at face value go, but in her place I'm beginning to notice the first unmistakable signs of a challenging, and fiercely questioning, young woman in her stead. I'm seeing a vibrant young woman beginning to really figure out her place in the world at large--not just how she fits in, but also how she can break out a few of the boxes she may have been placed into from an early age.

Additionally, while I was out visiting her that in addition to her proneness to moments of somber reflection, she's also started to develop new tools of discourse and discussion in her education outside the classroom. Rather than instantly fall back to the relative safety of her own mind to muddle through her problems, she's began to look to others more and more as a viable means to a solution. Before she was always of the persuasion to hear advice but not really listen to it; she was always of the mindset that other people were only good for confession rather than absolution. Now more than ever I'm beginning to hear her find out the distinction between simply doing as she was told, as she used to be prone to do, to sifting the wheat from the chaff. She's beginning to rely on others for advice rather than herself while at the same time remaining in control of her ultimate fate. I think it's this precarious juggling act of balancing her quiet independence against her will to be accommodating to almost everyone that is her greatest accomplishment so far. She's always been the best at smoothing out the frayed ends of any situation; she's always been the troubleshooter rather than the instigator. Now she's learning to accept the fact that sometimes she's going to be the one with the frayed ones or the troubles to be shot; and not to be afraid to let someone do the heavy lifting for her for a change.

However, lastly and most importantly, as I reflect on my favorite Toby turning seventeen this year, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much she's changed me in addition to changing herself. Just by knowing her, I've become a little less temperamental and a lot less impatient when it comes to dealing with people. I'm not perfect in those areas yet by any means, but by seeing how swiftly Toby resolves her problems with people and by seeing how just by being nice 117% of the time can win you a lot more points over your lifetime, it's slowly dawning on me that there is more than one way to act in any given situation. While it feels a tad wrong to say since it is her birthday, I just wanted to take the time to thank the youngest contributor here for that gift and all the rest of the gifts she's given me over these last few years.

Happy Birthday, Toby, and I'm sorry this note of my admiration for you is so tardy in its execution.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

And I Love You, It Just Comes Natural, It's What I Was Born To Do, Don't Have To Think It Through, Baby, It's So Easy Lovin You, It Just Comes Natural

2009-10-10T04:16:00.000-07:00

--"It Just Comes Natural", George Strait

My dearest Eeyore,

Happy Birthday!

What a lucky day it was for me in the summer of 1993 when I was surprised find an e-mailed response to my poem "We Lose A Friend". Now I'm not normally one to open strange letters from folks I don't know, but something about the way my day was working out prompted me to open yours. I'm grateful I did, though. It not only lifted me up that day, but it also showed me that what my mother had been telling me all along is true; when we lose a friend, God always gives us more to take their place. It was the sweetest thing what you wrote and how you tried to console little 'ole me when you knew only the barest bones of what I was going through. You took pity on my poor heart. I've never forgotten that because I've always wondered what it was about that poem on that day to prompt you to take such an interest in me. What led you to me? What did I do to become so lucky?

And I've been grateful ever since as well. We've been through a lot of birthdays together--some spent more pleasantly with one another than other, to be sure--but one thing's remained constant. Yours is one of the first letters/e-mails/phone calls I want to take when my birthday comes around and yours is one of the first greetings I want to be when yours comes rolling around. I never look upon it as an obligation. I don't see it as a chore where I'm as frazzled as a duck in a kitchen trying to decide what to get you. It's a day that I mark with utter joy because I already know the perfect gift to get you, the perfect sentiment to express to you, the perfect way to show you that I'll always care, you know? It'd be a different story entirely if I, even for a moment, felt a wavering in the strength of the bond of our friendship. Perhaps then it'd feel like I was putting forth the effort out of obligation rather than free will, but that simply is not the case here. I still feel every bit as close to you as the day we met. Closer even, if that is even possible. I still feel every bit of the need to quantify exactly how much I hope your birthday turns out truly wonderfully for you. And, yes, I still feel every bit that I want to be happier for you on your birthday than you are for it. That's one of my job descriptions. That's what I do. I want to be that cute cheerleader in your corner, who's perkiness might become distracting after awhile, but is kind of comforting in its ferocity... like a tiger. haha

Even though I can't celebrate your special day with you (through no fault of my own, ahem), I can tell you that I'll be celebrating it over here in my corner of the world in small, but important ways. You can expect calls from both my parents, from Fanny and Katie, and from everyone else who knows you that I can remind to do so. Today you're going to be busier answering your phone than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Hell's bells! That ain't even half of the plans I've got up my sleeve. You still have my present to receive later this week. However, I still have a whole host of little reminders of your birthday's importance to my social calendar to spring upon you.

But for now, since I do have so much more I want to tell you when we talk later on, here's a small sampling of the direction today will be taking for you.

Patrick, I adore you! You are the most wonderful man. You have always made me important and that I had something important to share. You have always made me feel loved and worthy of love. And I'll never forgive you for that. It's a hard burden to shoulder, trying to live up to that honor, sugar. Until I met you I feel like I missed so much in my life because I never had that connection. I once thought Torry was that companion I was waiting for. But it was you, it was always going to be you, Patrick. You are that friend, that companion that I have wanted for so long. You are that person that, even though we hardly see each other, I still want to share life's adventures with while they're happening to me. You are always my first call. You've always been the friend I can share my innermost secrets with. You've always been that supportive and trusting friend I can turn to when I'm feeling hurt. It's no secret I've always striven to be just as supporting and trusting towards you--to the best of my abilities at any rate.

I will always be here to carry the boulders of burden if you ever need it. I will always be here to encourage you, prod and poke you if need be, and to treat your every accomplishment as a hoot-and-a-half even when everyone else marginalizes them. I will always be here to laugh with you, cry with you, fight with you, and make up with you. That's what good friends do. I love to talk to you on the phone when you're having a good day and I love to talk to you when you're having a bad day. I just love to share the intimacy of talking from the heart as we are apt to do.

When you met little 'ole me I felt like I had so much to share with someone but it was always dammed up like some mighty river behind a rock wall. Before you no one was interested in seeing what was on the other side of the wall, the richness of spirit I had to offer. Well, you not only broke down the wall, but you made sure that another one would never be built to take its place. You always care what I have to say even when what I have to say isn't always so Christian towards you. You understand I can only be me, I can only be Breanne--no more, no less--and you don't make me apologize for it. Even when we're stubborn and are tearing each other to pieces like wild jackals, you always make it clear that no matter what I do or say I'm surrounded by a love that emanates directly from your heart like the rays of the sun. That, more than anything else I know about you, is the one fact I always take with me when I think about what I like about you. You inspire me. You embrace me. You welcome me.

You see me with the eyes of someone who is my equal and that's an experience that doesn't come along all that often.

So, on this your 34th birthday, I only want to say that your the friend I long to love and cherish with a rare form of love until there are no more days to hold it in. You, sugar, are the one friend who does friendships best.

Again, happy birthday, Patrick!

Breanne

It Hardly Matters, It Does Not Matter, But Let's Unravel The Edge Of Time, Where Proofs And Postulations Rise

2009-10-08T04:39:00.000-07:00

--"Proofs", Mates of State

Not Fond of Mushrooms

When you're wondering
about the delivery

guy--how he got to
be forty-two or look like

Bob Saget in a
faded red shirt and khakis--

he is spending time
wondering why you're not fond

of mushrooms and if
he ever thought as young as you.

And when you're paying
him the twenty-six dollars

he's owed, he's thinking,
you're going to need it more

than I do, sweetheart,
before he hands you your change.

dw

----

My English teacher brought up the anomaly of being a poet and writer aficionado, unlike other worshippers of celebrity, ours is a mostly faceless form of adulation. Even though I have spent many nights padded down with a great collection of this certain poet or breathtaking new novel of that certain writer, were I to cross paths with any but a handful of people possessed of this writing gift I would surely not recognize a single one of them. You can only look at so many cover jackets, so many publicity photos, before they all meld into a formless haze of unrecognizable facial features. The idea's the thing and putting eye color or hairstyle to the words the woman says seems altogether superfluous to me. How am I to recognize the brilliance of a man if that man does not hang a sign around his neck proclaiming "My latest piece was featured in The Atlantic Monthly"? What hope do I have in discerning the average passerby from the genius that hides within the throng of teeming masses?

It'd be like when wind met earth; two mighty forces of nature with no working knowledge of how the other operates. Were one to stop me without so much as a by-your-leave and say, "Hey there, Toby. I'm Catherine Marshall and I was featured in The Best American Poetry 2009," I very well might run away. What I would not do would be say, "Gosh, it's real swell to meet you."

That is not what I would do.

I have it worked up in my head that profiteers and professional purveyors of the written word operate on a wholly different set of instructions as to how to function. They sidle from brilliant thought to brilliant thought the way a jazz singer shuffles through the different notes--lightning fast and without mercy. That's why the sight of someone like Jane Smiley or Annie Proulx shopping at the malls of America might short-circuit some inner wiring regarding how people of a certain intellect are supposed to interact with the rest of the world. For one, they are not supposed to release themselves from their self-styled enclave of creation. They do not get to peek at the sun. They do not get to drive a car, dance a jig, or drop off their dry cleaning. Their greatest contribution to society is one that requires them to be forever vigilant in their pursuit of the perfect compilation of thoughts and ideas and philosophies. It does not suffer idle chit-chat or errands lightly. It would be like seeing a automobile manufacturing robot arm taking in a movie at the cineplex; if your main function is to write then it behooves you to write without end, Amen. Otherwise, you're just depriving the rest of the world and the fans which it encompasses of your brilliant insights.

It also strikes me that I don't want to be leveled by the normalcy in their visages. I don't want to see their arch to their back or the slight imperfection to the right side of their cheek. I don't want to know that somebody whose work I once compared to one of Jesus' miracles on a good day lists to one side when they walk. I don't want to know the color of the ocean if it is not the blue of my imagination. Writers do not have bodies, after all. They only minds and mouths with which to speak the truth.

I know I wouldn't be able to hold court with them. I could not hope to keep up my end of the conversation. Were it even to devolve to the smallest of talk, I would still bow to their authority, I can tell you that much. Every query would be met with my "I agree." Every statement of opinion would be met with "I agree." Every challenge to my preconception of how things are done or work or are understood would be met with "I was so wrong." It wouldn't even be a fair fight. My independence would suffer the loss every time. They made it, they're doing it, my brain would say in upper case letters and exclamation points. Everything they tell you would hold the weight of gospel. If they tell you to be careful crossing the street, then, gosh, you'll cross the street as if you're guarding the crown jewels themselves. If they tell you to have a nice day, then you'll strive to have the best day anyone has ever had in a decade.

That's how I would understand them, not through the lens of truth but something more reverential and slightly fanatical.

I've been thinking, though, it wouldn't be any different for them. They wouldn't see me either. All they would see would be just another doting fan. They might not see what it's like to be one of their readers; they might not see what struggles their words produce when it comes time to dovetail the insights their works have incited with the universal truths one has held onto since a small child. They might have forgotten what it's like to be working your upward when it comes to understanding how language can both lash one's psyche and massage it at the same time. For them it might be a foregone conclusion. They might not understand the sense of being astounded like I still do. When they look at me they might not recognize my curiosity for what it is--like the smoker who mistakes the alley cat for some common street rat. They may not believe that I'm a writer myself so instead of seeing me with the eyes of a colleague or at least master to apprentice, their gaze may more resemble that of the way a hawk eyes its prey or a shepherd eyes his sheep. It wouldn't be a look of empathy. Pity perhaps, but most likely indifference.

It would be a difficult task meeting a writer and try to gain equal footing as them for the reasons mentioned above. It would be most troubling establishing any type of peer-to-peer set of ground rules. The idolized and idolater relationship is, indeed, a hard habit to break. Or maybe it's not even the sociodynamics of celebrity that's the problem. Maybe it all comes down to the idea that one's self-image is not ever the image projects out into society. The way I see you is not the way you see yourself. It's not a matter of which version is the truth; it's accepting the fact that both images are true and both images are false. For me it would be the trial by fire of accepting the fact that these gifted individuals are both masters of their craft and still servants of the human condition. There is no either/or choice when it comes to heroes; everyone is a hero and the damsel in the distress. Everyone should be applauded and overlooked. Everyone's important and everyone's nobody.

Everyone wins.

Everyone poops.

Maybe that's what I should focus on were I to run into Stephen King strolling down Fourth Street Live! or meet Nick Hornby at the nearest White Castle. They're better than me, to be sure. But when they look me in the eye my thoughts should turn to the truism that perhaps, perhaps I'm a little bit better than them as well. We all need that chip on our shoulders to have someone else knock off, otherwise, we're all walking around thinking that we're no better than the average personage of no interest to anyone. We need to be our own biggest fans so we don't all become someone else's, I say.

dw

This Is Why Events Unnerve Me, They Find It All, A Different Story, Notice Whom For Wheels Are Turning, Turn Again And Turn Towards This Time

2009-10-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

--"Ceremony", New Order

I have a birthday coming up on the 10th. Yet, to be certain, I'm more excited that both my brother and my friend Toby's birthday are coming up on the 12th. Don't mistake me--I'm glad to be receiving gifts and all, but the weight of the occasion still hasn't hit me yet. The way I see it, turning thirty-four is about as momentous as turning thirty-three, which is to say it isn't very momentous at all. On that day, nothing's going to truly change for me and there won't even be any kind of celebration to commemorate the date.

Yes, I'm having a few dinners with a select group of friends and relatives all this week, but there will be no birthday party, bash, or any type of shindig to be had.

Frankly, I think I outgrew birthdays by the time I was twenty. I've never been all that jazzed about parties celebrating me. I've always preferred to put forth the energy into other people's celebrations. I've always strived to make other people's birthdays memorable and special. I suppose it has something to do with the idea of me not liking to call attention to myself--the no good-bye rule and the no small talk rule--but I also believe it has to do with the idea that birthdays in and of themselves aren't very noteworthy. It's not like an anniversary where you're celebrating an actual choice; birthdays really celebrate something you had no control over. That's why it's okay for friends and family to want to do right by you in making a big deal about your birthday. It's their choice to really honor the fact how long you've come in the world by choosing an arbitrary date to turn the metaphorical hands of the clock of your relationship. But to move the hands of one's own clock is to really acknowledge that there is a clock which is moving all the time in the first place.

In my case, it's neat to think that my "little" brother will be thirty-two years old this Monday or that Marion will be turning the same age when I first met Breanne, but it just makes me sad to think I'll be turning ten or more years older than people who have accomplished more than me.

Basically, my birthday is what holidays are to most people...

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Somebody, Somebody, Can Anybody Find Me Somebody To Love?

2009-10-01T01:47:00.000-07:00

--"Somebody to Love", Queen

Last week my Boston Mojo lost to Breanne's Atlanta Hellfire by five measly points. Normally, whenever we face each other in the field of the battle the customary wager has always been one hundred. Yet, since I was so overconfident my team would prevail in the end, I upped the bet to five hundred last week. For those of you who don't know, that's the largest wager I've ever lost to Breanne--or anyone else for that matter. I normally don't go around throwing money after any sports team, even if it was comprised mostly of my beloved Red Sox. It's just not something I get that impassioned about enough to risk. Honestly, I think it was just the coupling of besting Lucy once more with the fact that I was ahead halfway through the week that caused me to lose my head for a moment. Losing hundred is bad enough, but losing five hundred is just plain depressing.

However, I'm not in the least bit bitter about it. I don't mind really losing to her.

It's because I know somewhere deep down that it's not really losing to her; it's more like I'm paying her back. Slowly. The crux of the matter is that five years ago she was kind enough to offer me three thousand dollars to borrow when I had filed for bankruptcy and wasn't working. I've only ever been able to pay her back about twelve hundred of it. She's never once bitched and moaned about getting the remaining eighteen hundred back to her right away. She's hardly even brought it up again--if and when she has, it's only to sass me about it. In the history of our friendship it's definitely the greatest single act of trust she's ever done for me. If she never did anything else from this point forward or if she had never done anything else for me previously, it would still earn her the distinction as being the friendship I cherish the most.

----

I was discussing at work how it surprised me that my friends from St. Rita's, Tommy and John, still knew each other. It surprised me because, there but for the grace of God, those two would have been my oldest friends if we hadn't drifted apart. I mean--I knew those two since the early 80's, at least ten years before I would meet Jina, Breanne, Dan, and Peter, or anyone else I would ever meet at La Salle. If we hadn't drifted apart, we would have been halfway through our third decade of knowing each other.

I admit it. There was a time there where I thought we'd always be friends. Tommy, John, Paul, and Phillip were the only friends I knew the entire time I was in elementary school. I was friendly with a lot of people--Jennifer, Casey, and Stephanie come to mind--but those four guys were the only ones I considered friends. It's kind off-putting that the first friends you usually make in life almost always never last. Just taken a sample poll of people at my work and people I know, almost no one is still friends with people from their elementary class after you reach a certain age. Almost no one has had the patience and fortitude to maintain a strong ongoing relationship that long.

My question has always been, though, even if you stay friends with someone that long, does that make for a better friend? Does duration count more than quality? For instance, if I had stayed friends with John or Tommy all these years, would I know be calling them my best friends instead of Little Miss Chipper? Or, say I got my dream of befriending someone like Rachel, and they were killed within months of getting to know them--would the fact that we only knew each other for those few months detract from the closeness we did feel?

I don't know--I've always been interested in the debate of whether length or compatibility matters most for qualifying one as someone's dearest friend. It's why my novel centers around a guy whose first love was killed in sixth grade after they'd only spent one summer together and how that relationship has become the relationship by which he judges all others, including his marriage. Thirty years later all he can see was how his one perfect relationship was tragically cut short before it had a chance to really blossom.

That's how I feel sometimes. There's people that I've known longer than dirt itself, but with whom I've never felt really close. And there's been people I've always just instantly clicked with it. In almost every situation it's been the latter group whom I felt genuinely were my dearest friends.

I guess what I'm saying is it isn't the fact that she loaned me all that money all those years ago that makes me consider Breanne my number one. It's the fact that she probably would have helped me to that same degree had I asked her within the first week of knowing her. It's the fact that I believe in the chemistry we have together so much that it wouldn't matter if I met her in '84 or 2014, we still would have be joined at the hip eventually. Some people I might have spent more face time with and some people I might have been through more with it in sheer numbers. But there's something to be said about how well a person makes you feel whenever you get the chance to be around them or spend any kind of time with them.

It's like she says, "I'd much rather have a minute in the sun than a day out when it's cloudy, you know?" Most people are going to be cloudy days. It's only a select few that are going to be minutes in the sunshine.

Or to put it another way, there's a lot of people I get really annoyed when I lose a five dollar bet to them, but there's only one person in the world that I can fork over five hundred dollars to and still smile about it. Only one.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Can't Accept That It's Over, I Will Block The Door Like A Goalie Tending The Net, In The Third Quarter, Of A Tied-Game Rivalry

2009-09-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

--"Nothing Better", Postal Service

The question came up at work which of us in the credit department tend to be controlling and possessive in their relationships. While almost everyone had their pros and cons about everyone else, the consensus was that I was almost certainly domineering in my relationships. Rather than try to deny it, I was left wondering what would give so many people that impression of me. What kind of stories do I actually relate to my co-workers that would lead them to that conclusion when they have never really seen firsthand what I'm like I'm dating someone? Then I remembered all the sorts of stories that at the time I thought were humorous in their excessiveness, but taken together could paint a portrait of me as somebody not entirely fully equipped to deal with women who are strong-willed in their own right.

Rather than try to defend myself or explain it away, I just let them tell me what my problem is. And they came to the same conclusion that I did a long time ago. I'm too much of a stubborn person to allow someone else dictate what is happening in my life for any certain amount of time. I don't give up control easily. Even when it's at the expense of somebody else's opinion, I am loathe to concede my goals and my wishes. That's why they say I have so many problems dealing with women who are smarter or more successful than me. That's why I date women who are so much younger than me. And that's why they say I have such a hard time with maintaining any type of long-term relationship. I'm too much of a "my way or the highway type" of personality, and too often people choose to take to the highway.

Case in point, with DeAnn (since she's the most recent of my exes and by far the one I seemed to have treated the worst) there were at least five separate occasions where she wanted to break up with me that I simply wouldn't accept. Even though it was plain as day she didn't think we working out, I simply denied her right to say no to the relationship. That's how much of a controlling personality I was with her (or maybe just back then). I remember those first few times it was a matter of talking her out of; telling her all the reasons we should stay together. And in those first few times it may have just been a matter of her being angry during the moment and thinking rashly. Maybe that's why the persuasive reasoning might have worked. But by those last few times it was a simple matter of imposing what I wanted over what she wanted. I often forget the lengths I went to stop her from walking out on us, but there was at least a couple of times, like the song says, where I physically stopped her from leaving.

The most public demonstration of this unyielding side of me was when we started a fight at The Olive Garden near my parents' house. I forget what we were fighting about, but I definitely remembered how it ended. She stormed outside, ostensibly to clear her head, which prompted me to follow her out. This lead to us arguing loudly out in the parking lot, loud enough to have the folks at Olive Garden tell us to not cause any trouble. More minutes passed. Then I remember DeAnn trying to walk away and say she would wait in the car for me. After that I must have snapped because the next thing I knew I was physically holding her back from getting to the car. I'm not just talking about grabbing her wrist or something; I'm talking about grabbing her around the waist from behind and lifting her off the ground so she couldn't run anywhere. It was the definition of keeping someone against their will. She was screaming by the time and I was screaming right back at her to just calm down and try to talk it over with me. Eventually patrons walking out of the restaurant and the restaurant manager herself came out to see what was going on. I remember one of them asked her if they should call the police on me. I think that's what finally settled us both down.

She told them no, and I let her down. Sooner or later we both went back inside to finish our dinner and talk about whatever it is we were fighting about. You would think that something that greatly unconscionable I would have remembered. Yet it tells you the frequency with which we fought and yelled in public that that incident doesn't stand out as being any more memorable than some of the others. It does illustrate, though, the lengths I used to go to get my way.

DeAnn used to say I had a look about me when I wasn't going to let go of something. She used to say that it didn't matter what she told me. If it wasn't what I wanted to hear than I would drag the fight out all night until she finally acquiesced to what I wanted her to say. It was very random the things I would obsess over. Big things I could be gracious with one day, like us spending my money on trips for us and such. But small things for no reason at all used to set me off into one of those moods. I remember one night I kept us up to all hours because I wanted her to name her favorite music group. She kept repeating that she didn't have one. Then, what started out as lively banter in the service of getting to know each other better, turned into an ordeal when I wouldn't let the topic go for about two or three hours. It ended like I wanted it to, with her finally having to give me a name that sounded ideally like what she would name as her favorite group. I didn't care if it was really true; I honestly cared more about the fact she wouldn't just say something, anything, at first and seemed hell bent on denying me my answer.

That's another thing she used to say about me. I didn't like it when people kept things hidden from me and with her when she would say "I don't know" or "I don't have an opinion," it felt like she was just being obstinate when she might literally not have had an opinion or any clue as to the answer to the question. That's when I would just snap and compel her to answer something. It may not having been torture in the sense of the word, but it's pretty darn close when someone basically interrogates someone else for hours on end until they give them the answer they want them to hear. And that's what I would do to her, I would obsess over the tiniest thing until I got a satisfactory result.

I think the worst came during those last few times when she was desperately trying to get across that she wanted to break up with me. I would do anything to get her to relent on her decision--even to the point of physical and emotional violence. I was the picture of the abusive boyfriend, keeping her in our apartment when she wanted to leave, threatening to crash the car when she wanted to break up with me while I was driving (like that would really stop me), &c....

I couldn't accept that she wanted it over. I wouldn't take her opinion over mine. I just couldn't see that, though it takes two people to make a relationship work, it only takes one to dissolve it. If I had known that before, if I had just bought into that fact I might have saved myself some heartache and at least one occasion having the police talk to me about possibly taking me down to the station for assault. I might have saved myself some trips to the emergency room taking care of her after something I accidentally did. I might have saved myself from going down a spiral I really did not want to go down.

I guess it was weird for me to hear those things my co-workers said about me. While I did do those things with DeAnn, since we've been broken up since 2003 I no longer think of myself as that person. I'm not the perfect friend, but in relation to how I am when I'm in a relationship, I'm a thousand times better of a friend than a boyfriend. Hopefully, I've learned something from my time with everyone I've ever gone out with. Hopefully, I'm a much different man than I was when I was with DeAnn and before with Tara and Breanne. I think I've learned a lot in the five years since then.

But, then again, five years isn't enough to see a complete turnaround so maybe there's still a little truth to my coworkers' opinion about me. Or, as my one co-worker told me jokingly, just because you don't see the sun all the time, it doesn't mean it stops shining. What's there may always be there for the rest of your life.

Maybe I just can't fight against my nature after all.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Oh, All I Ever Wanted, Was To See You Smiling, Oh, All I Ever Wanted, Was To Make You Mine

2009-09-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

--"All I Ever Wanted", Basshunter

large blue rings from a thin pen

I remember when my mom
would take us girls to

buy books at Carmichael's. The
date would be circled

on my calendar in blue
ink from a thin pen

also bought from Carmichael's.
She would pick me out

books--poetry and fiction,
art and religion--

and I allowed her this leash
over my viewpoint.

I wonder what will happen
when book-buying tasks

are handled by me, when the
leash is slipped off my

collar. Will my calendar
still have large blue rings

and will I even recall
where my pens are bought?

dw

Miles Down The Track I Can Hear That Whistle Blowin', Somewhere In The Night, And I Know In My Mind That Someday I'll Be Leavin'

2009-09-25T03:41:00.000-07:00

--"Two Winding Rails", Sierra Hull and Highway 111

three eight eight

letting go of the
tug rope in one swift motion
before she falls in.
~dw

----

Tomorrow my sister Nora and my brother-in-law Harry will be taking me up to their alma mater for the first of my three scheduled college visits. I don't as of yet know where I rank Notre Dame on my list of go-to schools, but I am excited for the prospect of visiting this magical land where I might spend the next four years of my life at. When one of my teachers at school asked me if I was excited, I told him it was like time-traveling into the future, gaining a glimpse at the Toby who might yet be. Such is the grandeur of the precipice I now found myself tiptoeing on, scared and thrilled to peek the tiniest bit over the edge. Nora swears she's convinced that I'm going to absolutely have my mind turned and she very well might be right. We'll see.

It's not like I haven't been on a college campus before. My Aunt Ashley has taken me up to Kentucky many a time to see the Wildcats play and I've bunked over with Faye at Indiana many weekends this past year. This, though, will be the first time a voyage will be undertaken solely for my benefit. No longer will I be the passing emissary of the land of adolescence. No, this trip will be made in the unique effort of emigration. This Toby, she isn't looking for a place to visit any more. This Toby, she's looking for a place to call home for the next few years. And while I might not know what direction my sails will pull me once I get there--certainly not Public Policy or Film Scoring like my sisters--I do know that whichever shores I land upon I want to explore the surroundings to the fullest. I want to fully commit to being a part of the college experience as much as possible. I already wasted my formative years locked away in the unbearable cage of being the shadow afeared of man. I want to be that wave on the ocean that flows with conscience or consequence. I just want to move for the sake of moving for once, be going somewhere and be something that isn't dictated beforehand.

And I know visiting the hallowed halls of South Bend is that first step of a journey which stretches out a lifetime.

And while I still have the very fine cities of Lexington and Ann Arbor to visit, it's Notre Dame that has the distinction to be my very real first taste of life away from the Toby that once was. It'll be like discovering what it's like to be new in the world again, something apart from the persona that has been built upon me. More precisely, it'll be like revisiting that part of myself that was lost when I became lost myself for a time in the angst of a life unlived as of yet.

Deep: the scent of the wood itself—
Walnut, lost thirty, forty years,
Returned, a certain desperate stir,
Unquiet thoughts,
Felling, the outraged exodus of birds.

--"The Hutch", Sarah Hannah

dw

When You See Her Say A Prayer & Kiss Your Heart Goodbye, She's Trouble, In A Word Get Closer To The Fire, Run Faster, Her Laughter Burns You Up Inside

2009-09-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

--"Who's That Girl?", Madonna

According to babynamespedia, Breanne, as a name has never been more than the 470th popular girl's name in the United States in any one given year. Most folks would find it a real disappointment to discover that one's name isn't high on the list of names chosen for their precious little darlings year after year. But not me. I take it as a real compliment having a name that feels like I have it all to myself. I don't even fret in the slightest that it's only ever cracked the top 500 in the country. Hell's bells, that little 'ole fact suits me just fine considering I've only barely cracked the top 25 in any one given pageant. It's far important to me that I possess a name that singularly captures who and what I am.

Breanne. Celtic in origin, meaning strength, power, force. And let me just tell you, I am quite the force to be reckoned with most days.

I take the fact that there aren't a whole helluva lot of Breannes out there as a badge of pride. It's silly, but I become as protective as a sow with all its piglets in a row behind her when somebody else mentions they know or have met another of my sorority. It then becomes a contest of ascertaining that I, in fact, am the best young woman ever to don the name Breanne. Whether it be the fact I'm the most intelligent, most beautiful, most wealthy, most anything--I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as I can tell myself that there ain't no better "me" out there. If anything, it would be mighty nice were everyone else to stop naming their children Breanne, all things considered--that's how much I prize being the only one of my kind.

All of that makes the following anecdote harder to bear. The other week I was talking to Fanny's friend, Emily, whom we had both met in college. Emily mentioned that we had a mutual friend from my days at Coben's who was interested in getting in touch with me. Normally, that would be a hoot-and-a-half because I absolutely adore catching up with old acquaintances, but my time at Coben's wasn't exactly the most pleasant of experiences and the folks I met there weren't exactly the keeping in touch with kind. I asked who this mysterious admirer was. Emily said her name was Kim--Kim D., to be precise. That's when my dimples must have flashed with bemusement.

Kim and I had both been fast friends and co-workers. She was one of the only people I liked when I spent those two summers there All in all, she might have been the one and only person I considered worth coming to work to catch up with. But, like anything, without the daily interaction of conversing with those in our life we really don't have anything in common with and only ever see in passing during our workday, relations become tenuous after a short period of time. Without any hesitation whatsoever, I did not expect to ever speak to or I daresay contemplate again the personage of one Kim D. It isn't like the case with what happened with Fawn and I. Fawn and I had been friends for a good number of years before we were separated and it was always in the back of my mind how splendid it would be to find the dear 'ole darling. Kim was just someone I thought would serve as an amusing footnote to that period of my life, with no new information to be gleaned from it.

I immediately told Emily to put me in touch with Kim as soon as was to her convenience.

It wasn't until last Thursday that my answer paid off in actual dividends.

Kim called me on that day all hearts and giggles and flowers. She said, "Bree, it's been ages." She asked how I was doing. She said all the things that made me feel like she truthfully missed me. Her voice crackled with the enthusiasm of a lovelorn hunting hound finally being reunited with her master, so pained were her pangs of heartache. It turns out she wanted to invite me to her daughter's baptism. She even added how "it'd be a real treat" if I could make it. It frankly took me by surprise how abundant her emotions were in regards to me. So much so that when she offered to "come for a visit so she could drop off the invitations personally," my only answer was, "That'd be a pleasant surprise, sugar." We made plans for her to drop by the house when Greg was home this past Saturday. I simply do not know how to turn down that kind of fire when it's being directed towards me, you know?

All that changed as soon as I answered the door to let her in. The first words out of her mouth threw me off my sense of nostalgia as sure as Greg Maddux throwing off any pitcher's mound in the world.

"Oh, you're that Bree. When Emily told me she knew a Bree that knew me, I thought of somebody else I used to know, child," she laughed.

I didn't know what to do. It turns out she really didn't know another Breanne, but Emily's predilection for the shortening of my God-given name had set in motion a chain of events that had culminated in the ultimately humiliating scene I had at my doorstep. My cheeks blushed profusely, from dimples to where my ears started. It was painful enough to have been mistaken for another of her acquaintances, but that quickly turned into the uncomfortable sense of dread when I saw the engraved invitation she had in her hand. Knowing it wasn't meant for me, it was very awkward to have one wanted to go and now sensing I would no longer be invited.

Yet through it all, I constantly came back to the notion of outrage at being mistaken for another "Bree". Bree is bad enough, but the fact she could confuse my name with another's when obviously my name is the most precious and special name in all of God's creation was like pouring vinegar onto an open cut. It was like taking away a child's ice cream and then eating in front of her. That's how excruciating that was. I started to wonder if i had made an impression at all on Kim.

In the end, it turned out alright. I was still invited for the baptism next month, me and my husband. In the end, it turns out she was glad she had been put in touch with me because it had really been a long time between seeing each other. In the end she too remembered the great fun we had had when we had been working together. I forgave her for expecting another woman when she showed up at my door because that was the Christian thing to do.

But I shall never in all my life bestow my forgiveness or my mercy on her for mistaking my precious jewel of name with that of another woman. That's a cross she shall have to bear for eternity, I reckon. haha

Breanne

Civilization, Are We Really Civilized, Yes Or No? Who Are We To Judge?

2009-09-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

--"Mr. Wendal", Arrested Development

As pointed out by my supervisor at work, I'm possibly the least attentive person in our department. I have a process to working that's worked for me for as long I've known. I can--or should I say, need to--juggle two or three things in my head at any time, but no more. Any time I'm called upon to notice anything outside of those three things, I utterly fail. Usually one of those details that I'm focused on has nothing to do with work and it's usually my safe harbor when I need a break from work-related stresses. That leaves two areas I can concentrate which have a slight connection to the responsibilities of my job. This handicap to my personality manifests in many ways. Sometimes it's called a faulty short-term memory. Sometimes it's called apathy or indifference. And sometimes people label it just plain weirdness. The actuality is that I tend to focus the whole of my attention on a few things at a time in much the same manner Goldilocks has to have her bed just so. I can't focus on just one activity nor can I really be called a multi-tasker. As aforementioned, I'm fairly decent at completing two or three jobs at once.

It's manifested in other facets of my life as well. There's a lot going on in this world that I simply haven't taken the time to care about or truly devoted any effort to noticing. When people picture the image of an ostrich burying its head in the sand they're usually picturing me. Chief among the complaints of the realities of our world that I've never contemplated before is the reality of racism. I've never spent many hours thinking long and hard about how it's affected me. I've never bothered to delve into the way it's touched me or people I've known. I've never even bothered to admit that it's really had any bearing in my life. For the most part I continue to believe that it doesn't brush up against my life at all.

I say this because my co-worker Antonio came back from Indiana and all he could talk about was how many "hillbillies" he was surrounded with over there. Antonio, if you haven't guessed by the name, is of Mexican descent so for him it was a noticeable difference being one of a very small sampling of minorities in the town he was visiting. While I was hearing the story it really struck me how often he called attention to the fact he pointed out he was surrounded by white people or how he noticed the difference between how he was often singled out there and not over here. It wasn't that he was being treated poorly--it was just surprising to hear how it really affected his whole weeklong trip. Me? I've been to all different parts of the country, from huge cities to the most backwater of backwater towns and I've never once come back with stories of how I felt like I was an outcast or different from everybody else. Hell, I just came back from Kentucky--not just Louisville, not just Lexington--but parts of southern Kentucky and parts of western Kentucky where the big cities aren't. All I could remember of the trip and the people there was how nice everyone else, and not just that facetious graciousness that you sometimes get in big cities in Los Angeles or New York, but genuine warmth and affection.

In fact, most trips I came back from all I really remember was how everyone treated me swell and how great a time I've had meeting new people. While I wouldn't go so far as to say I made huge gaggles of new friends, I don't remember a time where I said I hated the people in a particular city or that I made new enemies. For the most part, I've met only good people when I've been outside the safety of my Southern California perch. I just don't see people treating me differently because of my racial background, ethnicity, or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen; it just means I've never seen it firsthand.

Like I said, I'm oblivious. Breanne tells me that. Toby tells me that. Even my own brother tells me that.

The closest I've ever come to noticing that there are places that treat you differently according to the color of your skin was when I was visiting Jina over in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was my first day there and her family treated me to breakfast at this local restaurant. When I walked in not only did I notice I was the only Asian/Pacific Islander in the room, I also noticed that I was the only non-white person in the room. So, yeah, people stared for the first couple of minutes, but no one at the other tables really said anything to cause me to become uncomfortable. After awhile I just forgot that I was anything out of the ordinary in that town. More to the point, when we were all walking out, no one stared at me as we got up and I didn't even bother to look around to see if anyone was even glancing at me from the side of their face. I honestly believe that any notion of people thinking I was the circus oddity disappeared as soon as I didn't make a huge deal out of it.

I guess that's what people refer to when they say I have a short-term memory. I don't dwell on things that don't really make a difference to me. Like Antonio can spend the bulk of his trip noticing how things are different where he is and how the people act differently where he is. I've always been able to keep my tunnel vision on how, except for some minor details, some minor surface changes, people really act the same way anywhere you go. I never call attention to the fact I'm different than anyone else. I don't shy away when people make eye contact with me. I don't get all paranoid that people are noticing every little move I make. I just never feel that much under scrutiny. That helps me a lot when I'm meeting new people. I have it within me to keep to the background and not call attention to myself. Yet when the opportunity to strike up a conversation with someone, that natural tendency hasn't stopped me from just butting my way into the conversation.

I've built a million anecdotes in my time and I'll unleash them on anyway, given the right atmosphere. Doing that has pretty much saved me from being a recluse wherever I go. Whether it's bonding with my fellow Red Sox fans on my first trip to Boston to the point where we were buying each other drinks by th 7th Inning, to talking the ears off the other passengers on the L while Lucy and I were there, I have a funny story for a lot of different references in a conversation. When it comes to me getting comfortable with people I don't know, I'm the Forrest Gump of storytelling. I'll just start spewing a tale of personal history as if I've known you for five years. For instance, i can't tell you how many random people I've told about my Holy Grail of Milkshake story or how many folks out there have had the misfortune of hearing my cousins tried to kill me in Lake Tahoe story. It's just how I relate to people. I don't think of them as being black or white, or whatever. To me they're just people who might be entertained by my stupid perspective of the world. And I don't look up at people as if they're judging me. Lord knows I'm far harsher on myself than anyone else could be.

I guess that's why I'm oblivious to thoughts of racism or sexism or any other word signifying how people wish to be grouped. I just see people as potential audiences. Either that or I see them as potential fodder for future stories. It's truly difficult to tell a story or capture a story if you're worried the entire time about if your audience is looking down on you for being Asian or if you look down on your characters because they're black or hispanic, or whatever. When people are just characters it almost doesn't matter to me what they look like; that's like background for the character, that's just their backstory. What interests me, what's important to me, is how they contribute to the story I'm in the process of writing for myself. What I take with me when I venture into uncharted territory--when I'm visiting Macon dressed so out-of-place and hanging off the arm of someone who so belongs there when it's obvious I don't, when I'm asking directions to a bourbon distillery in the back woods of eastern Kentucky while everyone is wondering what spaceship me and Toby just touched down together in, or when I'm even going shopping with the girls in conservative Orange County--is the idea everyone likes to hear a good story about people's foibles. More than that, they like being heard for their inconsistencies and their shortcomings.

Maybe that's why I haven't been smacked across the forehead with the palm of racism. I think everyone's got a story to tell and that makes them more valuable to get to know than not know. And that supersedes any thoughts of how we're different. It's our love of hearing about how the other person lives that unites us and makes us bond.

So yeah, I'm focused when it comes to seeing how people relate to each other. I could try and ponder why people are so hateful to one another. I could try and just see how people are strange. That could be me if I really wanted to dig up how we as humans fail one another time and time again. I could just say people are too weird to comprehend and be done with it.

I'd rather not just stop at thinking how peculiar other people are.

I'd rather go one step further and hear how they got to be so peculiar and fascinating. That beats dwelling to no avail on how their skin color just looks vastly different than my own. I'd rather hear their story and have them hear mine than live in a world where no one hears anybody's tale because they're too skeptical of being heard by one another.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

So Now I Come To You, With Open Arms, Nothing To Hide, Believe What I Say, So Here I Am With Open Arms

2009-09-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

--"Open Arms", Journey

When she was alive, Jennifer and I used to talk about the merits of forthrightness. Her big kick was always that I should tell the people that mattered to me as often as possible how much I appreciated. My counterpoint was always that if you constantly tell somebody the same thing repeatedly, what you say begins to lose all meaning. I was always of the mindset that you should save up how you feel for those moments when it really matters, when it's really going to make a difference. I was always of the opinion that you needed to write those long letters spelling out everything that you love about a person because just spewing a generic bland statement of how you feel really doesn't cut it. Saying, "I love you," isn't the same as hearing a couple dozen reasons why you feel as such.

Or so I thought.

As I've gotten older I've realized that both schools of thought have their place. I've also realized that you can hide behind words as easily as you can put your true self forward with those same words. I've always been somebody who preferred to write at length about everything. Through high school, through college, my teachers tried to instill in me the value of keeping it simple, being direct and to the point. I would never listen. I would always compose at length because I thought it put more of who I was and what I was about there. Now I realize part of me sees lengthy compositions and a verbose manner of speaking are just crutches I use when I don't want people to see how I really feel. While I do say how I feel, I kind of use language and grammar to obfuscate the point. I'm hoping people don't have the time or the patience to wade through all my verbage to get at the real meat of what I'm saying. And, for the most part, it's worked. For everything I write, I think there's only a few people who truly go the distance to parce out the meat from the gristle, to borrow the expression.

However, there have been some times when I saw the value of just putting my heart out there and getting right to the point. There have been times where I just wanted someone to know immediately the depth of my appreciation for them in no uncertain terms. It doesn't happen often and it really leaves me more vulnerable than I usually like to be, but it does happen:

TO MY DEAREST FRIEND
by E. Patrick Taroc

To ask what friends like you are for
Is to doubt the joy life does bring,
To let one's fear become the door
That shuts out their light like evening.
So into your worth my heart I pour
And not to your meaning do I cling
For you're the friend that means so much more,
Is so much more than everything.

(07/20/95) Copyright 1995 E. Patrick Taroc

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Trudging Slowly Over Wet Sand, Back To The Bench Where Your Clothes Were Stolen, This Is The Coastal Town, That They Forgot To Close Down

2009-09-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

--"Every Day is Like Sunday", Morrissey

Casey was digging through her old scrapbooks while I was over at her place the other day and came across some old St. Rita's pictures. I mean--knowing how bad I am at keeping photographs organized or in some place I can readily find them again, it's been awhile since I saw what everyone looked like, oh, from twenty years ago. It really was like looking on some other country or some other time period like the 1800's. The pictures of me I didn't even recognize. It was as if I was looking into the face of someone I had never met before. I had more than one moment of "Were we ever that young, Weatherfield?" to which I would receive the reply, "I was. You were never that young, mojo."

Indeed, I might have looked that young, but I don't think I ever felt that young. I've always felt old for my age even when I've acted immature. I've always felt like I've known more, could handle more, and wanted to do more than was age appropriate. Looking at myself in a mirror from the mid-80's is basically like looking at an earlier model of myself, but still completely functional as it is now. I believe I still had the same mindset back then, the same weird tendencies, and the same sense of self-identity that I carried with me when I was just a boy. I don't know what that says about myself that I may look a lot older from them, but I don't feel a lot older from then. I only feel more like the last twenty years haven't changed much for me--not for the worse or for the better. It just feels like I've had a whole lot of the same.

every day is like sunday

Seeing the old familiar faces of people I haven't heard from or seen in two decades--like Nicole, Krista, Rachel, and Caryl--isn't very healthy for me. It's like visiting a town I haven't seen in years and finding out that everything looks the same, but doesn't feel the same. Sure, I remember sorta what everyone was like back then, but I know they're not like that now. The paint and decor might still resemble the old facades they used to have, but they're not the same buildings I saw as a kid. If I were to meet most of these people now--Casey excluded--I doubt I'd have any emotional connection to their lives as they are being led now. If it weren't for the visual cues telling me we used to share eight hours a day together, I doubt I would have any interest in approaching any of them. They're not the same people I left behind. They wouldn't be the same people I left behind in Case's photographs. They wouldn't act like them, talk like them, or even resemble them in any way.

Nope, the only person as far as I can tell who would still resemble their former self would be me. I don't know which is more depressing, to revisit a town that you haven't been to in ages or to realize that you yourself have never left that sort of town ever in your lifetime.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers