What's on the mind of 15-year olds

My two 15-year old cousins, Anita and Fannie, have been staying with us for the last two days. As typical teenagers they are bored with just hanging out with the family. Even just three days away from their home turf and they are pacing the floors, pooching out their lips, and whining about the fact that there is no internet at either my parent's house or my house. Their biggest adventure so far was going to Katy Mills Mall yesterday afternoon. Imagine that. They would rather pace the mall then spend a quiet afternoon looking at surrealist art at The Menil Museum. To placate them I told them I would bring them here to the Cy-Fair College library so they could get their web messenger fix. As I let them sleep in until 10am this morning, which for them is an ungodly early hour to get up when they are on vacation, I pondered the fact of what concerns most 15-year olds these days. For them it's staying connected with their friends, boyfriends, their world of shopping, and when's the next meal. I thought back to when I was 15 and the things that most concerned me. Here they are:

My weight. Always was a full-figured girl. At 15 I was between a size 12 and 14.

My feelings for an unavailable man.

My feelings of being overshadowed by my slimmer, more popular best friend.

My concern over whether or not I would have a boyfriend.

Do I have enough friends?

Am I pretty and do other people think so?

Now (yikes I am dating myself here. @#$%&* it) 23 years later, sitting at my kitchen table feeding my coffee addiction I thought about the things that most concern me. Here they are:

My weight. New Year's resolution once again is to lose it. I'm still a size 14.

My feelings for two unavailable men.

Sometimes feeling overshadowed by my slimmer girl-friends when we all go out.

Wondering if in 2007 I will finally get a boyfriend.

Wondering if I have enough friends to keep me occupied.

Am I still pretty?

Oh, and one more, will I finally get a teaching job and get out of the poverty rut? (Back when I was 15 I was still being supported by mom and dad. Hmm...actually they still provide a great deal of support...mainly in the terms of groceries.)

Wow. I haven't changed much. Perhaps that is why I can't move forward. Because I am still stuck in a time loop of having the same basic feelings of insecurity. It's hard to let go of old habits, old patterns of thinking, and old feelings. That's why people make New Year's Resolutions. The old year is finally over and behind us. It's time to bring in the new. It's time for me to clean up my house and my mind. I know now what I have to do.

Plans Change

The Austin trip this week got scratched. Needless to say I will not be seeing my ex-boyfriend, spending any time with him, nor do I plan to in the future. There is a reason why he's an ex and I think it's best he stays an ex. I got lonely, I got weak, I got sentimental. Whatever. I need to stay strong if I am to achieve the goals I set out for myself in 2007. That includes also easing out of my life the other two that have plagued my mind for the last two years. Can I love them from afar and leave them as memories in the pages of my journals? I think I can. I know I can.

I have to make some major changes right now if I hope to accomplish my plans. In the mean time this week is not a total loss because I still have six more days of vacation, my relatives are coming in from Monterrey, and I get to babysit teenagers. Perhaps their youth will rub off on me and I can get my second wind which I will definitely need when the clock rolls over into
2007.

2007. It's a magic number. Everything will change in 2007.

Much needed sleep

After surviving another school semester I came home yesterday afternoon and fell asleep around 5:30pm and didn't wake up until 7:30am this morning. I haven't slept that many hours in a long time. My body finally just said "Enough. You're taking some time out." I slept like the dead. And dreamed of crazy things. But it's been such an emotional roller-coaster for me these last few months. I still haven't found a teaching job. I still haven't settled down with that right special someone. Yet things could be worse so I am glad for what I have.

I am going to be spending a few days next week in Austin. I will be spending some time with an ex-boyfriend who after three years still carries the torch. I need those few days of utter bliss. I don't want to think about my financial problems, my lack of success at finding a teaching job, or the fact I opened my mouth and let the words out that should have remained sealed. I would rather just enjoy spending time with a good person whom I care about, enjoy a little holiday cheer with my family, and son, and start 2007 with a clean slate. I have many projects on my plate and I need to completely get naked and wind down before I wind up to the fever pitch I get myself in when things are speeding down a rail like a runaway train.

I am going to get super-busy very quickly in 2007 and so need a few days to zone out. Hopefully I will have access to the internet and can update from Austin next week. Until then Merry Winter Solstice Christmas Kwanza Hanukkah Ramadan.

I said it and it can't be taken back

My lover was at my house this afternoon and I told him that I loved him. After seven years the words finally left my mouth. It was much simpler in the beginning when love wasn't thrown into the mix. It was just lust and the non-stop revolving party door. Now in the last two years things got way too intense. I fell in love with him but I've made it clear that he's not the one for me. He knows that too. In fact when I told him I loved him he just asked "Why?" And I said "Because I can. Because I want to. And I hope this doesn't change things between us." I really do hope he doesn't get all weird about it. Like stops calling me and stops seeing me just because I love him. I just really needed to get it off my chest. And I whispered in his ear that deep down inside I knew he loved me too but that it was just fine with me to continue on as we've been.

I told him I could compartementalize my feelings. I can love him and I can love another. In fact I do love someone else. And that someone else knows who he is too. But I didn't say that to him this afternoon. That would be too cruel. "Yes I love you but you're not the only one." And I realize how naked and vulnerable I am making myself here. But the fact is life is too damn short and precious to be quibbling over the finer points of who you love. I choose to love two men at the same time. I choose to see one of them when I can and enjoy a few hours with him sex or no sex. And I choose to write to the other one when I can and I've accepted that he's left and won't return and I can love him anyway. And I can meet someone else, just the right one, who is free to love me, and can give me what I want and what I need and love him too.

Does it seem like too much? Why? I live such a multi-layered life anyway. Not one person has any clue just who I am. I keep so many secrets from all of my friends that each one holds just one piece to the enormous puzzle of me. Not even my family has the complete picture. It is going to take someone extraordinary to truly accept every part of me and want to be with me anyway. But the one who does can rest assured that I will love him fiercely, devotedly, and completely. And as for my other feelings they can go to that place in my heart where I've left all my other relics. So what I am I to do? Be a celibate nun until I meet Mr. Right? Hell no. A woman has needs too or is that realm still only a man's peragotive?

Truly I must have been burned at the stake in some prevous life because I feel like I am on fire all the time. And lately that feeling has intensified. My mind is constantly racing and I can't keep it still. Trying to focus and concentrate lately has become difficult. Obsessive thoughts plague me. I need some peace and quiet. I want to go live deep in the earth like in a cave for a few days and just shut out all the noise I hear constantly in my head.

I can't believe 2006 is almost gone. What did I accomplish this year? That will be a blog for the last day of the year. My very own year in review. Until then. Ciao!

Alcohol and the writer

the other night I poured myself a hefty glass of red wine and began my second job at night which pays me nothing monetarily but lifts me higher than the snowy peaks of the Andes. Yet after the first few delicious swigs of that matching liquid color of my painted nails I realized that I spent hours writing pages and pages of utter swill. I mean there were a few gems here and there dispersed in my otherwise loopy, alcohol-soaked brain ramblings, but otherwise naw, not too good. It makes me wonder how some of my favorite writers, who were well known raging alcoholics, managed to come up with the brilliance they wrote. Poe, Faulkner, Thomas, and Fitzgerald to name just a few were famous for their literary output and notorious for their alcoholic input. Perhaps I am trying to keep up but the actual writing process is going to have to get done without the glass of wine at my fingertips unless I purposely want to get blind drunk and then write whatever craziness comes into my head.

2007 is around the corner and I know that is going to be my year. It's all going to turn around for me then. I just know it. Soon I will even know how to upload photos on this nutty blog and then images will stream forth as well as words.

Ciao!

Oh Holiday Time is Here Again

And I am in serious need of some cash if my son and I are going to have any kind of gifts under the tree this year. I've been thinking of different ways to earn some extra cash. Here's a list of the things I could do:

1. Stand on the street corner with a sign that says "Will write haikus for a dollar. Makes a great gift for the aspiring poet in your life."

2. Hire myself out as a singing telegram.

3. Sell my memoirs.

HMM....yeah....okay. I need to re-think this whole thing.

My mind is made up.

Yesterday I talked to my latest internet option. We were supposed to meet last night for our "first" date. But as fate would have it my parents took off to the casino and I had no-one to watch my son. So I called S and told him the situation. He was out and about at his job. At first he wanted me to come meet him right then and there but when I told him that I didn't have anyone to leave my son with he at first thought I was trying to get out of meeting him.

He said "Remember what I told you. Three strikes and you're out. This is strike one. You'll have to make it up to me."
"Oh." I said. "Uh, okay, I'll think of something."
Then he laughed and said "I am joking. You have to learn when I am joking. Come on you said in your profile that you had a sense of humor."

The fact is I don't know him, we haven't met, so no I don't know when he is joking. And yes my profile said I had a sense of humor but I certainly don't like someone telling me to have one right then and there. He talked my ear off for another hour about stuff like he has a gift of knowing what people think and he said "I know what you were thinking last night before you went to sleep. That this guy is either a really good bullshitter or too good to be true. And that you don't want to hurt me." I was quiet and I told him that yes that is what I was thinking. Actually what I was thinking was why he kept telling me things I just wasn't interested in and never once did he ask about me, what I did, what plans I had for my life, etc...So maybe part of what he said was true but you don't need some "Holy Ghost" talking to you to tell you that. He's got an Associate's Degree in marketing and sales. He drives a delivery truck all over the freaking city and the four cardinal suburbs delivering products to his clients. Of course he knows people and how to read their emotions and body language. He wouldn't be a very good salesman if he couldn't do that.

Finally I called him out on that point about why he hadn't asked me anything about me. His reply was "I know you have been through a lot. I don't need to ask you anything about you. When I meet you and look into your eyes then I will know if you are real. You sound like a good person with a big heart but when I look into people's eyes then I know if they are real or not." What kind of shit is that? Now in the world of dating we have to wait and look into each other's eyes before we determine if they're real or not? Well perhaps because of the nature of his job he needs to look into people's eyes. But my intuition and the nature of what I do relies on listening and talking in an equal fashion. And for three days all I've heard is this guy talk about himself and not once ask me anything about me. That does not sit well with me.

He finally told me to pray and to truly ask God to help me decide if I felt comfortable in meeting him. Which I did do last night. And quite frankly my gut and my heart tells me I will never be happy with someone with less education than me and that works in the trades instead of the professional fields. Perhaps that is shallow of me but I don't think so. I have no doubt S makes good money and can support me financially. But I don't care if he won the lottery tomorrow and made gazillions of dollars. Money is good but it doesn't keep me mentally stimulated. And I would prefer to make my own money and spend it however I want. I want to meet my mental, spiritual, and passionate equal. I did meet him in fact. But he was already taken and that is something I've had to accept. It sucks to high heaven but I have been dealing with it for over a year. With that person I would have been ecstatic. But it was not meant to be. So all I can do is keep my options open, pray that I meet someone similar to him, and keep up my faith that everything will turn out all right.

I took my profile off the internet. I will never use an on-line dating service again. I will never spend money on speed dating again. Instead I will use what resources I have in terms of going out and meeting people the old fashioned way. I am real. And I am ready to meet that person of my passionate dreams. But I will not compromise nor will I lower my standards even if that means I will continue to be alone for another six years. I hope and pray that that doesn't happen. That I will be with someone sooner than that. But I would rather be alone than with someone I can not love and can not give me what I want or need.

Which is better?

To have someone smarter than you or someone who is smart but not quite at your level? Usually I find that I am the one way out of someone's league. Invariably I always seem to attract the ones who are not quite at my intelllectual and sophisticated level yet the ones up there I would like to meet continue to elude me. Now I am faced with a dilemma. Well it's not really a dilemma. More of a conundrum. I've met someone on-line and we've been talking on the phone for the last two days for up to two hours each time. He seems nice enough but starts rambling about friends of his I've never met and telling me all about their relationship woes. And I am too polite to say "I really don't give a rat's ass about your friends and their problems. I don't know them so why are you boring me with all their issues?" He's also told me all about his very messed up two previous marrigaes. Okay, very well, I've had one broken marriage myself so that I can listen to. But the clincher is he's already jumped light-years ahead with "If we hit off...if we click...if we start a relationship...if we get married..." and we haven't even had a first date yet. And then he even went so far as to tell me certain intimate things about himself that quite frankly I don't need to know right away. We haven't even met face to face. I feel like he just wants all the cards on the table, dealt face up, so he knows what he's getting into. It's because he's been screwed over in the past and doesn't want to leave anything to chance. On the one hand I can understand that. But, on the other there is no mystery to this person. I am sure he's a great guy but by exposing himself too much too soon it is a turn off to my adventurous heart that seeks a little more excitement. He would be safe and dependable. I suppose at my age I need to stop being so picky. But he may discover that truly I am too intelligent and cultured for him and he may drop me. And I am used to that. So used to it in fact that I wouldn't even bat an eyelash and instead just thank God for saving me from another mistake. But I know one thing for sure. If this latetest internet date goes awry then I am taking my profile off the on-line dating circuit forever. And I will never use it again. I will have to look elsewhere for my soulmate. Cyber-mates are a shot in the dark.

Cold

It's colder inside my house than it is outside. And I have no-one to keep me warm. Today my dad and I only worked a half-day. That is good but also bad. Good because I don't have to stay cooped up in a tiny office but bad because now I am cooped up inside my house. I could clean it up; there's laundry to do, tubs and toilets to scrub, carpets to vacuum, a garage that is waist deep in stuff I haven't opened in about five years, and month's worth of junk mail to sort and toss. I could do all of those things but I will not. Instead I ma here on my blog, with my diary opened in front of me and I am typing and writing at the same time. I am also looking up movie times because I want to get the hell out of my house and go do something with my friends. I never realized it all of the years of my life until just this moment how much I hate just hanging around my house. I don't like being at home. I like being out. The home is a place to eat, sleep, and shower. If people entertain then I would prefer to be at their houses not mine. I have been cooped up in this house for a good two years, struggling, and not haveing enough money to go play around with and I am sick of it. I need an adventure. I need to be out dancing, socializing, at cocktail parties, at book events, writing conferences, visiting drowned cities in Mexico, anywhere but here. My home is a prison. I feel trapped. And I am starting to suffocate.

I could call my elusive lover. It's the perfect time for it. My son is with his dad I have the afternoon free...but I won't call him. He is slipping away like an eel through the slush of a river bottom. He's finding other diversions and it's pissing me off. Not out of jealousy over another woman but because he always refused to stay the night with me. And now I am afraid that what he didn't give to me he will give to that other woman. That is what I can't stand. So I will not call him and I hope he suffers when he realizes what he has given up. I hope he cries tears of blood. I will not call him but he will be calling me. He usually does after a few days.

I want to walk in a submerged plaza. I want to pray in the skeleton church beneath the waters. I want to disappear for a few days into a town that comes and goes with the rains. What I want is to be free of all of my financial problems so I can go and do exactly what I want.

It's all a state of mind

Staying angry isn't going to do me any good. Angry on the inside is giving me wrinkles and gray hair on the outside. I have to formulate game plan to get over this horrid rut I am in. I'm not having sex so instead I dream about it at night. It's not as good as the real thing but it will do for now. Since I am not into casual relationships anymore then it could be a while before I am in bed with someone again. Therefore, I will concentrate all my energies on improving myself where I most need it.

Body
Face
Mind
Soul

But think of how much better I will be when that one true, brave, adventurous spirit comes and finds me. Anyways, I will still have my funks. And I swear I am like the waves too building, cresting, and crashing and building all over again. It's tiring. It must be true that ignorance is bliss. But I prefer the mood swings. It keeps things interesting.

What to do next?

It's my week off for Thanksgiving vacation but here I am in my dad's quiet office posting on my blog. I am rather bored at the moment since the work is slow going. And I find that I have the whole wide web at my disposal and don't know what to do with it. Hence here I am. I haven't been keeping up with my blog since at times I find that I have nothing to say. Or rather I do have lots to say but it's all the same thing and I get bored of even hearing myself think it. Basically, nothing has changed for me in the last month. I am still without a teaching job. I am still without money to even go and enjoy a drink at the local watering hole. I spend my weekends alone in my room listening to my weird, broody-moody music, and watching the candle flames dance on the ceiling. There is only so much I can take of my friends and family. What I need is a serious relationship yet the prospects are nil. So you see what can I do?

I go into my imagination a lot. I dream a lot of how things will be once I get back on my feet. I suppose you don't have to have money to have a good time, but...well...yeah actually you do have to have money to have a good time. For over a year I have spent nearly every weekend alone. I can't go anywhere. I am stuck within the walls of my house that I can barely afford and slowly I feel that I am going insane. The last time I had some dude over to spend the night was back in June. Before that it was December and November of 2005. And before that the last weekend I spent with someone was back in 2003. And before that the last truly wild weekend I spent with someone out in the woods on a cold November weekend was in 2002 or was it 2001? You see it's been so long I don't even remember.

So I feel like I have been lying dormant for all this time just waiting to explode on the scene. And what happens when volcanos lie dormant for so long and then explode? Why they spew molten lava and destroy everything in their way. And that is how I feel. That all of this rage and frustration is building up and when it finally comes out everything will be burned away.

Lately all I dream about is in red. Hot water flowing over red rocks. My dead grandfather wearing a red shirt and telling me there is something hidden behind the stove in his house. Red streets, red beds, and me wearing red. All I see is red. Dream symbology suggests it's about sex, power, and passion. All I know is that all work and no play is making me very very angry. And the one brave enough to jump into this volcano will be the one I stay with for life.

PS2 is the devil

My ten-year old son and I have got a new addiction. Playing SIMS 2 on PS2. Who needs drugs when you've got game systems that bring out the addict gene in everyone? This particular game is all about creating a virtual world in which you create a character, name her, create her look, give her aspirations, goals, and other things in life to look forward to and then try your best to live a happy SIM life. You start out in a house with 3 roommates and then you have to complete all your tasks in order to advance through the game. Although to the completely uninitiated in game playing it may sound dull it is in fact quite amazing that you are basically playing a cyber-reality of yourself. You have to look for a job, earn money, keep your house clean, take care of your personal hygiene issues, have entertainment, have lots of friends and even, believe it or not, try to bed down as many SIMS as possible, if you choose the romance aspiration that is.

The other night I stayed up until 2am playing it. I couldn't stop. My son stayed up until midnight. All this on a school night when we had to get up the next day and go to work/school. I feel like a bad mom. But a cool one at that because I can get into playing with my kid on his game system.

Even in the SIMS world it's not that easy having a social life, having a job, keeping up with your house, and all that other stuff. Real life and cyber life are just as hard. Personally when I play I like to be a slut-puppy. Why not? It's just a fantasy. No one in the game is going to be calling me names the next day. LOL. It's to make up for the utterly boring life I am now leading. So boring in fact that I wonder just how many people really stumble across my blog and actually read it start to finish? I could talk about politics. World affairs. I could spill my secrets out onto the cyber page. Not that I have any. At least none recently worth keeping a secret. I am in love with a man I can't have. There, that's one not-so-secret. So what? A lot of people are in that boat. I love someone else too and he loves me, I think, but he will never admit it. And though I may love him he's not what I want. So I ask myself what's the point of loving him if we can't even spend one night together because he has to rush off and be in bed by a certain hour so his other girlfriend won't find out about us? That's easy to answer. I love him because I can. Because I want to. But just because I love him doesn't mean I want this particular man for my life-time partner. It's the ultimate paradox.

I could keep on spouting love theories. But better to save it for another blog dedicated to only love.

Things were pretty hairy there for a moment

I was four months behind on my house payments. But I have been saved. Let's not delve into the hows. Let's focus on the positive. Living hand to mouth each day for over a year has taught me so many valuable life lessons that I don't know where to begin to list them. Let's start at the beginning then:

Humility: What is it exactly? Learning to be humble. For a while there I certainly was arrogant. I was knocked off my high horse but have gotten back on. I ride the horse now always looking down on where I step lest I stamp the toes of the people who will help me out tomorrow.

Discipline: Not something I have always had. Especially where my money was concerned. When I had it, I was flying high, not even aware of how badly I was managing it until it was all gone. I live below the national poverty line now, me a degreed professional, and I realize that you should never think you are secure in your finances because tomorrow it could all be gone and what will you have to show for it? I can honestly say that I have no idea where all my money went. But from now on I can tell you exaclty how much I have. Which to some people would make them drop dead from a heart attack in an instant. For me it's just putting up with nightmares.

Love: I know who I love. I know who I want. But it is not for me. So to quote a very old cliche, when you love that person, then let him go. If he comes back then he is yours. If he doesn't then he never was. I can love now which is something I had not been able to do for a long time. My heart was cold. I can love, I can lose him, and I can live with it. I can accept it and move on. I can be happy that I at least had two years with him which is better than not having had any years at all. And I can say that I grew out of that and realized what it is I was missing and what it is that I want.

Action: That was the hardest thing of all. When you are down to the wire, when your feet are bleeding from trying to balance on that razor's edge, and you think it would be better to just fall off, you suddenly get a kick in the rear end and just keep going and take care of all your crap. I always just let things happen to me rather than face them or waited around to see if opportunity would come knocking. The truth is opportunity doesn't come knocking if it doesn't know the address. So to hell with being timid. Time to be bold. Time to be a pest. Time to get off my ass and go get the things I want.

I think tonight I can sleep without the pills. I think the nightmares will abate for a little while. I am not going to lose my house.

P.S. I know I should get a roommate to help me out or a part-time job in the evenings for a little while until my financial situation improves. But I am still stubborn about that. I don't want to give up my precious time or sacred writing space even if it means a few extra dollars a month to help me through the bad times until I find a teaching job. This is also where my unshakable faith has always seen me through the darkest nights. I KNOW I will get through this on my own. The person I let into my house and into my life will be here to stay.

Obsession

No, it isn't simply the name of Calvin Klein's fragrance, although those sleek, glossy, half-naked ads of his from the 80's where so hot I used to sneak my mother's Vogue and Cosmo magazines up to my room just so I could cut out those ads and paste them in my scrap book. Even as a teenage Madonna clone I was always hot-to-trot.

No I am talking obsessions on the order of when you have one thing of something you simply can not rest until you have everything of that one thing. My particular obsessions usually fixate on either authors, musicians, or collecting tarot decks. But let's Talk about musicians since I happen to be listening to a CD from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I have in my collection 15 of his albums. And I am still missing some. But I at least have some of the best albums. Nick Cave once said he wanted to create songs so sad, so full of pain, that it was like breaking a finger in three places. That is how I feel a lot of the time. His songs are full of some the most darkly poetic lyrics in music. Such as this line from "Papa won't leave you Henry" from the album "Henry's Dream" c1992

I went out walking the other day
The wind hung wet around my neck
My head it rung with screams and groans
From the night I spent amongst her bones

And then the song continues for another 4 minutes singing about this walk along a dark road, filled with the most surreal images that could in fact happen and if they do you want to keep running down that road and hope someone hears your screams.

For about a month or two over the summer all I did was listen to Nick Cave day and night. I tore out this picture of him taken in November 2005 from the pages of Vanity Fair. I pinned it to my cork board in my writing room. I stare into those intense icy blue eyes, his black hair flowing down to about chin level, wearing a moustache that hangs down either side of his mouth. He's dressed in an all black 3-piece, pinstripe suit, not smiling, just looking out at the camera, head cocked, hands on his slim hips, and I am thinking "I say goddamn, but this man of 50 still looks %^*@# good, and no way I would ever turn down an invitation to sit at his table, eat, and drink with him." Obsession. If he were in front of me I don't know what I would do. Act like a crazed fan probably. But it's more than that. He is a true poet and author. He wrote a book that I read over the summer called "And the Ass Saw the Angel" It's brilliant but difficult to swallow. Almost like the 100 proof, pure gasoline-whiskey one of his characters drinks. It's not simply breaking your finger in three places. It's crawling into your mind and churning up every black, evil, twisted thought that lurks in your all too human heart. I loved it. But as I read it I wondered "How many other people actually finished it and liked it? And how many of them were women?" Probably not many. None of my friends would ever like it. And my male friends, those that do read, would never get past the prologue. Where are all the Nick Cave fans? Where have they all gone to? Crawled into a ruined gothic mansion, with tattered red curtains, smoked too many cloves, drank too much cheap red wine, and soaked themselves into a stupor of melancholia.

Nick Cave even came out with an album called "Murder Ballads" c1996 in which every song sings about a murder; my absolute favorite song being "Where the Wild Roses Grow".

Nick Cave does not sing to millions in sold out concert venues like Madonna or any of the mainstream Buzz Fest bands that come trouping every year to bombard senseless, angst-ridden teenagers. He sings in dark, smoky lounges, on a hard-wood stage, with purple-velvet curtains sashaying behind him while he hums into a microphone, caressing its slender neck, and his deep baritone voice filling the rafters with music so tragic you just want to cry while making love on a dusty mattress in a run-down motel.

He is truly an icon of 20th century music. And he is still making music well into the 21 century.

First weekend in October

I spent it with my best friend from high-school, Liz, her two little girls, her husband, her sisters, their husbands, her nephew, a friend from her brother-in-law's college days, and her parents at this beautiful, palatial, beachhouse in Galveston. The house was equipped with enough bedrooms, beds, and amenities to hold us all. It was exactly what I needed after basically living like a beggar and a hermit for the last several months. I haven't been out with my regular group of friends in weeks. It sucks being poor. But thankfully I still do have caring friends willing to let me tag along on their family vacations and stay with them at this great place.

I was impressed that Galveston wasn't too filthy this past weekend. I actually enjoyed going out into those chilly Gulf waters and not being afraid to get tangled in seaweed or sink in black, muddy, oozing oil. The weather was perfect, the sun glinted off the surface of the water like a mirror, and the nights on the deck drinking too much red wine, and smoking Marlboroughs was sublime. My very married friends were asking me when I was getting married. When I find the right guy willing to accept every part of me; the good, the bad, the ugly, and the down right frightening. I find myself truly desiring to get married, to throw myself under the yoke once again, and shackle myself to that one person for life.

But then that other part of me rises up and thinks "Why can't I just have a live-in boyfriend? Or better yet, one that lives next door to me? That way he has his house and I have mine and we can just walk in between when we feel the need to be around each other." The aristocrats of the past centuries had the right idea. Build castles with so many different sections that technically the king and queen lived under the same room but each in their own complete wing of the castle. The thing is I sometimes think I should have been born a man. If I were a man I would never be true to one woman and that would be perfectly, socially, and completely acceptable. But I like being a woman, I like having all my womanly parts, curves, and ability to have babies. I just honestly struggle with the whole fidelity and monogamy thing. I have never been faithful to any man I have ever had a relationship with as I told my unfaithful lover last week when we had a huge fight because he came over at his appointed time but left because I was running late and I was furious at him for skipping out.

But I digress. I was talking about my weekend in Galveston with my friends who I love dearly. But deep down, although they have always known me to be the wild one, I don't think they grasp just how far removed I can get from their traditional world views. They are delightfully boring but I sometimes need more.

We all spent most of Saturday in the water and on the sand. I was the only one who dared to go farther out in the waters until I couldn't touch the bottom. I do that every time I go to the beach. I am tempted to sometimes just keep swimming out. I feel the call of the ocean. One of the guys commented later that I was a wild woman going so far out to where all they could see was my head bobbing on the water. I feel free in the water. I always have. I do not feel free in the air. Which is why I hate to fly. I prefer a million times to be in the water. I let all my problems go. I just let the waves crash over my head, I swallowed salty, Gulf water, and just kept floating on my back until I needed to come back in. It would have been nice to have had someone there because seeing everyone of my friends paired off fills me with a longing, a desire to have someone too. I know he will come. Secretly I hold out the hope that a certain someone will come back to me from across the six state lines I indirectly sent him on. Perhaps my problem is that I have never found the right man to be faithful for.

I came home on Sunday very relaxed, sunburned, and quite content. And my lover came to see me on Monday. So life is good. He won't come next week. But the week after that will be good. I can take him in only small doses. Like the drug that he is. I need my fix at least once every two weeks but definitely at least once a month. I would like there to be more but then I ask myself why? He comes over, we talk, he fixes what needs fixing in my house, then he fixes me and then he leaves. It's perfect. Perhaps a little dull sometimes and definitely not within the bounds of a normal relationship. But what is normal anyway? I give myself a headache just thinking about it all sometimes.

Okay. So. Now What? I wonder if I can ever change my nature? I want to continue to be exactly the creature that I am. I am fine with it. But it does get lonely I must admit. HMMM.....Do you think I could advertise for a boyfriend with an open door policy?

I hope to have another weekend like this last one again very soon.

I'm back after a long hiatus

It feels as long as a gestation. Nine long months of silence. Of fallowness. Being here, wrapped up, as if in a cocoon, and finally at long last emerging as the butterfly I was always meant to be. Flying free. What can I say after such a lengthy hiatus. Lots has happened. I have, at long last, passed that dreaded test that has made my life such a living nightmare for four years. I have finally gotten my teacher's certificate. Now all I need is the job to go along with it. But now I don't feel like such a loser. Like such an idiot. A very dear friend said recently it isn't enough to be a good person or be creative. No, you also have to be cut-throat, go after the kill with the hunger of a lion who hasn't eaten in months, and show no mercy.

I have been though hell this past year. And it's not over yet. But it will be soon. Soon I will have my job. Soon I will get out of debt. Soon the status quo will have shifted in my favor and I can be the one to hold all the cards in my hand.

What does it matter if right now, at this moment, I sit alone in my house, drinking a glass of red wine by myself, all my friends and lovers out enjoying themselves on this Mexican Independence day? What does that matter when I have years, decades, centuries, millenia ahead of me to celebrate? I am almost ready to come out of my cocoon completely. And when I do, when I do, watch out.

I raise my wine glass to the heavens above. To the angels of heaven. To God above who never adandoned me in my greatest hour of need. Now all I ask is the chance to give back and to get a little enjoyment out of it for me. Amen.