should anyone even come across this page at all, do yourself a favor if you want to laugh out loud. it helps if you watch cesar’s show but still… i actually have tears from laughing.
go here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/104996/the-jay-leno-show-jmz-cesar-millan
I blame it on the carbs. I did so good on my trip to Austin and upon my immediate return that I managed to lose a few more pounds. I ain’t looking, but I think they may have rejoined me this week. This week involved food like sandwiches (bread), jumbo chocolate cupcake (it was a gift with the nicest of intentions), pasta casserole (free lunch), and, guiltiest of all, McDonald’s (which wasn’t even awesome since I am no longer used to it). Also, 2 double vodkas.
And I haven’t been walking/jogging. I have been tired (again, stupid carb overload). And my knees kinda hurt, especially my left one which makes a very, very strange noise when I bend it at all. I might actually have to get better shoes (on clearance or something) than my sneakers from Payless. I am glad I did not buy any such shoes on Thursday, for if I had my bank account would be in overdraft.
Which brings me to what has made me really pissed off and cranky and disappointed and the thing that makes me want to beat myself up (extra suckiness to that since i am so goddamn good at it). I went to the mall b/c i wanted a couple of things from Sephora. That was all. This is the cool mall in Tampa with all the real stores and a lovely mix of regular ones and high-end ones. I don’t know where Sephora is so of course I end up parking the farthest away from it. Which means I have to walk past stores I like. Which means I spent a lot of money. Which means no savings, which really pisses me off, because dammit I said I would start saving. Have an “Austin Fund” in case things work out in a way that I end living there again. instead, I will spend this week with $21 in my bank account and hoping there’s not some payment straggler somewhere that will tip me over and have the bank make even more profit from my stupid spending ways. Ugh.
So I am really beating myself up over this. The “positive thinking” stuff has been harder and harder to practice since those 2 weeks when work sucked such major balls that I wished I could just up and leave. Things seem to be better, but that doesn’t mean my brain has caught up. Or that it is not on Alert Mode b/c the way things have been going at work, with stupid changes and no morale, I don’t expect much. I have gone from truly loving my job to being jaded. But hey, I’m still proud of how long I held to the “I love my job” feeling, esp since I don’t think I have ever experienced that before.
The spending pisses me off because it’s such an automatic comfort. Except this time it wasn’t even comforting. I felt like shit purchasing things and yet I still did it. I wanted to put everything back and just leave stores but I didn’t. So except for S’s present, bought with much love, every time I went to a cash register and handed them my only credit card (my bank card), I felt like shit. And still I did it. It’s so hard to fully let go of such ingrained habits. I guess an upside is that I felt like shit instead of telling myself I deserved and needed presents to make my life better. Maybe that will help “next time.” Doesn’t help now though, because I seriously spent some serious money and I keep thinking of the $number$ and basically then I call myself stupid. I know these feelings are not the way to be, but they feel deep in my body like “you fucked up so here is some tightness in your chest.”
I am too old to be living paycheck to paycheck and barely making it each month. And yet each month, for whatever reason, here I am. I buy plane tickets and concert tickets. I don’t regret those ever but damn, it adds up. Yet that is the life I have chosen. it is the life I have been given, so to speak, but I am learning to embrace it. Going to shows is who I am. Finding home at a show means everything to me. And being nomadic and moving? Maybe it’s not that crazy when it’s not impulsive and all about running away. maybe this too is who i am. and maybe for once i can see it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Shit, I’ve even finally made peace with the whole “I am childless” thing – i think. I can see it clearer and ask myself if it’s what i would really want and i end up not being that sure anymore, so it seems to all be ok.
still the spending.
still the eating.
still the wondering of where i belong and where is home. still wondering how to create that home, that feeling of home, within me. because it’s obviously something i need to have in myself and then take it to wherever i live geographically. it never seems to work the other way around!
and still wanting to be loved. wanting it desperately. wondering less What is Wrong With Me? still wondering who would ever love me? still relying on the “evidence” that no one appears in my life in that sense. still thinking this means there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG with me. and realizing that i really want someone to love me (boyfriend love me), but i am so stuck and used to living alone. and who could ever come in and change that? talk about a barrier to break. i doubt over and over again that someone out there is strong enough to do so. i doubt over and over again that someone would even want to try.
as most people know, i lost everything a few years ago. everything. i ceased to exist. i lost at least a year of my life. and the road back (not really “back”), the road since, the uphill walk, I am more proud of that than anyone can imagine. I had lots of help. but in the end i saved my own life. i chose to save my own life. i chose to live. i still have to figure out how to do that though. how much am i involved? how much do i block things – with my thoughts, feelings, attitude, and most of all, my fear. fear still lives with me and it sucks as a roommate.
so today on FB i wrote “I Want to Want What I Want.” it’s about as basic as i can get. whatever it is that i truly want, when i can’t even see it, let me feel it, let me welcome it, let me allow it to happen, let the vibration put things in motion. it’s not about lists and goals and cerebral thoughts. it’s something deeper that i haven’t figured out and me being me, i hate not figuring things out! i like to know exactly how things are, exactly what is expected of me, exactly what i am supposed to do… it doesn’t really work that way though.
one more fear that i have not spoken aloud is that i have no backup anymore. with my mom retired and on a very limited income and a husband who doesn’t work, there goes my backup. yes, i have to stop turning to her. and i swear i have gotten better at it. i still ask for things, but not as much and believe me, that is major progress. but i’ve always had someone to rely on to help me financially (never knowing where she got the money from; just knowing that the sacrifices that have been made have never been on my part; and for a super long time thinking that’s ok, you owe me, i truly am entitled). my safety net is not there. so how, how do i make things happen? especially when i really fuck up with money. money and i have the most abusive, fucked up relationship: i want money desperately but then i spend it and then i get mad that the money is gone and then i beat myself up. the money and i are both battered.
this is the problem with blogging again. i use it as a journal. all this stuff releases from my brain and every post ends up being pathetic or sad or a wonderful illustration of depression (which i can honestly say for once that i do not have).
ugh.
and now i am hungry. ugh again.
I am starting to miss writing here. Facebook updates just don’t cut it.
The Leonard Cohen concert was absolutely amazing, especially from the front row. At intermission I wrote on FB that “This show is the church at which I worship. And my Hallelujah is still to come.” That’s the kind of stuff I want to remember. The kind of stuff that gets lost in a social networking site where people give each other imaginary gifts for their imaginary towns, until the next fad comes along.
So many, many thoughts came rushing at me during that show. remembrances of things past, observations about things present, questions about what is to come. People who were in my life, who are in my life, who will be in my life, I hope, even though I have yet to meet them. And the eternal always-there point for me: where is home? Where I create it. Where my dog is. But where do I fit in best? Time to move again is approaching, maybe late next year. Someone told me to just settle down already. That this whole moving thing didn’t surprise them because it’s “what I do every 2 years.” And I thought, that is NOT who I am anymore. I would be moving, not running away. If I was running away impulsively I would have already been packed and booked the UHaul. And then I thought, well, what if it IS part of who I am. Nomadic. Gypsy. Maybe that’s how I create my own home. What has felt most like home, always, is being in the audience, watching a musician perform magic on a stage. And that’s part of my gypsy travels. This month. Next month. More if I could afford it.
Cohen and everything he is – unexplainable, amazing. I went to see him because I wanted to see a genius poet before me. He was everything and more. And when he stood there in between songs and simply recited “A Thousand Kisses Deep,” I wept at its beauty.
So, for my own pleasure, for the beauty of words, for the image I still have in my head from Monday:
A Thousand Kisses Deep
The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it’s done -
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep:
You ditch it all to stay alive,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
I made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
I guess they won’t exchange the gifts
That you were meant to keep.
And quiet is the thought of you
The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep
