baby steps

just for the record, i'm feeling a lot better today. not great, but at least i'm moving forward again.

cuz everybody looks this good after suffering a huge existential crisis, right?

i'm currently on the phone with the foodstamp guys, trying to get my account straightened out. yes, i know how that sounds. i do indeed suck in that i can't get a better job that pays me enough money to survive and gives me benefits, but i've been looking and applying for years, and walmart has been the best i've been able to do so far. you have a better job you want to give me, go ahead and judge me after i've turned it down. i won't, promise. try me.

my current time on hold is 22 minutes, waiting to speak to a "phone agent". you would not believe how hard it is to find anything like a real human being to talk to.

how to put my thoughts into words?

the point of this blog right now, for me, is to open my life to the fresh air. what that means, i think, is that i want to yank off the bandaid and expose all the rotten crap i've been holding on to so that it all heals up.

maybe what i'm trying to say is, if there are parts of my life i don't want to expose to the open air and to public view, i don't want those things to be part of my life? not sure. this is going to take some thinking.

i don't mean, by the way, that i'm going to bare all aspects of my personal life. i'm not going to tell the world about my sex life, except in that i have one, and it's open and honest and hopefully as abundant as possible.

i couldn't even begin to tell you whether or not this is a valid method of doing anything. at 48, i feel like i'm allowed some room to experiment. i am certainly allowed the right to make mistakes without being judged for them.

baby steps, y'all. baby steps...

ok, finally off the phone. after all that, i was 35 minutes on hold, only to be told by the lady on the phone that my case had been closed and i need to reapply.

*sigh*

went to the website, reapplied, and now i wait for them to contact me. that will probably be in about a month.

yesterday i went to santa clara valley med center to try and get my health care coverage issues worked out. it takes me $20 in gas every time i go there, round trip, because i'm driving my huge old diesel pickup. i got there, waited in line and then was told i didn't have the right paperwork. i almost started crying right there at the front desk, but then i turned around and marched myself right out again and just drove home. no point at all in raging against that particular machine. it would be like schmacking a t-rex with a rolled-up newspaper. you're not going to get anything done any faster, and the t-rex, if it noticed you at all, would just eat you alive.

accomplishing anything productive with a government agency is like trying to build the hoover dam with handfuls of damp sand out of a beach bucket. every step forward takes forever, two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back, and just when you think you've gotten something accomplished, the water surges up and washes away about half your work.

on with my to-do list.

baby steps, y'all...

toodles.

more on the riff of "who am i?"

this is one of those blog entries that's taking me a few days to write...

(caveat: i'm having a really bad couple of days. take this all with a grain of salt, ok?)

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you read those cutesy sayings on facebook: you're strong, you're wonderful, you deserve to be loved...

that may be so, you may deserve to be loved but that doesn't mean you ever will  be.

likewise, you might be able to convince yourself that you're strong and beautiful and wonderful, but then someone comes along and gives you the stink eye for whatever weird reason, and your doubts and insecurities rise up like the anti-christ to devour you whole. 

the problem is, the whole world has an opinion on who and what you are, probably formulated on a moment's impression, and they share this opinion with you in every single interaction, every instance of body language, every time they respond to your emails or your postings on facebook or even when they're driving past you in their car and they stare too long.

the standard ego and sense of self worth is generally sufficient to the task of standing up to shallow interactions that are perceived as negative/judgmental. it's when they get closer to home, and more persistent, that the ego begins to take a beating it can't easily recover from.

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this song makes me cringe every time i hear it, and not because it isn't true...

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should mention, my daughter lives with my ex right now. we have joint physical and legal custody, but he has a more stable living situation, a girlfriend who lives with him who helps with the kids, and access to better schools, as well as a better paycheck, to be perfectly blunt. i made a really nasty decision that i frequently regret, but she's where she should be right now and so am i, and i need to keep reminding myself of that.  

my ex lets me see my daughter only two weekends out of the month. he makes decisions about how much time he's going to let her come see me and he never questions whether or not he has the right to do this. there's nothing i can do unless i'm willing to go back to court and drag us all through the mud in front of a judge.

he didn't work for the entirety of our daughter's first 9 years. i had to carry his dead weight throughout our almost 15 years of marriage. he used me up in all possible ways, and now he tells me i'm a deadbeat, i'm lazy, i'm insane (really. he said that), and a handful of other things, all along the lines of "things are shitty for you and it's all your fault", and he's not the only one saying things like that.

sometimes it scares me, the things i can't let go of. sometimes i feel like i can't move forward because of all the crap that cements me into my past...

my daughter has said all along that she wants to live with me, and it's been really hard trying to explain to her why she needs to stay with papa. when we first separated, she was still in that little kid stage of needing to be with me, and she cried every time she had to leave.

that used to piss my ex off so much - my daughter told me he'd yell at her every time she cried. i tried explaining it to him a number of times. never took.

recently, she's been getting more independent, as she should, and she's showing that she doesn't need to be near me all the time anymore. one weekend not too long ago, she spent most of her time across the street playing and with the neighbor girl. i spent a lot of that weekend crying, missing her and yet wanting her to play with her friends.

i feel like the world is systematically stripping from me everything i love and/or care about. in my daughter's case, it's right and good that she learns how to live without me, and i'll do everything i can to encourage her to do it, and yet...

sometimes i wonder if i really belong anywhere. not talking about suicide. i'd never do that. just wondering why it feels like there's no one place in the world that will ever be mine. click on the picture for a link to a poem...

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someone i know made a comment about how i'm doing things, coming right out and telling me i'm a horrible mother, and that she's seen cats that are better mothers. this person made these comments for a number of reasons, but oddly, not for the reasons you'd think. i was getting yelled at because, even though i hadn't seen my daughter for two weeks, i was expected to continue to NOT see her because i had a cold.

i don't care who you are or how secure you are, it hurts when someone says something like that. i asked her why she felt the need to be so rude, when i hadn't been rude to her. i didn't get a particularly comprehensive answer, but i didn't expect one.

it's really hard to keep your head up and keep believing you can accomplish anything significant, when most of what you hear is someone telling you how much you suck.

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when i get alone and quiet, though, and i have a bit of time to let this stuff pass, i usually manage to regain my equilibrium.

thought: maybe the reason why i just can't seem to pick myself up lately is that even if mr bluebird of happiness DID desire to alight on my shoulder, he would soon be devoured by mr happy snake, who has taken up residence and is QUITE content where he is, thank you very much.

zippity doo dah, zippity yay, my oh my what a wonderful... SQUAWK!!!! ACCKKK gargle erggghhhh....

mr happy makes me peaceful. he stops and stares up at me and i swear he's giving me lovie eyes. all the snakes make feel that way. there's mr happy the ball python, stimpy the orange corn snake, and roscoe, my baby cornsnake, the one that actually belongs to me. even fatty the argentinian tegu gives me the lovie eye, and he's a cranky old dinosaur.

but honestly, it feels like that's about all the peaceful i can find in my life these days. there are good moments, of course, but they're lived in an environment of emptiness that scares me and that i'm afraid is going to eventually consume me.

yes, i am trying to get back on my antidepressants. i promise i won't do anything foolish. really.

wow, i have friends, who knew???

my whatever has gone camping with his cousins up in the mountains, and i had a party in his house while he was gone. >;}~

ok, i'm not really that evil, but still.

at the moment, we've got the only internet on the property, so visiting family all congregated here in mike's living room last night. they kinda trickled in one at a time while i was making radiatore alfredo, not because i'm that hoity toity a cook, but honestly, all i had in the fridge was frozen chicken breast, a single broccoli crown, a jar of alfredo sauce, some garlic and yellow onion, and half a box of radiatore.

all sizzle and no roast? not me. i got june cleaver HANDLED!

so while my beautiful offspring was outside playing with her cousins, i was cooking slap-together dinner and listening to my workout mix on mike's really great speakers.

family started trickling in and the party just grew from there.

i passed around the three corona's we had in the fridge, and my kinda-adopted-sister-laura's fiance dave dug into his music library and shared a bunch of his tunes with me. we got video of him channeling stevie wonder. i'll try to post it later, promise, cuz there's nothin' like embarrassing the crap outa potential new fodder... um... i mean FAMILY.

long story short, we sat around mike's living room getting silly and having a really good time.

i normally do not enjoy parties, not in the least, or even company all that much. i'm very much a loner, and the effort involved in getting ready for a party, getting TO the party, and then wandering around trying to be nice to people you don't know very well... THAT'S way too much work. i always find myself edging towards the door, and once i'm out, i heave a big sigh of relief and perform the mental equivalent of loosening my tie as i climb in my car to go home and be alone and quiet again.

but this was really fun, totally spontaneous, and i made a new friend. REALLY happy laura found herself such an all-around nice guy.

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i was gonna spend a lot more time coming up with cool stuff for this entry, and then i realized that the day is getting away from me and i'm WAY too much of a perfectionist. gonna go get out in the real world now, and maybe i'll post more later.

toodles!

campfires, bats, and the 4th of july

short and sweet? 1:35am on 7/5.

last night we "fake-camped" in the corral garden, in the firepit we "liberated" last year from the foreclosed house behind ours. damn. i shoulda got a picture. we made hotdogs, joked about the girly tablecloth, fired up the coleman lantern, got smoke in our clothes and our hair, burned a few hotdogs over the fire, and laughed. my whatever's youngest son came over and joined us outside, spent some time talking with his dad after i went to bed, then took off back to walnut creek where he lives.

insert random picture of campfire here...

last time we had a fire, there were bats swooping down to get the bugs that were drawn to the light. that was last summer, as i recall. i huddled inside my hoody and finally bolted screaming for the safety of the house.

i can face angry dogs without mussing a hair (have. frequently). i can handle and feed big ol' snakes. love snakes. i can wrangle cats and horses and kids. i never use a flashlight in the dark, and i joke that this is because i'm the meanest thing out there anyway. the dark does not scare me at all. i feel most comfy, as it happens, walking around in the silence outside at 2am. love how peaceful the world gets when everybody else is asleep.

can't handle bats. phobic. FO-BICK. the little brown bat is a mouse with wings. tiniest critter EVER. they make me run screaming. stupidest thing you ever saw. i'm ashamed. deeply.

ok, seen like this, it does look pretty creepy. they just seem really unnatural to me. photo courtesy of luke ormand. check his blog here: wild long island photography. brilliant stuff, maynard!

(turns out, upon a bit of reading, that the probable reason why there aren't any bats around this year is because they're dying in droves from a disease called "white nose syndrome". horrible fungal infection, 95% mortality rate, no known cure. much as bats scare the bejesus out of me, i have to admit they're worth their weight in gold as mosquito catchers, and i love all animals, even the creepy ones...)
 
worked today till 5:30pm, came home to find my whatever was entertaining his brother and his brother's girlfriend. i can't remember the last time his brother came up to see him, so this was a very cool thing. i came in, put on my grubbies, and then we chatted and shit, talked geraniums, played with snowshoes, cat of terror, laughed, etc etc, before they took off to go watch fireworks.

my whatever and i went back inside, and we both fell asleep. work kicked the crap out of me, and i actually felt kinda sick.

and that about wraps up the 4th of july for me.

morgan hill's annual 4th of july parade. i was a volunteer safety marshal last year, but i had to work this year. i AM sorry i missed this. it was really fun. we've got a really great parade. check out the photos from the morgan hill times... but i think you have to have an account on the website to view them. your call. cool pictures. i have to admit, i love living in morgan hill. first time in a really long time i've felt like i belonged to a community.

 random thought: almost cried at work because 11 years ago, on the 4th of july 2001, my mom died of cancer. i purposefully did not write a big, prominent paragraph about this fact. i did not mention it first thing. i'm just telling you this so you don't think i'm weird. i don't know what today was about, but it wasn't mostly about my mom's death. i didn't have a quiet moment to myself to think about my mom's death. i may have to take some time tomorrow, call my mom's sister and have a bit of a grieving space with her.

other than that, no epiphanies, no great spiritual change, nothing remarkable happened, except that my whatever didn't appear to have a problem with his son knowing i pretty much live here. i asked if we should cancel our sleepover and he said no, no reason to cancel. he didn't seem to care that his brother knows for that matter. don't know what to think about that. guess there's no point in analyzing it, and frankly, i feel pretty comfy not analyzing anything. the world is what it is.

left my whatever a $20 for utilities - i figure i should start paying him something since i'm here using the lights and whatnot when he's gone at work.

ok, tired. achy. still feel kinda sick. gonna take my sorry ass off to bed, in my trailer tonight. that's all i gotta say about that.

toodles all...

tiny houses, marriage is bad, and crickets

you know what's weird about writing a blog post over the course of several days? you start out with one idea and it gets orphaned when you find a few others you like better. having said that...

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doot doot doot looking out my backdoor...

i live on about an acre of land, owned by adopted "in-laws", up in the hills above the town of morgan hill, california, about a mile away from chesbro reservoir. to call it home is a bit of a stretch: i sleep in my 20-ft travel trailer that's parked out back near the barn, and spend most of my time in the house of my friend/boyfriend/whatever, who rents a mother-in-law unit from my in-laws. some nights i sleep with him. most not. we both like it that way, to be honest. i'm finding that what i thought made me happy when i was younger and in my "producing a family" period is entirely different from what i know will make me happy now.

which, quite honestly, means i have to give up my pretensions of normalcy (and yes, i did once have them) and admit that i'm a pagan/gypsy/hippy/alternative lifestyle kinda gal. even my own daughter doesn't understand why i don't want to get married again, ever.

i kind of like the idea that my whatever and i could be together purely because we want, second by second, to be in the company of no one else. i like the thought that there's nothing at all in the world, no oath or legal bond or any other constraint, on our having to stay together. we just ARE together, in such a fundamental way that any attempt to legalize our togetherness would automatically result in it dissipating like a soap bubble.

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weird tangent. kinda wanted to rebuild my trailer for a while, you know? maybe design it as my own little space, make it all artsy and cute and self-sufficient. i imagined something like a real gypsy vardo...

note the stove. comments to follow.

here's another concept - the hippy vw bus repurposed into the hippy vw vardo. yes, sorry, i do really love how this little thing looks!

love the... well.. the EVERYTHING, actually. not quite sure how one drives down the freeway at 65+mph without destroying the rooftop garden, but artists, i suppose, cannot be bothered with minutiae.

ok, just found another site with more pictures of this great little house: "kushti bok"...

i've been going through a lot of homesteading blogs, and tiny house blogs, etc etc. at some future point i'll add a listing of the ones i like best. right now, i'd just like to share with you the following manufacturer of marine stoves, navigator stove works.

the "cod"...

the "halibut". this one is kinda like my wet dream - the fishy door has an actual OVEN behind it! it's $1000 more expensive than the cod, but hell, this is a dream anyway, right??

i'd seen many pictures of vardos with these little tiny stoves set into their sides, but never known where to find one before. wow. i think i'm in love. more on this later.

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i'd been coming here to morgan hill on the weekends to work on my writing for about three years before my ex and i separated, and in fact, that trip up here each weekend was one of the reasons i knew it was time for us to put an end to things.

looking around my whatever's house, in which i'm currently sitting and typing, i'm reminded that this isn't home either. not sure how i feel about that. we have about the same level of love for each other - what we recently decided was "let's take some time to find out where this is going" kinda love. we have a really deep friendship and we make each other happy. we each do things for the other that we wouldn't do for anyone else on the planet. it's actually been a healthy experience, to learn how to just BE with him and not expect all kinds of weird shit. i don't know where we're going and most days i don't care.

odd, that this is really an analogy for the state of my entire life.

i made a decision about a year and some back, to get rid of 90% of what i own, and i've moved in that direction, sometimes willingly, sometimes not, ever since. i can look back at the time since my actual divorce, and see the patterns of loss... no, that's harsh and rather self-pitying. i should say, the patterns of "stripping away".

having a hard time forgiving my ex for the things he took from me. a lot of those things involve some physical object, and the concepts represented by that physical thing. we lost our home because of him. i blame him for dragging his feet and not wanting to have sex EVER, so we couldn't have a second child. i lost fifteen years of my life to his passive aggressive BS.

basically, my marriage was a perfect example of trying to swim upstream. i hit every rock on the way and the current was hell.

went camping this weekend with my whatever. we went to pinnacles national monument outside hollister, friday night to sunday morning. i called it our "shakedown cruise".

for the first time, we saw california condors. gotta tell you, that was something amazing. i'm still kinda jazzed about it.

his tent works great but the double-high queen-size mattress sucked. hugely. he couldn't get his power inverter to work and i wound up borrowing somebody's battery-powered air compressor (note: NOT an air pump for blowing up huge-ass air beds but a BICYCLE style air compressor.) took almost an hour to inflate the airbed, and i had to use my lungs to augment the flow of air. yes, i blow. stop snickering.

i started out thinking his monstrous camp chef two-burner stove was way more firepower than we needed, since i'm a coleman camp stove kinda gal and have been for a long time, but it turned out to be a godsend when we discovered we couldn't make a campfire owing to the fire danger.

we turned the thing broadside to the table and turned the burners up.

after dinner, we walked around the campground and found someone who had the camp chef propane fire ring.

this stuff is all modular, btw. you just need extra hoses and splitters off your propane tank. now my whatever is salivating to add this lovely little device to his camping arsenal. me too, for that matter.

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on a slightly related note, i'm getting tired of slaving for minimum wage at all hours of the day and night. it's hard to get a night to spend with my whatever, and we can't do much on the weekends because i always have to work. decided to try kelly temps to see if i could find some bankers hours kinda work. i've had good luck with them in the past. i'll have to check out some other temp agencies too, i think.
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my in-laws have a barn, an actual barn that was built to hold horses, which got converted into living space up above, and storage space down below. i lived in the apartment up above until i couldn't pay the rent anymore, which is when i moved down into the trailer.

best picture i have of the barn, as seen looking through the garden that used to be a horse corral. the top section of the barn with the little windows is where the apartment is. it runs the length of the building.

the apartment was filled with my stuff. just moving in, i had boxes lined up in the living room that stayed there for months and months. the clutter was unimaginable. i could barely walk.

eventually i got those boxes cleaned up, but the bedroom was still full of crap. recently, i had to move all my stuff out of the apartment and down into the storage room. i got rid of another load of crap. see the pattern?

now the storage room is loaded with boxes. most are no longer just jammed with crap - they hold books, or personal stuff, or my daughter's toys she's not ready to get rid of yet, all labeled and neatly stacked. i have five big duffel bags full of clothes.

so now it's time to start sorting through these boxes to get rid of stuff. i think of this as the first winnowing.

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i was going to say something pithy about "the harder you work, the luckier you are", but i couldn't find a picture that worked at all. then i started to think about what hard work got me, and the honest answer is, i'm not sure anymore. getting rid of 90% of what i own, and every day i empty one more box. right now, first, it's books. i'm scared that i'll get done, look around an empty storage room, and all i'll have is... nothing.

rationally, i know that's stupid, but i guess i have a lot of old ghosts running around up in my head that need some serious exorcizing...


 get it? EXORCIZING?!? mwaa haa...



fine...

toodles, all.