Oh Good, Grief.

Twice now out of nowhere, I've found myself sobbing in my bed, clutching my grandmother's ashes. Once about three weeks ago, and again last night. I'm having trouble with my mother, it seems that her way of channeling her grief may be to grill me and lash out at me about my life choices. By all visible accounts, I am as happy and stable in every way as I've ever been, which isn't saying there's not room for improvement (note opening sentence), but her supportiveness and open-mindedness of a few months ago appears to have reverted back to the judgement and lack of support I've received my whole life.

I'm moving to Louisville, now, in just a month. Friends were looking for a place for September first, and they love my home and were here last night to fill out paperwork. Assuming my landlords find no issue with their rental history or employment confirmation, they're in here in just over a month. Money from grandma's estate comes in, supposedly, around the same time. My mother doesn't seem to know any more details, and I don't want to grill my uncle who is the executor, since I know he's being bombarded by similar questions from other members of the family.

What this means is that I may still be living here when my friends move in. They hardly have any furniture, so I'll have moved most of my stuff out to be stored using these fun pod things we've got these days that come with a month of free storage, and then they'll ship said pods to wherever they need to go. My friends also want to possibly keep a lot of my furniture. In short, it's been made clear that I am welcome to stay here a week or two until I can get things sorted financially to make the move.

But, I am hoping it doesn't come to that. I am going to Louisville next week, and I am going to ask Joey if it wouldn't make him uncomfortable to loan me the money so that I can have everything settled and get there asap. He wants me there asap, he's offered to help me financially several times lately, and he's got the money to do it, plus I know that I can pay him back in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Back to the sobbing, though. This week, my mom decided to text me, insinuating I'd sell off all my grandmother's antiques and other things I've got that are of some value, stating that "the past" dictates she ask this. I have never once sold off a single thing from my grandmother, or things that friends and family have given me over the years. If anything, it could be said that I hold onto things well past their value because of their sentimental worth. There is no way in hell I will get rid of any of these things. What I may part with are a fair number of mid-century pieces of furniture that are worth something and have almost no sentimental value to me. That's it. I have collected these things over the years as giveaways from various places or pulled off of boulevards. I don't know where she gets these ideas, and she's ALWAYS had these ideas about me.

She also grills me about my work. Though it's more complicated than the pat answer of, "I freelance, mom," she also has no reason to assume I'm not getting by better than ever. I haven't asked for money but once in probably two years. That doesn't appear to count for anything. She is hardwired in the belief that "work" means going to another place, punching a clock, and getting a single paycheck from one employer. When I tell her that that is just not how things are for a lot of people these days, that what I'm doing is what a dozen of my friends and acquaintances do, it goes right over her head. When I tell her that the money is erratic and yes, sometimes I'm really, really broke and struggle, but that I am happier and healthier and more stable in every way than I've ever been and set my own schedule and don't answer to anyone but myself, that all sounds like laziness and frivolity to her.

It was so nice, for the few months after Chris and I broke up, to have the mother I've always wanted. It's not easy to adjust to the idea that that was just her knowing her mother was dying and softening for a while. Apparently, we are back to the same damn thing that's broken my heart for the past 30+ years.

I prayed to my grandmother that if she could, if she could hear me, that she would let her daughter know that this is not helping me. That this behavior, which she believes is "support," and "love," only serves to drive me from her. My grandmother never approved of the way my mother treated me. None of my grandparents did. They saw the way she treated my sister as indulgent and over-protective, and her treatment of me unsupportive, often mean, and sometimes abusive. My sister has had her problems (conflict avoidance to a fault, a sniping brattiness here and there), but she has mostly outgrown that, and as a result, we've gotten closer (I, too, have obviously overcome several things as well), and she's less close to my mom.

In any case, one of my grandparents heard me. I had a nightmare, a dream I was in a car, something old, a sedan with a bench seat. My family may have been in the back, I can't recall. But I know my dad's father was driving. A country road, and the way the sky goes green just before a tornado. I used to dream about tornadoes all the time. In every one of these dreams, no one saved me, and I had to save everyone else. It was just my responsibility. Dreams about nuclear bombs, too, where I was the only one who seemed to know how to take care of everyone and save them from themselves. I used to have these nightmares two or three times a month. In the last few years, I almost never have them. I can't remember the last time.

Out of nowhere, a huge bank of black clouds turned into FOUR huge tornadoes in the fields just to the left of this gravel road. My grandfather just looked at me and smiled, and I smiled too, turning to the back seat to tell everyone it was going to be okay. Grandpa took a sharp right and drove right into the field on the other side of the road, toward blue skies. We both grinned the whole while. Once we were clear of the storm, I laughed and told him he could stop driving, that we could wait it out and go back. But he just kept smiling, and told me something to the effect of, "I am going to get you as far away from those storms as I can."

Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Fucking rain.

Grandma

I lost one of my life's best friends the other day, my grandmother. She was 85 years old, and when she died, I was told her eyes got very wide and she looked afraid, like she wanted to fight it. Though there is no autopsy being performed, the cause of death is likely an aneurysm in her stomach that dislodged itself from coughing and shot up into her heart, causing almost immediate death.

She was 80 very tiny pounds when she died. She was as small as a pea, her body nothing more than bones and skin. She had once had beautiful C-cup breasts. Not a bit of that remained on her chest, she was as flat as a child. She had once had a beautiful smile. No longer able to wear her dentures, she was toothless and unable to speak (and the bones under her gums were wearing through, painfully). She breathed heavily, chuffing through her mouth with little moans and noises like she was trying very, very hard to say something, but couldn't do it. That idea upsets me more than anything, that she was too weak to speak and had things to say, but couldn't.

I had been there, at her side, holding her hands, smiling into her still-beautiful face, with eyes that were losing their ability to see in those last hours, clouding over and unable to focus. Her left eye would hold your gaze, her right eye often rolled up into her head. I can't be sure she could even see me. But I kept smiling, giving her as much love as I possibly good with my touch. Because my love for her couldn't possibly wane in the face of her death, her very visible, increasingly clear death. But there was a moment where I shut off, and needed to care for myself. I had had two hours of sleep, and seeing her literally die wasn't going to enrich my life. I was going to have to drive five hours home later, and I needed to get some more rest. So I held her tight, I kissed her cheek, and her forehead, and I told her I love you, and I went back to the hotel room I was sharing with my sister and brother in law.

Not ten minutes after I arrived there, my sister called to tell me she'd died. I hung up the phone and smiled again. "Good girl," I said aloud, and went to sleep. She'd been in so much pain. The last words I heard her speak much earlier that evening (it was now just before dawn) were "What else can I do?" She said this several times. I told her she had nothing left to do, that she was loved, and if it was time to go, she should do that. Then she asked for my mother, and my mom and I sat together with her, trying to convince her to eat something, because she had medication sitting in her empty stomach, and that was the bulk of why her belly hurt so. But she refused. She'd been having diarrhea, so I imagine she thought she'd only add fuel to the fire on that front, if she ate. Not that she'd been able to eat much at all.

She was my last living grandparent, the person I'd always been closest to in my family, and just a really good friend my whole life. She championed my singing and my writing from the very second I began singing and writing. Frustrated that I had stories to tell and couldn't yet write (but could read), I would dictate to her at the age of four. The first was called Robbie The Hummingbird, an origin myth story about how hummingbirds got their colors. I would often put together entire concerts, make fliers, and charge admission at the door to "shows" in the first bedroom in my grandparents' house. I remember one was Bruce Springsteen covers where I made up music on the pump organ and sang his lyrics along to them, disregarding their original melodies. Admission was a nickel. The only person in the family who was guaranteed to be there was my grandma. Everyone else typically continued to watch sporting events in the living room.

We hadn't been very close in the last few years. There had been a major rift in the family with my mom and my uncle that grandma lived with that I had nothing to do with, but as a result, guilt by association, we lost touch. In addition, as she'd gotten older, she'd become gossipy and kind of a brat sometimes, plus while she still had her own house, she was doing things like letting the dish sponge get moldy and using it without realizing it... I am not designed to handle these kinds of things. Everyone else in my family has a medical background, it doesn't faze them, but I can't handle the infirm. Not in a caretaking sort of way.

But I don't regret the time we lost. Like a friend you haven't seen in many years that you find you can just pick up where you left off, my grandma and I were like that.

It fucking hurts though. If Chris and I hadn't broken up, I wouldn't have the closeness I have with my immediate family that's come the past couple of months. But, if we were still together, I'd have someone to go through this with. Friends and family aren't the same as a partner, and all of this makes me miss him so much. And maybe he'd be an asshole right now. Maybe he wouldn't be able to be supportive. Maybe he wouldn't figure out a way to be with me through this. Maybe he'd just shut down. Maybe it's all for the best and happening exactly as it should.

But I can't ever know. My heart aches and I miss my grandmother and I miss Chris. It's been almost three months now. It feels like an eon. I can hardly remember what he's like.

My grandmother was cremated. I wish I'd have known this. I went into accepting that her death was coming with the understanding that I'd see her in her casket. I feel a little robbed of this, but I am at least going to get a little keepsake urn with a bit of her ashes in it. That's better, I suppose. She'll always be with me, but now I can have something tangible.

Okay then. I've got a dozen things to do. My home is as much of a disaster as I ever would allow it to be. I should do something about that before it actually makes me ill.

Emotionally exhausted

Today is a heavy heart day. Today, six years ago, a woman who was loved by everyone who ever met her overdosed on heroin. She wasn't found for four days. On top of heartbreak, missing Chris, the stress of not enough money and being at a crossroads with what to do for money in the future, my grandmother dying (she was moved to Sioux City for more tests, the likelihood is she'll never leave the hospital), and a host of other small issues, I'm kind of at my limit here, emotionally.

My friend Johnny is going to come over in a bit and we're going to take my dog for a walk, go see Searching for Sugar Man, and then have a drink. His treat. I need all of that. I'm sad and too in my head today.

I can't remember a time where I felt this emotionally spent and wasn't a wreck. I'm proud of myself, of the technical grace I am taking on these problems with, but there's so much comfort in just letting yourself fall apart. This is so much harder. Curiously, I am almost completely without anxiety.

I am leaving for Chicago on Monday to visit friends, and then I'll be traveling with one of those friends down to Louisville. I hope to have some jewelry made for a potential money-making venture, and I'll see if I can't get my stuff implemented in a couple of shops while I'm gone. I also want to see Louisville because it seems it might be a good place to live in the winter. Or hell, a friend is trying to get me to move to LA. He made a very valid point, that to be a successful artist or any stripe, there are only a few cities in the US that make this truly feasible. NYC, Austin, Nashville and LA. I'd never live in NYC, Austin is far too isolated from anything else that's not-Texas, and Nashville, while in my favorite state in the union, is not a city I have found any attachment to. I've never really been to LA (a layover in the Greyhound station on the way to San Diego doesn't really count) and maybe I would like it.

In any case, I am so excited to leave the city for a week. Right now I haven't got a dime to fund the trip, but fingers crossed, I'll have about $800 coming in this weekend. Otherwise, I'll see my parents on Sunday, and will ask to borrow some money, much as I'd rather not do that. Canceling the trip is not an option, for my emotional well-being. Every spring, I've taken a trip that's reset my brains, for the last three years. Memphis April 2011, New Orleans March 2012, now Louisville.

Uff.

Hole Spackle

My grandma has been very ill. Not quite immediate deathbed ill, but she may not recover, long term, and could be looking at a move to a nursing home if she does pull out of it. Best case scenario is it takes a month or more for her to recover from the pneumonia she's got after aspirating into her lungs last week. Aspirating into her lungs because, even though she'd been in the hospital for three days, weak from wracking coughs and needing several blood transfusions, but had pulled out of it and had been released, she decided to clean her assisted living apartment for FOUR HOURS and then treat herself to a freaking BURRITO afterward. So she went to bed, completely exhausted, and then woke in the middle of the night coughing, went to the bathroom, fell down, aspirated, and couldn't get back up. She was found in the morning lying in her body's refuse, weak and very cold. I mean, fuck yeah, I've got a ballsy, brassy, sarcastic, stubborn as all hell, 96 pound grandmother who gets out of the hospital and decides she's gonna clean and then treat herself to a flippin' burrito, but FUCK YOU grandma for not taking some fucking time to chill the fuck out and watch some tv instead of cleaning and eating a burrito when you've got serious acid reflux and shouldn't be eating that shit ever again.

So, as a result of this, most of my family made the trip to Iowa this weekend to see her, as it's possible this may be the last time we can see her. She's determined to get better, but she's also a stubborn asshole who wasn't eating the food the hospital gave her because it's tepid, unseasoned and gross. Of course you don't wanna eat it, grandma, but you have to. No one wants to eat pureed baked chicken, but you can't even put your dentures in because your bones are wearing through your gums, so just suck it the fuck up and eat for chrissakes so you can get the eff outta there. We basically sat around her bed and bullied her into eating.

Even more unfortunate than dealing with a dying grandmother (my last living grandparent), this weekend I also had to deal with seeing the uncle who did something untoward to me when I was very small, and definitely did many completely inappropriate things to and around me my entire childhood and early adulthood, until finally, I refused to be around him anymore after my cousin's wedding in 2006. That was the last time he was allowed to hug me and touch my ass. That was the last time he was able to sit across a room and take dozens of photos of me, only me, over and over again. With a year of therapy and a lot of work, I haven't had a nightmare about him in over two years.

On the way to Iowa, I found out he'd be down there.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I don't really freeze up. I may get emotional, I may break down, I may get anxious and over-communicate, but for me to become very still and shut down is incredibly rare. And that's what happened when I had to be around him, for years. He'd come near me to hug me, but I wouldn't be able to say a word, I wouldn't be able to move away, I'd just become very still, my throat would go dry, and tears would well up in my eyes and I'd just wait for it to be over. This is pretty common in the sexually abused, I know, and I resent it in myself. I want to fight, to scream, to throw things, but I can't. I want to yell at him, but I just shut down. Maybe this is why I was so angry for so many years, because I couldn't let it out on him.

So, the second I heard he'd be there, I got very still. Tears welled up. My throat went dry. Sitting in the back seat of my parents' car. My mother assured me she wouldn't let him near me. That I'd be safe. But that kind of safety isn't possible when he's there. In fact, the only time I'll ever be truly safe is after he's dead. But, he's an incredibly unhealthy, alcoholic cockroach of a man. He'll never die. At the least, he'll be around another twenty years.

We arrived at my uncle's house in Iowa, and bad uncle wasn't there yet. He was at the hospital, seeing my grandma. I was so worried about seeing him, it was hard to enjoy seeing the family I'd missed. My other uncle piped up immediately to the uncle whose home it was, "What are we going to do to about sleeping arrangements to keep ___ away from Sarah?" I may have audibly sucked in my breath. It was the FIRST time anyone had ever said, in front of anyone else in my family, that there was a problem. Granted, it was also the first time bad uncle and I had been in the same space in over six years. I became very still. My throat went dry. My eyes welled up with tears, and spilled down my cheeks. My mom, dad, two uncles and two aunts discussed what could be done. My mother suggested getting a hotel. Everyone looked at me, asked what I wanted. I spoke in a meek voice that didn't feel like me. "A hotel would make me more comfortable," and tears ran down my face. My aunt came over to me and put her arms around me. It was decided we'd stay in a hotel.

I stood on my guard for over an hour. Afraid to sit down, lest I'd be trapped if he came in suddenly, afraid to wander too far away from my mom and dad. I kept watching the windows, and when he came up the sidewalk, I braced myself for the worst, that he'd go around and hug everyone, and he'd find his way to me, and no one would be able to stop him, and he'd touch me, he'd hug me, he'd touch my ass, and all I'd be able to do was stand there, very still, my throat dry, tears welling up in my eyes.

But he actually stayed far away. From everyone. He said his hellos, hugged a couple of people, but mostly he wandered away and stayed away. Didn't even make eye contact with me. The second he was out of sight and my aunt thought he might be coming around a corner nearer to me, she stiffened and made eye contact, clearly ready to leap in between us if it came to that. I assured her he'd gone away, and we shared a laugh about her vigilance.

And it went this way all weekend, and he even accidentally bumped into me at one point, but by then, even though it was a constantly stressful thing to be around him, I wasn't really affected by it. He was as surprised as I was. And so, I got through it, minute by minute, deep breaths, calming thoughts, and staying very near my mother or my aunt at all times.

The scariest thing about my grandma dying has been the thought that at her funeral, and the family time surrounding that, that I would have to spend more time focused on keeping him away from me than grieving, especially since everyone else would be grieving, and it would be easy for everyone else to not be on their guard for me. But that's just not the way it went this weekend, and I think, when the funeral comes, it won't be easy, I'll still be stressed being near him, but I know I'll have my family to support me.

This is so enormously huge. I have always felt loved by my family, but "love" in my family is always tough, never soft, never tender, and my parents have never been supportive of any aspect of my lifestyle, from my art, writing and music, to my drinking and inability to stay in a relationship for too long. Suddenly, just in the last couple of months, since Chris and I broke up, I feel supported. I feel a love that is soft and tender. I feel like my choices are respected, even if they're not understood.

I feel like a giant fucking hole in me has been filled and I just could not have imagined how incredible it feels.

It did all make me miss Chris enormously, though. He's the first man I've dated who took a very aggressive, masculine stance toward the abuse from my uncle, saying he'd love to kill him for me, to get rid of him, and make the world safer for me. Typically, the response is tenderness and love and apologies for my having gone through it, but wanting to actively do something to make things better for me isn't the response as a general rule. Not in my boyfriends, at least. And Chris was so perfectly wonderful about saying just the right thing to ease my upsets, to soothe me and make me laugh, and make me feel completely loved and safe. I mean, in the last month, he rarely did that, but in the beginning, it was something I'd never known. I wanted so much to contact him, but I resisted it. I keep telling myself, if he and I are to ever have any kind of relationship, even friendship, it's him that needs to come to me. I can't chase him, I can't poke him and convince him that I should be in his life.

In the meantime, that's a hole that'll slowly get smaller and heal on its own. Even though I'm still resisting it, because I worry time is going to let it get so small and so repaired, there's not even room for him to get back in.

The Fall & Bad Dates Before Bed (And Val Kilmer & The Mini Deer)

Last night's dream brain produced the following:

Washed up on the shore, floating in the water of some large woodland lake which felt Lake Superior-ish, fifteen or so dead mini deer (think about six inches tall) plus one regular sized deer, their legs chopped off, their stomachs lacerated with short, deep cuts. I spoke with the forest creatures, who were all afraid; "Who did this to the mini deer?" "Well, you know about Val, don't you?" said the forest creatures' spokesperson, a large, upright rodent-like creature (capybera?) with a white belly. I nodded, and looked at my human companion (who had heretofore been the forest creatures' translator, until they realised that I was not in need of an interpreter and then won their trust), "Yes, Val Kilmer. He's in town to do an episode of Law & Order: SVU." The forest creatures' spokesperson nodded, "Yes, we think he's done it."

I investigated the situation, finding that the regular sized deer had been found like that and was used as a prop in the episode, but that Val had an alibi (he was shooting) when all the other, miniature, deer had been murdered. Val Kilmer was not responsible for killing any of the deer, mini or no.

The mystery of who had so brutally killed the mini deer remained unsolved.

This dream segued into a large house, where I lived with a woman who represents many qualities I'd like to have; physically athletic of build, with olive skin, dark, wide eyes (doe eyes? This idea was not unnoticed even in the dream), effortlessly beautiful, stylish, confident.

(It should be noted at this point that I had a date last night that went very, very wrong; the first two hours were fine, even great--talk of our various approaches to various art mediums, life goals, how we'd watch any movie starring Vincent Cassel or Vincent Gallo even if they were largely featured stapling papers or watching paint dry, tattoo ideals, my pulling away entirely from Facebook and text messaging, which he soundly commended and said he respected, and the various strangenesses of people we know mutually.

It was after I'd said I'd just watched The Fall with a friend, and had made dinner at his place that things took a dark turn. He asked what my relationship was with this friend, and when I explained we'd dated but had broken up over two years ago he started to grind his teeth. He went into a lengthy monologue about how his brother [his twin] had just broken up with his girlfriend of six years and how he [happily] felt he'd had a part in that because she was a "cold bitch" to him and "bad" for his brother. This segued deeper into how this girl withheld sex from his brother and that it was probably because she was cheating on him and didn't want "two cocks in her holiest of holies". His language veered consistently toward crass and I calmly expressed my discomfort at it which only incensed him more. He said something about how I'd "already told [him] about everyone [I'd] fucked" [untrue; we'd talked about one person we know mutually that he's been aware I dated since the night we'd met, and of the aforementioned friend] he couldn't be "worried about all my exes showing up at my door" when he and I were together and when I said that 90% of my male friends are exes, his eyes quite literally bulged at the news. Conversation continued to grow darker and it ended with him informing me that he'd been attracted to me but there was now no chance [as if any interest in him lingered other than in psychological case study on my end at that point], and he then spat out several invectives including belittling all the people we know mutually [insinuating some of them had herpes, implicating that I probably did too] and calling me a bitch, then said that he "disagreed with almost everything" I'd been saying including distancing from Facebook and texts. He quoted Oscar Wilde to this end. He seemed to want to make me feel pointless. I found myself acknowledging the futility of the situation and despite feeling actual fear [there were two points at which I thought he might hit me], I laughed lightly and told him it was time for him to leave. He told me to "continue with the popularity contest" [a reference, apparently, to my earlier statement to him that I have little drive to make myself successful artistically, unfortunately, despite having made many helpful connections the eight plus years I've lived in Minneapolis] and got up from the table. He went to the bathroom. Then he stood at the bar, awkwardly, for a couple of minutes. I busied myself signing the credit card slip for my drinks and didn't watch him go.

To his credit, and oddly, he stated several times that he knew he was being an asshole, and when I said that he was behaving a bit crazy, he agreed with me. He seemed incapable of stopping himself once he'd gotten started. He never raised his voice, and was polite to the server when he asked for the tab. I told him he seems to have a hair trigger when it comes to trust and jealousy with women and he agreed with this too. And yet he was still conveying to me that his action was my fault.

All of this is a damn shame, of course. He's a very, very physically attractive lad with perfect fashion sense [last night's outfit: pea coat, light long sleeved v-neck tee with navy stripes with a white thermal shirt layered underneath, dark grey jeans with belt, and tan loafers]. He's about 5'11", slender, but not thin, with slightly shaggy dark hair, intense blue eyes and thick eyebrows. By and large, he's a darker, Slavic-looking version of Lee Pace [a fact observed while watching The Fall earlier]. And until things took their dark turn, we were aptly flirtatious and got along quite well [it should also be noted that we'd kissed several times at the bar on two previous occasions, but in our relative sobriety last night were enjoying flirtation mixed with the proper kiss pre-cursor of staring briefly at one another's lips instead of actual kissing]. It seems charmingly fitting that the entire time we were being serenaded by live music called the Bookhouse Trio doing string/brass versions of Twin Peaks songs at Café Barbette, a candlelit and intimate setting.

A damn, damn shame.

And, in writing this out, I now feel less completely shaken by the experience. So, I shall commence with the dream [if you're still with me].)

This girl and I were not friends, just housemates. I'd just slept with The Mexican Who Does Not Want Me (a frequent topic of this blog, who at this point I am over but apparently my brain likes to use him as a dream archetype), and I think he lived with us too. Knowing what was going to happen, I went upstairs to clean and hours later, I found them together lying naked under a blanket. I attempted to explain to them why this was a little fucked up, but they just laughed coy, post-coital laughs. Things jumped to TMWDNWM coming downstairs with a slightly decomposing, bloated rodent corpse, which he said his mother had found in the ducts. He looked at me pointedly, as if it were my fault a thing like that had gone unnoticed. (His mother, notably, died recently.) The girl took this corpse, and we determined that it was a ferret. She skinned it, and we found that it was possessing a biomechanical jaw (I recently injured my own jaw with an electric drill). Through an elaborate process, she removed the bones one by one for me and placed them in a bowl. Then she replaced each bone with a metal, mechanical counterpart. I could smell that the ferret's flesh was rotting. I got the impression that the end goal was to bring the ferret back to life.

Dream jump to a Gothic architecture version of The Fall's Labyrinth of Despair (where everything had a blue tinge like we were in Underworld) and me being a 22-year-old me in Paris; long dark blonde hair, ankle length beautifully tailored black wool trench coat, Doc Martens with black jeans and black sweater. I was being chased by a very strong vampire (who feels like a proxy for last night's date); there were trickeries with an elevator, and when I finally reached the highest point of the Labyrinth, where, in The Fall, the woman trapped there realised she could only escape by jumping and therefore killing herself, I jumped and found that by grabbing the voluminous lower portion of my coat and flapping, I could fly. The vampire was bound to the Labyrinth of Despair and thus I was free of him.

I landed safely on the ground, next to a very nice dog I know named Oxford (who, incidentally, could also fly). Oxford is owned by a pretty incredible fellow I was dating briefly a month ago. Ox and I went off down the path to find him, together.

Get A Land Line.

Something is slipping in me. Slipping rapidly. I am depressed. I am unhappy. But it is more than that. I feel it's the foundation I stand on. It is the use of a cell phone. It is the internet. It is living without feeling the sunshine daily. It's money. It's the boyfriend and the understanding that we are likely not long for this world as a union (but we are trying, my god, are we trying).

This panic is bestial.

I (we, everyone) are not meant to live this way.

I've ended internet on my phone. I've stopped getting Twitters via my phone. I will end text messaging on my phone next week. Then I will get a land line. One step at a time, folks.

And somehow I need to get money rolling in. Fast.

Suicide Machines.

When I am depressed, or freaking out, and I can't sleep, I fantacise about facets of suicide. (Let's not blow a gasket thinking I might be contemplating a move towards worm food--as much as there are some moments when these fantacies seem a solution, those moments pass and I've experienced enough of life to be wholly aware that things get better. And worse. And better again.) I was pondering, the other night, a theoretical machine that could replicate the physical feelings of various methods of suicide without the actual act. For instance, I think it would be quite soothing to go through the process of loosing the blood from my wrists. Or to ingest a million sleeping pills. There would be a problem, though, and that is for it to work fully, the brain would have to believe it were happening; be tricked into the pain, seeing the blood, etc. This could cause some pretty serious psychological trauma, I'm sure. And some Flatliners shit would probably go down. I do not want to have to face any of my demons in that manner, no thank you.

Last night I dreamt (that somebody loved me [titter]), in that lucid almost dreaming phase where you still have full control but you're so on the cusp of sleep it feels like it's actually happening, that Andy was in bed with me. That he died, for no obvious reason, in his sleep. I woke to his cooling, stiffening body, and had the clearest of mind about it. Got up, went to several stores where I purchased otc sleeping pills, came home, took a shower, wrote a blog that doubled as my will (which I think I'm actually going to do cuz it super freaks me out that there's nothing written down that indicates my wishes and I definitely don't want my mother taking the reins on that; she's already stated if I go before her she's gonna put me in a pink frilly dress and curl my hair, and I know for damn sure she isn't interested in who I am as a person or what would be a meaningful funeral/burial/wake for the people closest to me--it would all be ceremony for HER), then took a shit ton of pills and curled up next to Andy. Of course, this would turn into some kind of Sylvia Plath debacle, waking up moaning, covered in spiders in some god forsaken root cellar (are there god forsaken root cellars?), or I'd wake up in the emergency room with a giant fucking tube down my throat.

My idea of the perfect suicide involves months, even years with no sign of remains. A disappearing act. Crawling into a cave in the Arizona desert with a .38. Pills on an uninhabited island, somewhere. Or maybe no suicide at all, just the disappearing act.

I wouldn't want to kill myself because there's not a single person who would understand the motivation. My mother would take it incredibly personally. It would absolutely break my father's heart. I would be called horribly selfish, and that would be true. It's just not viable without upsetting everyone you love who loves you, and even a few who loathe you too (Christ, the people who loathe me, feeling guilty, like they had some hand in my demise [would that happen, or would they just nod and say they always expected it?], that would be disgusting). It's the escape that's tantalising. The freedom. But then there's the nagging, "What if there's an afterlife?" problem. God damn it.

Well, I guess I just won't be offing myself today.

My preferred way of dying involves being 85, in bed with my husband of fifty years and a carbon monoxide leak, btw. No one can get upset about that. Grandkids knew gran and pap pap well, we saw them through college, they've got kids of their own and we even kissed the foreheads of a few of 'em. A full life.

But then, it's times like this I wonder if that will ever be my life. And boy, that's a downer.