So...

I realized something just now.
We are hiding.
We are all hiding.
Some of us...a lot of us seek therapy to find answers as to why our lives aren't working the way we thought they ought. We constantly analyze the reasons why. We come up with half truths.
"My mother was an alcoholic."
"My parents are divorced."
"I was abused as a child"
Whatever. Pick one.
And there are doctors out there who tell us that these conditions create conditions within us that cause us to make the decisions we make. To create the lives we live. And that facing these half truths will enable us to move past them and lead healthy, full lives.

Well.

As great and as helpful as therapy has been, it hasn't answered the questions and we're still thinking to ourselves...when the fuck does the pain end and the happiness begin? Or better, when can we feel pain and trust that it will pass and happiness will follow? When do we start looking at ourselves and feeling ok? When the hell do we make the jump to light speed. And how??

We realize that as we're sitting here drinking a second glass of crap ass wine after 3 beers that we are hiding. From WHAT?? What is there possibly to be afraid of? What could possibly be so awful about us that we can't face it head on?

Our last relationships are a places to hide. We hide behind being with someone. Yes, we loved him or her. But even our love ..it's a kind of hiding. We focus all our energy on another person to deflect the attention off us.

We know that a lot of our trouble is clinical. However, the medication is taking care of the irrational. This is rational. This is a puzzle that can be solved. Can't it?

And here's the voice in our heads:
"Grow the fuck up. Do your life. Quit fucking complaining. There are people out there with real goddamned problems. Yours pale in comparison."

Yes. They do. All the more reason to be really fucking goddamned angry with oursleves.

Such Narcissism, really.

I am Not Relaxed

I am needy and neurotic.
I haven't been able to really sit with myself in years.
As a matter of fact I've been running from myself forever.
Running SCREAMING in the other direction towards everything that's bad for me.
The thought of sitting still is obscene to me.
Here I tap my feet knowing there's someplace I'd rather be.
My whole life has been in preparation for "When I grow up."
Well, here I am.
Grown up.
And no closer to where I thought I would be.

Ah fuck it. Just gonna go home, have a beer, watch some Law and Order, go to bed, and start it all over again.

A Song...Cuz, well, I Said So.

Thank you Natasha Nightly for bringing this song into our lives...

coin operated boy- The Dresden Dolls

coin operated boy
sitting on the shelf he is just a toy
but i turn him on and he comes to life
automatic joy
that is why i want a coin operated boy

made of plastic and elastic
he is rugged and long-lasting
who could ever ever ask for more
love without complications galore
many shapes and weights to choose from
i will never leave my bedroom
i will never cry at night again
wrap my arms around him and pretend....

coin operated boy
all the other real ones that i destroy
cannot hold a candle to my new boy and i'll
never let him go and i'll never be alone
not with my coin operated boy......

this bridge was written to make you feel smittener
with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
can you extract me from my plastic fantasy
i didnt think so but im still convinceable
will you persist even after i bet you
a billion dollars that i'll never love you
will you persist even after i kiss you
goodbye for the last time
will you keep on trying to prove it?
i'm dying to lose it...
i want it
i want you
i want a coin operated boy.

and if i had a star to wish on
for my life i cant imagine
any flesh and blood could be his match
i can even take him in the bath

coin operated boy
he may not be real experienced with girls
but i know he feels like a boy should feel
isnt that the point that is why i want a
coin operated boy
with his pretty coin operated voice
saying that he loves me that hes thinking of me
straight and to the point
that is why i want
a coin operated boy.



copyright 2002 amanda palmer

Recovering

Turkey...so much turkey...

So, yeah, I'm at the end of my Holiday break and it's back to work tomorrow.
I managed to stay out of trouble this year...relatively speaking.

lt's going to be an interesting holiday season to say the least.

I Think I'll Stay Out Of Trouble This Year...

Tomorrow is the "Wednesday Before Thanksgiving" or "The Biggest Bar Night of the Year" or "The Night LC Gets into the Most Trouble Possible and Usually Ends up Asking the Ever Popular Question: Where are My Pants?"

Sigh.

Not this year kids. This year I am struck with an acute sense of Pathetic when I think of spending tomorrow night at The GH. This year, I think I'm just gonna go to my brother's and spend the night with him and my nephew. Maybe bake something. Definitely continue with the knitting. I gotta get this fucking blanket done by Christmas.

So, that's it. I've officially crossed over.

I am "The Spinster Aunt Who Has Cats and Knits."

Sweet.

I don't know, I just don't have it in me this year to go out there and abuse myself like I once did.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving, and that if you can't spend it with your family, you can at least spend it with some friends.

Stay safe, stay well, stay happy.

We Open in Venice...

Opening Night.
My back is out.

But I'm excited.
Excited for an audience.
Excited for the accolades.
Excited for the celebration.

There's nothing like Opening Night.

Break a Leg Everybody!

It's a Little Hot so Be Careful...

...He said of my freshly brewed and steamed Mocha Latte
Latte Latte Lotta Cold up in here.
I'm freezing in the breeze of the sneeze of the winter of my discontented
soul...hate that cliche but when in doubt cliche like you've never cliched before
pronounce it Cleeshed. It's funnier.
she being brand new...haven't been new for some years now
Jallopy no, but a fixer upper opportunity knocking
around in my head
plugged with headphones plugging into escape.
Drowning out the noise of alone lonely lonely
knitting to forget, knitting to create, knitting to wrap
someone up safely and soundly in something he can call love
and build upon.
Sleep to dream, my dreams feature water these days and if I was to
cleesh I'd say baptism, rebirth, renew, restore, or maybe I'm just dehydrated
sandy.

Don't give him your gravy boat.

Please LIKE Me!!!

Ok, so this weekend I was sucked into the vortex that is Laguna Beach. For those of you who watch, or have seen this show, you know of what I speak. In a nutshell, it's a bunch of spoiled rich teenagers and for lack of anything better to do, the drama that ensues. The idle rich...

Anyway, there are 2 kids in particular that really got to me. Which is just f-ing sad. It's a reality show... on MTV! But, in the shower this morning I was thinking as I often do while showering, and it dawned on my why two of those kids upset me so much. Because my life was startlingly similar to the girl's in this equation.

The basic situation is this: Jessica is a girl who is marginally popular, but basically serves as everyone's personal doormat. As a result, she has next to zero self-esteem, finds it impossible to say no to anyone, and consequently makes extremely poor choices.

Jason is a guy. An alpha-male. He's basically been with every girl on the damn show but can't seem to maintain a long term commitment as he's too busy messing around with someone else. Guy is a total Douche.

Jessica and Jason dated for a spell. Predictably, he treated her like shit. Aaaaand then broke up with her. On Valentine's Day. Jessica then embarks on a campaign of "I still like him" so large, that even her best friends basically tell her to fuck herself.

Essentially how it all boils down is that every time Jason gets with a new girl, he continues stringing Jessica along, and she goes right ahead with it because she is so desperate for affection and attention and approval that she can't see how she is destroying herself, and her relationships with her friends. Jason beckons, she follows. Messes around with him. Gets caught twice. Sadly, Jason never takes responsibility for his part in all this and blames her. "She jumped me, dude." So, Jessica starts lying about what is actually going on because she's backed into a corner. All information points to the fact that she is, in fact, a slut. Which, she's really not. She's just weak.

Ok. So, why am I regaling you with bad reality tv? I know y'all thought I was better than this... but bear with me.

When I was in highschool, I was very similar to this girl. I had friends, but I wasn't the leader. I lived in fear of what they thought of me. Tried to conform to what I percieved to be their expectations. And when it came to boys, I was an absolute mess.

Case in point:
We'll call this boy RB. RB as far as I was concerned was the dreamiest thing since Patrick Dirty Dancing Swayze. I met RB at a party with a friend. There was beer, there were boys, I felt so cool. And then it came ot pass that RB wanted to "scam" with me. Ah! Youth!! Remember the colloquiolisms for making out? Anyhoo, scam we did. I even got myself my first hickey.
One thing though.
I had a boyfriend.
Yeah. So, my friend forced me to call him, tell him, and break up with him. But that was totally ok with me, because I was going to go out with RB. See, in my naivetee, I thought that if you kissed a boy, that meant you were automatically boyfriend/girlfriend. HHHAAAAAHAHAHAA! God I was dumb.

Well, I had his number and began my campaign (obssesively calleing him) to be his girlfriend. He had different ideas. What hapepned between us meant nothing to him and he didn't really care about how I felt about it. I was pretty devastated. I totally beleived that I was like, in love with him? Like, I totally loved the way he smelled, and like, he was like the BEST kisser.

Anyway, long story short, I held a torch for this guy for 2 years. Fucking retarded. He'd call me up when he had a girlfriend and be all "You wanna hang out?" And I'd be all "Sure!" and then we'd make out!! I was a fucking homewrecker! And that's not the first or the last time I had done something like that.
I let him have a lot of control over me.

One time he just showed up at my house with a couple of his friends and we hung out and I was like, SO Happy. Dude just knew that my mom was never home and that he could drink at my house. He went so far as to bring like 10 guys over to my house and suddenly, I was having a party that I did not plan, and my mom came home in the middle of it and those assclowns left behind a bottle of Jack Daniels. He was a total dick. And, no, he didn't apologize.

the sad part is, the reason for all this is the notion that if you had a boyfriend, you were normal. And pretty. And enviable. All the things I didn't feel I was growing up.

Anyway, I suppose the point of this story is that I'm not proud of that time in my life. There are a lot of times in my life that I was weak like that and I'm quite honestly ashamed of myself. Times I couldn't say no and got myself in big trouble with friends. But, I suppose, in the grand scheme, it's experience. It's life. You live it and move on.

I still feel a little of that inability to just tell someone to fuck off. I've spent so much of my life trying to please people and keep them around and convince them that I'm "cool".
Fuck that.

I'm too tired to do that anymore. This is it. This is me.

Oh yeah... last time I saw RB was at a concert.

He was balding prematurely and he looked like a bag of ass.

Over there...

Well, I've made a decision.
I'm going to London.
I'm 30, I've wanted to go there my whole life, and so I'm going.
The first 5 days will be spent in London, the remaining 4 will be visiting a friend in Manchester.

Any suggestions on Hostels in London would be much appreciated, as I'm on an extremely tight budget...

I am going alone.

An adventure is afoot...

Welcome to My Cube:

In here you will find the following:

2 pictures featuring my family.
9 Star wars figures
1 Napoleon dynamite poster
1 Napoleon Dynamite taking keychain.
1 Napoleon Dynamite talking pen...the one that caused all of the hullabaloo because of the word "Retarded."
5 Napoleon Dynamite trading cards
1 string of Mardi Gras Beads
3 books: the Sun Also Rises, We the Living, and The Metaphysical Poets. And a whole lot of pretension. Jeez.
1 Gambit poster in the style of art deco artist Alphonse Mucha.
1 mini Blythe doll

and me. Little old me. Wearing my Celebration III Princess Leia tshirt.

I am the coolest kid in school.



Wait, no, upon further reflection, I am the creepy nerd who may or may not eat paste .

Wow.

Is it Like A Resume?

After a while one has to wonder, will all these unsuccessful relationships start to look bad on paper? Is it a dating resume we present to the world?

"Hmmm, looks like you've jumped around a lot. Can you maybe speak to that a little?"

Me: (panicked and sweating) Well, see, I just haven't found the right fit yet. These relationships failed because of THEM, not ME. I did my best to do everything right. I was honest, I was up front, and well, they just had different ideas about how the relationship should have been run.

"To the casual observer, as you've been let go more times than you've quit, it looks like you might be difficult to work with."

Me: "But that's just it! I'm awesome, they just didn't see it! They couldn't handle me!"

"What makes you think we can? Handle you, that is"

Me: "Well, I suppose that's the risk you'll have to take."

"Thank you for your time, we'll be in touch. Good luck in the rest of your search."

While you're at it, leave the nightlight on inside...

Once upon a time there was a girl who was minding her own damn business. At that time her business involved a lot of drinking, smoking, some sniffing, some live-music playing, hard rock-star-living-etcetera-type business. One day, she met a boy who was very pretty. So pretty in fact, that you had to say it twice. Fuck if he wasn’t pretty. It became her mission to set the hook in to this 6-8 lb Bass of the dating pond. And so, she did.

It came to pass that the pretty boy started to make the equally pretty girl feel a lot less pretty. It started innocently enough. He was concerned about her drinking and smoking (he didn’t know about the sniffing) and things in general which she may very well have been doing too much of…so she stopped. Mostly. Only drank when he did and rarely smoked in his presence…and cut all other foreign substances out of her life. She was proud of herself. However, the boy wouldn’t let her take all the credit. He reminded her about what she was doing before he met him. The drinking, the drugs, and the other boys.
He reminded her a lot.

She began to feel a little “less than.”

The girl was no quitter however, and set out to make the situation as healthy as possible. She stood up for herself. She never sat idle when he began his needling and reminding of all that was wrong with her. She told him he was full of shit. Many times. And many times he agreed. Many times he didn’t. But, she thought she could make it work…they could make it work. She did everything he asked her to do to make the relationship better. But it wasn't getting better. They weren't really even doing the things that normal boys and girls do at night with the lights off anymore. That, apparently was her fault too.

She started to notice that even though he was really good at convincing her that he was doing all the work in the relationship, that actually, in fact, SHE was the one making all the changes, doing all the work, and taking all the orders. She appreciated all he had done for her and told him as much, but for some reason, it was never enough.

Well, the weight of being the Savior of the Universe got to be too much for the boy one day, and so, he left the girl. She was sad for a little while, but very soon, a little light turned on inside her heart. It reflected off the glitter and ribbons and whatnots she had used to decorate it months before when it had been broken and she began to see again all the things the boy shamed her for were the very things that that made her interesting and loving and beautiful. They were experiences. As much a part of her as “the good” stuff that he couldn't really see.

So, she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and went and did a show.

And then she celebrated.

Then she went to therapy.

☺

I got Nothin'

so, I'll write anything. Off the cuff..before I have to go to a "regroup on direct mail and print" meeting... getting paid to write. Albeit, writing to convince you people to buy crap you don't need...

11 minutes til said meeting.
What to do...what a to-do.

I got all kinds of things running around in my brain but no words, sentences, clauses, phrases or conjuction-junctions to...junction... them.

10 minutes. To find out what stays or what goes. Which of my words suck and which sell the product.
9 minutes. K, this is starting to feel like that "how do you measure a year" song from fucking Rent. Which I will NOT be seeing by the way.
8. 8 MINUTES! AH AH AH!

Jesus. this is just ...
sad.
You know what I need??
Smooching. remember smooching??? Man, I do. Didn't do too much of that over the past 9 months and 20 days and 700 minutes.. OH MY GOD THAT FUCKING SONG.

k, well, I'll head to that meeting now. With the smooching on the brain.
le sigh.

Moving On...

How soon is TOO soon?
Is right the fuck away ok?
Cuz that's kind of how I'm feeling right now.
But is it denial? Is it healthy?
Or how bout I just fucking STOP overthinking and live my fucking life as it fucking comes and fuck therapy and fuck personal exploration and fuck examining how I'm DEALING with this?
Fuck it all and just have some fucking goddamned fun.



Except without turning into a raging alcoholic again.

Deal?
Deal.

Last Words

"This can't be fixed. I'm sorry."

Fine.

In the beautifully used words by Ani Difranco:

Fuck you.