straitjackets and sigmund

Wednesday 28 Jul 2010 by Administrator | 9 Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized

When I went back to school I was separated from my husband but still had his name. Although the months leading up to the end of my marriage had ripped me apart, once it was over I felt free. He hadn't let me go to school, saying we couldn't afford it. I applied and after a semester of online classes as a trial, was accepted to the main campus. Full time, day classes. English major.

I was terrified.

I did poorly in public schools due mostly to a lack of interest, a lack of motivation. I did poorly my first attempt at college was due to the sudden freedom of being hours away from my parents, going to school with my future husband. The dorm room to myself with free cable television and internet didn't hurt. When my grandmother died I went home to be with family, and got married that summer.

This time I wanted to go, wanted to take creative writing classes and be inspired. Still, given my history, I was afraid. I sat in the back of the classes, new notebooks with a different color for each class stacked with brand new textbooks in my brand new backpack. I don't remember much of grade school and none of kindergarten, but I'm sure the feeling must be similar to the first day of school anywhere.

The first day is a blur except for one class. The teacher came in late, it was English Comp. 2 and I wasn't particularly excited. I'd passed Comp. 1 easily online, and was looking forward to doing workshop classes. She began the class by pulling out a Sigmund Freud finger puppet and having a discussion with it, voices and all. Later in the class, she talked about being a poet and how she would tie her cats up in straitjackets and force them to listen to her read her poetry, and I instantly loved her.

During my five years on campus I think I went one, maybe two semesters without taking a class with her, and I always missed her, stopping in to chat or dragging her out for burgers downtown at Booches. When my divorce went through and I was too broke to afford books, she loaned me money. When I talked about adding a second major, she encouraged me, and always, always believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself.

She was diagnosed with cancer right as I graduated and moved away, a year ago. She died yesterday. I have missed her, I will miss her. It is a terrible loss.


Favorite Seasons

Wednesday 30 Jun 2010 by Administrator | 7 Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized

Somewhere between Missouri and Kansas, January 2010


Near McBaine, Missouri after a storm, June 2008

I have never been one for 'favorites' of anything. When I was young, my favorite color was green (because my fathers was) and my favorite number was 8 (because my fathers was). As I grew older, my favorite color became purple (because my mothers was) and my favorite number was 7 (because my mother drew it with a line through it). Throughout my teens my favorites fluctuated, and I eventually decided that my favorite color was definitely green, or purple, or maybe blue, or brown, or you know I really like gray too... and for numbers I went through a brief love affair with 3, and 55, and then 99, and 108, and of course 7 and 8.

I've pretty much given up on favorites, but for as long as I can remember, winter has been my favorite season. I love the snow, I love the blank whiteness of the sky, the cold, the ice. I love the holidays. When I couldn't go home for Christmas I was disappointed, and when there was a massive winter snow and my plane almost didn't land I was secretly happy. It was Missouri weather in full force, and I'd missed it fiercely. I don't like being hot, and I've always said that it is better to be too cold then it is to be too hot.  If you haven't been to Missouri in the middle of June, it's a delicately balance of torrential downpours and thunder storms and hot, humid days where the ground bakes and living without air conditioning is an impossibility. It can be truly horrible, and when I moved to humidity-free Seattle in July during a 'heat wave' I thought I was in heaven.

Living in for a year now, today, has changed everything. Unlike Missouri where the seasons are fierce and decisive, the seasons here blend into each other, a gray kind of eternal season. It is getting greener, slowly, although living in the cement heart of down town I barely see it. I still wear a jacket to work every night, and sometimes the wind goes right through it and I'm taken back to October. There have been no thunder storms, just a boring flat rain that sometimes isn't even proper rain, just water droplets slowly drifting downwards. It's like living in a cloud.

This isn't to say I don't love it here - because, I do. When I go out first thing in the morning and see the mountains in the distance with the sun coloring the sky it takes my breath away. But I do finally understand what my mother tried to explain when she talked about missing the ocean, living in landlocked Missouri. When I look at pictures of Missouri, I long for it. I'm homesick, for mosquitoes and humidity and wasps and thunder storms  and fireflies and star-filled nights. For the good and the bad, the people and the landscape.


More work stuff.

Saturday 10 Apr 2010 by Administrator | 5 Comments
Filed under: about, non-attachment, seattle, stress, work Tags: , , ,

I finally got the final word on my second job, and as of now I'll be working Monday through Friday 3am-6am. What this means is that my day to day schedule will be working from 3am-6am, sleeping from 6:30am to 2pm, eating, and working from 3pm-10:30 or however late they keep me. . and then trying to stay awake until 3am again.

I'm not really looking forward to it, but the second job has a good chance of giving me more hours in a month or two, and when it does (if it does) I can leave the drugstore for good. The second job is also higher paying, in a more relaxed and stress (and drama!) free environment. And hopefully I won't feel like I'm about to be fired at any moment.

I'm also still putting in applications elsewhere like mad, and researching schools for a good graduate program. I really want to do something with meaning again, as cliche as that sounds.

I realize this is a boring post, but work is all I've been thinking about (and doing) for the past few days.


Protected: How can I do this faster? (email for password)

Monday 5 Apr 2010 by Administrator | 5 Comments
Filed under: stress, work

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It's Easter apparently.

Sunday 4 Apr 2010 by Administrator | 3 Comments
Filed under: about, childhood, ramble Tags: , , ,

I didn't realize that today was Easter until I got an email from my mother. I knew it was soon (thus all the delicious looking egg-shaped chocolates people keep buying) but I didn't know it was today.

Growing up, Easter was incredibly special. We would put carrots out the night before and in the morning they'd be bitten down seemingly like big teeth. Before church (which was not special) we would have a mini easter egg hunt of the little foil wrapped eggs all over the house. We'd never find them all, and sometimes months later we'd find the last egg. It was a sort of contest.

After church we would drive out to our property, maybe a 20-30 minute drive. When I was younger the town was smaller, and it felt like such a long trip. We'd park at the base of the hill - our land is located on the top of a bluff near the mobile town of McBaine - and walk our way up finding eggs all along the way. Some years there would be plastic eggs as well as real eggs, with money inside. Fives and tens. Once we reached the top, the trail of eggs would lead us to find our baskets. Since there were three of us, my Oma and father would usually try to guide each of us onto the right path, but it didn't always work that way.

The baskets were pretty, old fashioned looking with woven sticks and pretty fabric. They were usually filled with good candy, little stocking-like presents, and one larger present, though for the life of me I can't remember any one specific gift. I think one year I got a little beany plushie from the Lion King - and maybe the movie itself?

With all of the amazing magic that my family was able to put into Easter for myself as a child, there is also a sense of sadness when I think about it because it was Easter that eventually tipped me off to the fact that these magical things were not real. I remember very vividly some time prior to Easter opening a carton of eggs at my Oma's house. I don't know why I was opening a carton of eggs, but the carton was filled with brightly colored Easter eggs. I closed the carton and never told anyone I'd seen them. I felt that if they knew I knew, it would destroy the magic even more.

Sometime after that, probably during the summer, I remember standing in a neighbors yard behind their garage, carefully hidden from view of my house, and thinking clearly that Santa wasn't real, that the Easter Bunny wasn't real. And feeling like I'd betrayed something important.


the divorce story

Thursday 25 Mar 2010 by Administrator | 6 Comments
Filed under: about, divorce, non-attachment, ramble, stress Tags: , , ,

When I dropped out of college (a two year tech school for computer networking) at eighteen, I entered a really weird part of my life. I was living with my parents again, but still seeing the guy I'd started dating when I was fifteen. Everything was so shaken up and different, and even though I was at home I was very checked out from my family and my friends. A lot of that was the guy, but a lot of it was also this sense of failure that crept its way into depression. It was in this in between period where I was still trying to find my footing after the death of my grandmother that he cheated on me with my best friend. In retrospect, it wasn't too huge, just a kiss. I forgave him and he proposed almost right away, and suddenly we were getting married in a matter of months.

The wedding was perfect. My dress was beautiful, my family was supportive, and it was in the private park outside my grandmother's house where I spent a lot of time as a child. The weather cooperated. My mother handmade the cakes, and they were better than professional. With edible glitter, too. There was live music (my brother and father played me down the aisle) and dancing and it was just a magical night. There were fireflies.

When I talk about it now, I always say with a laugh that the wedding was perfect, that it was just with the wrong person, but it isn't entirely true. I was in love, and at the time it was absolutely with the right person. I'm so very distanced from the person who I was at nineteen that it is almost like remembering a story, not like part of my history. But the wedding was perfect, and in large part I have my mother to thank for that. It was everything I could have wanted, and she made it happen in a very short amount of time.

We moved into an apartment I loved together, with two bedrooms and a fireplace. I looked for work (not very hard) and spent a lot of time on the internet, and dreamed about getting a house and real furniture and building my family. I also traveled with my dad to craft shows and enjoyed collaborating with him in that sense, and meeting the creative community. This is really the highlight of this time in my life to me - I wish that I had had more time to travel with him. My husband got a job working nights at a gas station nearby, and when we ran short on money he'd pawn almost everything and ask his parents for money.

In November I decided that I would write a novel, and by the end of the month everything had begun to fall apart. A lot of this time is so blurred but I remember so clearly Thanksgiving day when we'd been fighting - and I don't remember if I knew about the Co-Worker by then, but I probably did, and we'd had a big fight and it was the first Thanksgiving we were having with his family and my family was coming too. I remember sitting outside in the grass and finding a four leaf clover and wishing so hard for everything to work out, and going to dinner and fake-smiling my way through it, and being so very broken inside.

In December, he smelled like her cigarette smoke all the time, so I started to smoke. I got a job. She would leave the seat in the car all the way back, so I could always tell when she'd been in the car. He would let me kiss him, but wouldn't kiss me back. She was also pregnant. She wrote me a letter, and I had to read it three or four times before I understood all of the horrible things she said. I threw a plate at the wall. I broke a CD that belonged to her. In the middle of the month I went with my father to a craft show - my favorite craft show, in Chicago. I asked him before I left to spend the time alone to help clear his head away from both of us. We didn't talk while I was gone, and the whole time all I could taste was tears. When I came home, I found he'd spend the whole weekend with her there, in our apartment. In our bed.

By January I'd moved out, broken and confused and so very lost. I'd been with this person almost every day for over four years (May 1999 to January 2004). I felt like I was suddenly fifteen again.


to do 7 day list for 3/24

Wednesday 24 Mar 2010 by Administrator | 4 Comments
Filed under: cooking, hair, lists, photography, seattle Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Bleach my roots and re-dye. More purple is needed!
  • Make a doctors appointment. I haven't seen one since I moved to Seattle, and I really need to find a good one.
  • (on a nice day..) Find a new park to visit, and walk there.
  • (on a nice day..) Bring my good camera to the top of Beetle's work and take pictures of downtown Seattle and the mountains if it's a clear day again.
  • Talk to my mom about getting a scanned copy of my poems since I don't have a digital copy anymore.
  • Make a gmail account.
  • Sort through my email and reply to people who need to be replied to.
  • Try to get in contact with Anna Brooks again.
  • Write a poem.
  • Copy some of my sketched notes on a novel idea and transfer them from scraps of receipt paper onto the computer.
  • Find three graduate programs and look into the requirements to apply.
  • Make a money-saving jar for college application fees. Any time I have left-over money, put it in.
  • Look into making or buying stuff for paper making. Two picture frames, window screen, plastic tub. Staples. Felt, book press or hand-made equivalent. Bed Bath & Beyond?
  • Remember to scoop the cat litter every day.
  • Fix the snap-together shelving that the cats destroyed.
  • Try to budget for weddings later in the year. How am I going to afford missing work and the plane ticket?
  • Wake up before Beetle at least five days and make coffee for her.
  • Sort recycling from trash and get it out of the apartment.
  • Do all of the laundry and actually put it away.
  • Cook a big pot of healthy soup or stew or something and freeze portions of it for eating later.
  • Buy nicer Tupperware..
  • Play some Pokemon. I am a Pokemaster!
  • Walk (carry) Myrrh-cat to the pet store on her leash and buy her a new toy.

Things I love about my job..

Monday 22 Mar 2010 by Administrator | 2 Comments
Filed under: bright side, lists, ramble, work Tags: , , , ,

I complain a lot about my job. Over all, I am very negative about it.. there is a lot that I am unhappy with. So, I decided to make a list of things I love about my job.

  • Helping foreign customers count their change. They are always so grateful when I am patient and walk them through what the different coins are worth.
  • Helping customers (especially older ones) scan their photographs into the kiosk. They are usually so awed by the technology (although to me our software is so very bulky and limited). Even better when they tell me the stories behind the photographs. One elderly lady from Japan was scanning in a picture of herself as a baby during the war in Japan, she told me that the kimono in the picture had been made and dyed by hand because all of the factories had been shut down. She was scanning the picture because her son had just had a daughter of his own.
  • Developing rolls of film. Our machine does almost everything, but I always love it when customers bring in film. I love looking through the images, trying to make sure the pictures come out the best they can. There isn't enough of this at my job - I wish more people used film cameras, still.
  • Doing resets and displays. I love the sense of accomplishment I get from redesigning shelves of product to match the piece of paper given to me. Even better when I'm given the freedom to design an endcap. It is the most creative part of my job, and I always jump at the opportunity.
  • Generally helping people.
  • The quick connections and little conversations I have with the customers who are happy to be there, happy to be helped, and happy to stop and chat with a stranger for a bit.
  • Some of my co-workers.
  • Nights like last night where we were trapped in the basement trying to count the money for the night while (apparently) getting super high off of floor waxing fumes. We giggled so much, goodness knows what the security guy will think when he reviews the tapes.

Renaissance Festival

Sunday 21 Mar 2010 by Administrator | 8 Comments
Filed under: about, childhood, ramble Tags: , , , , ,

Saturday craft show at Pike market

My father is a craftsman and travels all across the mid-west to craft shows selling his ceramics. Growing up, there were definitely down sides to this. No weekly paycheck or benefits have been a source of stress to my parents, and in order to be successful my father works very hard. He works on his business every day, and has taken one vacation in the past twenty-six years.  He also still manages to be active in the community, participating at local art and music events and volunteering at the grade school I went to.

Of course, the upsides to this growing up were amazing. My dad worked out of a studio a few blocks away from home at my grandmothers house, which meant that I got to spend a lot of time with my dad and his family growing up. I felt very safe and loved, and was surrounded by creativity, art, and books. I also got to travel a lot, over the summer or on weekends I would go with my father to craft shows - everything from huge warehouses blasting Elvis Christmas music to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.

The Ren Fest had a huge impact on me growing up. As part of an artists family we were all in costume during the Faire, everything hand made and sewn by my mother. My father and eldest uncle built the booth that we used from the time I was a baby until I was fourteen when my father sold the booth and began focusing on shorter, more craft-focused shows.

The booth had no electricity, and after dark we would read by candle light. The booth had only the main floor and a loft accessible by ladder. The loft was where we slept every night on foam mats and sleeping bags. We would wake up every morning to the animal handlers going past our booth with the elephants and camels. For a few years when I was very young, a glass worker would go early in the morning and scatter dragon tears around the children's booths to find, telling us that at night, the dragons cried because they were lonely.

The faire would start officially every morning with a canon going off, and I would spend my days exploring the faire until I knew every secret passage between the booths. I learned to dance from the Rat Lady who danced with full skirts adorned with hanging dead rats. I made friends with the actors and was always at the shows of my favorite performers.

The gypsies taught me to gamble using shining stones and foreign coins (and never did steal me away like they promised). .


People Watching

Saturday 20 Mar 2010 by Administrator | 3 Comments
Filed under: lists, random, seattle Tags: , , , , ,

When I first started working at my crappy retail job, I kept a notebook and wrote down interesting or strange things I would see on the way to work. As I fell into a more regular pattern (and always walked the same way to work) I stopped writing them down - which of course makes it harder for me to remember them.

I dug the notebook out of my pile-of-books today while I was cleaning, and am going to start bringing it to work with me every day again. Hopefully it will motivate me to keep being aware of the things and people around me, rather than just shutting down and walking with my head in a book or playing on my phone on my walks to and from work.

Here are some of the things that I wrote down from October.

  • Old man on 6th near Antioch University in full graduate gown & hood standing in the middle of the road talking to himself
  • Hiking backpack slung high over an awning (as though to keep from bears). Gone by lunch time.
  • Man on fifth near empty building. Always there at the same time. Yells at the parking garage across the street - could set my clock by him.
  • Walking towards Pike Market past Macys - someone has made little identical piles of food all along the sidewalk. Looks like fruit and crackers. For the pigeons?
  • Young man with light brown hair on the island at Wall & Denny asleep in blue sleeping bag under a no parking sign.

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