The Week Of Desire

Come join along under Jamie Ridler's guidance as we explore The Joy Diet by Martha Beck.

This is Week is the Week Of Desire.

I am at my boyfriend's today, so I will be a bit more brief than normal. 

This book is terrific.  It seems to keep showing me that I am traveling hte right road here.  I read this chapter this week and kept thinking, yes, yes , yes--this is EXACTLY what I have been working on and working towards these past few years...it has taken years, but I am finally starting to see my efforts bear fruit...I am finally coming in to my own...so much so that those original goals have been attained and i am now having to find new ones, dig deeper to pull out the other more buried desires.

I am looking forward to continuing to do so.

Can't wait to dig into the next week of creativity either....
woo hoo.

Until we return from my trip to WV then....ciao.

The Second October Wishcasting Wednesday

Jamie has again hit the proverbial nail on the head.
She asks today that one question that I seem to have been both searching for and avoiding at the same time this past week or so.

What do you wish to complete?

Funny, just how much of this question I have been avoiding the past weeks.  And I hadn't even realized it.  Not that I was purposefully or consciously avoiding, but it sort of never dawned on me that this is the exact question I should have been asking all along.  

I wish to complete...finding a Home for us.  That includes moving from this house into that house, R moving from his house into the new house. Settling in, buying new furniture, painting walls, turning mere mortal bathtubs into mermaid fantasy lairs...the works...

I wish to complete...the series of ATC drawings I started months ago.

I wish to complete...my wedding shawl that I designed and am currently using as my test knit of the pattern.

I wish to complete...all these knitted presents I have on my table at the moment, which includes a baby blanket and no less than three dolls.

I wish to complete...the novel that I am planning to write for NaNo next month.  My user name there is knittingjourneyman, if anyone wants to know.

I wish to complete ...the row of doll faces I see in my dreams every night of late.

I wish to complete...reading all these new books that have been arriving at my doorstep of late.

I wish to complete...the transition from broken to healed...I am not sure if that means being whole...because I haven't been whole in so long and I am finding this part of the healing process to be very overwhelming at times....

I wish to complete ... this current ride on the roller coaster so everything can calm down and we can get on with our lives and with being a family...

Not to mention, I need to finish setting things up with my etsy shop:   http://www.ddraigseren.etsy.com                                             

The shop is up--but the shop is empty.

I have also pretty much abandoned one selling blog--and need to get into re-doing this one, as well as setting the other one up more.

I do wish I would complete the range of ideas running through my head where my art and my work are concerned.

I also wish I would complete the whole trying to figure out what else to do along with my counseling work, as I am really looking forward to moving away from telephone work when the children come along, as in the babies, not just my older two.  

Funny, I want to work more to work less.  Plus, I know I can.

Maybe with all the powers of the wishing today I can finally move past whatever blockages are standing before me...because once I set my mind in motion, there is literally no stopping me....

Thank you for adding your voice to my own.

Dipping My Toe In The Halloween Waters

I don't know how often I am going to be doing this, this little Halloween update.  I will do my best.  I knew it wasn't going to be an every day posting.

Let's see.
We are five days into the month.  October.  Halloween.
My favorite holiday.

I shall throw my caveat out.

R's ex kept all his Halloween decorations.  I want to laugh at the childishness of this little girl.  Thirty plus years old and still acting like a spoiled brat.  He knows she won't return them; he knows they are gone; he knows she is too small and too petty to be an adult and say I found your stuff, here, take it.  Oh, no, not her.  She's too busy being petty and mean and blaming everything on everyone else.
She is making things really easy for me.
I don't have to ever worry about him looking at any of those Halloween decorations throughout our life together and having him think, wow, I once had this up at so and so's house, I wonder how she is, where she is, yada yada.

Nope.  Now he and I get to go out, replace all the things she stole (and keeping them is stealing, since the agreement was to return everything amicably--which she has proven she is unable to do) and have all those memories of building our lives together from scratch.  I get to usurp all those old memories, which, truth be told, are all pretty sad in the re-telling anyway, and replace them with the bounty of happiness and camaraderie.

I can deal with that.  The ex's current taught me the value of these lessons.  Sometimes I take such a vicious pleasure in being proven right about things.  This is just one of those places where I get to gloat about things.

Now--what did we do in the past five days towards our own little Hallowed Eve partying?

We've been through the Halloween section of every single store we have entered, be it discount store, garden center, grocery store, mall.  We have journeyed through Halloween specific stores.
I have drooled over this killer pair of boots--which is the same price at the Halloween store as it is at Romantix...and neither looks much different quality-wise either....but I already sport a pair of gorgeous thigh high boots that R bought for me...so, I am trying to contain myself....

I have been told I am not allowed to wear my Alice costume out in public without R there w me, unless I wear sweatpants or something underneath it.  I honestly had no clue it was that short.  Til he took some pictures and showed me.  Lucky me, I have leggings to wear under it all picked out now.

On October 1, I did nothing at all, all day.  I was at R's house, working.  BUT--I spent the entire day utterly engulfed in "The Child Thief" written by Brom, and illustrated by Brom as well.  THIS is the side of Peter Pan I have been trying to warn people (mostly people who have never read the original Peter Pan) about--oh no--most people have the Disney version in their heads--where Peter is a dear sweet boy--and Tinkerbell is a little darling.  She's a horridly cruel spiteful little b**ch in 'real life'--and Peter is cold, callous, and concerned only w Peter.  That's just the original book.  Brom quoted certain passages in the original Peter Pan that made him stop and do a double take, the things that caused him to write this book in the first place--the same passages that always made me stop and ponder the --WTF of things there.  In 'The Child Thief', Brom pulls in the Lady of the Lake Mysteries as well--it all fits so beautifully--and any time we can show the true vulgarity of Man corrupting religion in Man's name to suit Man's purposes is always a wonderful thing for me...we span from the current time and place...to the place where Time stops and spins like a lolling top...to a land of Great Magic and dreams....I shall not give naught away here...it is an incredible book...which I highly recommend....highly highly highly...

October 2, I spent the day chasing a squirrelly little kid who didn't have school who was dropped off w me at R's house earlier than usual.  I should have checked my email the night before, but I was otherwise occupied. I might have gotten N first thing in the morning Friday, if not late night on Thursday.  That's ok; we needed that time together on Thursday, R and I did.  (yes, I have pirate speak in the brain now, after talking about 'the Child Thief')

We had to come back to my house that night late--otherwise we would have spent another night at R's...and it would have been easier to pick E up from her cousins' the next day.  N would have none of it.  He still needs to sleep at my house.  We're working on getting him more used to R's house.  I am not really forcing that issue right now, since we are going to move so soon anyway.  It will be a whole other process of N getting used to things.  No need to push him all at once.

My dad sent us these really cool cloth shopping bags from Krogers (we think) where he lives (since there are none around here--which sucks 'cause I genuinely miss krogers) --  they have Halloween scenes on them and they say, "It's not scary to recycle"--I am thinking we need to get more of these...I have no compunctions about using Halloween bags all year--just as I have no compunctions wearing halloween clothes all year. Oh yes, I am that woman.

I have been working rather hard to make things w pumpkin--soups, breads, rolls, you name it.  The kids LOVE that.  N is wild for the pumpkin rolls, so I had some waiting for him this weekend.

Which reminds me.  Every store we've gone into, that has had something we like at least, we have gotten Halloween shirts, Halloween socks,  Halloween undies...throw on my black granny 'witch' boots and I am good to go.  We have also been buying up lots and lots of scary and Halloweeny movies....which we LOVE LOVE LOVE (the family fave here is still "Hocus Pocus")

October 3--my pc went bye-bye for awhile.  We are still cleaning up the aftermath.  But we survived.  That was the closest I have ever come to wanting to fire up the little mac mini and setting things up on her and her messed up little system (this mac has been --tampered with -- ever since I got it--she has issues that are not necessarily mac issues....).  You want REALLY scary--my pc crashing is scary--I have 3 months of writing that I need to archive to the external and haven't gotten around to it yet....not that it isn't in other places as well...but still....

October 4--
We are trying to watch one scary movie every single night--and I am wondering if CSI (all of them) and Criminal Minds and NCIS and Mentalist can be counted towards that goal....but we do try to watch at least one movie as a family every single night....if I have to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks meet the Wolfman again, I may puke, or break out in fur myself...though this is one of N's favorite cartoons at the moment...but then again, we do have volume one of the ghostbusters cartoon and we watched that all weekend long...at least there are five disks...

October 5--
R and E and I watched 'Sweeney Todd' (the Johnny Depp version)...and then we started to watched "Young Frankenstein"--what, we can't have humor with our horror?  Have you never watched some of the Child's Play movies?  'Bride of Chucky' comes to mind quite clearly--with all those jokes in that movie--it was hysterical!

R also brought us gourds that he had been given by some friends.  I am not sure where E took off w hers, but I have the crowning gourd on my altar for the time being.  We want to grow these types of gourds next year...among other things...
I want to get one of those 'regular' little gourds that E swiped--I want to try making a doll out of one of them....

Today, I also went into the attic and pulled down the Halloween decorations.  I was waiting for my little Goth chicklet to notice so we could decorate...but she didn't even notice the boxes piled up right in front of her, with the pumpkins peeking through the clear plastic and the skeletons arms hanging out over the top of one box....when did I say she was really observant?  She has to move the boxes in order to get to her cups and everything...the twerp...

Tomorrow--we dye the girl's hair blood red...well, ok, fine, not that red.  Just a plain jane auburn.  She is determined to remain a redhead--I hate to tell her--she is not that far from being a true redhead...she's a cherry blonde naturally.  She wants her hair to look really good for the trip to WV this week-end.  We bought the dye last night...she washed her hair this afternoon (twice no less)--tomorrow we color....

That's my update for this week...I'll try not to be so boring next time....

Until then, check out some other Halloween Blog Party participants with the Domestic Witch here....

Wrecking Balm

I am a huge fan of tattoos.
I have been for a very long time.
I have many, many tattoos.

Each tattoo was chosen for a specific reason.  each tattoo has a great deal of spiritual meaning to them.

I have one tattoo that needs to go--I should not have gotten this one, despite its meaning, and despite what it actually bought me at the time--I should have had the original tattoo removed outright instead of having anything put over it.

I know--I keep going over this in my head.

I am using wrecking balm to remove that one tattoo that has to go...
it's only been a couple weeks now--really--literally about 2-1/2 weeks...and you can actually see a difference in the tattoo.  The one big moon that was black is now a dark blue...whereas the otehr moons were always blue...they are now a brighter shade of blue.  This is a very good thing.

I am very much in favor of wrecking balm and I look forward to this thing being gone for good.

Although I keep joking that once this one is gone, I shall get R's full name in its place.  I have his middle name tattooed on my wrist...believe it or not, I get more comments about that one tattoo than any other...and it's not because the others are not visible...little kids like the spider best...but then again it is very visible if you're behind me--it's on the nape of my neck (Grandmother Spider)...

We shall see...we shall see...

Manic Monday--On Monday For A Change

Manic Monday # 184

Do you read an actual print newspaper? If so, how often?
only when my dad sends the newspaper in the boxes he sends--and usually that's just the comics
otherwise-I read the pets for sale section and not much more...


What is your main source of news?
internet


Do you believe that it's possible for the media to be unbiased?
not a chance, no matter what region they're in or from...

Current Projects In The Works

First of all, I am nearly done with the fried egg ear muffs.  I cannot for the life of me get the second egg to be even close to the same size as the first.  I am using the same pattern, same yarn, same hook.  I even tried a bigger hook and it turned out way too small...I don't know what the heck I did there.

Last time I made fried eggs, I made four, from this same pattern, and they all turned out about the same size and dimensions.  Go figure.

So, when R, N and I went to hobby lobby (before we picked E up from her cousins' house), along with the chibi needles, I picked up worsted weight yarn, instead of the fingering weight yarn the pattern called for--we'll see if that changes anything...I will make the whites up tomorrow.  The yolks are still fine.

I am nearly done with the first of several dolls I am making.  The body is all done.  I am working on the arms before I stuff and sew the doll.  Then I will have to come up w something for clothing...which should be interesting.  I should have worked on the doll today, but we took the kids out and had a lot of fun.

No.  I did not yet cast on that first pair of socks.  I was trying too hard with the magic loop method and two socks at once.  I -- fubar-ed everything.  So, I am going to take it slow, one step at a time, and try one sock at a time, until I actually get the hang of things.  Then I can do the two socks at a time stuff.  I still plan to use the magic loop method.  I still plan to work from the toe up.  And I do plan on getting this done in the coming week.

We are heading to WV this weekend.  To pick up my dad's bike.  It's going to be R's motorcycle, until he buys himself another.  He just sold his old one.  He needs a newer one.  Dad's old bike will be my bike, after I get my bike license.  R has already started talking about a sidecar for the small people to ride along in.
I am actually pretty excited about this.  Getting my license, learning to ride a bike, finally.  I have loved motorcycles all my life.  I've dated guys just because they have a bike--I have looked down on guys who think a vespa counts as a motorcycle on the coolness scale....

I am thinking that on the trip I will be knitting quite a bit--although R has sworn he is making me drive, one way or another.  This is when I will get some real sock workout time in...hopefully....not to mention, sock yarn is small, compact, and won't take up a lot of room.
We're taking a truck, like a pick-up, not a rental/moving truck, up there, so it will be us three in the front seat.  My normal routine of keeping R awake during long trips will not be applicable on this trip.  So, I have to find something else to keep my hands occupied while driving...although I am going to need to take the essence shawl too--because I can work on that one in the dark...hmmm..challenges and ideas...challenges and ideas.

I am looking forward to taking to R to ikea to look at furniture for our new house.  Both of us want better furniture.  Moving gives us both the excuse to toss a lot of stuff out.  E wants to go to the Thirteen Moons to introduce R to the guy who turned a soap bubble into a solid bubble for her (magic trick...pretty neat one too).  Near ikea is my favourite half-price book store -- although R may kill me for more books--but I have a list in my head of the topics I am after and that store always has such cool stuff....books are the main reason I can't just move into his house--nowhere to put them....in my defense...both my kids are just as bad as I am in the books department... and at least R reads--after the past guys in my life...a man who can actually read a book ... it's a very important thing to me...

anyway...

there's my update....

I have chapter one of WTBTN (writingthebreakthroughnovel yahoo group)  to work on tomorrow.
Among other things...

good night...

R Gave Me Presents

I really do love my boyfriend.  He gets me...and as much as I corrupt him--he corrupts me.

I've told you about wicked weasel before recently.
"Just" thongs, among other things.

These really are the best made and best fitting thongs I have ever worn.

My boyfriend bought me three of the bikinis...and a pair of the beach pants, because I love them.  I am 5'11"--it's hard to find beach pants or yoga pants that are actually long enough --that stay long enough too...so these are terrific.

Plus, the freebie with every $50 spent is still in affect, for their anniversary.

Do you want to talk about a very happy woman here?  I love this stuff.

We got six free bottoms as well.  The freebies gave us some things we had been wanting to try, but hadn't saved up to get them yet.  So it was well worth the effort.

I love these.  Of course, I did have to make one deal -- I have to mow the lawn wearing the one bikini.  The others, I had to promise to wear on float trips.  Which is completely doable.  I am looking forward to a lot more camping and a lot more float trips next year.  Not to mention, bike riding and hiking and so many other things that work used to keep me from and location kept me from...

BUT--I have to shout out for both the bikinis--and for the man who got them for me, for putting up with him--which is not nearly so hard as he makes it out to be most days...because both the suits and lingerie--and the man--are incredible.

I am pretty excited about all of them...will post pictures--once the pc is back on its feet....

Full Moon Madness

Let us join Jamie and the other full moon dreamers and their dreamboards:

The Full Harvest Moon

Pictures will be forthcoming--which is sort of self-defeating with this project, since it is all about the visual aspects...except my computer has half-crashed--isn't that nice...and I am making use of the not crashed bits at the moment...

I painted several versions of my dreamboard this morning....I ended up keeping only one...and I do plan to go back and add a bit more colour later...so the whole can't post pictures thing is actually working for me in that aspect....

I had thought to go into making a collage for this month...but when it came down to it, despite the magazines and images I had stacked and at the ready, I decided something else felt better to me.

The image is a leaf, floating on the water.  A red and gold leaf, as this is autumn and all.  The keeper version is done in water colour paints and water colour pencils.  Based on a leaf I grabbed from the yard when I needed a model.  Based on a dream I've been having.

It's raining, lightly.  Sort of a sheen of rain rather than raindrops.  So the surface of the leaf is wet.  It floats just at the surface, sometimes right below the surface of the water, sometimes on top of the surface.  In the dream, I watch the leaf float down the river, out into the ocean.  I never reach the ocean...it's mostly the river, and i know in the end the river dumps out into the ocean.  The waters are often smooth and flowing gently.  Sometimes there are rapids and waterfalls and stagnant places.  These we pass by all the time.  Sometimes I watch the leaf, a bird flying overhead.  Sometimes I am the leaf.

This is my life right now.  I am simply going with the flow, knowing better things are coming, that I am heading towards them, whether fast or slow or without a problem or by navigating treacherous waters/obstacles.

My dream for the coming month is ...complicated when you relate it to the leaf.
I want to next.  This is my nesting time.  Which means, as much as I have withdrawn from the current house, that we need to find our own space.
You give me a couple more weeks, we may be living in R's house, as much stuff as we have at his place now...
Don't laugh.  We've discussed it.  That is on the table currently.  Right now though, we'd prefer to find a bigger house.  We can make his work--where there's a will there's a way--but I would prefer not to have to do that...I don't want to move out of here into a place that is temporary, only to have to move again in a few months when we do find that really big house w land that we both want.

There's a lot of possibility in that leaf there.  I am pretty much at the mercy of the current right now.  But I am not powerless; I am not rudderless.  I've been talking about shifting my career.  I am going to maintain my counseling job.  But I am going to expand.  Today I did the first bit of research into the training I would need to become 'official'--and like most training for certain jobs I have seen, it's pretty much a joke.  I could pay several thousand dollars--or I saw one place would do it for $300...and either of them would get me in the same door at the same rate...isn't that sick?  It is a useful thing though.  Plus, i have a few ins on the route I am currently investigating.
As this is my nesting/incubation time, I want to do more work towards fleshing this goal out.  To see if this route is the route I need to go...or if there is another path that will get me to the same place without too much hassle.

Plus-there's NaNo coming up.  I have to start working on notes or something for that, don't I?  Add that into my dreaming pile.  My goal pile.
I bought some swag yesterday and am now actually anxious for it to arrive.  I bought the merit badge kit--and bought a bag to decorate with them.  I will have the bag to carry all my notes, my laptop, whatever else suits my fancy.  I am prepared.
I even have my fingerless gloves special only for NaNo writing.

This morning I signed up for writingthebreakoutnovel (yahoo group) -- and that starts tomorrow.  I figured I better get prepared for Nano somehow.

So, that seems to be the gist of my dreams at the moment.  New Home.  New Work.  Write Book.  Everything else right now is going so well.  Things w R are incredible.  Things w kids are good--things between R and kids are very good--which makes me happy. So--home, work and book....family is already solid and taken care of...thankfully.

All that in one little leaf.
Which I will post pics of that soon.
As soon as we fix the computer...

The Week Of Truth

Part of me actually worried about this week.  I am well-known for my ability to see what I want to see when I want to see it.  It is part of my job as a counselor to be able to find the version of the Truth that both helps my clients, as well as appeals to them. 

            That is the fine line of what I do.  There are many many ways to say the exact same thing.  Sometimes by saying it in the right way, it provides more…assistance, comfort, joy, whatever….There are times when I say something that feels more right for me, but the person to whom I am talking flips things around in their minds and hears something completely different.  I strive to find that balance between things, where I walk the Truth, but get the necessary gist of Truth across to the person in the best way for them to accept and integrate it into their own lives.

            While I was in massage therapy school, I dragged my best friend, and now boyfriend, through Unified Field Therapy.    This training taught us how to separate our own reference points from any given situation.  Where we are able to strip away the emotional attachment and look at the situation pragmatically.  R was always much better at it than me.  I preferred the shifting state, rather than the let’s think this through from start to finish state.  Mostly because I didn’t want to have to look at things where my children/son’s father was concerned at the time.  UFT is difficult to explain on its own.  The way I am presenting things is my interpretation of what I learned and how I metabolized it.  Please, go to the website, find a Practitioner, learn for yourself. 

            UFT does not teach you to strip the emotion away and neglect it.  It allows you to take that emotion and examine it.  Everything is triggered by something else.  I have a strong a reaction t the scent of baking bread—just as I have an equally strong reaction to the thought of my mother’s white bean soup.  The white bean soup causes me to react in highly emotive ways whenever white beans are present.  It is a conditioned response.  UFT has allowed me to tap into the finer mental interplay between my mind, my memories, my everything, in order to go down, break down and visualize every step in between.  I decide whether I want to continue to have that reaction to the white beans or not.  I prefer to keep that violent reaction to white beans.  Just as I prefer to maintain my over-swelling beautiful perfectly happy reaction to the smell of fresh baked bread.

            Truth is all about choices.  I chose to get up every day, to go to a job I absolutely could not stand, to pay my bills—and on time too, to tolerate the actions of a man I had long since fallen out of love with, but was choosing not to let go of.  We make those choices every single day.  You choose to get up with that alarm clock.  Choose to adhere to dress codes.  Choose to obey –or to disobey—those laws.  You choose to go 70 mph in that 55 mph zone, because you are late, because you chose to sleep in that extra ten minutes.  These are choices.  You could choose to wake up at 11 in the morning.  Wear sweats and a t-shirt.  Not go to work.  refuse to pay your bills.  Live in a cardboard box out in the park.  These are valid choices.  Yet, you chose to do otherwise, because of what that means to you.  Many people are perfectly happy living in ways that to others seem unconventional or inappropriate.  Just because someone else thinks it inappropriate does not mean it is inappropriate. 

            My own choices where my lovely daughter are concerned are a constant strain to my brain some days, because I allow it to be.  I allow my daughter a great deal of personal freedom.  She has chores that I require to be done.  She chooses to do them, in her own time, in her own way.  I allow her to make her own choices.  I also see to it she accepts the consequences of her actions as well.  I could very well spank my daughter every single day, every single time she does something wrong, every time she refuses to do her school work right there that second.  I could turn her into me.  When I was a child, I was terrified.  I had to do everything just right.  Not that I did, but I was supposed to.  And there were violent punishments if I did not do everything.  I’ve been washing dishes by hand since I was about 7 years old.  That is why I HATE to do dishes.  I spent so much time obeying as a child that when I was free from family-life, I fell into a cycle of obedience.  That alone has caused me more pain than I can ever enumerate.  I do not want that for my daughter.  I want her to be strong and savvy, to be her own person.  Of course, I want this, while having a loving and obedient daughter as well.  Beating the snot out of her is not the way to achieve these things.  Of course, I often feel like a schmuck because she is grounded—she is not allowed to play outside.  I do not buy her nearly as much as I used to, nor do I let others buy a lot of stuff for her.  She has to choose to take care of her toys and her clothes if she plans on keeping them.  That is her choice.  If she refuses to take care of things, I throw them in the trash.  Which so kills me some days.  I hate to do it, but I have to, because I said I would.  That is my choice.  She could have a pet snake right now.  Hermit crabs.  Her own Wii system.  A Nintendo DS.  She chooses not to do the necessary schoolwork in order to get all these things she so desires.  I don’t like to take her places when she doesn’t do her work, but I have little choice.  I could leave her at home, but I’d get arrested for child endangerment.  I choose to bring her with me. 

            Choices choices choices.  Truth is all about the choices we make in every thing. 

            It is pretty obvious I have issues with the exs in my life.  I have chosen to release a great deal of my pent-up aggression in my writing.  I used to release a lot more via my writing, but one ex used that to convince his girlfriend (who was what12, 13 years younger than he was) that I was honestly going to kill him.  His choices speak volumes some days.  What honest decent man refuses to feed a child, especially one he knows has blood sugar issues, based simply on the fact that he doesn’t want to?  E was with him for several hours the other Sunday and he did not feed her.  Now, she did say he offered her cereal, but she didn’t want cereal.  We dropped the kids off about 12:30N and picked her up about 6? 7?  Somewhere in there.  No meal in all that time?  No meal, in all that time?  What choices is this man making?  What version of the Truth does he tell himself to justify not feeding a child that he has yelled at me numerous times about because of her poor eating habits (she’s a picky eater)? 

            Is my version of the Truth, the way I see any of the exs, the “real” version of the Truth?  Based upon the way they treated me, based on the way I treated them, based on our interactions…based on interactions with others, who have put pieces into place in many a situation…what is the Truth?

            The ex when he was with me was a huge homophobe, a bigot and racist, and a confirmed atheist.  Who later grew to not be such a racist, although that bigot in him doesn’t seem to have changed much.  He is definitely not a homophobe, given his many proven relationships with men.  Plus, his girlfriend or whatever she is was all over me about how he had always been a Christian.  We won’t go there—because, as I often say, there is an ENORMOUS difference between the Word of God and how his people interpret it…that is a whole other discussion on Truth there…the man who used to brag about wanting a copy of the Necromomicon bound in human skin, or in any skin at all really, but human would be best.  The man who got me into the Wiccan ideology, although, yes, I already had the open-ended religious background, but I never really studied much of the Pagan organized religions until that man handed me his collection of books and had me read them.  That woman swears it’s all me, because he told her I was a witch.

            My Truth is I am not now, nor have I ever been, anything likened until someone who could or would bear the Title of “Witch”.  My mother is a Witch.  I am merely a Wyld Woman.  I am a dirt worshipping tree hugger.  My religion goes back millions of years, before the creation of language.  Oh yes.  But that does not make me a Witch.  I am something else entirely.  My Truth leads me in other directions.  Completely.  I will be the first to say I am an Ordained Non-denominational Minister.  That means not that I deny any religion.  I have chosen to incorporate many religions.  I simply choose to stay away from mainstream organized religions.  That is my Truth.

            If you get me started on religions, we might never leave here. 

            I thought this week of Truth would be difficult for me.  I’ve been having a very hard time in the past few months, learning how to deal with falling in love with my best friend, learning how to be happy, learning how to enjoy things.  Among other situations.  This week was actually a complete boon to me.  I spent several days of this week, alone, with my boyfriend, at his house.  My daughter is visiting her cousins until tomorrow.  My son didn’t have school today, so his dad dropped him off at R’s house for me.  R and N need to spend more time together.  N trusts him.  N loves him.  He should.  R is the very first man in N’s life.  And the only one who has always been stable and consistent.  It’s so much fun to watch them play.  It’s more fun when N isn’t tired, as he was towards the end of the evening, when he became Light Boy, with a flashlight on his head, one in his hand, and a lantern in the other hand.  He didn’t want to give up a flashlight when R needed one as we were grilling in the dark, making salsa.  But they need to get more used to each other.  It really is only a matter of time before we are all living together, and a whole new set of parameters will come into play.

            This week has been a very decisive week for me.  I learned many things in the past couple days.  The one thing I did finally ingest and metabolize is the fact that this really is going to be that darned ‘happily ever after’ program I have spent so much of my life either running from, or fighting to maintain.  I am not saying every single moment is going to be angels blaring trumpets or romping in the daisies.  We have kids.  Nothing will be perfect.  That’s the meaning of kids.  But we will be happy, because we are happy now.  The simple act of sleeping the entire night in one another’s arms has been perhaps the most cathartic and meaningful thing that has happened for quite awhile.  Something so simple, that many people take for granted.  Something that this man has been denied for years, simply because of the people he’s been with, because they always ended up as far from him as possible in bed, when all he wanted was to fall asleep and to wake up in that person’s arms.  He finds it as strange as he finds it wonderful that when we sleep together, we not only fall asleep in each other’s arms, we wake up that way as well.  There is no fleeing from one another in the night, as he has been so used to experiencing.  I won’t even describe my experiences with that.  Let me just say that I haven’t been comfortable sleeping with any man in my bed since the ex-husband.  Until now.  My son’s dad I never could trust.  I was so happy when we finally got the house and we got separate bedrooms. 

            Let me try to stay on track here.

            Jamie asks:

           

If you were carrying around a little joy-meter, what would you be noticing about the joy in your life? What are you discovering about the relationship of Joy to Nothing and to Truth? Sharing our insights and discoveries brings us all closer to joy!

            My joy quotient is definitely MUCH higher this week.  As I flip my keyboard over and shake it out—and have glitter drift all over the place.  I kid you not. 

            I am actually getting better at Nothing.  I have crocheted the same egg white no less than five times this week—only to frog it out because I cannot get it to turn out like the first one.  I don’t know what I did or how I did it, but no matter what I do the second fried egg is simply not wanting to cooperate!  But, I am not actually getting overly upset by that.  I frog the thing.  Set it aside.  Start over the next day.  My friend egg meditation time.  Let me tell you, I surely have to love my friend to keep working this same darn egg over and over and over like this.  And I do, really.

            Truth has become so much easier for me.  I have worked and worked at Truth for YEARS now.  I thought it would be much more difficult, but I have worked so long and so hard at seeing past the veils and the frames of reference and the melodramas that so many people seem to enjoy interjecting into other people’s lives for whatever reason. 

            I am not afraid of who I am.  I am not afraid of what I am.  I am happy.  I am strong.  I work for myself.  I lead the life I want to live.  Yes, there are things I am working towards improving, but I am getting there.  There is no rush to do these things.

            I know it is only October, but I am truly looking forward to the coming year.  This past year has brought us some of the most mind-boggling changes.  I still have the readings of the projections that I made.  We are on track, even though we are not on track the way I thought we would be.  But we are heading the way I thought we would be, heading the way I hoped to head, even though I did not foresee a great many things.  Like R.  He and I weren’t supposed to get together til we were much older.  We’d even discussed it earlier in our relationship.  We made the conscious decision to set all of that aside and remove the middle man, so to speak.  We made the conscious choice to be together now.  We each gave the other more than ample opportunity to run, to leave, to walk away, during the entire process.  We both chose to stay.  Things just keep getting better and better between us. 

            We played pool tonight.  I love pool.  So does he.  It was something so simple, again, but it was such fun.  And N was there to bop in and out, to add his two cents, to knock balls around when we least wanted him to, to tease and to pick, and to just spend time together. 

            There is so much love in our home now.  Even though we have not settled on a house yet.  We are setting up our own Home, together, the four of us, plus the dogs, and the frakkin’ bird, unless I find her a home quick.  If you know anyone in the St Louis area who is knowledgeable about birds and who can care for a conure parrot, and who wants a conure parrot, please let me know.  Email me. 

            Tomorrow, we, as a family, are going to go look at vehicles.  We’ll be going to my dad’s the following week-end.  Picking up a motorcycle.  R will b e riding it until he gets his, and until I get my motorcycle license.  It is good to have a guy around who loves the same things I do.  We are the couple you love to hate.  The ones that not only finish each other’s sentences, but the ones who say the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same rhythm and pitch and tone.  lol  It’s pretty funny.  If you only knew how long everyone who has ever seen us together has thought us a couple…ever since we met, darn near.  We have always had that rapport and solidity between us.  I am more than amazed by how good, by how much better, everything is getting between us.  I knew we were good together—we were always good as friends.  But this is more than incredible.  He was always my back-up, the person who stood with me, who stood by me, no matter what.  Now it is so much more than trusting a friend to have my back.  We are still friends, but it is so much more now.  There is nothing we cannot accomplish together.

            To be cliché, it’s a beautiful thing.

Wishcasting Day Is Here!

My internet was down yesterday--my modem went bad and I had to wait for the tech to get here and 1 decide what the problem was and 2 fix it.  She replaced the modem.  All is good now.  Except that I am still catching up with emails and other things, since I was at R's Monday and pretty much worked on other things rahter than sort through email.

All I could think yesterday was, yikes, it's Tuesday!  I can't miss Talkative Tuesday!  Even though my normal pattern seems to be to hit it late...I still love to do it.
My last thought before bed last night was, thank goodness I can get up in the morning and be able to reach Jamie's website for Wishcasting.

Then I woke up this morning and had a hundred things to do.  Of course.

I finally got something posted on my new blog, a blog which is not going to be for everyone, just so you know. It's my Alyce Uncensored blog.  There will be harsh language and sexual content (not porn, not porn) there.  Mostly things that will cause some people to become uncomfortable.  Which is why I warn you here. 

Then I got to tease my boyfriend awhile.  He has a job interview today.  It's for a lot more money.  And we are hoping it's in a lot better environment.  He is rather sick and tired of people who cannot communicate in his life and is trying to remove the non-communicators as best as he can.  This job means alot to him, and to us, on many levels.

Then, my knitpicks order came in.  Darn book sale.  It is still on-going.  Forty percent off all books.  I bought books, a few sock knitting books, but a couple for fun that I have wanted for awhile.  Plus, more sock yarn, although this time I think the yarn is more for me than for R.  I bought silk blends this time...although I know I will make him at least one pair from the silk. 
Of course, I had to skim through and ogle all the books before I could do anything else.  I'll have the titles loaded into goodreads later on today.

I'm in a pretty good mood today, so babble mode is on.  :-) 

I shall now trundle over to the discourse at hand:  WISHCASTING!

I am so grateful to Jamie and to all the wishcasters, for all their support and hard-work with so many projects other than just Wishcasting Wednesdays.

Today's award-winning question:
{well, Jamie should win something for all these questions!}

What do you wish to share?

 

This question hit me in several various ways.

One thing I do wish. especially of late, is that I could share with people the image they present of themselves to other people. 

In my work, I often watch people completely destroy their own lives, without understanding what they are doing, without accepting their own personal responsibility, blaming everything on everyone else.

I wish I could show people what other people think of them.  It would blow their minds, and hopefully steer them onto a better course of action.

I am watching people destroy their own lives and other people's lives just to justify their own sense of injury, when even complete strangers can see the injury is one they fabricated and petpetuate for themselves.

It makes me sad that people manufacture for themselves such heinous lives in order to justify their sadness and inadequacy. 

On another side of life,

I wish I could offer people a glimpse of the Magic that I get to see every single day.

Children, for one, have such a wonderful knack for revealing things that grown-ups often forget to see.

We need to re-learn how to believe in faeries and angels and witches and strange things, just to keep the Magic alive in our hearts.

A commerical lately has a perfect line on this one for me: 

it's a son talking about his dad, and how his dad always laughs and smiles, even though dad has lost his job.  The son is sure that dad is smiling and laughing so much for the benefit of the family, even though he must be sad inside, but dad also means it as well.  He's not just pretending,  He is really involved and really enjoying life, and the lives of his family.

That is the Magic that I wish I could share with everyone. 

That no matter how bad things may seem, there is always a silver lining.

I am often 'accused' of this.  That's why I am the one everyone calls when they need a shoulder to cry on, why my clients are return clients and repeat clients and why they recommend me to everyone they can.  Because I have a knack, even in my own darkest moments, for being able to pry open that one lighter shade of grey spot and focus on that.  To expand and beat the tar out of it, if need be, until it's big enough to hang some hope on.  That's me.  That's how I live.  Even if it may take me some time to find my own grey spot to beat.

There is no reason to be miserable, to dwell on the bad, the horrible, the unattainable.  Dwell on the positive things.  Let the light of Hope swell in your heart until it subdues your mind.  Allow your mind free reign until your heart catches up.

It's the whole take the time to smell the roses deal.  Notice the breeze.  Listen to the windchimes.  Play with your food.  Sing in the shower.  Dance in your living room.  Run in the rain.  Splash in mud puddles.  That whole philosophy that far too many people disdain as they grow older.  It's a shame.  So much is lost that way.  When you close your eyes to the beauty of life around you. 

That's my wish for the day. 

Open your eyes and be happy!

 

Weekend Update On The Delay

This weekend was terrific.

Saturday the kids and I got to play super heroes together. There are enough capes for everyone here. 

I love to watch my kids play together.  They are very open and affectionate with one another.  N holds E’s hand, gives her kisses.  She is ever the big sister.  We still have to keep her from speaking for him or he won’t talk—or better, I like it when he talks over her.  It’s hard to teach the don’t interrupt thing, when she’s the one interrupting him first.

Sunday, I went w R to have his tattoo done.  So, it is official now.  I have finally corrupted him.  Despite the fact that he has wanted a tattoo longer than he has known me, I am officially to blame, since I am the one w several tattoos. 

He got a teal ribbon tattooed on his upper bicep/shoulder, in honor of his mother’s passing from ovarian cancer.  Sunday was her birthday.

If ever you need a tattoo—Jason Conrad at Cheap Trx in St Louis, MO.  Best artist in the world.  My only other shout out for a tattoo artist is Bryn at the Ink Well in Weirton, WV.  I recommend no others except these two.

The ribbon has the texture drawn into it, as if it were really actual fabric.  It’s very well done. 

He also took me to see his mother’s tree.  He’s driven us by it before, but this was the first time he took me over to see it.  I was touched.

E and I spent the night as his place Sunday night.

Monday.  E and I were on our own.  It was awesome. 

We took a walk.  Just the two of us.

So, my original intent was to go look at a couple houses for sale within walking distance of R’s house.  It turned into something else. 

I hate to drive.  The road is full of ignorant people who don’t care about anyone else other than themselves.  I have always hated to drive.  The only reason I got my driver’s license, really, was because when my grandfather died, my grandmother couldn’t drive.  She was literally stuck at home.  Not within walking distance of squat.  She hated, hated, hated, to have to wait on people to give her rides.  She also needed to get a job; she needed to be able to drive herself to work.  So she had to learn.  She was not the best driver in the world, by any means. 

I hate to drive, but I wanted to know how, just in case.

See, I always thought I would get married and stay married.  That’s what I had wanted all along, even as I figured out pretty quick when dating entered my life, I was not a one man type of woman, unless the man was extraordinary.  I am still that same person in many ways too.  For me, marriage was and is the same—it is a vow—to death do we part.  My divorce didn’t kill me…heck, my divorce wasn’t a divorce except on paper.  I was already dead before he asked me to marry him—his asking me to marry him was his way of making up for killing me.  He told me that, in different words.  More than once.  We were already living together again before the divorce was final.  With me pregnant by my after separation fling. 

That final break was not the end of a marriage—it was a resurrection of sorts.  Unfortunately, I chose poorly in my next choice.  I was looking, but not, for a man to replace him.  After having belonged to a single man for so long, after my upbringing and thought process, my conditioning, I had to find a man, right?  But, I don’t go looking.  I never have.  I never do.  They come to me.  One way or another.  This one came to my school as a teacher.  I had to break with him in order to find me again.  And, as I say every day, I am utterly grateful that he is such a colossal –whatever he is.   If he were not so 180 from what he says he is, I would have never found what I needed to grow, to heal and/or to move on from that divorce.  If he ever learns how to communicate with others in a real sense, a miracle will have occurred…I swear it.  I tell you, the worst people make the best teachers.  Seriously. 

Technically, the ex brought my current boyfriend into my life.  Does that count as him finding me?

It took several years after my son’s dad for me to heal enough to do anything.  That man is a lying treacherous manipulative snake.  But he swears it is because he has the best of intentions.  What is worse is – he is being honest.  He truly thinks the way he treats me and deals with me, since he met me in 2002, has been with the best of intentions and respect and etc etc.  One day, the gods will turn his actions upon him and will show him the error of his ways.

I will not be there to see that.  I do not want to see it.  I wish it could be avoided, but the man has chosen his own path.  He has to walk the path he has chosen.  Not my stuff.  Not my issue.  I won’t have to deal with it when the time comes, even though he will reach out.

This is about the walk we took, isn’t it? 

I used to walk everywhere.  When I was in high school.  After high school.  I didn’t want the responsibility of a car anyway.  I didn’t want to drive. 

I liked walking.  I could and would walk for miles and miles every day.

I won’t walk where I live now.  It’s actually a fairly safe place, don’t get me wrong.  If it is safe enough for mothers to turn out 4 and 5 year olds to run in the gangs through the streets, knowing that the other mothers keep an eye out as well, it is safe enough for me to walk.

Except—I tend to attract—the strangest elements.  I seem to have this scent that attracts the lizards and Klingons.  Lizards are the men that no one else would touch even after inhaling a bottle of cheap tequila in under five minutes.  Klingons are not just women, but, for me, it's gay men or women who aren’t hitting on me, but ‘need’ me for the company—and they are not people I want to hang out or around with….like a complete stranger who is suddenly your bestest friend in less than five minutes…you already know her life story and the bartender just brought your drink order to you sort of person right after you sit down.

I will not take my daughter out in an environment where I know that one out of every twenty men that wander here will follow me home, trying to play their game and roll me with their sweet talk.  I am not kidding or exaggerating.  I get these guys trying to talk to me when I take out the trash, or mow the lawn, or get the mail.  Really.  Really annoying.  Above all else, they do not need to be aware that I live alone with a young daughter and a dog that is useless for family protection.  I spend more time protecting her than vice versa—although she is young yet—there may be hope for her. 

My dog is actually my other reason.  Yes, mothers keep an eye out on the groups of kids that wander.  But no one really pays much mind to the people walking their dogs.  One, when I used to walk my old dog, other stray dogs would try to start fights.  My dog then was a coward too and I was the one fighting dogs off.  And yes, I will.  I have no compunction about stepping in between dogs.  It’s only blood and it’s only stitches.  I have the attitude.  I usually keep my hair covered, since dogs/wolves/etc have less respect for the blonde as they are normally aberrations in the pack.  Female and blonde means very inferior.  Only—I am an Alpha.  It may not always be immediately apparent.  I have been the cowed down one for too long in my life.  But I am the Alpha and I know the role.  Plus, with all my studying and background, I know most breeds fairly well.  It’s like dealing with people.  You kick them in the right place, you win the fight –speaking of people.  I have never had to do more than tap a dog on the nose, literally, not hit them, tap them.  Although I did think my other dog was going to kill some stupid stray once.  It’s not the pitbull half of her to worry about—it’s the chow part.  Chows are scary. (yes, both of my boyfriend’s dogs are part chow…I know….)  Pitbulls, I love, hands down, every time.  The best dogs in the world.  Ask Petey of the Little Rascals—he’ll tell you the same.

But I know there are a group of kids who walk their part chow dog around this neighborhood, trying to start a dog fight with any dog out.  I have been told about them sending the dog after cats.  The cats do not win.  I do not want any part of that.  Period.  I will not take my dumb dog out into that, because I’ll end up going to jail for beating the heck out of some stupid little kids.  Plus, my dog is dumb enough and friendly enough.  Most people around here are afraid of her based entirely on her size alone.  I want to encourage that fear, because up close and personal, this dog will lick you to death.  Or pee on your shoe maybe.  She is not a guard dog.  Unless you are a bird or a squirrel.  She’s a love puppy—she wants to be petted.  She is uber needy.  So not the dog I was hoping to get—even though I wouldn’t trade her for anything.  Most days, at least. 

The walk.  Right.  I wander.  I know.

This walk was great.  There were few people.  Those we passed did talk to us, but that was good.  I was never worried about anyone following us home.  Plus, this is my favorite time of year.  Chilly, wind blowing, leaves turning.  We saw about four houses for sale.  Got flyers for the two that had them.  Found the yarn for W that I have been going nuts trying to find (red heart baby cloud) and bought two skeins, just in case….

We walked all the way to the thrift store and I let E look around to her heart’s content.

E found a funky blue hat.  And a killer pair of boots with mega high platform heels.    She is utterly proud of herself.  I found a children’s book of Zen shorts.  I will not classify myself as Zen nor Buddhist.  But I do have a great appreciation for Zen, deep down.  Thanks to the ex, Buddhism is in the distrusted organized religion category, along w so many others.  It was a very fruitful day.  Plus, as we were heading back to R’s house, he drove by and picked us up.  He’d worked through lunch and was home early.  It was terrific.

We even had a great dinner at a very nice restaurant. 

My only issue was I took two different sorts of allergy meds that day, and they made me very tired.  It is the only time I have not gotten out of bed to escort R to the door, after he’s brought us home and is returning to his.  I don’t really think I was awake after I heard the front door close.

I miss walking like that.  I miss feeling the air.  Talking to people.  Not worrying about the lizards and Klingons, well, at least not so much.  And I love spending time w R, in any capacity.  Even when I am tired, confused, groggy and medicated.  He is an amazing man.  He takes such wonderful care of me.  It’s the small things he does that really mean so much.  Not that the bigger things are shabby, but it’s the small stuff that touches me more deeply, that embeds itself in my heart and my memory.  I like that.  I am so not used to it.  But I really like it.  I could get used to that—without taking it for granted or taking advantage of it.  It means a lot to me. 

Here’s to more days like this weekend and Monday, well, without the allergy med fatigue and fugue anyway. 

May we all live in peace together.  Always.

Death of An Old Friend

     My bread maker died tonight.  In the middle of making dough for a new bout of pumpkin yeast rolls.  My son’s current can’t get enough of item.

     I have had that bread maker since 1994?  Somewhere in that time.  It had to be ’94.

     ’94 was a terrible year for me.  In February, I lost my first child.  In February, while still recovering from that loss, I started to work for SBC as a toll/directory assistance operator.  Someone should have shot me before I took that job.  The job was more destructive than the loss of my child.  I am not joking. 

     Christmas.  ’94. It might have been ’95, but I doubt it.  The ex-husband gave me that bread maker for Christmas.  I nearly caught him and his buddy taking time from a job to go to the walmart in Van Buren, AR.  I was looking for something for him.  He was looking for something for me.  He saw me; I don’t think I saw him.  It would have never occurred to me that he might be there.  I forgot how much ‘free time’ the SBC outside guys (these were splicers) could manifest on any given day.  It is, I think, the last remaining item that I have in my possession, other than my wedding ring set, which he gave me, other than the scars I carry on my psyche and my soul.

     He re-did my entire kitchen for me that Christmas.  I still miss my convection oven.  The bowl cracked and we had to get rid of it.  I have only recently started to wish I still had it, only recently begun to start looking for a replacement.  Not like my toaster convection oven, but the glass kind of convection oven, where it is more a bowl sort of thing with an apparatus lid attachment.  Descriptive, aren’t I?

     I remember one of his girlfriends coming over and confronting me, asking me what he gave me for Christmas that year.  She’d gotten a waterproof radio for in her shower from him.  I got the bread maker, the convection oven, and a whole bunch of other stuff. 

     When he was confronted later on, he claimed that proved where his heart lay.  And for years, maybe that was true, but that’s not the only place his heart—or other body parts, lay.

     I look back on the things that particular (not the first, not the last, not the only one who ever came to me, but the only one who thought he was being honest with her—and from what I’ve heard in the past few months, it’s the same thing all over with her as well, only he is better at covering his tracks now, lest she either kill him in his sleep—or have him put in jail) woman told me, or said in front of me, over the years.  Yes, there was a time where we were friendly with one another.  I honestly wish her well.  I always have, after I got over my –anger with?  hatred of? him.  It wasn’t her fault he was such a cheating schmuck.

     I listened to her side.  He had caused her as much pain as he’d caused me.  You have to listen to your heart, no matter what, even when you love a moron.  Trust me, there have been several in my lifetime.  I understand the need to satisfy your heart, even when your mind is telling you to run.

     I actually have always wanted to thank her for everything she gave me.  She told me once she knew I lied to her about things, just as she lied to me about things.  She was wrong.  I never lied.  If I did, I was repeating lies that I had been told.  Nothing more.  What she gave me, however, was utterly priceless.  That woman set me free in so many ways. 

     If I thought he or she were truly happy, nothing could set me more at ease in life.  I would be so glad for them.  According to rumors, and there are those who just love to fill me in on myopic and odious details at all times, at times when I think I am finally over and past all of that, where I am just happy to have gotten out alive, much less anything else.  I do wish them well.  Really.

     This woman, in her telling of tales and stories, gave me the clue to the ex I had always missed, the one that clued me in to just how long the man had been seeking out the company of other men.  I am not a competitor in the best of times.  I will bow out, sit aside, and simply watch.  I do not fight unless someone forces himself or herself upon me.  There are conditions now where I will attack—but it takes a great deal of provocation—and only in certain arenas.  I will fight no battles for anyone else, except for a certain few.  Of which the human contingent number three and no more.  Other than that, my animals or my home, those I will fight over, for and about, at any given time, if they are threatened.  I do not start the fights, but I have been known to finish them.

     Some days, talking to people from high school is highly entertaining.  I had forgotten my reputation in places.  I had forgotten that I had always had that certain implacable “aluminum foil” core (ripped that off from Stephen King, yes—now name the book and I will be impressed…)  I had forgotten that even in my weakness, I had been able to be strong in the name of others. 

     If I have any uncertainty about love, I will step back and allow the party to prove himself or herself.  I always stepped back where he was concerned.  He took from me the only thing that ever meant anything to me, and I allowed him to keep me as a prisoner for … far too long.

     I have an intense sense of justification to listen to this woman tell stories about certain parks in Ft Smith, AR, and know that these are the parks where the ex had lunch so often when he worked outside.  All the stories he told about his ‘encounters’, where someone tried to hit on him and he repelled them, often forcibly, all suddenly made sense.  There was that click into place as the stories he’d told about her clicked into place as she told me her side of things, and as she heard my side of things. 

     As she continued to talk, I heard the click click click that went back to Fayetteville, AR, where his first wife had left him for a woman that honestly looked more like a man than he did.  No slur on him intended.  She was a nice girl, I guess.  He said she was—he should know—he slept w her too.  Not my type of person, no matter her sexual orientation.   then again, neither was his ex.  I wouldn’t have talked to her if we passed in the street.  She was too…off…in a certain way.  The broken know the broken on sight, whether they admit it or not.  She was broken.  Her girlfriend was even more broken and needy.

     In Fayetteville, why was the ex, who was such a notoriously flagrant homophobe the only man a certain friend from an ultra-conservative Christian family would turn to to discuss his homosexuality…or why said man would detail his encounters with other men with the ex?  Why did the ex give this man his most prized possession when we moved from the house into an apartment…his dog?  Suddenly, it all made sense.  As did the ex talking about a certain former room-mate he had had before he’d met me.

     Why, in Fayetteville, when I worked at a certain laundromat known as, uhm, the best place in town for men seeking men to hang out and congregate was the ex one of the men who got hit on every single time he went in there?  In fact, he was the only man I ever knew that got hit on every single time he went in there.

     I listened again to the stories he’d told me since we’d met.  He didn’t have many stories, in all actuality.  After being with him for a year or two, I’d heard them all, and had started to keep track of how he embellished things differently w each re-telling.  He’d been hiding this secret for a very very long time.  It came to a head when one of his boyfriend’s accosted me in an attempt to lure the ex into a three-way with me included, or a four-way with the boyfriend’s boyfriend.  That was the first real tangible proof I had, other than the ideas and the rumors that had clung to him all along.  All those tales he’d ‘re-created’ to make him a hero and make me think him a big strong hetero man…all crumbled to pieces.

     I have dated bisexuals before—some who openly and freely admitted who and what they were, and others who hid it to save their families, or for whatever reason they had.  It never bothered me.  I have more respect for someone who lives their life openly and truthfully, but that does not diminish anyone in my eyes.  I know how cruel the world can be to those who choose to live their own way.  Whether for sexuality or religion or any other thing.  It’s hard to hide things like that.  It eats away one’s soul, which eats away one’s body…it destroys the mind. 

     If it weren’t for that one woman, I would have mourned my lost years for many more years.  I would have moved on, but I would still miss things that I thought only came with the ex.  Thanks to her, I learned better.  Thanks to her, I can enjoy my current relationship and current circumstances far more than I could without this sense of freedom she gave me. 

     I have said it before; I do not have an issue with the ex’s cheating.  He was a cheater when I met him.  I never expected him to be faithful to me.  I told him that up front.  He and I started dating while he was still married.  He told me the pitiful tale of how he was in the middle of a divorce.  I have proof he was staying over with me in October.  We’d been talking by phone for over a month.  He’d been married that August before I met him.  I didn’t know that for a very long time afterwards.  I learned a lot of things afterwards.  None of it matters now.  My only caveat is if he had told the truth, I would have allowed him anything, I would have forgiven him anything.

     I have a certain code of ethics by which I live.  I know there is no stopping a cheater from cheating.  I have never tried.  I would never try.  I expect loyalty in a relationship.  I expect fealty.  I am saying these things, because without the ex, without his …girlfriend … I would never have solidified my code of conduct, which includes a new clause for certain things that weren’t there before I met him.  Before I met him, I was far more than tolerant.  Boys will be boys.  ‘Sex is like pissing.’ to quote the Diego Rivera line in the movie Frida.  The way I had been brought up said it didn’t matter what happened, as long as we were open and honest about everything within the context of our relationship.  I had held on to that since I was a teen-ager.  The man I dated in high school is what set that bar.  Anne Rice helped, with her Vampire Chronicles.  When Marius told Armand, try a boy, try a girl, try them all—to paraphrase, very badly, I am certain.  But, the point remains…so long as there are consenting adults, be my guest.  If you don’t try, how will you know?  I have never held that particular … exhortation against anyone. 

     I do not believe in fidelity for the most part.  I am faithful to an awful point.  Even when I was married to a serial cheater, the only time, since meeting the man, that I slept w anyone else was after we were legally separated.  I had had opportunities, ones that I really wish I had taken at times.  There is one married man who is probably still married in name only who was such a good friend, I should have cheated with him to give him the surcease for a few minutes he so craved and needed.  I have never once regretted being faithful to the faithless.  If given the choice, I would continue along my same chosen path.  I was the wild girl, but I was also the one person who, when she dated three or four guys at a time, told every single one of them, and usually had them meet one another at some point so they would know each other on sight.  None of the men ever had a problem w each other over me.  Everyone knew up front, where I stood, and where everyone else stood.  We never had any problems.  Honesty and communication were always key.

     Nowadays, I have a man that makes every other person in the whole world pale by comparison.  There is no way I would seek succor outside our relationship.  There is no way I would want to or need to if the possibility ever arose.  There is no way he would or could either.  There is no reason to, we are that well matched.  Where there was doubt with the ex, there is no doubt here with my boyfriend.  Not a hint.  Not a smidgen.  Not a trace. 

     Funny, the ex-husband introduced us.  I cannot think about the ex now without smiling, because if not for his desire to find someone to go out and do ‘couples’ things with, I would never have met the love of my life.  This man is completely re-defining the things I thought I knew so well while with the ex.  He is reminding me of the person I was before I met the ex, the person who was much more open, much more alive.  I was broken then, yes, but I was still so much more alive then.  I was young, a teenager, just starting to get through all the teen angst garbage, starting to find myself and propel myself forward.  I thought I had hold of the best thing in the whole wide world.  Then I allowed that one man to completely destroy my soul in one fell swoop—and I so lost my soul and my will to even survive that I gave him complete control over every little thing.  St Louis was supposed to ‘save’ our marriage, his words.  It saved me, saved my soul, even if it had to break me into smaller pieces before I could be reunited and whole once more.

     I am grateful for that.  To the girlfriend, to the pseudo-priestess, to the little men in between.  I would not have my two kids now if not for the egregious notions and narrow-mindedness of certain people.  As terrible as that sounds.  My children, my family, they are my life.  Not that I cannot or do not steal time away from them to have private time alone with the true love of my life (versus the false god of the ex-husband), but I still have more now than I have ever had before while out on my own.  I am blessed. 

     I cannot say thank you enough.

     This is the eulogy for my poor deceased bread machine.  I am absolutely glad my boyfriend loaned/gave me his bread maker eons ago when mine was still in storage—before mine was thrown violently around in a big moving truck that flipped upside down.  The old bread maker put up an incredible fight.  Only a few of her programming buttons still work.  Tonight her rotator stopped rotating.  She lead an eventful life, she did.  Even put away in storage for so long.

     And, as much as it grieves me to say, my boyfriend’s bread maker will soon follow—but only because it’s a one pound load machine…and my old girl was 1 ½ pounds…and I am notorious for making large quantities of dough that this small one pounder won’t really be able to keep up with, even though it is a very good machine…

     So, as much as it pains me, so long, farewell, adieu my long-time friend.  As I rid myself of your old beaten up countenance, perhaps you can take with you all these memories of the ex and the good times and the bad times and all the rest of the miscellaneous detritus I still have around me because of him.