Low Maintenance / High Maintenance Bullshit Monikers

Dear Composer Boy,

I would like to officially exchange the title of "low maintenance" womyn bestowed upon me by you. I did not realize at the time of our conversation that being low maintenance meant complacently waiting around for promised phone calls which never ever arrive. I did not realize that being low maintenance meant a serene smiling acceptance of being made to feel more insignificant than your pet frog. I did not realize that being low maintenance meant you get to make the schedule of any and all contact because your "business" supercedes mine. I have a much clearer understanding now; I was ignorant before and should have consulted a dictionary at the very least. I am hoping you have an exchange policy, as I have decided that the title of "high maintenance bitch" will be far more comfortable to travel in and is machine washable to boot; "low maintenance" just doesn't fit very comfortably and I've found it clashes with my sense of self respect.

Impatiently awaiting your reply,
High Maintenance Bitch
(ooh, that does fit quite nicely!)

The Lone Monkey

The man at the unnamed coffee establishment that I am deeply ashamed of having frequented (it was the only thing near the sdj besides tepid deli coffee and I was having a caffeine emergency) gave me 4 extra shots of espresso in my frufru coffee drink because he said I looked like I desperately needed it. I'm not sure whether to be grateful for the windfall of caffeine or wounded for looking desperately overexhausted. This sums up my day and my outlook rather succinctly.

I realized today that I've been expending an incredible amount of energy on anything and everything but myself. Somewhere along the line when I started to feel better, I dove kamikaze style back into the fray of life, forgetting that I'm still healing and growing and need to allow myself that room to expand. I've been focusing on everyone else, including the 2 boys, but not at all on myself. I thought I was being good about checking in, but really I've just been checking out.

And I'm tired. So very tired - in a worn out way, like an old shoe that's traversed the city a few too many times. I want to at least think I'm a cute shoe, like a funky boot or cute stylish pump, but I'm afraid its looking more likely that I'm an ugly orthepedic nightmare of a shoe. Like a white old lady shoe that's turned beige with wear and has velcro straps. You know its a sad thing when velcro comes into the conversation.

Lady Charon and I sort of dove deep today, to discover what was behind all the dating frustration as of late (ie feeling suffocated by Doc Harley, ignored by Composer Boy, and still in love with Mr. Emotionally Unavailable), and I'm not sure I was necessarily ready to face all that was hidden underneath the complexity that is my web of heart and guts and who knows what else.

My brother was my security blanket in life; he was the one I always relied upon and turned to in times of joy and fear and sorrow alike. In our family dynamic, he was parent and sibling both; the one I trusted and the one who made everything okay. While he did indeed violate that trust in severe ways, he was still my unfailing support and comfort in life, as odd as that sounds. Lady Charon likens it to a picture she once saw of orphaned monkeys huddling together in a life raft - that was me and my brother. When he died, it was like the whole world turned overnight into this terrifying unimaginably threatening place, not only because of the circumstances of his suicide, but also because the one person that was supposed to always protect me and make it all okay had designed and created this nightmarish world...a nightmarish world in which I was left alone, the sole monkey in my life raft.

I keep searching for someone to come rescue me, or at least come paddle with me so that I'm not in the raft alone. Its scary out there. I don't even have a freakin life jacket and I've swallowed so much salt water already I must be a little dehydrated. I'm afraid I don't know how to paddle and the waves seem awfully big and I feel awfully small. What if I loose my paddle? It feels like the raft is going to flip any moment now with the next big wave...

I have been searching for that unique intimacy and security that comes from huddling in a life raft with someone for many years - or at least a facsimile thereof. And I can't and won't find it; its irreplacable. I have to learn to paddle on my own and be brave and that is so unbelievably hard when you had 23 years in which someone took care of you, or so you felt. It seems herculean, at best, and sometimes I just can't stand another day on the ocean alone.

But until I make peace with it, I will continue to have an ongoing what my brother called "crise du jour" with my love life.

That and I need to stop dating damaged freaks.

The Power of the People

I am back, safe and sound and with renewed strength and commitment. It was a truly wondrous, empowering, and inspiring march with over 300,000 people who felt so compelled to speak out that they came from almost every state and travelled great distances despite inflated gas prices and not-so-coincidental shutdown of amtrak in the northeastern corridor the day of the march. There were so many people there, the march wrapped around on itself and no one could even start walking for a couple of hours.

Lady Alice and I were with the Code Pink contingent the whole day, staying right up at the front of the group and using our incredibly loud voices to help get the chants going. Evidently, if you dress up like a huge freak in a noticeable costume, people give you even more credit for knowing exactly what's going on; we were asked about 10 times each if we knew where Cindy Sheehan was, as well as being asked other official march information. It was also really interesting to see people's reactions to Code Pink - Lady Alice and I, being walking advertisements for the group, were given huge hugs by random strangers all day, who would loudly proclaim their undying love for Code Pink.

One womyn came up to me while I was briefly chatting with Sarachkah and her whole family who came for the march (their were 3 generations there!), and asked if she could have Sarachkah take her picture with me and Sarachkah's baby (who was sporting a fabulous "I already know more than the president" shirt). I said sure, and as people had been taking my picture all day, I thought nothing of it. It turns out that her son is in Iraq right now and she has people all over the country that she emails who are praying for him; she calls these people her son's guardian angels. Well, I happened to be dressed as an angel, and she was thrilled to see me and asked me to think of him and pray for him; I assured her I would. It was a very real moment, reminding us all exactly why we were there.

Another womyn came up to me at one point, asking if I knew where Cindy was; she seemed to be barely holding on and there was a definite air of desperation in the overly rigid way she held her body. As I tied a pink ribbon on her arm, she told me about her son, who had just come home from Iraq and who is not doing well at all. He has horrible post traumatic stress and is suicidal and she's beside herself with worry about him. We forget about counting those casualties of war as well; those who are so damaged by their experience that their lives are essentially lost. I hugged her as tightly as I could for a few minutes and told her that I was marching for her son that day too. She said she called him to tell him that she was there marching for him; I told her to tell him there was a virtual army of people marching for him, and that we send our love and support. It was heartbreaking and touching and incredibly powerful.

I danced on the lawn with a little girl with Down's Syndrome who told me all those people were going to stop a war.

The day was filled with images and experiences such as those; 300,000 people's worth of stories and viewpoints and commitment to ending the loss of life. It was truly a sea of humanity, and it renewed my faith in the existance of humanity. Its very easy to see how caught up people tend to be in their own little microcosms and you begin to wonder if its hopeless to search for some sort of a collective spirit...some concern for the whole instead of merely the self. Seeing the neverending walls of people everywhere who were indeed concerned about more than their own little lives was heartening in a way that I could never begin to put into words, but those who were there can understand.

And those were just the ones who were able to or felt strongly enough about the issue to show up! There are countless more.

At the Operation: Ceasefire concert and rally after the march, one of the speakers (I think it was actually Jello Biafra) told a story about how at the 1969 Moratorium and Mobilization against the Vietnam war, the turnout was so huge that one very prominent activist said he would be very suprised if Nixon didn't pull out right then and there. When Nixon did not indeed pull out, he was extremely discouraged and felt like the whole thing was innefectual. Not that long ago, through the Freedom of Information Act, he discovered documents proving that while it did not in fact end the war, that protest was a huge factor in Nixon's ultimate decision not to drop nuclear bombs in Vietnam.

I will never again let anyone question the power of protest.

On the (Anti) War Path

Where the hell does the time go? The city is like a this odd vaccum, wherein time passage hits hyperspeed, and despite your best efforts at ensuring each second is full to overflowing, you wake up and realize that you haven't done shit and months even years have gone by in the interim.

I meant to post a long winded account of my so called dating life, as it stands now, as well as tell about my impromptu meeting with Mr. Emotionally Unavailable last night (no jumping down my throat allowed until I actually post about the whole encounter, and no, I didn't sleep with him), but alas the day just kind of slipped through my fingers somehow.

I leave in fifteen minutes to head towards a bus bound for DC, where I will spend my weekend shouting, singing, and marching in a cloud of pink. I am not bringing my computer; if I am arrested I trust one of the readers that melds over into my real life will be kind enough to post comments on this post, alerting everyone of my status. I'm not planning on engaging in any cd (civil disobedience), but you just never know; after all, I was obeying all laws when arrested during the RNC. I will be marching with Code Pink's womyn's contingent, including Joan Baez, as well as participating in other Code Pink events and the Green Festival. It should be a truly inspiring weekend...and I have to go before I miss my bus.

Rent! Is Not a Cheesy Musical so Much as a Gruesome Horror Movie

I was going to write a post regarding the bizarre adventure that is my dating life.

That was before I looked at my bank account online.

That was before the gigantic panic attack that I am now having.

How could one little person fuck up so much with their finances?

Can I crawl under my desk and cry now? Will that help make money magically appear? Because I'm about to do it anyway...

Take Your Solipsistic Whining and Shove It!

I'm hearing on NPR a whole news report devoted to a bunch of Chicagoans who are evidently up in arms about the upcoming name change of the Marshall Fields department store chain. This is, in my opinion, the height of ridiculousness. Considering everything going on in the world today, it speaks a lot for our solipsistic consumerist priorities; instead of being up in arms about the huge loss of life occurring in Iraq or having occurred in New Orleans, these people are instead choosing to focus their energies on the loss of a department store name? Can we really be this shallow of a society? This is making me nauseated.

Come on people, its a fucking store! Are you that brainwashed by the almighty consumerist frenzy?

To The Boys

To the boys I am currently spending time getting to know:

Please do not write bad poetry supposedly inspired by me. This is not a compliment; bad poetry is an offensive insult on all counts (artistic and personal) and never a compliment. If you do write bad poetry supposedly inspired by me, please do not send it to me. I will email it to my friends and they will then call me and read it aloud back to me while I am at the sdj, thus causing a great commotion when I am snort laughing so hard that coffee pours forth from my nostrils. If you do write bad poetry supposedly inspired by me and have the bad taste to share it with me, please do not then call to ask if I have received it. This puts me in an uncomfortable position and creates much telephonic awkward silence as I do not lie, especially where art is concerned. I understand you meant well, and this was to be a sweet gesture illustrating your feelings; however, I am a jaded old fart who is unimpressed by sweet romantic gestures if they are artistically offensive. Bad poetry is, in fact, a huge turn off, and despite the good intentions, nothing can be less sexy than high school pretention. So please do reserve your flowery phrases to those special quiet moments...with yourself.

Please do not become defensive and act as if I am an imposition on your truly busy schedule if I happen to make a joke about your disappearance being due to disgust over my slovenly ways. I was not calling to passively aggressively chide you about not having returned my call this weekend; I was calling to find out if our tentative plans for tonight were still on. The reason I was asking about our tentative plans for tonight was that, suprisingly enough, you are not the only person in the city of New York that happens to be extremely busy. This would be why I am not at all disturbed by your business, despite what you seem to want to believe...I happen to suffer from the self same malady of overcommitment.

I merely made a teensy weensy joke about not knowing if you were not speaking to me because of my slovenly ways. I thought this to be a cute acknowledgement of the fact that 1. you were horrified at exactly what a slob I am and 2. I hadn't spoken to you since I last traumatized you with my messiness. Had I said something along the lines of "Why didn't you call me back?" in an annoying whining tone, perhaps that would probably give you reason to believe that I was upset about it. I did not. I happened to have been busy all weekend as well. I made a cute joke, being one who tries not to take myself too seriously. Its a good tactic, perhaps you should try it.

I would rather not be made to feel as though I am not being understanding of exactly how busy you are (poor baby, I feel your pain), when I am making no demands on your busy schedule. I have plenty to do on my own without being made to feel as though I am a demanding unsympathetic burden to fit in.

So boys, to sum it all up, I am an understanding non-demanding hellaciously busy straightforward womyn who abhors bad poetry and other such schmaltz. Pretty damn simple if you ask me.

Jumbled 2 Second Discombobulated Overview

I have been lax in my blogging as of late. This is not due to any reason other than extreme overextention in the peace and social justice movement, and when I say extreme, I mean I am so overcomitted my head is exploding. I am working on two different fundraisers for displaced Hurricane Katrina persons; I am on a Brooklyn Anti-Poverty Coalition (yes, I know I don't live in Brooklyn, but I am an honorary Brooklynite due to being the other half of a team, with Lady Alice) created to work with displaced persons relocated in Brooklyn, address the aftermath of Katrina in regards to the classism and racism and poverty issues involved, and work within our own community to address these problems; I am on a youth comittee of our local Code Pink chapter (do I still qualify as youth?), and am becoming more heavily involved with Code Pink actions, and am still one of the majpr Ladies of Liberty organizers and participants. I am also preparing to go to the massive anti-war mobilization in DC on Septemeber 24, and actively attending local demonstrations as well. I haven't had time to breathe, let alone blog.

Any and all friendship issues have now been resolved. I tend to forge deep ties with those I call my friends; connections that cannot be easily undone or let go of. As the roots run deep and hold fast, so do the friendships. This has been a constant gift throughout my life, and one that I am deeply thankful for. The love shared is far too strong for momentary incidents to destroy, and I should never have doubted that.

I am still seeing both Doc Harley and Mr. Compositionally Maxed, and learning to relax into the getting-to-know-you process, evaluating my own needs for what is probably the first time ever. I am approaching this from the perspective of what they can bring into my life rather than the perspective of the ways in which I feel insufficient; what a concept!

I feel like right now I am trusting myself to an extent I never thought quite possible and learning myself and my needs, strengths, and weaknesses in every possible capacity. This process of self discovery is empowering, like a new exciting adventure of me. I am proud of my growth, aware of the many miles ahead, and just maybe finally excited about the path ahead.

I am also exhausted (wow, there's something new...), and going to drift off to sleep at a relatively decent hour for once (1am, which is decent for me). I will have to save the longer explanations for another post; I'm lucky I know my own name with only 3 hours of sleep and a day that began at the ungodly and unheard of hour of 7am.

Hypothetical Comprehension Problems

I'd like to set up a hypothetical situation here, because I am having some comprehension problems. Let's say, hypothetically, that someone you claim is one of your best friends did something that you felt incredibly - wait, let's up the ante and say irredeemably - hurt by. Said friend then contacts you and says that they do not fully understand the situation, never intended hurt at all, and would like to listen with open ears to how you feel and what can possibly be done to rectify the hurt you feel. Keep in mind that you have claimed this person means a hell of a lot to you and that you love them deeply. Would you merely throw away the friendship you claimed was so valuable, despite the fact that this person has always treated you with respect and love, or would you sieze the opportunity to explain your feelings in the situation and try to find a way to talk through the wreckage of this momentary battlefield and see if there is any salvation to be found?

Disclaimer To The Best of my Abilities

This is where I work out what I need to in my life; this is the place where I stand fully naked down to the guts and slime of my inner workings. I am not trying to strip anyone else but myself for the world to see. That is why I use anonymous names, that is why contrary to popular belief, everyone in my real life does not indeed posess this site address. I am only trying to figure out who I, myself, am and where I stand. I am incapable of such cruelty as to intentionally seek to upset someone by writing about anything having to do with them here.

I am not a vengeful horrible person.

I did not mean to cause anyone any pain, and had I known I was, I most definitely would have cut off my right breast before placing my fingers to the keyboard.

I am at a loss and cannot unwrite what has been written.

I am also in shock that writing out my feelings could be interpreted as a willfull stab to the heart of anyone else. I am stunned in the true sense of the word.

I am sorry. All I can say is had I known anyone would react this way I never would have written a single word. And you may claim to not believe me, but if you closely examine all you know, putting your fears and hurt and anger aside, you will see that is the truth. I did not seek to hurt, wound, marr, or damage in any way. I only sought refuge.

Hitting the Rally, the Road, and Bacchus All in One Fell Swoop

Wow, I actually survived yesterday! And it went pretty well, considering Norman Siegel was 45 minutes late and we totally had to stall for time (he arrived just as we were wrapping up because we went through all of our speakers, grabbed a few extra at the last minute, and two of us organizers spoke without intending to - my worst nightmare - unprepared public speaking). The media show was incredibly disappointing, and metro reporting something about it being the anniversary of the arrests of some horribly erroneous number of protesters, like 277 or something like that. I wonder what rally they were at? The reporter was there through almost all of it - where the number over 1800 arrestees kept being repeated over and over again. Hmmm, 1800 + vs 277...oh yeah, I see how easily such a distortion could be made. Puh-leeze.

But the best thing is that the rally, and the overwhelming anxiety I was feeling connected to it, is over and done with. And hell, at least we did something to say that the assault on civil liberties is not going unnoticed, and will not be taken lying down. We are not handing over our first amendment rights to the highest bidder and they can take their entrapment tactics and shove it up their asses.

Next up is the huge anti-war march in DC on the 24th, where thankfully I will just be along for the ride; no planning, no stress. Lady Alice and I are going with the Code Pink crew and perhaps a Lady of Liberty or two, if we can convince them to actually participate. But no more rally planning on our parts for a while; we need sleep.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am thankfully running away again (yes, I try to do that as often as possible) starting tomorrow, to go with my Dad to this crazy 4 day long labor day weekend caving tradition called Old Timer's Reunion. Its basically a 4 day long crazy party for cavers, where little to no caving is actually done, as the inebriation/drug factor is generally too high at any given point in the day. There is a naked sauna and hot tub, naked and suited areas of the river, live music at the pavillion, and a crazy costumed parade called the Doo-Dah parade every Saturday morning. Sundays there is the river wine party, where everyone puts their chairs in the shallow river and proceeds to get slodhed all afternoon. I have many humiliating stories for many an OTR past, the worst being passing out in a port-o-potty that I had to be rescued from. I also once woke up on a picnic table with a cup in my hand saying "homeless, please help" because I passed out by the huge bonfire and no one could find my campsite.

Okay, so OTR doesn't really translate to those who have not attended the Bacchanalian festivities themselves; yes its a bunch of crazy freaks half of whom are running around naked and the other half of whom are racing through a zip line strung between two trees in climbing harnesses. But cavers are a rare and spectacular breed of individuals, none of whom lack for personality. I suppose it goes with the territory - I mean we like to crawl around underground and explore what can sometimes be very scary terrain, all while laughing and trying to avoid caving behind that one gassy person who keeps blaming it on the barking cave spiders. Yes, cavers cave hard and party harder, and most rules of politess are thrown out of the window. But cavers live by a code all their own, however, and despite its odditities the caving community has always really come through in taking care of their own through death, illness, accidents...you name it. When my brother died, the cavers took care of everything thta we could have possibly needed, and in some ways they were more like family than my Dad's family from New York. I guess it goes back to the whole life-risking sport thing, where you really have to be able to rely on eachother underground, so the same applies above ground.

So I'm excited to be revisiting that community and seeing many people I haven't seen in a few years. I'm also excited to be going to the mountains of West Virginia, one of my favorite places of all time.

I've calmed down in my old age, so don't expect any crazy stories of winning Ramen Noodle Wrestling Championships (which I did several years in a row at different NSS - National Speliological Society - Conventions, back when I was younger), passing out homeless or worse, or otherwise saucy tales that used to accompany my return from OTR's of the past.

No, this year I will be well behaved.

Nah, who am I kidding? I'll be wild, but I just won't tell about it.

I Generally Hate Stupid Personality Tests

But I can't resist doing them anyway.

I got this test from Vixanne, and these were my personality results:

You are a Guru!
(Submissive Extroverted Abstract Feeler)
You are a GURU (SEAF)— kind, knowing, giving. Like Buddha of old, you can be a persuasive speaker, and you use your creative talents to further the objectives of your heart instead of your mind. But be careful that your friends don't take advantage of your relaxed nature.
Above all, you like going with the flow. That's cool. Oh yeah, you like to talk a lot. That's cool, too. Whatever.

Okay, it kind of does fit...I just don't like admitting the submissive part.