It is the first time in years that I have felt like this, as if I couldnt face the day. I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to deal with the sorrow, the fear, the pain, the horror of my grandson in the custody of children services. There is no reason or rhyme, no need for this to be happening to my daughter.

Between that and the cancer that was found in my sister in law; with that and the festering stupidity of my father and my brother in this case; that and the fear of losing my son as well; that and this horrible job with the catty backbiting bitches from hell; all I want to do is run away. or die. I know what my mother feels.

Oh My God sometimes I hate my family. Today my mother calls me; she sent 200 to my daughter to get a baby carriage, because ACS is threatening to take my new grandson away from his mother for whatever reason and my daughter flaked out. SHE JUST GAVE BIRTH FOR FUCKS SAKE!!! WHY THE FUCK IS ACS HARRASSING HER??? So this wiped my mom's money out. Meanwhile, Dad is being an asshole to my mom; my brother is a fucking jerk to everyone, his poor wonderful wife is constantly in tears over his shit and SHE has cancer!!! WTF is wrong with the men in my family??? We haven't even GOTTEN to my son and his assholery.....

My mother was in tears today. Sobbing on the phone wishing she were dead to escape this hell. I am thinking of giving up my life in Lancaster to go to my youngest daughter and help her with her son; anything not to lose my grandson. I hate ACS and all government children service agencies. And my own boyfriend doesn't or cannot understand this, and struggles to just say one nice thing....

And the roof is leaking at Capt A's, and I can't help but blame myself for leaving. My dog needs me and I cna't be with her. or with my daughter. or with my granddaughter - unless I give up trying to live a normal life.

I know what my mother is feeling, and she's feeling 100x worse than I am. I know there's something I can do, but it does mean giving up living a normal life. I don't know if I'm strong enough for that.

My sister in law - the cool one, the good one, the one that loves me, the one my granddaughter calls mommy - has breast cancer. My youngest brother's wife. How is it that this person, who is so full of love and goodness, gets cancer, and the rest of us unrepentant dangerous living sinners get nothing?? WTF?

Mom calls it 'life bombs', when things happen that shake our world.

Teribaby's due to give birth any day between now and Oct 6. Her 'husband' wants me to stay over but I have a job. Love the job. Want to keep it. But I will see her and he in a week's time.

And then I'll visit my family in NY. Ebo's doing fine, with Kenny and Ivy. I can't wait to sit with Ivy and talk with her! Visit with my son and meet his older woman girlfriend, and try to convince the man he's becoming to avoid the street more... sigh.

My roommate is way freaking cool. She and I are much more alike than I thought.

My BFF Gypsy makes me happy. My BFF Bean and her life is.. I can't NOT like it... though it is very convoluted!

And my RayZOR... how I wish he's just STOP BEING so tetchy and crotchety... LOL but it's comforting even as it annoys me. Wierd.

I know a few people who are single who are loveable, but who's characters/personalities make it difficult. And sometimes I think they don't give someone a chance to come in for whatever reasons. I hope they find who will truly appreciate them.

I look like my mom more and more.

How unfair that all my mom's memories and experiences die with her. All that she was is unknown to her kids.

We all live within a vacuum - our experiences and how they mark, shape and affect us are all trapped within us. Many try to write it out but... how can anyone know?

Do I want to know what my mother's experiences and life was/is like? Yes. I wish we didn't lose the breadth and richness of experience of our ancestors when they passed on. I know my children only know part of me... they will not know all of what I have experienced and learned. I wish I could know my mom's life before me. I wish I could know my daughters' lives... I wish they could know mine.

Fearful, now,. Truly. A friend lost the job he just acquired. Jobs are scarce, and I see all the possible signs to a great depression, globally. What happened? Why can't we dig out of this? Why did I ever have kids, to have to suffer through this? I do not want to fall into despair. I have to hope we can survive.

I write this here, because I have no one else to blame but myself, and I'm not going to ask for anyone's help.

The money I had set aside for rent, I sent to make sure my son wasn't killed. I now have nothing to pay for rent, and it is due this weekend. I also haven't got the payment for my insurance, and it is due this weekend.

Should I not have paid off my son's drug debt? Probably not, but I couldn't live with myself thinking he'd be shot or beat to death. Should I have made a greater effort to find work between April 19th and May 6th? considering that I did everything I could except get a low paying job in a restaurant, I think I did the best I could, especially since the Census office here wanted me available - but I do wish they had taken me on immediately after the QACs closed on April 19th.

I may have to wait three weeks for my first paycheck, or it may come on the 18th. By then, I am thinking I will have a couple of overcharges to my account. Of course, I can call the gym in the AM and have them hold my account for a month, but I don't know if I'm in time. I can also 'claim' my card missing, but really, I'm not a good liar like that.

I will call the insurance company in the am and the gym and see what I can do. I can, perhaps, also call my bank to see if any new charges can be held until the 18th, and find out from the Census Bureau when my new pay starts. But since I got paid the 19th on May 4th, I don't hold out much hope.

Dammit all to hell.

I have the creepy crawlies. I don't know if it's fleas (but I see/find none), bed bugs (no indication AT ALL and I'm actively searching), head lice (no sign), allergic reaction to my own hair/my dog's hair (could be, it's turning into spring and any of my allergies pounce about now) or just stress (the combination of stress-induced allergies is loads of fun).

I can physically feel the things crawling on my skin and there's nothing there. Sometimes it's under my skin. Like littler critters, wriggling along. GAH! Hate this. Called it ghostbugs too.

I'm moving. I've alot of cleanup to do prior. and I've not gotten to any of it yet. The job is stressing me out - the one I have now and the future lack of one. My phone's dead thanks to my forgetting the charger at Oddity's. so I've not heard from my kids and THAT's stressing me out.

Capt A's phone is dead too. His birthday's today. I can't make it to the dinner 'cause I have to work. GRRRRRRRRR.

So, new life changes.

I'm moving finally to Lancaster. I'm moving in with a friend and still rather desperately looking for work. I forgot my charger at Oddity's and I NEED my phone to be working for any job calls!!! so dumb somtimes.

I have to get rid (not reduce - rid!) myself of all my clutter. I want to learn french so bad I can taste it but I can't seem to devote the time needed to learn it on my own. I have a movie to watch that I just can't sit still long enough to watch - and it's something I WANT to watch! My last week of work is next week and the clutter on my desk is never-ending....

I love Oddity. Let me state for the record that the only reason I'm NOT moving in with him is that we can't, yet, co-abide. I have to learn to declutter, and he has to accept a little less space. We have things to work out. And I want to provide a space for my youngest to come up so I can help her with her pregnancy and baby - can't do that living with my friend or with Ray. It's going to get hairy.

But that's okay.

and Oddity writes on his Myspace:

" Marching forward
Current mood: loved
March 1st.

I'm excited.

First, an excerpt from Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards

" just because you're going forward..does'nt mean i'm going backwards! "

Kicking off the month this weekend with Shadowland. Love it !!
The big news, my girlfriend of 1 year and 10 months is finally making the move from york PA to Lancaster PA. We will be living only about 5 minutes apart, deciding it was best not to live together right from the start. We are mostly adjusted to each other but still learning. I have been on my own for 21 of the past 24 years.

We are different in the way we live at home, but nothing dramatic. She is a morning person, i am not. I like space when i first get home from work. I like my place clean and organized. Nerva is making several sacrifices to be with me and i know it will be hard at first. I will do anything i can to make her transition as comfy as i can.

But we will finally be closer together, free from the shackles of not seeing each other during the week. For the first time in my life i have found my other half. Someone who gets me and loves me despite my weaknesses. I am very lucky and i feel this is special. I never really knew exactly what love is, but this feels right. It is a wonderful feeling and i have waited a long time. Wish us luck !! "

oh gods, I love this man. I love him in all his moods, in all his rants and meltdowns and joy and strangeness. I am happy to wait, but we will be one. He makes me so happy.

I'm excited.

my youngest daughter is pregnant. my son is fighting against heroin. my first son-in-law is going to jail for defending himself. my eldest is working fulltime AND fulltime school. my granddaughters sounds far too old.

and oddity writes:

"Thinking of you
It's heaven and blue
My heart beats
Wherever you are.
Does'nt matter
If it's near or far
This is my destiny
This is my love.
With you
I am complete."

wow.

the things I see:

An angry squirrel (Foamy?) in the water and dust marks on the silver lid of the trashcan in the bathroom. He's looking straight at me.

a face in the carpeting of my floor - it's a stick figure, really, oval head, one large straight thick dash for one eye, a thinner dash for the other, and it's glaring at me.

faces in the wall of the bathroom
eyes on the walls of the bedroom
eyes in the foam of the soap while I'm washing

things move when I'm not watching them directly.

The marks on the walls vibrate and 'speak'

I can hear the things in the walls everywhere I go. but they're not the rats or mice or stuff.

Funny thing is that the stuff others would be afraid of - the plush bats and spiders and the bloody handprints and fake spiders I have all over my room - they don't move, or talk, or make faces, or anything. They are inert. It's the stuff that is normal that my brain warps.

oh oh oh he called me his soulmate. I am his soulmate. He is mine.

Tuesday I had an anxiety attack. the biggest thing was this inability to make a decision and I could not sit still to save my life, but I could NOT walk out the door. Stayed home. Hope it doesn't increase.

Leaving the job either feb 28 or 3/15. I should do it 3/15. but I gave myself the weekend to think about it. I scheduled for a census test on Saturday and now I want to stay and work at my job... drat it all!!!

my friend invited me to dreamation but it's so close to NY, so far from here. and I want to dance.

and all the things, and worlds, and voices, and eyes, inside me clamour for my attention.

my oddity, my Ray, has done it again. with words printed on a screen, he's made me feel his love, like no one else ever has ... it is a heady, humbling, incredible feeling to know he loves me as I love him.

WHEN BIRDS SINGS

Hundreds of days without her
but yet i smile quietly as never before
with memories filling like weekends
Her lips so full
never leave me empty
but always begging for more
The days approach endlessly
when rivers cross
and we meet on the other side
This is when the lights will shine
when sun and moon converge
bringing two hearts together
Always in my arms
it's where i want her to be
never letting go, never far away
This was always a dream
a slice of heaven
and soon she will arrive
I'll be waiting
with my heart in my hand
and love in her eyes
I smile quietly, happily
we've come a long way
and this is where we will meet
As winter grows into spring
when birds sing the most
together we'll stand in sunshine

I'm glad I'm not defined by my illness or my body's wierdnesses. I'm glad I tried, hard, to not be defineable at all. I remember that Capt A told me that I was 'unpigeonholeable'. I like that.

I don't know if I'm still like that, but I'm not usual. I'm not run of the mill. Why be like everyone else? You are a compilation of experiences so unique to you that no one will ever be like you - and so, you are unique.

I like that while the mental and emotional freakouts are gone, I still have this tenuous attachment to reality. I like that I feel so deeply that sometimes it feels like a storm, violent and chaotic, whether that feeling is anger or hatred or love or sadness or desire or just joy. I wonder what I'll be like during the menopausal period.

I like going grey. I wish it would be a tad faster - I admire my co-worker's full head of grey hair, so pretty. On the other hand, while I can say I hate my hair, it IS pretty cool, curling and full and dark with light patches. I look much better in long hair (really; but short hair is so much more convenient in winter....)

I like my body. I can say it here, I hope: I am so freaking glad that I don't gain weight all that easily. I love the slim lines - and yes, age is putting sag and fat into places I'm not accustomed to seeing like that, but that's the way it is.

I dislike the pain I feel almost constantly but I also feel this is me, living. This is my experiences and physical proof of my life; the good and the bad, the activity and the injuries. My hips hurt all the time, sitting is REALLY painful, I walk far too much and my upper back and shoulders and neck are feeling the effects of forceful meetings with cars and wrestling with my friends. My knees, THANKFULLY, do not bother me. My lower back, while occasionally fretful, is doing well. I wish my digestion weren't so freaky, but eh. Small price to pay to remain slender, at least in my opinion. :)

off to work. more to come.

There's alot of stories out now, about dealing and living with bipoloar syndrome, and schizophrenia. When it first hits most people, it is like the bottom falls out of what you know is real, and this yawning abyss beckons, calls to you, drags you down.

I've never been severely either way; while I do get depressed (more like dramatically stressed) I haven't WANTED to take my life since my youngest was born. I did have the whole post partum blues though - that's kinda normal. What I have been is insanely manic - while not diagnosed, I'm pretty much poster Adult ADD. I think it's a fun ride, personally.

However, while I've never really suffered some of the really terrible things featured in books, I do have this: I hear voices. They don't always make sense. I see things. I've learned to distinguish. I get the wierd thoughts, like ghost insects that bite me constantly, or the sense that things are moving in the dark and they touch me. The world can get a little wierd for people without the dramatic manifestations of schizophrenia but who are still clinically so.

Last night I could feel the fire on and under my skin, and the bubbles in the water from washing my hands were myriads of eyes watching me, telling me things. The feel of the toothbrush in my mouth was intense; the toothpaste shocking and overwhelmingly mint and sharp. How horrifying could this be to someone who's experiencing this for the first time, or realizing that this is the underlying noise of the life they've led? It is not easily understood.

I've had this all my life, as far as I know. I don't have lots of memories of my childhood, but I do remember the weird things, the slowing down of time, the echo factor, the voices, the wierd beliefs, the odd physical sensations - cloth on my skin was sometimes unbearable, and even today I dont' like anything snug around my actual waist - the wall crawling and the wierd things happening, and the ease in which I was taken advantage of - because I didn't live in the world everyone else did. I lived somewhere else.

So I'm brushing my teeth last night, dispassionately cataloging the sensations and impressions my wierdly wired brain was giving me, knowing that the bubbles were only bubbles but still seeing them watch me and talk to me. Theyw ere alive, and I was reminded of Lovecraftian novels - the reading of which to my incredibly suggestible mind might not have been the best thing to do - and chuckled to myself, wondering if it was mad Azathoth - but no, he's blind..

and just like that, it turned off, as I turned off the lights, and returned to my computer to finish chatting with my beau. As I got older, it was easier to engage the madness without causing it to collapse my reality.

It wasn't that easy when I was younger, but at least, I never lost complete connection. I am very lucky that it is so mild with me. I've had my moments, really bad, but today I can at least identify the manic moments, and work out the bad times and episodes, and laugh at the madness inside.

But schizophrenia and all the other mental illnesses - these aren't laughing matters. I believe that many more people experience the milder forms, and take it in stride, but it may just be that instead of an illness, it is something we have to learn to live with as a societal whole. I don't think it will get better; I suspect future generations of the human race are in for a wierd, bumpy ride.

My pet rhinocerous beetle is on Ugly Overload!!! I went to tell him, but methinks he was less than interested.. LOL

Dawn from my room. The horizon looks as if it's on fire, red and orange and yellows blending into the various spectra of blue. It's beautiful. I'll miss this vista. I get the rising sun right into my window, and it shines on my bed. Awesomeness.

Day before got violent winds around 4:15am. I like the dual feeling of being exposed and sheltered from the storms in this room, back room with two walls to the outside, two windows too.

Missing my RayZor. Missing my kids too, and my grandkid, who turns 9 in little over a week. I also wish I could see my mom and dad. But it would involve returning to NY - and that stops my heart cold. I don't wanna go back there.

Snow is tentatively forecast for this weekend. I want to see Ray so bad. It's also Shadowland Lancaster, and I don't want the weather to affect attendance - it's the one year anniversary of being at Lizard Lounge.

Oh, I so wish I lived already in Lancaster. I could be hanging with Gypsy and gaming with Guy; I could be goofing with Grace, or Lori and I could be talking over tea and being silly. I could be cooking at Thorne's or drinking and carousing with Christie or Lizard; I could be reading in a coffee shop or coming home from work to see Ray, or wake up in the morning next to him (not often - but still more than now!). I could be working, perhaps two jobs though that's a stretch, and experiencing newness on my own. I still need to find a situation for my Michelle, though ideally, she would be with me (and omg, my heaven would be complete).

Every time I see RayZOR's name my heart skips a beat. How pathetic is that??? It doesn't matter if it is totally unrelated to me - or even if it's unrelated to him!!! Sheesh!

I'm going to miss my job when I move. The biggest thing: Knowing Everything, or as close to knowing everything as I can get. I love knowing how to use all the programs, to get all of it working for me/my customer/client, to know where to look for information or to give an educated guess based on prior and related knowledge. I love learning new things because then I can give that information on to customers.

Im so going to miss that!!! I hope that I can find a job that is like that in Lancaster.

so pissy as I was 'cause I am not going to see Ray this weekend, I decided I'll see if Suzanne is about. She was, and so she picked me up from home and we went off to her house. On the way, we were singing a female version of a beegees song, and we went to hug (she's very affectionate). The wheel turned just a little and we hit a parked car, and totally fucked up Langston's right front. Needless to say, I feel awful 'cause if she had not picked me up or if I had just held off on the hugging, it wouldn't have happened. She needs affection - lots of it. Bendito sea, I felt so bad about it.

I didn't panic - not even worry, really, 'cause we didn't hurt ourselves. But she had just gotten Langston out of the shop that day on the same kind of injury.

We ended up parting ways after the two hours from accident to final towing, and I walked home from Madison between Elm Terrace and Roosevelt to where I live. I'm amazed at my sense of direction - I know exactly where to go even in the dark (and EVERYTHING looks strange in the dark!!!) No fear, no worries - and I'm proud that I can do that, and aware that as the years encroach, that sort of behavior will become riskier...

I learned a very valuable lesson in paying attention to the road and not being distracted. I wish it hadn't happened to Suzanne, though; she's had so much happen to her. :(

Another friend in Lancaster offered me a roommate position possibly opening in a couple of months. OMG to be in lancaster that soon?

But I would like to have my dog with me.

Missing Ray is like physical pain; I want to be there near him. I dont want to move in with him yet - there's so much readjustment I have to make and he has to be willing to make for that to happen. But I want to be where I can see him when I want to - not to mention being able to hang with friends more of my mindset and freedom, and going to do things and see places closer to me as a pedestrian...

Ooooooooo the wait! the wait!!! ah well. second job starts Friday... who needs sleep? Really?

You know, every day, shit happens. What makes a difference isn't that shit happens, but how you deal with it.

Sometimes I get depressed. most of it is chemical - in other words, no real reason behind it. Though I must say that there are very good reasons, in my life, to be depressed. It's just not worth it.

What I do get is Manic; however, I can and have been working around it - and at least, lately, I've not let it send me into a spiral of self-destruction.

I feel very vividly. Some things trigger a hatred in me so profound I could kill. The only other thing that makes me feel like killing is jealousy. I'm proud to say that I've managed to talk myself out of the worse of that!

I'm going to sound like Oddity now. 2007 I graduated and found out about Shadowland Lancaster. I went a couple of times but since I can't drive, didn't have with whom to ride. I didn't know enough of the kinds of people who liked this stuff.

Then I became closer with someone that others told me wasn't so great. She turned out to be abso-perfect-fabulous. I consider her a best friend. We enjoyed SL. Then when she couldn't go, I got lucky and Temptation offered to take me to SL.

It was at this point that I realized my feelings for Capt A were fading. How? Why? I suspect that once I returned to what I loved - dancing and cavorting - that what I had with him couldn't last.

It was there that I saw someone as if from my past - mohawked and outrageous, this young man was reticent yet the center of attention. At one point he asked how I had so much energy. I tend to brag about my age and then he told me he was.. two years older than I.

I didn't know it then, but that was the first wall that came down in my heart. The rest was more subtle. The conversation about 'One More Time' by The Cure - a song I treasured - and he loves The Cure. The fact that he didn't shy away from being so noticeable, despite his shyness. He seemed so vulnerable, so sweet and fierce.

It was easy to be around him. And yet, I wanted to protect him. The night I wanted to kiss him and didn't, I knew I was doomed.

Breaking up with Captn A was horrible. I had fully fixed a future with this wonderful man, and now I was destroying it with hurtful words: I don't love you anymore. It was terrible. I was doing the hurting, me.

The day I kissed Oddity, I knew that there was no going back. I had found the other part of me. It felt and still feels so right. I was whole and where I belonged, when I was next to him. My heart lived in his chest, and his in mine. AND HE FREELY ADMITTED IT.

I was floored by his reactions. He loved me. I was his world, too. I am his world. And it doesn't feel like a dream anymore. It's real. We have had our fights, our disagreeemnts; he can be petulantly stubborn and I am a yeller. I an very calm yet when I blow up, I blow up. I cry easily, but ... so does he. And for someone who hasn't been in such an intimate relationship for so long, it isn't easy to connect in the way we are connecting.

I am moving heaven and earth to be near him. I've lots to overcome - lack of driving, lack of organization, a terrible tendency to packratedness, and a host of other sins that need to be quietly addressed.

Even when I'm so angry at him I could hit him (I am regrettably violentminded) I want to touch him softly and caress him and watch his eyes change.

I always saw his eyes. They were proud and scared, strong and soft, fierce and shy, inquisitive and bold. I loved his smile and moreso what was behind that smile. I love to hear him laugh. I love to hear him talk. I love to watch him move, walk, drive, interact, be silly. Sometimes I get hit by random memories of him or of his scent, or I hear his voice, and I can feel my knees get weak and my heart go nuts.

I wonder sometimes how it will be later down the line of our years. There are so many challenges yet we have to face. I hope we're up to it. I would like my last sight on this earth be his face, lined, aged, crotchety, but mine. My love, my heart, my soul.

I turned 45 sunday. It was a beautiful day. I walked around with friends, and laid in Oddity's arms.

I belong to his world. He belongs in mine. He found this song (and of course it is added to the Canon of Oddity):

Falling by Informatik

Standing there without a care so far away from home
Found myself you don't know where that I was not alone
all my dream did not prepare for what was soon to come
standing there without a care that's when you came along

you're in my arms you don't even know me
I don't know you I want you to show me
I don't need to know where this is going
I'm falling I'm falling I'm falling for you.2x

Let us make a good getaway so we might be alone
Getting late no time to waste there's so much to explore
Something rare is in the air too real to be ignored
Its as though the hands of fate have brought you to my world

you're in my arms you don't even know me
I don't know you I want you to show me
I don't need to know where this is going
I'm falling I'm falling I'm falling for you.2x

We lose ourselves
We shed our clothes
We share our fears
We bear our souls 2x

With the sun the time has come for now you have to go
Not quite sure what I should say I stumble with the words
As I watch you turn away and walk on out the door
In my heart I hope and pray one day there will be more

you're in my arms you don't even know me
I don't know you I want you to show me
I don't need to know where this is going
I'm falling I'm falling I'm falling for you.2x