Friday. Fun. Day! Random pic alert!

Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park! She's still faitful!

My cousin Paul and his betrothed and beloved Kelly!

The buffalo DO roam! Huh?? Who knew? Made for quite a traffic jam!

Get out the way, dumb car things! I do be bigger and can tip you over!

So, dear readers...All 18 of you!!

I'm probably not gonna be ranting and raving on here for a week or so - am headed off to see my peeps on the East Coast of this good old US of A!! Yippppeeeee!

Our doggies and home will be in the care of a small and dedicated team of 20 somethings (who I'm hoping will chop wood for us and basically enjoy the warmth and loveliness of this here house of mine@@!). The dogs are totally spoiled and uber loved. Breakfast today was nectarine pancakes, with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Washed down, of course, with beef sausage.

Good gravy. Our dogs eat better than 90% of the world's population. Kinda gross, but - whatcha gonna do? I can't feed the world, can I? Well, I certainly do my part. Feeding my 6 foot 3 inch husband, a nineteen year old woman and various and sundry humans that enter my realm = A LOT OF FOOD!! Yeesh. You all eat so much? Where do you PUT it all?!!

Annnyyywhooo, I'm a nervous nellie upon the eve of traveling, so my stomach is being quite foppish. Peckish am I right now. Washed down a berry/nectarine smoothie and had a little coffee. Still feeling sort of meh. Hope the pepto will do the trick.

I'm weird. Have alwaaaays loved the taste of pepto bismol and alka seltzer. Numm.

I know from these all too well and also the importance of eating the right foods when you're not feeling so spiffy. I had a peptic ulcer at the tender young age of 7 when my parents moved me from my beloved Karen (of Bye Bye, Pie fame) and entered me into this school up in Traverse City, Michigan where I spent the rest of my youth (pronounced Yoot - a la Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinnie!"). Anyway, this school was HUGE and scary to me and had many floors and some MEAN ASS kids! This one girl (and you know who you are) used to harass the SHIT out of me. ALL THE TIME. Major asswipe bully you were. And I didn't deserve it.

Well, I FINALLY fessed up and told my Mom about it and then she got in touch with the authorities at the school. So, that girl got in trouble which only PISSED her off more! She would stalk me wherever I went. Beat me up once when I was at the public figure skating rink! Boy, she was a prick.

So, I learned to be stealthy - always on the lookout for this fucking girl who fucking hated me for NO> GOOD Reason.

How the hell did I get on this subject? I was gonna talk about Salem and fall and pumpkins and leaves and my wonderful friends who I miss so much.

Annnnyway. Because of this constant vigilence, I got me a nasty ass ulcer. So I had terrible stomach aches all the time. My mom thought I was just trying to avoid school, so she made me go. Oh, that was a tough time for me - terrible tummy aches and trying to concentrate and the harrassment by that girl and then finally, FINALLY, my teacher noticed I wasn't eating and my Mom finally came around to the fact that I was in miserable pain. She took me to the doc, and sure enough, I had a peptic ulcer.

So, I had to take bacid in milk (I liked that flavor too!), ate tons of potatoes and peas and all those basic foods (base as opposed to acid - not like the bass guitar or the fish. Good Lord. I'm scattered today!).

Annnnyway (yeesh) I got a lot better, and it was kind of from that experience that I learned my interest in foods and what they can do for ya. And how seasonal things are the things we're supposed to eat - we're just animals, after all...

So now is the season of cider (even hard cider's fine), citrus that has been stored properly, frozen berries and canned tomatoes. Rum, whiskey - the clear alcohols are for cooling, brown alcohols are for warming (this is all well documented stuff from China, Japan, India, Europe...old school, man!). Eat pumpkin, nectarines, peaches, squash, potatoes, peas, summer veggies that are cooked - even wilted lettuce, kale, chard - all yummy in your stews made with meat or beans or fish or mushrooms, loads of vegetable stock or creams. Gotta fatten up for the cold winter ahead .

Unless you live in fucking Miami. David. Yeah - YOU. Lucky guy loves his heat over there.

When we were all recently in Columbus for my cousin's gradzitation (I like to say it like that) I was non-stop bitching about the heat and humidity (nearly 90% humidity. Blech!). And David was out power walking in it for like 5 miles. What the WHAT?

So. There. I have no idea why I needed to tell you that.

Carry on. Carrion. But don't carry on the carrion. THAT stinks!  : )

See you soon, Salem peeps! See you next week, Alaska peeps!

Here's me - signing off. Roger, roger. Victor, vector. Alpha Bravo Chi square and pip pip and eat your Cheerios.

xoxo back atcha shortly.

Ciao.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a Saint

This is a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's birth home.
It is emblazoned on the wall in his parlor.

I'm not sure if you've ever read Nathaniel Hawthorne's works - from his poems to his beloved Sophia to his master works like The House of the Seven Gables or The Scarlet Letter.

Sophia writes of her husband's work:

I am always so dazzled and bewildered with the richness, the depth, the ... jewels of beauty in his productions that I am always looking forward to a second reading where I can ponder and muse and fully take in the miraculous wealth of thoughts.

Another Hawthorne quote from his birth home, now in situ at The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Masssachusetts. I lived across the street from HSG National Historic Landmark District for 20 years.

I happen to adore and admire and simply love Hawthorne's way of expression. His simplicity and complexity are all intertwined in the sweetest, most loving and romantic of word choices:

What we need for our happiness 

is often close at hand, 

if we but knew how to seek for it.

This is on my mouse pad. I read it every day and I remember to be grateful for all that has been shown,  given and blessed upon my soul. God is good, God is great, Yaaay God!  : ) That was one of my first prayers and it still works for me! 

Now, I ain't talking religion or some place you gotta go to give thanks. It can happen every single minute and taking pleasure in a beautiful vista, an apple or your puppy dog or a fine cup of coffee. It's the same.

Yesterday I found some writings that I had written from the time I was 14 up until just last year. I'll share what I wrote two years ago after I lost my dogs, my husband and my job. Little did I realize I'd also lose my home, my beloved Grandma Marion and then my Marcel and I was left holding a big old bag of shit. 

Here's the passage:

The things that are completely

taking over my thoughts.

I cannot and do not feel like

doing anything.

My brain is no longer clear.

I am so fucking sad.

I am so fucking lonely.

I cannot concentrate or think in

a linear way.

I am constantly worried about 

money.

I am constantly worried about

my financial security if I

cannot find a job.

I made a BIG mistake only taking

2 years of alimony. I was

NOT thinking straight at the

time and was in the post-separation

state of euphoria.

I worry about Dallas.

I worry about myself withOUT Dallas.

(

Will I get out of bed?

Will I feel even more lonely?

Will I just want to give up?

What the fuck am I going to do for

work? I feel useless and like

I have no skills.

Why doesn't anyone seem to care

except for my Mom & Dad &

occasionally Dan?

I reach out to people & they can

only be there for me for a 

short while. They don't stick

around??

Where is Karen? Where is Penny?     { (they were there all along) }

Where am I going to go?

What do I need to do?

How the fuck did everything get so

bad all at the same time?

Why did my therapist treat me so poorly

at the last appointment?

I need to sell this fucking house.

And then What?

   Where do I go?

    What do I do?

     Who will even care if I

          stay or go?

How do I start all over again?

How much longer can I go on feeling

     this way? I can

      barely fucking function.

This is so totally suck. I want

     someone to help, but there

     is no one. So, that leaves

     me.

I feel numb.

I don't care about anything.

How is it that there are people

     all around, but there is no one?

I need a break. One good. really good -

     thing to happen.

I just feel so tired. And spent.

     And overwhelmed and sad.

Am I going to regret this with 

     Dallas? I want him to be okay

     and I want ME to be okay.

Will I ever feel happy and silly and

     like myself again?

WHEN.

I don't want to wait much longer to 

     have me back. I don't like

     this person. this feeling. these

     thoughts that keep me frozen.

I am scared.

Am I going crazy?

Why won't this just go AWAY?

SO, yes. There's that. It's the age old dilemma of letting go in order to break down into a million shards of brokenness. In the break-down is the delicious task that lies ahead of building up from a place of innocence and grace. My Dad and Mom and both my wonderful step-parents told me to have faith and hope. Keep your head down and just plunge forward into that abysmal nothing and there WILL be something at the end. They all told me that. My cousins, my Aunt, my Uncle, a few essential souls that reached out to me out of nowhere. You all know who you are and I love you desperately for helping me when I didn't know how to help myself.

And then this morning. I had a friend over last night and he's a young and up and coming poet and artist. Nate is his name. Well, Nathaniel is his name...Here's what he wrote to me after I gave him a book last night (and it's hand written in gorgeous cursive like Hawthorne himself):

In the end, their was a new

Time behold, my emotion your

This treasure is more than I could fathom

Upon this time, my words may not grab them

   Lost I am for this world

     But this gift brings my hand 'for Saints.

His name is Nate Rank. Watchout world. He's on his way!

(Aren't words wonderful?)

A Poem by Veronica A. Shoffstall

This poem was given to me by a friend when I felt very very alone. I found some of my journals today and read them. In the journals were my ups, downs, trials and tribulations. Concerts, dances, love, betrayal (not just by the boyz, but also my own betrayals), let-downs, happy times and sad times.

I found these writings to be so incredibly honest and poignant, given the gift of perspective that I happen to enjoy now.

After so much loss, what the hell choice do you have but to just. move. On.

So, this poem is not written by me (I wish I had that gift!). It is written by a sage soul, Veronica A. Shoffstall.

It's called:

After A While

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn that love doesn't mean leaving

and company doesn't always mean security

and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain

for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid fight

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much so you plant your own

garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers

and you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn. . . . . . .

It's all Hank's Fault...

Another gem via my beautiful friend, Hank, who I love and adore!

Thanks, Hank:

The Pleasures of Reading...

 

I love to read. When I have nothing to do I pick up a book and read. Sometimes I read for fun. Other times I read to learn something. I really enjoy reading.

 

Sometimes I become unhappy while reading. I will be enjoying a fine story when all of a sudden a big word will stare back at me. Now I know a few big words but, after all, isn't it true that in simplicity there is beauty?

Take the other day. While reading a particularly engrossing story I ran across the word "scree."  I later found out that the word "scree" meant "pebbles and rocks." Why didn't the author just say "pebbles and rocks?"

Another thing. People just can't say anything the simple way any more. Yesterday I read about a guy "adroitly manipulating the shifting mechanism!" So he threw the car into second gear.

Now if I were a writer, I would try to avoid confusing my readers. We all feel that confused and pompous prose has no place in contemporary society. It does no good to engulf you readers in a sea of indistinguishable trivia.

I feel quite strongly about this. I feel that perpetual adherence to enigmatic expression stultifies intellectual response. Furthermore, excess circumlocution inevitably leads to incomprehensible mayhem.

When authors engage their literary crampons into my lethargic intellect, I feel like poking my pate into a catatonic mound of fronds and lianas. I would rather ascend icy scarps or embroil my ego into a capacious sea of undulating hummocks than perambulate through a plethora of insatiable verbiage.

 

It all leaves me flaccid as a sprag.

 

On Contemplating Your Navel...

The David. What a beauty Michelangelo created. At the possibility that you will think I'm full of shit
(which I clearly am), my husband looks this good. I am a lucky schmoo.

So, Matt Damon (LOVE) and this wonderful man named Gary started up the incredible organization known simply as Water.Org. No less than miraculous things are happening because of their simple mission to bring clean water and sanitation to third world countries where a child dies EVERY 20 SECONDS due to water-borne illnesses such as giardia (which I got just recently here in Alaska), dysentery and other painful, unnecessary diseases.

Watch Matt Damon and Gary talk about their work and the incredible things that happen when women and children have easy access to water...Children get to go to school, study, learn, have hopes and dreams. Women get to work at their jobs, to make money to help better the life they live. Pride happens, smiles happen, community happens. Instead of the women and children (who are the primary water providers for their families) having to walk miles and miles, back breakingly cart home gallons of water, just to SURVIVE, they instead are gifted with time and clean, sanitary water.

So, you there. American idiot. When's the last time you had to walk miles and miles and miles to drink dirty, virus and bacteria filled water?

Oh, never? Right. Never. Ever.

So, let's all get off our collective duffs and start helping our brothers and sisters who suffer. Take that stupid $5 half-caf, double mocha, grande ridiculous hipster stoopid coffee and your $100 designer fucking shirt and matching shoes (gimme a break) and make a donation to the people who need it.

And, same goes for you Republican, corporate greedy jerks. WTF? Why you wanna have all that cash and do nothing good with it except buy another island and another house and another this or another that?

You know, I used to scoff at the idea of tithing. I DO take issue with the riches that many of the large churches accumulate in the name of God or Jesus or whomever your Idol of the day might be.

Why, pray tell, do we not just directly give the $$$ or the water or the aid to the peeps that need it? That's kinda like getting rid of the middle man, isn't it?

And I'm not talking about only the third world countries here. We have many needy right here in the good old US of A. Homeless. Addicted. Mentally ill. Children, men, women, animals, the abused, the elderly, the orphaned...

The list is too long and too depressing. Ugh.

Also, too, when's the last time you read up on another religion other than yours? It's quite useful. And it gives you a perspective on where others are coming from - mentally, spiritually...I love me some Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and even Islamic beliefs. You can't hate someone until you understand them, right?

That old adage about judge not lest ye be judged, or the other one that you should never judge a book by its cover or even the one where we're told not to judge another until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

Well, let's get on with it, shall we? Don't get me wrong...headway is being made daily! I'm just impatient! I've always been that way...it's in me bones! Hey, don't judge me, dude!!  : )

I'm so sorry for being so ranty lately. Alaska and lots of healthy living and good therapy and relief from my depression has made me cranky. Ironic, I know. I don't purport to make sense! I'm just little old me.

Now's the Non-Sequiter Warning time!!! BEEP BEEp Beep!

Pitcher time:

I love this.
This was blatantly stolen from my dear friend Bob's facebook post a few days ago!
Thanks, Roberto!

Hee. My friend Karen says "the diabeetus" and "veedeo" and I love her for that! Photo from icanhazcheezburger.com.

My beautiful friend getting ready for a night on the town a few nights ago.
She's a keeper, that one and so lovely, right?

Approximately 35,000 walruses in need of a place to mate, have taken refuge in Northern Alaska. They can't find any icebergs to do their deed, so they've taken to a beach. Not a bad choice by the walruses, however, this speaks to CLIMATE CHANGE and our need to reduce greenhouse gasses. This, while interesting, is f*cked up. Photo is credited to NOAA/NMFS (and if you don't know what those acronyms mean, you should)

My co-pilot Phoebe! I love this picture of us.
She is currently gnashing her teeth and playing wildly with our other little doggie, Jax.

This is poor Jaxie trying desperately to stay awake! He's only 9 months old and just the sweetest, funniest, hilarious, smart ploopie dog. He's basically a small, white pig-sausage snort machine.  That farts. A lot.

COOKIES! And fruit. And pretty things. I am grateful every day.

The Chugach Mountains. I see them every day. Utterly paradise here. 

Phoebe passed OUT. She and Jax play and play at a thousand miles a minute and then they CRASH!
 I wrote on Twitter yesterday that Phoebe has two speeds. Asshole and Exhausted. This was E.
 And it never takes long for her to get back to speed #A. Oy to the vey.

My cute house. It's very fall-y right now. Chilly and crisp as a Jonathan Apple!

An incredibly written and thoughtful essay by a clearly very thoughtful, incredible man...

Moving On Is Like Rehab by Joe Singh

“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.” For a long time after you lose her, you wish Tennyson never lived. You remember how simple your life was before she swept into it like a tsunami, washing away your doubts and your loneliness and your fears and becoming a part of every breath you took.

You remember a time when you could breathe without thinking of her and feeling utter, abysmal hopelessness at how long ago it was.

And it doesn’t help that you huddle in a fetal ball, knees to chest, surrounded by the broken pieces of the fragile tower that was you, and can’t do something as basic as distinguish the pieces she didn’t touch from the ones she did.

You can’t even really tell if they’re all there. You can’t remember giving parts of yourself to her because you were stupid and drunk and a fog of bliss had curled into every corner of your head like a heroin high.

You were addicted to being half of something. And like an addict you let everything else go. You let friends slide, forgot your towering aspirations, stopped treating people like a decent fucking human being because all that mattered was your supply of contentment and comfort and love. All that mattered was your hit.

And now you’re realizing it. That’s what moving on is.

Rehab.

You need to learn how to breathe again, how to wean yourself off your attachment. You need to wade into her, into the ankle-deep pool of what’s left of the wave she was. You need to stare at your reflection in water that’s damn near toxic, and wonder who the fuck you were.

You need to want to find out.

You need to roll up your sleeves, grit your teeth, and start sifting. You need to pull each piece from the water and stare at it. You need to rub at it with your sleeve, scrape off the color of her hair, purge the taste of her mouth, delete the freckles you traced like a map. Some pieces are parts of you that are too entwined with her, and they require amputation. You need to wrestle forgotten, whispered, shameful parts of yourself into doors in your head, draw them shut, and triple-lock them away. You need to forget the keys, snap them in half, and throw them to the wind.

You need to draw blood. You need to leech her from yourself. You need to sit and listen as people who took your self-absorbed puppy dog shit for years tell you exactly how you fucked up. You need to agree, see yourself through their eyes, bathe in their contempt, drink it in, let it fuel you. You need to involve your ego.

You need to acknowledge you’re pathetic.

You need to consign yourself to misery. You need to be willing to let it flood into you, replace every part of her. You need to polish yourself like you’d polish a diamond.

Cut.

Bleed.

Cut.

Bleed.

You need to shoulder the blame. All of it. You need to acknowledge you ended it. That your misery is a fortress, a prison, of your own making.

You need to be savage and angry and so hard on yourself that you start hating your own reflection. You need to burn into the core of who you are and cut her out of you with a knife that glows with more than the orange flame of loneliness or the blue jet of despair. You need to mutilate the person you were with the white heat of hatred.

You need to admit you’re broken and halved and made of a swirling cloud of fear and loneliness and anger and impotence. You need to believe, deep down, that all you’ll ever be is a parenthesis.

You need to throw the man you were into the deepest pit, the most soulless abyss you can find, one you’re sure he — you — can’t climb out of.

You need to go cold turkey.

And when you believe it, and when you accept it, and when you’ve bled an ocean and you’re sure that no part of her remains because you’ve burned at both ends until you’ve met in the middle of a pile of ash, you’ll find peace.

You’ll sit, slump-shouldered and hollow, content in your emptiness. You’ll realize all the pieces are accounted for, somehow; some she took with her because you let them go. Some you fit together into a passing version of yourself. Some you burned.

And in the quietest corner of your head, the one least torn apart by the storm, there will be a knock. Nothing loud, nothing you won’t brush off as a phantom echo of another time, a remnant of the man who lived in your head for however-long-it-was.

You will fixate on your feet. You’ll shuffle along, step-by-step, day-by-day, hour-by-hour. You’ll want to talk to her and you’ll talk to a friend instead. You’ll want to say good night to someone so you’ll pick up the phone and text your mom. You’ll be so used to glaring at yourself in the mirror that you won’t see any change.

You won’t even realize it’s been a week since you saw her.

You won’t even realize it’s been three days since you last made contact.

You won’t even realize that after all your wallowing and crying and bitching and gnashing your teeth and self-mutilation, you’ve stumbled onto something resembling a quiet dignity.

And there will be another knock.

You won’t even realize you’re more open with your friends than you’ve ever been.

You won’t realize that the silence you hear now isn’t because you’re dead inside. It’s because deep down, the part of you to which you brutally took a machete, to which you applied a cleansing fire, has finally, finally stopped screaming.

And there will be another knock.

And this time you’ll trudge toward the last locked door in your head, not realizing you feel lighter on your feet than you have in years, not realizing you’re deadlifting two plates per side again, not realizing you’ve finally stopped eating Doritos, not realizing you stop to pet dogs again, not realizing you smile more easily and move more naturally and laugh more happily, not realizing that life finally has colors.

And you’ll open the door.

And you’ll see that you made it out of the pit. You crawled back up, inch by inch. You’ll put down the machete and its heat will finally cool. You’ll reach out, wondering if it’s even real. Wondering if you’ll feel fingers on your own, or if it will vanish the way all good things do when we try too hard to understand them.

You’ll realize that you’re not wistful anymore. You’ll realize that when you walk past the place you first kissed her, the smile on your face is gentle and respectful and peaceful. You’ll realize that when you walk past the place where you broke her heart, the look in your eye isn’t haunted and regretful and pained.

You’ll realize she’s receding, that she was receding all along as your feet kept carrying you and you kept your head down. She was receding as you ignored the howling wind and tried to attain some small shard, one tiny sliver, of grace.

And then you’ll cry because what’s beneath your fingers isn’t hot or angry or spiteful or contemptuous or hollow or cracked or ethereal.

You’ll cry because all you’re touching is glass. After blurring the line between hatred and honesty and contempt and hope, you’re just looking at a reflection.

One intact reflection, whose smile curls up from a corner of his lips in a way you’d stopped doing when the consequences of your choices settled on your shoulders. A reflection whose eyes sparkle with the patience and impish good humor that had been siphoned from you over those weeks and months of forgetting who you were. You see a reflection whose shoulders no longer slump, a reflection who’s remembered how to give without getting and how to be a friend again.

You’ll cry because in his chest — in your chest — for the first time since you can remember, you can hear a heartbeat. A single, whole, quiet heartbeat.

That’s what moving on is.

The realization, the flash of summer sunlight, the moment of impossible, blessed, sacred clarity in which you irrevocably understand.

You gave her your heart.

And now, it’s come back to you again.

---

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Image by Adrien Sifre

Human Parts

Written by Joe Singh