Well, it seems that the sadness that came to visit me a few days ago is not going anywhere. In fact, it has propped up its feet, put on a pot of coffee, and is inviting all of its friends over. At least it isn’t fatal – or even unfamiliar. I will survive it, just like everything else so far, but this is one I’m really going to have to work hard on.
Today I feel like the weather looks. The whole world seems filled with a giant soft, misty grey cloud. I feel as if someone touched me I would begin to rain.
What’s really funny is that, other than that central core of blue-grey, I am happy. Things have been worse. I finally got my truck back, my back is healing, and I’ve gotten a lot done at home, at work, and art-wise. I am making some plans for future fun and work…
But down at the bottom of all of it is this 360-pound truth that has me feeling bruised to the bone. Deep, deep – and I fear permanent – sadness.
Does everyone have that? And is it related to very specific things? I’ve known people who were just clinically, chemically depressed. That’s not me. My spirit and my body are just naturally bouncy. I must seem bi-polar to my friends (whatever the hell that really means – I assume it refers to severe chemical mood swings) but the truth of the matter is that I am like a fancy jello salad molded over a brick. I feel wiggly and sweet most of the time, but if you cut down deep enough, there’s this solid, permanent weight that displaces a whole lot of space where more jello should be.
I really wish I could have a serious word with the cooks.

What’s been getting at me lately is this ridiculous emotional tenderness that’s come with this latest wave of my childhood’s re-visitation. Even just sitting here, trying to find ways to say all of this without seeming maudlin or frivolous is bringing me to tears. If I think of it, this most recent parcel of misery my parents have sent me (even dead and gone, they have this ability), I break down, just a little. To think on this one thing, this latest thing, brings up the whole kit and caboodle. Everything. I wonder how many more times in life will I have to go through this. How many more surprises can they spring on me? How much more work do I have to do to come to terms with the past? And how are my siblings dealing with it?
The greatest ‘surface’ misery is this craving I have for someone to hold me and let me just get it all out. There are people who would do this, quite a few, I think, but there are none that I could allow myself to do it with. And that says a lot about me and my ability to trust. Of the two people with whom I could and would allow myself this comfort, one is dead, and the other might as well be. My anger toward them seems to grow in direct proportion to my sadness, because not only can I not seek comfort with them, but they also created a child - no, three children who are unable to seek it anywhere else.

I make do. I find small comforts and patch them together. But it is wine to a woman thirsty for water, and I have to come to term with the fact that it will more likely always be this way.
This is a lot of ‘nudity’ for a Saturday morning, innit? I’m sorry. I think I’m just trying to get it out of me and into the world. It’s definitely !@#$ing up my jello. Maybe one of you has a clue, and will write to me. Maybe one of you will think twice before laying something very heavy on an unsuspecting heart. Maybe one of you feels this way, too and just understands. Maybe one or more of you have parents and/or children out there and this will remind you to give them whatever love and forgiveness you have for them today, not tomorrow or next year.
And maybe the one person who really NEEDS to read this will, and it will light a spark of truth and light in a dark, dark place.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.

i have one other thing to say today.
i just found out that fred rogers died today, this morning, of cancer. he was 74, and that's a fair amount of years for him, but i feel very sad for all the kids who will never know mr. rogers. i remember many of his shows well, and i never plink on a piano without thinking of the sound of the trolley...
those weirdo puppets with their strange voices, and king friday's imaginary friend, 'trogladytiaetan' (which was the name i gave my stuffed unicorn when i was 12....), his ways of showing what people's jobs were and how things were made, magic picture, and his fishtank; his sweater and slippers, and best of all, his gentle, sweet voice and manner.
he was one of the very good things about my childhood - in which the very good things really stood out.
if there is a heaven, i hope he's got a REALLY good spot.

-s

something i just wrote* made me think of this**:
we all fantasize about being famous. Oscars, Nobels, Bistro bashes, puking in destroyed hotel rooms full of supermodels (i luvvvvv me some 'People' magazine, y'all...)
i thought about that feeling, about my dreams of "fame", and i realized that even an academy award could not mean more to me than the way my good friends (including the ones i'm related to and the ones i hardly ever see...) make me feel.
a lot of times i DO feel like a star. i feel appreciated and admired. i long to - and strive to - make other people feel that way, too.

don't get me wrong - vin IS hot (i just had to throw that in there, just in case he reads this... :) but i'd like it if we all felt like stars. celebrated, feted, awarded, respected, admired, desired, fulfilled and happy. i am very grateful to those of you who strive for this, and who make ME feel this way.
pass it on!

-s

*a cartoon. i'm about to attempt cartooning at you. you have been warned.
**the vampire crossed the room, Henry.***
***man, how vague and (hur hur) CRYPTic-sounding is THAT, y'all?! well, henry can explain it to you.

today's rant was inspired by my non-southern friend m___. i will not give his whole name so as to protect both his non-southerness AND his right to call me repressed and not get a bunch of snotty notes from, well, ME - as well as a bunch of my other friends. (hey, m____! xo! :))
we were talking and he mentioned NOT ONLY the z-word*, but he began to discuss a problematic one! (!!!)
i understand that this is life and nature, and we are all adults, but he did not understand that this is something that SOME people** would NEVER discuss, unless it was with their doctor (and even THEN we would use polite euphemisms scant gestures to get the point across). he said "wow, southerners are SO repressed!", and yes, some of us are, but there are lots of southerners who would talk about this (and other unpleasantness) without a qualm (IF their grammies weren't around, that is). i tried to explain that it wasn't about right or wrong (repression), but more about pleasant or un-. there are just some things you don't talk about. ("TTOTM" is a CLASSIC example.)
so much of life IS unpleasant, and i know that, but i have no desire to have any more than i HAVE to, especially in my intimate personal interactions.
i am SURE that my grammie, who had one husband and nine children, dealt with any number of perfectly natural but unpleasant things, but she NEVER talked about them. in fact, she went to the extreme. her children apparently never even saw her clean a toilet. my beloved aunt sue said that when she got married, she did not know until her best friend told her that a toilet had to be scrubbed clean!
i never shirk from dealing with these unpleasant things, whether in my own life, or a friends', if i have to, but there is no need to talk about them. there is SO much else in the world!
he pointed out that unpleasant is funny (and he's right - EVERYONE feels compelled to laugh at a fart-joke... even me - but i resist.)
I pointed out that this was true, but this was EASY funny. falling down, jim carey 'ass-talk' funny. 'smart' is SO much funnier, and there is grace in that kind of humor (the muffin joke is a VERY good example, in my opinion, thankyouverymuch.).
i don't consider myself repressed, and i don't think anyone who really knows me does, either. i AM a bit conservative in some arenas, but that is only because i TRIED the other options and LIKED the conservative ones. i just know very well that there are buckets of grody ickiness in life, every day. we deal with it, we respect it's power and presence, and we move on. i don't long for the old days of the south, or for victorian england or any of the times when things were like that because they had to be. pleasance and grace is a choice now, and one that i hope i will take every time. it makes life better, and i think people respect and admire me for making that choice. people are drawn to me, and i definitely think this is one of the reasons why.
m____, thanks for inspiring this rant, this is a subject that really matters to me, one that i actually consider and discuss a lot. i wouldn't have thought to talk about it here.
and by the way, i hope your z__ gets better. :D
-s

p.s. let me also make it perfectly clear that "cutesie" euphemisms are, for the most part, as disgusting to me as the actual terms. there is really just no need (in most cases) to discuss such stuff at all.

*"zit". ew.
**mainly polite southern ones who were raised by their grammies***.
***who would smack them into next week for saying such things.

Hello, lovelies.
Well, I am not only hanging in there, but I am feeling strangely fine. I have thought about this newest curveball and what came out of it (other than a whole lot of art) was a feeling of pride and strength (and also weary resolution, to be honest) over the fact that so far, I have survived EVERYTHING that life has thrown at me.
I wrote in my “Sam’s Winter Almanack” this weekend:
“So far, you have handled everything that life has handed you. In order to fail, you will have to defeat yourself.”

In other news, I have been warned by several concerned individuals about my potentially treasonous public opinions. So I will cease to rail against President McCarthy and his father, Former President Bergen* and their World Commerce Domination Project – I mean “the war” and instead, I will treat you all to a TOTALLY random and unrelated segment from Scott Adams’ latest book, and a really great art site.
Keep the Peace, folks!

“Leaders are people you should try to avoid at all costs. As I often say, the whole point of “leading” is making you do things you didn’t want to do on your own. Leaders have taken the practice of weaselness to its highest level.
Leadership is only possible because people are, on the whole, spectacularly gullible. If you indoctrinate a human being early in life, say in grade school, you can fill its brain with virtually anything and those delusions will stay there forever. If that kid lives in your country (whatever that might be) its brain is filled with patriotism, goodness, and the right religion. If the kid is born in any other country (no matter which one), its brain is filled with hate, belligerence, and a strange, cultlike religion.*

*The people in those other countries see it differently. They think the delusions are on YOUR end. That just goes to show how thoroughly brainwashed those crazt foreigners are. Ha ha!”

Go, Scott!
-s

*major BEE** points to whoever gets this.
**Brownie Empress Exemplaire – title given to me by the EFP (Enchanted Fairy Princess and her sister, the Primrose Pixie Queen).