you know what? there are few people on this planet who love boys more than me. i think they are wonderful, well-made, entertaining and useful. they can be practical, pretty, thrilling, pleasant-smelling, helpful, friendly, loyal, trustworthy, and brave. in general, they just rock. i wish i had a whole army of them just to amuse and assist me whenever i desired... oh, wait...
but here's the dealie-o. they can also be so ridiculously insecure that it is painful. i just don't GET it! how can they not know how great they are? how much we need, appreciate, and adore them? i suppose it's because they're too busy wondering if we just got something over on them, or fretting about some time, twenty years ago, when someone ELSE got something over on them. or worrying that someone might, in the future, might get something over on them - or god forbid, even worse, make them feel like they look dumb.
they are tired of us being "bitches". they are tired of us using emotion or frailty as an excuse, they are tired of our double standards and illogical nature, they are tired of us hating fart jokes. ok. so am i. but I am tired of being treated like crap because i don't fit in a little girlie box. because i make them wonder about themselves. because i am happier being alone that putting up with insecurity and ridiculous, out-dated ideas of "relationships". men ARE generally physically stronger, and women ARE generally more creative. but i have met a LOT of good people who have proved that this is often a load of crap.
i am also proud to say that i know a LOT of men who are not like this, who are secure in themselves and their whole gender, who appreciate women for all of their strengths and surprises, and who know when they are just being dumb monkeys.
the few who don't know better, they hurt my heart. and the worst cases are always the men who are SO fabulous in every way - except for their intensely ingrained sexist views. guys who are jerks in all departments just don't seem like such a loss...
i know i am a very unconventional woman. and despite that, there are bits of me that are girlie-girlie - BINK TO THE BONE! and frankly, in my dreeeaam romance, i would meet a guy who was tougher than me, who could make me think, who could not only protect me when i was scared, but let me ADMIT that i was scared in the first place, without holding it against me forever. a man who could be smarter than me without rubbing it in*, who didn't think cute stuff was stupid, who didn't need me to look like jheri ryan to impress his buddies, who got the whole "shoes" thing, who not only didn't mind when i was right, or when i won, but was really PROUD.
they're out there. i know some. i wish they would make a tv show about you, or that y'all could teach classes at universities all over the country.
there is, of course, something that has happened to me recently that has caused me to feel this way, but honestly, it happens to me all the time. it effects my personal life very deeply. i have had several men, some that i cared for more than i'd like to admit, leave me because i was "too much", because they wanted to be with someone who "didn't do eveything better than [they] did", and who needed someone who "wasn't so much of a challenge"... i had a boyfriend who got angry because i picked him up, one who got mad because i caught more fish than he did, one who got mad because, when he tried to beat me to death i broke his jaw and never spoke to him again. go figure. there are men who tell me that what i need is a man around - policemen and strangers; there have been men who warned me that if i kept on being so "independant", i was going to end up a lonely old cat lady... and on and on and on... all in this category.
guys. either wake up, or leave me the hell alone.
for those of you who have worked and struggled to rise above, goddess bless you! may you be blessed with sons to pass it on to and with daughters to spread the gospel in their own powerful way. and if you are not one to have either, then may you live a long and prosperous life, and set an example to those around you.
amen.

*i know, dream ON, sister girl. i also dream of world peace, complete environmental renewal, and an effective diet and exercise program that i could really, happily stick with.

Depression and memory are devious bedfellows*. Throw in weeks of continual gloomy rain, in a landscape that is hostile to your nature in the first place, and you have a ménage a trois from Hell.
The faire and all that was going on at the time did so much to keep me distracted. But now I have time and opportunity to hide and think again. Don’t get me wrong – I know I was complaining about being surrounded by too many people and having too little time to myself, and believe me, depressed and restless beats homicidal ANYday… but I am back to square one again. Ok. Square 2,036, 972, but that’s not the point. The point is that I should be off of squares and on to some more interesting geometry.
Actually, I think geography more than geometry is the issue. Of all the interesting and conflicting personality quirks I’ve inherited from my family**, my mother’s charming blend of manic restlessness and Hughes-like reclusiveness combined with my father’s rather mundane (but preferable) mix of exuberant extroversion and nigh-sloth-like laziness makes me… well, mad and worthless a whole lot of the damned time.
It is shameful to blame one’s upbringing for one’s adult faults, yes. And if I didn’t know me so well, and know how veryvery hard I work to conquer all of this, I’d feel a lot worse about saying all of that. I think it’s just the fact that I have to work so hard. My father couldn’t help passing his fat genes, but he certainly could have stuck around a little more and tried to be a better example, tried to teach me to work harder, exercise and eat properly. My mother can’t help that she’s a complete and utter psycho sometimes, but she could have put me in a sack and tied a rope around the top and thrown me in the lake rather than let me live with all the memories, lies, denial, and lack of her.
Harsh. True. Partially metaphorical – if you need to believe that.
So. This piquant gumbo of nature and nurture has made me into a person that wants to intermittently run-like-hell, bite people, and then stop and lay in the sunny grass for a time. Maybe I was born in August by design.
I think part of what’s wrong today – other than the fact that it’s been raining so long that everyone’s brain (along with everything else in the world) is mildewing – is that I am filled with an equal desire to run away from home and lay in the bed and sleep, they are both even, and so passionate that they exclude the possibility of my wanting to do ANYthing else that I’m supposed to be doing. My house looks like hell, my yard is knee high in dandelions (where it isn’t just jungle), I can’t even THINK about all the deadlines I have, and I am fantasizing about blowing the Courthouse to smithereenlets.
Anyone else feel like this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Maybe I’ll use the $$$ I make from my upcoming (AUGH! DEADLINE!) “Day Off” store to run away from home. I KNOW y’all would all contribute to THAT!
Much love, and more rain,
-sam

*soap-operatic, even.
** whether by genetic lotto or the lovely process of socialization I endured at their clever/clumsy hands. I dunno, Henry. The verdict is still out.

well, i made it to "congratulations" (as indi said today - "did you make it to congratulations?" moo!) last night and i was SO glad i did. baby vin got his walking papers, and none of us cried TOO much. i wouldn't trade anything for the look on adam's face when he looked up in the stands and saw me sitting with his mommanem... :) i had an extra big surge of pride (mixed with pain) when his principal commended him and one other young man - detroit dawg - for signing up to defend their country. afterwards, he got choked up when he asked us, his closest friends, to look out for his baby brother while he was gone, asked us to make sure he grew up right...
don't get me started.
he presented me with his gown, so i can pretend EXTRA well when i have mississippi mass choir dining room concerts - awww! and showed me off to his buddies...
i was glad to be there and be a part of it. it felt like family. i miss that, and need it more than i like to admit.
i hope you all are getting enough warm fuzzies in YOUR diet.
much love,
-s

SO much to do. SO much of my life is on loan or rent to other people. maybe i should have kids just so i have a good reason to say no to people.
NOT. (besides, it doesn't work for buffy. :)
i need a mom. or a secretary. or some clones. CLONE SAM! YEAH! if i had enough clones, i could rent them out for parties and low-key loan-sharking, knee-breakings and that sort of fing. "pay me back or i'll send my rent-a-sam over there to talk to you about vin diesel and gormenghast until your nose bleeds!" yeah!
whaddayathink? i could charge, oh, 2, 3 dollars an hour - plus coffee and pork-rind budget. not too shabby. maybe i could get a Pork Rind Council endorsement deal... i could be the poster child for CDM coffee... "SAM DRINKS CDM, AND IT MAKES HER GO 'WHEEEE!'"*

oh, lordy. i am getting restless again. watch out world.
adam graduates tonight. i am gonna bust firestone to get there and see him walk the walk.
i will keep y'all posted on the adventures as they unfold.
much love (and WHEE!)
-s

*hee. that even made me laugh.

well, i can be a little less ashamed today.
the universe gifted me with bruffy therapy again. i have spent the whole day so far with some of my favorite geeks in the world, working on a top secret project* involving scissors, sand, sticky things and burger king. don't ask.
we've played and been creative, watched some FANTASTIC chinese cinema (courtesy of MY latest serious obsession**), ran some fun errands... i've gotten to see a couple of folks that i DEFINITELY do not get to see often enough. there's more yet to come, too. we are waiting for brett to be released from White Collar Overtime Hell and then we will all go see The Matrix together. yay, us.
life goes on. i don't hate this world very often, and on days like today i realize that broken heats are like taxes and death. inevitable, annoying and painful, but thank god they don't come around very often, and you can forget about them most of the time.
i hope you all have folks around you who help you forget the bad stuff and make you remember the good.
much love.
-s

*don't worry, we're not taking over the world. none of us want that much damned responsibility.
**for those of you who don't know, i am building a collection of period chinese martial arts and fantasy films on dvd, starting with all the movies of jet li and donnie yen - all set pre-1920. yes, i'm a weirdo. so what. you won't be calling me a weirdo when you want to borrow "hero" :)