When I first bought my truck, I told everyone that I was buying it for Luna. It was not necessarily the most practical choice (ESPECIALLY the first one I tried to buy), it uses a LOT of gas, learning to drive a standard was tough (but imminently satisfying!), there were lots of ‘spensive repairs, etc… but all of it is worth it, every penny of that 1.40-a-gallon, 14 m.p.g., to see that Puppy-Girl in the back, watching the world go by, pretending to fly… Her favorite spot is right at the tailgate (Yes, which shuts solid), right in the center. (Yes, I drive VERY slowly – uber-granny when she’s with me.) She likes to look straight ahead and let her ears blow back, like she’s Super-Girl. Occasionally she sees something that catches her eye to the left or right (cows, horses, other dogs, running water, people…) and she turns her head. When she does, her ears stand up and just the tips flap a little in the wind. :) I thought at first that the wind was also causing the giant smile on her face, but nope, she’s just happy. She’s like me, she doesn’t really care about the destination* so much, she just loves to be going somewhere.
And I have the best rear-view-mirror scenery of my life**.
Ever since she was little, I could spell “r-i-d-e-i-n-t-h-e-c-a-r” and she would start to wiggle and run to the driveway.
As you all know, I’ve been having troubles with her lately. It’s hard on me. It breaks my heart to leave her every day. I took a chance today and brought her with me to the coalmines. I got lucky, though. Two of my trusty sidekicks (Hi, Eric and Abe!) were looking for something to do today and were willing to do it for nothing, so it made me REALLY happy to pay them a bit. So she got to ride up the mountain, she gets to meet new people, spend the day with very fun boys and go with me to lunch, she gets to ride down the mountain, and then she gets to have mom with her for four days straight (and kayaking on wednesday!!!). Yay, us – we need it.

In other news, here is a secret coded message for the purple girl (a clue for the rest of you out there, this is related to my 08/08 rant) and what you were brave enough to say to me on the phone th’other day. I heard this song (what I LOVE) this morning and there was this message in it for you. Please disregard the title and the rest of the song (this time. : )

“I hope them cigarettes are gonna make you cough
Hope you hear this [rant] and it pissed you off
I take that back: hope you're doing fine
And if I had a dollar, I might give you ninety-nine”

I hope you are all doing fine. And you know who you are 'what can have my .99.
-s


*I have this poster taped to the inside lid of my portable art-desk-box-thingy.
**well, since the last time i drove out of Butte La Rose...

raar! calendar update: pain in lower back and shoulders 6, fatigue 7, but have been burning midnight oil. Spirits much improved, due to various factors. rld1.

Well, I’ve made birthday plans!
My friends and I are having a couple of bashes next weekend – Saturday night (“S*A - T*U*R - D*A*Y, NIGHT!*), we’re geeking out with a pre-con par-tay and on Sunday, we’re having a potluck pic-a-nic (booboo) and hopefully bowling, or similar silliness. (Note to self - remember to bring the tranquilizer gun in case SoMeone loses…)
But that’s next weekend… treat to self THIS week – I AM TAKING FOUR DAYS IN-A-ROW OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO! WHEE! YAY, ME!
The only plan I have so far – ‘sides working brunch Sunday for ‘CON $$$ and having a quick kayak lesson on Monday – is to go KAYAKING AT LAKE JOCASSEE ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! Sallie is lending me two boats, and on Wednesday I will take LaLuna and… (bum bum BUMMMM) a boy, and a pic-a-nic and we are road-trippin’ to Devil’s Something (Fort? Road? Hat? Something.**) State Park and we are gonna kayak on a lake pretty enough for me to want to name a kid after it!***
So. That’s plan so far. I don’t know if boy knows how to kayak, but he can learn, if he wantsta. He gets to share one with Luna, too! (my kayak will be little and fast and dangerous, his will be big and slow and safe…) Whee! Luna inna kayak – OMG! This is gonna be great ! Maybe I should buy one of those “underwater” disposable cameras… :D
I will get to have a day of big wide water, and big wide sky, too. YAY!!!
Wish me luck. I will try to put up enough rants before I bail for the week to keep y’all occupied.
Much love,
-sam


*sorry, I couldn’t find “Saturday Night” midi ANYwhere!
**don’t worry. I have a map.
***my children’s names would be “Charla Mytilene __”, “Mathilda Jocassee __”, “Milla Junaluska __”, “J. Barton Hood __” and “R. Estan King __”. ‘S probly a really good thing that I don’t have kids.

As dumb as boys can be, they can be equally (if not even more) awesome. I like the way they smell when they’re nervous or brave and the way they use their hands when they talk. I like it when they’re dumb in good ways, ways that, maybe intentionally (if not by conscious choice, then by clever biological design) make you feel special and smart. I especially like it when, despite all your training, education and jaded, cynical outlook on everything, they can make you feel pleasantly dumb. Ladies, you know what I mean…
I never get to feel out of my league in matters of (yurk) “romance”. I usually have two speeds – completely uninterested or completely distracted. Completely uninterested is the worst, because nineteen times out of ten, nice guys get their feelings hurt. Completely distracted is not usually much of a problem because I’ve gotten smart enough to realize that the guys who have this kind of “power” over me MUST be complete bastards so, even if it isn’t painless, it’s at least brief. Also, I’ve learned to just ignore the impulse until it passes. Sometimes. I usually never get to feel awkward* or surprised, I never get to feel “junior high”. Well almost never.
I fuss about boys, but I love them so**… they really do make life so much more interesting and pleasant. Yes, as a society, they suck like a bad chest wound. But individually, even the ones that are often a TREmendous pain in the @$$ are quite dear.
I was eating lunch at the local diner today and there was a photo of an ex and his little girl on the wall. His head was bent down to her, and the sunlight turned his buzzed-off hair to a field of red gold. The brightest gleam on the curve of his (unbelievably thick) skull and the swirly cowlick at the crown made my heart flip, even after all this time and trouble.
I’m so glad I still have it in me to feel this way. About all of them.
New boys usually just make me queasy, but every now and then one comes along that I can tolerate for an hour or two. I’ve even met one or two that I was both attracted to AND liked – when all the planets were properly aligned and I was temporarily mentally and/or physically vulnerable and so was able to over-ride my natural instinct to kick them down the steps.

I wish for forgiveness, understanding and acceptance for myself and all my boy-crazy girlfriends… not from the rest of the world (to !@#$ with them, what the !@#$ do THEY know?) - but from yourself. Celebrate your boy-craziness. If you know who you are and how you want things, if you love and take care of yourself, then BE CRAZY! I think it’s a good quality, and I’m sure the boys do, too!

Much love,
-sam

*R.C. doesn’t count here, Q.
**read your footnotes, people.

I tried to blame the skies for last night’s misery. Mercury in retrograde, full moon, bits of stars falling and me unable to wish on them for the clouds in the way…
The Perseides always make me a little sad, anyway. When I was about 12, I think, my dad came home from work (he managed bars, and worked late) and said “I have an early birthday present for you.” It was a week or so before my birthday. I was still recovering from a badly cut foot* and an appendectomy**, not to mention the onset of puberty in the midst of a life that was already pretty shitty.
Dad had pulled his old Dodge pickup truck out behind our apartment, where the sky was darkest, and we lay on the warm hood and watched the meteor shower. I don’t know if anyone else was at home, but that night it was just dad and I.
I’d gotten into the habit of staying up until he came home – even on school nights. Sometimes we’d eat. Sometimes we’d watch a bad movie (“Ruby” was a favorite, and “Ghost Story”…) or talk about whichever book we were both reading at the time - Stephen King or Sidney Sheldon, usually… It was nearing the end of summer. I’d be going to live with my grandmother soon, facing a new life, a new school – again. I can’t remember what I wished for on all those stars that night.

Last night, I lay in bed and tried to sleep. I was hurting again, back, neck, legs, and tears kept threatening, but I wasn’t sure why. I fought them, but finally my neighbor’s lights went off and the pale moonlight filtering into the house drew me out. I hoped I’d see some stars. The sky was just a continuous, luminous umbrella. No definition, just diffuse light.
I went out and sat on the sidewalk and cried and cried. I cried for the futility of wishes, for the fact that, at the end of everyday, it’s just me that I have to rely on, and that’s a scary prospect. I cried for the fact that I may lose the only real bond to “home”*** that I have here. I am having a very hard time with Luna. She is my only family here, my protection and company in the middle of the worst nights, my only “person” to come home to at the end of the day. While I sat out crying last night, she was the one who came and licked my tears and then sat near me while I was grieving. Since my new neighbors have come, with their dog and their inviting nature, she won’t stay inside anymore. She chews the window frames and burst through the screens. I replaced one screen with mesh and hardware cloth and she split it with her claws. She won’t stay on her lead, she slips collar and harness. I have no option now but to leave her outside, loose when I go to work. I have to face the fact that I could come home any day and find her dead in the road. I have considered all possible options and they all break my heart. It makes me wish that I didn’t have either of us to worry about. Maybe it’s a good thing that there were no falling stars in my sky last night.
I wonder if this pain and exhaustion is connected to sadness. To the weight of my life on my own shoulders. To the fact that there is no one to go to when I hurt and fear like this. I can manage. I do. But it takes a toll that gets harder to pay every day.
I sat out until the mosquitoes came, and then I went in and lit candles and incense. I put some in my kitchen, and some outside. And then I lay down and pretended myself to sleep, like I did when I was little.
I know that I just have to accept things. The pain, the possible loss of my best friend, the inevitability of being alone, the tears - all the things that life hands me. If I’ve tried my best, what else is there to do?

If you have someone who is there for you in the middle of the night, hold on to them while you can. And watch for falling stars.

s-

*that had been sewn up by a doctor that didn’t care for patients with no insurance, so he just cut off the bits that were sticking out and put in stitches. That foot still troubles me.
**this operation was performed by a lovely woman named Dr. Kate Asemi. She was everything this other quack was not, a beautiful, kind, skilled Nigerian woman, with a lovely accent who referred to me as “dis’ baby” to the orderlies, and I didn’t mind. She made me feel safe and stole my heart. I’ll never forget her.
***not Mississippi, but heart-home, the place in your soul that makes you not be totally alone.

here is another lovely and appropriate poem from the writer's almanac. not only does it ring in my own heart and echo off of some of my own troubles, but more significantly, it hits home when i am dealing with my young library patrons, the ones i've been with now since before they cared what boys thought...


Advice to a Girl

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.



- by Sara Teasdale from Mirror of the Heart (Macmillan).

alright, some text-book rantage, by popular demand!

boys*, if you KNOW a girl likes you, and she KNOWS you don't like her, DON'T ASK HER TO HOOK YOU UP WITH HER FRIENDS! especially if these requests are accompanied by graphic descriptions of this OTHER girl's good qualities (that obviously are not the same as the girl you are asking). if this "spare" girl (the UNDESIRABLE one) has more than half a brain (and that is usually one** of the undesirable qualities, i've found...), she is aware that she is not your type, and she's ok with that. however "ugly"*** girls have feelings, too, and you really should not be such a weezer, especially if YOU are still single despite the fact that you can "obviously do far better", and this "spare" girl is willing to remain your friend in the face of all of this.
luckily we have been trained via not looking like [fill in bimbo's name here] to be able to tell truly mean, shallow jerks from nice guys who just aren't very bright sometimes. count your blessings - you must have SOME good qualities (other than JUST being cute) or these "inferior" ladies would have kicked you to the curb and told her "good-looking" friends what a jerk you were, and that she'd heard you were a convicted felon who shoots up miracle-whip and huffs air-freshener (el cheapo "money house blessing", too!) on your days off from "waffle house".
you have been warned! :)

more rants later, folks! keep your requests coming in!
xoxox
-s
p.s. YES, i know i'm gonna hear about this later, but NO NAMES WERE MENTIONED, and the very girl you asked me about today (you big dum-dum-head) said "sam, i like it when you write real rants! do more!" you couldn't say no to her, either (not that you'll get the chance, ESPECIALLY after she hears about the miracle whip! ;), and you must admit, it is a pretty good rant. :D suck it up, soldier! it could be worse. you could be ME. :[

*i say boys, because i honestly don't know any girls clueless enough to do this. i am sure they are out there, but i suspect that, when a girl does it, she KNOWS what she's doing and is not being stupid, just cruel - which, in my opinion, is far worse.
**often accompanied by a strong sarcastic streak, piercing wit, an ability to call 'em like she sees 'em, fierce independance, and a physical nature and build that would allow her to stomp said offending males into a mud-puddle if she so chose... aherm.
***please note that i am using this term in an extremely subjective manner, and to make a point. believe me, i know what ugly really is, and i am sure that most girls who go through this sort of thing day after day know what they really look like, what really matters and what beauty really is.

raar! calendar notes: today, exhausted, veryvery, almost unbelievably tired. pain scale 3, exhaustion scale 9 (almost unable to stay awake), irritability scale 4.
(the purpose of this raar! calendar is to help me try to figure out if there's any kind of cycle to this exhaustion/pain thing, and this is the only place where i write anything down with any kind of consistency/regularity that i can't easily lose in the drift of papers and notebooks at my house.)

i feel a strange sense of disgust mixed with intense pride over how easy it is for me to walk away from people and situations once i've been hurt.
i think the disgust does not really belong to me. it feels like "tv" programming. "the brady bunch" or "grape ape" or "the ptl club"* somehow embedded in me the thought that i should be ashamed of my graceful and powerful ability to hold a grudge (and therefore keep myself safe). this obviously happened before i was old enough to realize that 'grape ape' was completely full of $#^!.
part of my problem is that despite my well-developed traits of paranoia and hyper-vigilance, i am often ridiculously and blindly trusting. i realize that this is a good - if dangerous - quality. it allows me to be more open to possibilty than i might have been if i hadn't been intelligent enough to realize that not EVERYone in the world was as vicious and/or irresponsible as my parents. but it also leaves me open to a lot of heartache and disappointment. i am, however a VERY strong subscriber to the "first time, shame on you..."** school. this, combined with the spirit and mentality of a person who has moved (i think) 63 times, who has an uncanny memory, and a stubborn streak wider than the delta sky, well... makes for less christmas presents to buy.

the disgusted part of me says "you should forgive and forget..." and "let it go..." and "try and trust..."
the PROUD part of me says "bugger all that for a !@#$ LARK! nuke 'em till they glow and shoot 'em in the dark!" and "yay, one (or ten) less people to worry and wonder about! less xmas prezzies to buy!". oh, and of course it also says:
"!@#$ 'EM, FEED 'EM FISH-HEADS!!!"

karmically speaking, i may be shooting myself in the foot (or tentacle, or scillae, depending on how good or bad my reincarnative prospects really are...), but right now, i'm trying to cope on THIS plane. i'm not going knocking on people's doors (or busting into their weddings, or callling their work) to tell them what insensitive, obsessed, cowardly*** slug-weasels they are. i'm not publishing it in any newspapers, or even calling them by name HERE... what's it to them? they - if they can hurt me badly enough to make me want to write them off in the first place - obviously don't want me around, and they have one less xmas present to buy, too.

this pride would be hollow and the disgust more painful if i didn't know that i had it in me to forgive - and be forgiven - when the situation allowed for it. i have had some bad, ugly partings in the past, and some painful break-ups. when it was worth it, i managed to pull myself and my pride together enough to make the first move, or accept another's, and repair the break. in some cases, it was not the last time i had to do it, and in most cases, i am still close to that person, and our friendship is stronger than ever.
in some cases though, it's just not !@#$ worth it.
as i get older, i recognize that i can either tell more quickly if it is worth it, or just realize that life is too short to worry about it. ON TO THE NEXT PROJECT.

some good pieces of advice to remember however, if this ever happens to you:
"if you're going to do it, don't feel guilty about it. if you're going to feel guilty about it, don't do it."
-mr. p____, my beloved college psych teacher-
"you can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially if it's waving a razor-sharp knife in your face."
-hunter s. thompson
"put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath."
-- solon
"trust in Allah, but tie your camel."
-- muslim proverb
oh yeah, and:
"!@#$ 'EM, FEED 'EM FISH-HEADS!!!"
-- me

tying up my camel and gatherin' some fish-heads,
the slightly disgusted/-ing but EXTREMELY proud-
sam


*the insane, immoral adults who participated in my upbringing fall into this category, too. i trusted them less than i trusted the tv, though, for the most part.
**"...second time, shame on me."
***fill in any stinkbughead-like adjective here. at some point or another, i am sure it will fit.