Well folks, I’m afraid that I am going to have to temporarily stray from the relatively light-hearted tone of the last few days’ rants to bring you a Real-Deal-Holyfield-Angry-American Rant (with a capital ‘R’).
(MIKE H. – YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ ANY FURTHER. I love you – and you know this – but even if the following rant doesn't tick you off, I feel pretty sure that your reply to me re: what I’m about to say will tick me off. We just have to agree to disagree on this one. I know how you feel, and I honestly wish that you were right.)

For the rest of you, I am including a poem at the end of today’s rant (so, even if you don’t want to read the rant, skip down to the poem). It’s one of my originals, and my first published. It is extremely pertinent, given the subject of today’s rant, and I feel that it is one of the most powerful things I have ever written, and I think that’s due to the fact that my feelings on the subject are so strong.

I peruse the ‘net headlines everyday, world news, the gamut, and try to make a little sense of it all. I also try not to let it make me too scared, too sad, too angry. Today though, I ran across the glut of headlines regarding the photos of the coffins of the US soldiers.
Those of you who know me, or even those who read my rants regularly, know how I feel about the news and it’s portrayal of death and misery. One of the main things that made me give up tv was the media’s sick exposure of the details of my cousins gruesome, sad and untimely death. Luckily, there were no photos, but they reported a lot of un-necessary details – details that my family was trying hard to keep from me – that caused me a great deal of pain. They still do.
I agree with the Bush administration’s opinion that photos of the bodies in the field are un-necessary. That would cause the families more pain than people should have to bear. But the photos of the coffins are anonymous, and powerful, and make it all very real, which is precisely what the families of these dead people - as well as all Americans – need to see. That this war is REAL. That our people are DYING. And in greater numbers every day –despite the fact that “Victory is Ours” and “the war is over”. I wish that George Bush’s purpose was really to protect the families of these soldiers, but it is not. His purpose is to protect his chances of being able to cheat his way into office for one more term, to protect his reputation, to protect his family’s oil money and holdings, to protect Haliburton’s* contract to rebuild the country that we – he – destroyed, and to keep Americans – and the rest of the world – complacent while he does whatever he wants to with this country’s resources. Including the men and women who are now nothing more than weight in flag-bedecked boxes and memories.
I applaud the sites brave enough to show these pictures. I am in vehement opposition of media sources that needlessly and shamelessly exploit human misery in order to get ratings, but at the same time, I want to get a view of what’s happening in the world that is as humanely realistic as possible. I think that the vision of wrecked bodies is as real as it gets, but the average human mind and heart are incapable of dealing with that well. I think we just shut down and our minds refuse to process it. I think that seeing a number - for example the current {Iraq Coalition casualty count}** of US war dead is 713 -
and what does a string of numbers mean? Even if there were a site that showed a counter counting up the number of American war casualties to the same number of deaths related to the Twin Tower bombings***, we would still not be able to comprehend it. It would still be anonymous numbers. So where is the balance? How can we get an idea of what this war really means without increasing the suffering of the ever-growing numbers of grieving Americans? By showing the photos of those rows of coffins, covered with the flags that (we hope) they believed that they died for.
The Bush administration is relying on this country’s ability to mentally sweep unpleasant things under the carpet of denial. Unfortunately, they have a reason to feel that this might work, and to a great extent, it has. They believe that if we don’t see these coffins, these large numbers of soldiers coming home in boxes, that we will forget and somehow re-elect him – or not RIOT when he re-elects himself.
I celebrate these sites and reporters who fight so hard and take such risks and brave chances in order to see that we know what is happening in our country, past our local papers and local news and stilted, partisan, paid-off national papers and channels.
This rant was inspired by the yesterdays’ BBC and API news items:
‘US concern over war dead photos’; ‘No cameras for US war dead’s return’; ‘Photos of GI’s caskets cost worker her job’; and ‘Widely published photos of US coffins anger Pentagon’.
Apparently:
“A total of 360 photos taken by the Air Force were released to the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org by the Pentagon after the site requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.(AFP/HO-USAF)”
This obviously displeased the Powers that Be, and for obvious reasons, I think.
My best friend is the child of a retired Military Officer, he admired his father and his military career immensely. He is also a history buff, and a realistic man who believes that these things – war and related incidents - HAVE to happen sometimes. He is not a liberal, nor is he a neo-fascist. He is an intelligent, educated, mature man who sees all the main sides of the issue. Nonetheless, his opinion on the matter (and he has respectfully played Devil’s Advocate for the current administration and its choices in this conflict in the midst of a number of my extended rants) was this: “It is not disrespectful to show these coffins to the world. It is disrespectful NOT to.”

Support these sites and these fearless fact-finders, folks. They are fighting in their own way to keep this country free. Those soldiers are doing the hardest job, fighting a mindless cause in a very hostile place, and for the same reasons. But there are also ‘small soldiers’ in this country, and they are fighting another enemy of freedom, another greedy, ruthless, careless regime.
I found some amazing things while trying to track down the facts about this latest wave of manipulative attempts at censorship.
Here is the link for “The Memory Hole – Rescuing Knowledge, Freeing Information” site. These are the folks responsible for getting the Air Force to release these photos under the American Freedom of Information Act. I also found this excellent article by Columbia Professor and Journalist Sree Sreenivasan on The Memory Hole site.
Here is another site, which seems a lot more whimsical and esoteric, but is definitely trying to achieve the same purpose within a different demographic.
On the subject of memory holes, another site that feels compelled to expose the “glossed over” and “swept under” news is Loompanics.com,
and the ‘What Really Happened’ site is particularly vociferous pursuant of the truth in media.
I found this article about some of the ways that the current administration is able to manipulate and limit the kinds and amount of information that is available to people:
"Jesse Berney at Kicking Ass explains why the White House has prevented Google and other search engines from indexing the files on its public website that mention Iraq: if it's not indexed, it's not archived, making it harder to prove later that some inconvenient fact has disappeared down the Memory Hole.”

I mourn at the sight of these coffins, the reading of these names and hometowns and the way these soldiers died. I mourn for the loss of our country’s rights, and our planets’ safety. I mourn for the cold, brutal knowledge that the wealthy really don’t care what happens to everyone else as long as their money and land is safe and there is at least someone left to work for them.
I know that I can be perceived as a bleeding-heart liberal, a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or any other clichéd tag that the people who’s wealth, certainty of position and ability to just be RIGHT need to put on me and people like me. But even the ultra-conservative people who know me well know that I have no hidden agenda other than fear of loss of freedom and a deep abiding concern for all people. Even the ones who scare me. Maybe ESPECIALLY the ones who scare me.
Keep fighting, keep questioning, keep supporting our soldiers who have to be there, but most of all, keep trying to get them home, and not in boxes.

Giant

Mother holds the tricolor triangle,
Her knuckles wound as white
As her face
And the flowers wilting
On the lid of the big wooden box.

Empty as promises,
Dry as Texas,
I watch the thin, gritty breeze
Blow across the graveyard,
Looking for something to feel.
I am not like the soldiers,
Who fear for their own lives,
Or the friends of the family,
Who knew this would happen,
Or my father, who thinks
“My son died for his country”,
Or my mother,
Who thinks that nothing is left
But this sandy bolt of cloth
That rests on her lap…

Twenty-one shots
Echo into hot, Texas-forever,
None of the bullets stopped
By the soft bodies of men.
Tears fall into empty spaces,
And are sucked up by the dirt.
***
(I wrote this in 1991 while my brother was facing some of the most dangerous time of his own military career. It was also inspired by a very poignant scene in the James Dean film ‘Giant’)

Peace,
-Sam

*FYI, Haliburton is the company of which George Bush Sr. was once on the stockholders board, Colin Powell was hired to give speeches at their dinners and paid in stock, of which Dick Cheney was once the chief executive. Totally by coincidence, of course.

**this part of the site lists their ID, name, rank, branch of service, and tells where they were assigned to, where they were based, the date they were killed, the fatality cause and location. I warn you, there are 41 pages, starting with US Marine 2nd lieutenant Therrel Childers, who was killed on March 21, 2003. He was 30, he was from Harrison County, Mississippi, and he was killed in Southern Iraq by hostile fire.
I also discovered that there are 873 wounded, and here is a sick p.s. regarding some of the wounded and the possibility of miscount.

***and if you recall correctly, the Bush administration did not put any “bans” on the media exposure of the photos of the 911 dead.

hello, peeps. i have been doing SO good with the daily blogs that i didn't want to leave today without posting something. i began writing a rant that i will finish and post tomorrow - it's been a very busy day, sorry. i will warn you in advance that tomorrow's rant is tangentially opposed to the personal and relatively peaceful poetry rants i've had for y'all for the last few days, although it will still contain one of my poems. tomorrow's rant is a big one, and a political one, and y'all know how i can get...*
but for today, despite my disturbed heart and mind - or maybe BECAUSE of them, i will leave you with some sweetness, something much smaller and yet much bigger than this mess that mr. !@#$ bush, and all the other careless and greedy world "leaders" have put us all into.
this is a re-print of part of my april 4 rant from last year - my experimental 'southern haiku' about the seasons of my childhood.

These four are called ‘Bulletin Board’

Dusk light, dogwood glow,
silk of shift from fourth to third,
tar to dirt, river road.


Beloved Gramaw
puts sliced ripe homegrown
tomatoes on the table.


Still dark – wake to coffee smell.
Men in kitchen laugh.
Soon, white-tail will fall.


Scent of wintergreen,
pine, Vap-o-rub, I sleep well.
I will wake to warmth.


much love, and as many as the endless universe full of stars' prayers for peace,
-sayuri


*mike, that's a warning for you, honey.

Sometimes it seems that my poeems are better read out loud than in print. I get really powerful reactions from folks* when I read them. I haven’t managed to school myself in that freaky stilted sort of ‘slam poetry’ style** that ‘professional poets’ seem to favor, so when I read, I just read from my heart as if I actually MEAN what I am saying, and not just trying to impress people with how cool I sound. I like to read other poets’ work out loud, to myself, so please, if you feel like it, read mine to yourself. Maybe it’s that I try to write things that it feels good to say out loud, I dunno.
Here’s a fun one for you to read out. (I wrote this not too long after I moved here.)

Amputee

This planet was a garden once. That may be the only thing that we can all agree on.
(Except that guy on 7th Street, the one with the tin-foil hat, who thinks
that we are just a cosmic Jr. Food Mart for some higher intelligence.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we – the Egyptians, or the Masons, or somebody’s rich great-grandpa – sold the rights, or wrote up a 20 million year lease:
“Dino’s Exterminated Free!!! Withsalepurchaseofplanet, taxableinMilkyWayGalaxyat
nominalfeeof42% - Non-negotiable.)

However you look at it, we – biggest brain on the planet
(weeding out the competition daily)
- have turned it into a machine.
One big Willy Wonka factory of delights,
Well designed to … … … what?
Bring us pleasure? Yes, that’s it.

And so we crank up the machine, wind up the toy, streamline our costs, power up,
downscale, become more efficient, micromanage, multi-task, and increase our maximum potential. For … … … what?

To eat, drink, sleep, run, watch tv, immerse ourselves in sound, food, dreams, sex, love, art, babies, sunshine, cats, laundry, death, Oprah, clothes, advice, fear, words, work, skin, pain, exercise, gossip, church, drugs, books, tears, thought, paint, obsession, care, M.A.S.H., serial killing and other natural disasters, meditation, war, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, music, each other, and god, to … … … what?

To distract ourselves from the itch
or the pain
of the place
where our wings used to be.

***

This is another one that I love to read out loud. I seldom write rhyming poetry. I am not a Poet, and so I feel unqualified to dabble in such lofty pursuits as meter. But this little sonnet HAD to rhyme, as I also seldom write Lurve poeems, and the sentiment seemed to call for this form.
There’s also a funny and ironic story behind this piece.
My room mate during my last semester at USM and I were sitting on a bench outside the commons, watching folks come and go outside the cafeteria. We were discussing s-e-x – or actually the lack thereof, and we were using household terms as metaphors. In fact, it started off with Meg talking about the last time there’d been a “car parked in her garage”, and I said “Car, sheesh! I don’t even have a lawn mower in mine!” This of course degenerated into jokes about hiring lawn boys, etc.
While we were sitting there having this disgusting converse, we spotted our friend Joe Fujizo (who is a VERY nice and innocent, VERY Christian young man, as well as being a really buff and gorgeous Hawaiian/Asian bloke to boot) walking toward the cafeteria. Joe was never in a bad mood, always cheerful and positive and sweet, so I felt brave enough to stand up on the bench and yell across the way:
“JOE! WOULDST THOU MOW THE GRASS FOR ME?!?!”
(snicker, chortle, hee!)
without having any idea what I was talking about, Joe – in the first and last foul mood I ever saw him in replied:
“MOW YOUR OWN DAMN GRASS!!!” and walked on into the cafeteria.
Oh, the irony of it all. :)
In that moment, this poem was born, and though it began as a farce, and a play on dumb ole’ love poems, it ended as something entirely different. It is still one of my veryvery favorites (in the top five, prolly) and one of the most bittersweet and ‘tender’ things I have ever written.

Suburban Love Anthem

Would you mow the grass for me,
Or let the long leaves lie
Where heavy summer beetles breed
Beneath a green, candescent sky?

I’ve seen you carefully tend and tune
The mowers’ oily parts
As young lovers tune the emotional gears
Of one anothers’ tender hearts.

In waiting, on the patio,
I watch the mornig shadows pass
And hold my love, ‘guised lemonade,
In a cold, eternal drinking glass.

And as I stand and calmly watch
You part the green, unending sea,
I hope you’ll come, in your respite,
And drink, not from the glass, but me.

***

moo.
-sam


*with the exception of ‘professional poets’, it seems.
** X has written a HILARIOUS comedy act based on that very thing. It’s a little piece he calls “Blah.” When you meet him, or see him again, ask him to do it for you.

Ok, due to great demand and humongous public hue and cry …
(ok, really due to beloved Andi’s very sweet post to my guest book*)
… I will continue to, uh…’entertain’ you with some of my poems. I will probably post two or three a day until I’ve exhausted my rathah limited supply of printable ones, but fortunately none of my poems are very long (which I suspect is one of the reasons why I am so popular at poetry readings.**)

Alright, I’ll start with something lighter. This first poem was written not long after “Last Stand”. That very same teacher was a big fan of Jimmy Buffet, and similar “home-style” writing. After the ‘Last Stand’ debacle, I decided to try to beat him at his own game. I wrote advice, and he LOVED it. Hmph. How dare he? :) Well, I love it, too. It remains, to this day, one of my very favorites. I am proud of this piece, and always get a great response when I read it publicly.
This is called:

Advice

Here in a summer Delta,
where love wraps ‘round your heart
like a pickled watermelon rind,
a Lady is likely to find her prince –
charming or otherwise –
propped against the bumper
of a stepside GMC.
Life is a funny thing, you’ll find,
at least that’s what the local
Union of Baitshop Philosophers
tell me.
What else is there to believe
in a universe where the weather
is based on the color of the sunset,
and warts can be banished
with the rub of a chicken bone?
“Lookin’ for love
is like chasin’ a greased pig.
Leave it alone,
‘n when it gets hungry enough,
it’ll come lookin’ for you.”
Mamaws know more about love
than any Cosmopolitan magazine,
and in those kitchen-coffee whispers
they’ll be the first to tell you
the most important secret
about Southern love:
“Just like the dust here,
you might have to settle
on what you can find.”

***

And then, to continue the Southern writing theme (oh, Loki’s Little Acre ain’t ded yet!), here is another one that I wrote after I moved here. Of course there’s a story behind it, and it’s not as earth-shakingly tragic as it might have been. I actually wrote this after I thought I’d lost my camera (‘Antonia’)***, but I realized, even as the words started to form in my head, before I’d even found some paper, that it was about SO much more than that. It was about my whole life.

Front Step Psalm

Lord, learning to let go is hard.
To open my hands and release
what may be
the only thing holding me to the ground.

And Lord, why do I love the ground so?
It is as if
I wrap myself around this pain,
like it’s the only thing
keeping me warm at night.

My head is heavy Lord,
and if I let it hang,
then I can see the faces
of those around me,
and embrace the heat of their misery too.

I see that we are all heavy and tired, Lord,
And afraid to hold onto each other if we fall.
Let me be strong,
let me learn to open my hands.
Make me able to fall with grace,
catch me, if you can,
and if you can’t,
then let me learn from it all.

Amen.

***

Ok, there’s today’s Blue-Plate Special. : )
Thanks for reading, and for sending your love.
MUCH of mine,
-Sam

*well, as well as my own bloody-minded, stubborn-@$$ “this is dang well what I dang well wanna do so I’m gunna dang well DO it!” attitude. :D
**I mean, ANYthing sounds good after a 15 minute-long meandering hippie diatribe about ANYthing – ESPECIALLY with intermittent didgeridoo accompaniment. Welcome to The Mountains, folks.
***well, and also not long after I'd found out that nearly every single thing I had in storage had been lost somehow, too. Even my grandma's antique crackerjack toys.
Bastards.

Sweet Miss Delia, of the Long Shining Brown Hair*, backseat ZapMama tunes, “Scooping Ice Cream” Hippie-Pants Dance, and brave, empathic defender of my poems in Mr. B_____’s scary-berry Poetry Class, thank you for checking my page every day, and for saying such nice things in my guest book! (Delia isn’t the only one who checks my ‘page daily. Thank y’all for continuing to do so, despite the frequent long gaps between posts of late. Y’all make me want to TRY!)

So, for those of you who do not know:
Delia was a lady who went to school with me at Good Ole’ U.S. of M. Despite my desire to be mad at the world, sad as could be, scared of the new, and of my own big bad self, Delia made me smile and think, made me feel warm, even when I ‘believed’ that the world was just cold. She caused me to challenge my own beliefs and broaden my perspectives in ways that she doesn’t even know about. Delia was one of the people who seemed to really see and hear me, and I never forgot her.
At last year’s faire auditions, I met a young Asheville lady, a poet, and we began to chat. After she’d gotten to know me a bit, she asked if I was interested in contributing some of my poems – many of which (most of which) are about hard times, whether personally or globally, and trying to get through them – to a reading/slam to benefit an abuse awareness group. I told her that I’d written at least one possibly appropriate poem in particular that caused a very strong reaction in my second-year poetry class, and I told her this story:

I’d written this poem about my stepfather’s abuse and about forgiveness. I labored over it, because I knew it had a lot of dangerous (and dangerously trite) emotional content, but it was important to me (and still is). The day that I submitted it to the class for critique was a hard one, and a big step for me as a writer and as a human being.
After I read the poem out loud, the teacher and students were allowed to comment and ask questions. In the first verse are the lines:
“He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.”

Our teacher said that he’d like to ask a question to clarify something before the discussion began. He said – this award-winning poet – said “Ok, I understand that the cane poles are for fishing and the coat hangers are for roasting marshmallows, but what are the axe handles for?”
There was a sickening pause, and then before I could collect myself enough to answer Delia yelled “He BEAT her with those things!”
Needless to say, there were tears and a very intense discussion followed, but after class, Mr. B. held me back and ACTUALLY SUGGESTED that I ‘write about less emotional subjects from now on’. (!!!)
I didn’t listen to him, because I realized that Delia – and some of the others – heard what I was saying and respected me for it. Mr. B. was distressed because I’d gotten his class riled up (and helped him make himself look like MORE than a bit of a Big Dumb Stupid Head**) and that’s what I assumed poetry was all about. Making people feel.

After I finished telling this story to the Asheville poet-friend, she said “Awesome! And by the way, do you remember this ‘Delia’s’ last name?” I said yes, and described her, and she said “Hmmm… I think I knew her in (Wisconsin? One of those cold places, anyway.).” And she went and got her address book and verified that the Universe is a very strange and small and wondrous place indeed! She gave me Delia’s e-mail addy, I wrote, and when Delia returned from her latest wanderlustful adventures, she wrote to me!

So, Miss Delia, for the next few days of posts, I have decided to ‘publish’ some of my poems from over the years, some that you may remember, and some that you’ve never heard. Some are terrible, and some I am really proud of, and some of them are the same poem.
So, y’all all have Delia to blame for The Attack of the Sam Poetry for a few days!***
Thank you, Delia. *kisses!*


I’ll start with the previously excerpted poem, written sometime around 1989.

Last Stand

I can’t watch those old westerns anymore –
“You shot my Pa!”
and stub cheroots.
He used to call me “podna”,
when his hands were flat
on the kitchen table
or curled around a beer.
Before the cane poles,
coat hangers,
and axe handles –
and sometimes after.

Every day,
Squared up at sunset,
twenty paces,
back to back.
Faced at high noon
To show me
With your red, rough hands
How to plant the seeds
That never got to grow.

Nights, lying still
and hiding out
while prayers
against the bruises
and the boogeymen
rose, then settled
in the corners with the dust,
and the teddy-bears,
and my brothers’ one-shot 22.

I rode out
on the last coach.
Back to a real father
and hands that touched faces
with nothing but ‘soft’.

Your last words still ring,
like shining silver spurs –
you never said
“Please forgive me.”
But I did.

***

Ok, and I’ll put a newer one, just so you can all decide if I’ve improved any at all or not… ;) This was written a few years ago for my beloved boys in The Geek Patrol (who all came to the coffee shop to hear me the night I debuted this - Moo!) , and all the Good Guys out there.


A Last Scrap of Faith is My Favor****

For the boys
who wave their flags
and stand for things
that no one else believes in,
who hold the doors,
drop their coats,
and neatly pin their hearts
to their shirts every day;
who know that good guys
never win,
but never waiver,
and look for the princess
sleeping inside every
wicked witch;
for those boys,
the pain of quest
and conviction,
battered armor,
and poisoned apples,
long campaigns,
and cruel magic mirrors.
Please,
fight on,
and know that,
in the darkness,
chained princesses dream of you.

***

'More (if you can stand it!) 'next post!
Much love,
-Sam


*well, it was in those days, though I hear it has changed… J
**Which he really wasn’t, but STILL!
***Don’t be TOO afraid. The Vogons said I SUCKED! ;)
****FYI, a ‘favor’ is an item, a ribbon, handkerchief, or similar, that ladies’ used to give to knights before they went out onto the tourney field, to show that they had faith in them, or ‘favored’ them.

Sweet Christopher and I hit the road about 9:30 on Thursday morning. We were both a little tired from going to Manor Daze - can’t miss a Manor Daze* - and then staying up late to do some second-to-last minute packing. Tired or not, we both had that “WHEE! ROAD TRIP!” frame of mind, and despite the bickering over packing and little dumb stuff (which didn’t last too long, once we’d got out of NC) we settled into that joy that only the prospect of long-distance adventure on a pretty day can bring.
Our first challenge came when we realized that we had an insufficient sound system. Esme only has a radio, so Chris got a pair of teeny speakers and an adapter to go with my old Discman. We couldn’t really hear it over the wind and road and Esme’s badly busted muffler, so we made the decision to find a place to buy a portable cd player and batteries. We talked and laughed and occupied ourselves until we came to a HUGE truck stop plaza extravaganza mall and we found a nice little boombox (it was covered in happy green rubber - ???) for a Walmart price and a bunch of bat’ries. Moo. Our first mutual appliance purchase.** The batteries cost ¼ as much as the damned ‘box, but they lasted all the way to Mississippi and back. Yay, us.
The rest of the trip went fine. Chris navigated us through the convolutions of Atlanta and kept us on the right track through Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, all the way to Jackson. We got to a Mickey D’s at an intersection just a few blocks from the Bachelorette party, and stopped to ‘freshen up, change clothes, and call to let them know we were almost there.
While I was in the potty, I heard a bunch of squeals (there were a lot of young downtown Jackson folk hanging in the McD’s, friends of the employees, mostly, it seemed), and I knew I was back home when a rubenesque and glamorously coiffed young McD’s employee burst into the bathroom, both laughing and mad, to reattach the wiglet that one of her friends had snatched off as a joke…
Ah, Mississippi.
We arrived at a beautiful house on an oak-shaded street, just across from an antebellum inn. The house was white, with a wide front porch and you could see from the street that each room was painted in brilliant colors. We opened the door and saw Nina, sitting in her chair like a queen, surrounded by a room full of princesses. We were greeted by fragrant hugs and soft kisses, made welcome, given drinks and drawn into the fun. Nina was introducing the guests, and saying lovely things about each one. I have learned a lot from her.
After the introductions, I sat my turn at the card-table where a lady was set up to do Mehndi for us. I chose a design of flowers and vines for the back of my left hand. I got out my glitter and each lady allowed me to sparkle them up, as our hostess handed out feather boas (I got pink, X got black) and then we began our instruction in exotic dancing. Chris decided to watch from a safe distance (the dining room, where there was also a long antique table covered in exotic finger food, mm!) and the poor baby had to watch as all these women (not a plain one in the bunch), Nina’s gorgeous Indian cousins from DC, willowy blondes, curvy redheads, beautiful brunettes - all butterflies and fairy moths – did “the sexy walk”, “the bump and grind”, “open and close the gate”, “pull up your stockings”, etc. The young lady who was our instructor was a dancer in a show (as in theatre) sort of like Moulin Rouge, and so we were able to benefit from her expertise. I think we laughed harder than we danced, though.
After the party, we all convoyed to a little nightspot called “Elixir”. We met up with some of the boys there, and caught up with old times and new names. Then we all trekked over to the bachelor’s soiree (cards and beer in a Man Kitchen) and I finally got to meet Jerel. I didn’t doubt it, but was pleased to find that he is as sweet and deep as he is beautiful and seeing him look at Nina told me all that I needed to know.
Chris and I stayed a civilized length of time, and then headed for our hotel. We were pulled over – for seeming to swerve - by two of Mississippi’s finest on the way, but I was in a good mood, and I felt confident that I’d done nothing wrong (except for the 17 drinks I’d had earlier – not really, but, you know how it feels when you’ve got the cop standing at your window. I told him I’d been driving all day (true), I had had a drink earlier (true), and that I wasn’t completely sure where I was going (VERY true). I was friendly, and compliant, and he turned out to be, too. He gave us directions, told us be careful and let us go. We got to our hotel room, unpacked, and – after some time - finally slept the sleep of the just, the adventurous, the satiated, and the veryveryvery TIRED.

Friday, we slept in late, late, late. We had a couple of hours to play around, so Herman came and took us to Salvation Army and gave us an EXCELLENT tour of Jackson. The highlight for me was the little café – ‘Peaches’- that we visited in the downtown section, where they are renovating the street that used to house a lot of the black clubs, cafes and shops. Farish St. There was a photo shoot happening outside, several tall, slender, heart-breakingly beautiful, dark young women in revealing and glamorous clothes posed for a photographer outside, while inside a small camera crew interviewed the nonagenarian proprietress Ms. Peaches in her best Sunday dress. The juxtaposition of these two generations framed by the media-hunger for them, then super-imposed over the renovation of the old street itself was a good metaphor for my home-state capitol, and my feelings about who I am and where I came from. The covered windows of the old buildings were painted with bright murals, all relevant to the communities’ feelings about the rise in the economy and the renewal of their local culture. I thought of how I’ve felt when bad times have hit me, maybe for a long time, but then one day I just finally felt like getting up, getting dressed, getting a cute haircut and going on with my life. It’s as if I’ve remembered that I am a woman, and that despite the blows to my surface, and the bruises to my soul, I still have them both, a surface and a soul, and they are stronger and more beautiful still. Maybe Farish St. has scars, but it is still beautiful, and it has survived a lot. It has more character, and therefore, more hope.

After our tour, Herman delivered us back to the hotel. We had to dress quickly for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Shower, iron, dress, skwooch, and we were out. We found the place easily, down a long dirt road in a community that reminded me a lot of my mother’s hometown. The lodge was set in the shade of pines across a bridge over a small bayou spiked with cypresses. Across the bridge, and nearer the entrance was a small chapel, and off to the right, beside the water, was the spot where the wedding would be held. There were folding chairs fanned out to fill the grove, and a few wedding pilgrims wandering, gossiping and waiting near the sweet bamboo pergola that had been built just for the ceremony. Nina arrived, dressed in a stunning ivory beaded wedding gown. She would wear a Sari for the wedding, and so to please her mother wore this gown for the rehearsal and dinner that night. We ran through the basics of the ceremony. Those of us who would be speaking did a perfunctory stand up-sit down, some people had to stand in for others who were there. My favorite moment from that time was getting to hear Lhay practice her lovely and powerful rendition of “At Last”, the song that would accompany Nina down the aisle.
After the rehearsal, we – more or less - followed Jerel and his get-away driver through Jackson to the Red Barn. There was lots of good food and wine, and before the band kicked up, there was a VERY sweet slide show of pictures of Nink and Jerel growing up and coming together ( - again, they were friends in high school…). We sat at a table with Monty and Amy (MOOO!!!), Caroline and Roberto (MmMmOOOoOoo!), Alem and Carla (MoOoOo!) Lhay and Tate (MuMu!) Cedric and Gina (MeOW!), and I think that Philip, Diego and Carolina drifted in and out a bit, and Jerel came and joined us for a while, too. When the music started to get loud, we all drifted down to stand with the smokers. Princess Caroline decreed that we should go Out, and so we rallied the troops and headed downtown to drinks and complete bombastic b.s. at Martin’s. I got to know Cedric (with whom, of course, I was completely smitten, along with his lovely Gina-friend. Gina is one of the most smittable girls I’ve ever seen. That pretty and still that real. Her smile has to be seen to be believed…) a little better. I think Cedric got to know me better than he wanted (he found out one of my only Secret Flaws – can you ever forgive me, Ced?), and Chris got to know everyone better (Monty, he said he liked you best, though I think Carolina made a big mark, too…) We laughed a lot and debated a little, and we drank somewhere in between that. We listened to Roberto’s tales of bigtime Hollywood production (I knew all ALONG that Billy Bob was a nice guy, thanks for backing me up, Roberto…) and to Caroline’s concerns about her interview with Rob Zombie on Monday. Someone – maybe Ced? Diego? – I can’t recall, asked which ONE album we’d want to be buried with. Mine was “Unforgettable Fire”, X’s was “Raw Power”. Ced’s was “Purple Rain”, so I don’t want to hear any more about MY taste in music, thankyouverymuch! :)
Finally we all wound down and headed back to our dens, preparing to face The Big Day.

Chris and I decided that we would do NOTHING the next day before the wedding. We’d considered the museum, but we had an early photo call, and so we lazed around all morning. Our two big treats were getting to see Herman’s handsome and clever son Loden for a little while, and getting to watch “Mississippi Burning” for the first time. The irony of that is that many of the people we were socializing with that weekend had worked on the film. They all hate it – and I understand why, from a socio-political perspective, but visually and technically it was a beautiful film, and I told them so.
We got dressed and arrived in plenty of time.
X and I got the job of lighting candles and I was asked to do the Nag Champa honors. I combined the lighting with a small prayer-ritual, taking the opportunity to ask for blessings for Jerel and Nina as I lit each stick. Before we knew it, the chairs were filled and the grove was humming with excitement. All of Nina’s beautiful cousins were in their Sari’s, and everyone else was in their spring best. I wore my blue silk mandarin “pajamas” that I got in China Town last July, and X had on his favorite suit, charcoal, burgundy and silver.
Jerel came down the aisle with both of his parents and stood, and then Lhay began to sing to the melodic beat of Tate’s bass. All heads turned as Nina strolled down the aisle with her parents. Her Sari was pale gold, saffron, champagne. Her black hair outshone the jewels set there, and her face outshone her hair. She looked just like a princess.
The first part of the ceremony was a complete Hindu ceremony. I’d never seen anything like it, and I was amazed. The symbolism and the chanted prayers created a feeling in that grove that was inexplicable. The next part of the ceremony was for the couple’s chosen speakers to stand up and talk about them, and about love and friendship, and no one had any troubles doing that. There were a few tears, but lots more smiles and laughs, and no doubt that this couple is blessed.
Before we knew it, Nina and Jerel were officially wed, and everyone was heading up to the lodge for a long, fine, festive night of eating, drinking, dancing, singing and remembering. We had such fun, being together, remembering our shared roots, telling tales and toasting the happy pair. Watching the older men in Nina’s father’s family dance to Indian disco was fantastic, seeing the sari’d women swirl and dip around them, singing karaoke with Chris was too much fun, dancing as if we were still 18 to all our favorite 80’s tunes, and enjoying the other people who were brave enough to karaoke. I hope I never forget this lovely, perfect day.
Nina and Jerel, thank you for the gift of yourselves, and for sharing your bright, broad world. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

We finished the night, oh where? Again at Hal and Mal’s then Martins.
Caroline, whom I would obviously follow anywhere– with a glazed look and happy smile - suggested that the night was still young (*sheesh* what about ME! ;) and so we all reconvened (somehow) in downtown Jackson after the fete. Basically the same crew as before were there, with the exception of Ced and Gina, and the addition of Fel and two of Nina’s other cousins, as well as some of the outlying film folks. We talked about food and film (big surprise) and family. Though we were all tired, no one seemed to want to go. We closed down both places, though, said our goodbyes and went to our rooms.
The next morning we had one more small visit with Caroline and Roberto (one more cool Caroline kiss on my cheek, yay me!) while we breakfasted continental-style, we got to say goodbye to Tate and Lhaye, and then we headed out for the country and for “home” – to see my family.
We rode through some beautiful countryside, lush trees, winding roads and small swamplands. We got to Charlyn’s around lunchtime – just in time to head over to Aunt Sissy, Jeff & Casey’s for a little Easter cookout. Charlyn’s younguns were glad to see us. Ryan is almost ten now (!) and our Mimi – Amelia – just turned six. They were happy to introduce us, in turn to their cousins Trinity, who is now two, and little teeny precious Zachary, who is just several weeks old. I didn’t even know that Zach was on the way, so I count that as one of my two best surprises of the trip. We had a nice lunch. (Mmm, fried crabclaws…) and a good visit. Casey looked good. Mom-hood seems to suit her. Jeff was looking good, too. A proud dad always looks good, in my opinion. Aunt Sissy was of course in full-bloom Mamaw state, she now lives within a very short distance of her four youngest grandbabies. Trinity is a special kid. She is mostly quiet, it seems – or at least a little shy around new people. She has soft brown hair and soft brown eyes (our Grandma Bertie’s legacy, dad, Jeff and Shawn all have those eyes. Brown eyes will always be my favorite…), a little pug nose, a fair rosy complexion, and a potty-mouth like a toddling sailor, apparently. Gotta’ love that! :D She is a bundle of energy, bouncing around on her tiptoes, flapping her little hands like a flustered penguin, bouncing on and off the furniture, and running away at every possible opportunity. The only thing I really heard her say the whole time was “Oh shoot, honey.”, which she said often, though Charlyn assured me that it probably wasn’t “shoot” that she was saying. Her dad and Aunt Sissy say that she reminds them of me. Hm. :D
Zachary is still so teeny, he looks like a little shell-less turtle. But he has big blue-grey eyes and a sweet little face, and a pretty good shot at a weird and wonderful life stretched out ahead of him.
After dinner X & I got out in the yard and showed Ryan and Mimi some stage combat basics, and then we headed back to Charlyns for some show-and-tell time (Charlyn is an artist and master Quilter, Ryan has an impressive collection of biological and geological wonders, and Mimi has lots of clothes and purses as well as Barbie that becomes pregnant (!!) and a hula-hooping style that is … unmatched in entertainment value. :)
We played the Universe’s longest game of ‘Life’ while Charlyn cooked up a batch of venison chili (MMMmm!!) and stayed up to watch the kids be silly until we all wound down. Before we went to bed, Mimi reminded us of the countdown of days until her daddy comes home for leave from !@#$ Kuwait***, they both skwooched up with X & I on the air mattress for a few minutes before we all went to sleep.

The next morning Charlyn treated us to huckleberry pancakes (from her grandma’s huckleberry bushes) and homemade venison sausage (my FAVORITE) before we went over to Casey’s to visit a little more and pick up some of my furniture. Charlyn helped us load up the truck, and then we said ‘goodbye for now’ and headed on to Hattiesburg.

We drove the back roads, checking our tarp often, as the rain was heading our way. We made it to Hattiesburg without any trouble, though, and still in good moods. Christopher is an ideal traveling companion, may I say. He is helpful and patientand a good dj and a really good kisser. (Not that the kissing part is NECESSARY, but it sure makes the trip nice. : ) When we got to the ‘Burg, I stopped on a whim and called an old friend, Mitch. Mitch is my ex-husband’s long-time best friend. They were in school together, started working in comics together, and Mitch was Steve’s best man in our wedding (Charlyn was my maid of honor). I wasn’t sure that he’d want to see me, but I wanted to see him, so it was worth a shot. When I called, the answering machine picked up, but as soon as I said who I was, someone answered. Richie Blackmon, one of the “kids” (he’s THIRTY now!!!) who looked up to Steve and Mitch and the other Ms. art-corp folks when they were still at JCJC (Richie was also friends with Robbie) picked up the phone and said “SAM! It’s Richie! Richie Blackmon!” Well, SOMEone was glad to hear from me at least – that was a good sign. Richie put Mitch on the phone, and Mitch said “Yeah, come on over.”
Mitch was my first crush among that studio full o’ artists. He was cute and sweet too, like Steve (though WAAAAAAAAYYY too shy for me) but it was his completely unique art-style that really impressed me as an artist. It was his kind treatment of me (despite a LOT of things) and his loyalty to Steve that impressed me as a human being though, and I was grateful to be welcomed into his space again.
We had a nice visit. We talked movies and art, of course. I told him and Richie that when I REALLY missed Steve was when some new nerd-movie came out – LotR, Hellboy, Spiderman, etc. - and I wanted to hear his opinion. They caught me up on the local gossip, mostly mild, thank god, and Mitch served us some of his DAMNED good iced tea. I left with a good feeling, like I’d been forgiven for a bit of my past transgression, and that maybe my old life wasn’t as tarnished as I’d thought.
After we left Mitch and Richie, I gave X the 30 minute tour of the ‘Burg. I took him around campus, down Hardy, past the zoo, ‘round downtown (and subsequently past about 10 different old houses of mine). He got to see The Cat Lady, we got free sno-cones at my favorite stand down by the old Bingo hall, I showed him some of my favorite old houses and haunts (mine and Steve’s old house has been bought and is being remodeled and looks great – they kept my bedroom and dining room blue, too!). When we stopped for a potty break, I called Rob’s house, and even though he wasn’t home, Brian**** was. He was about to head off for work, but he said Rob would be home soon, and we could surprise him. We found the neighborhood, but I drove by (like I’ve done a jillion times before) thinking I had the right place. When I knocked on the door and a guy who was OBVIOUSLY not Rob answered, I asked and the guy said “oh, I think he’s next door…” he let me leave the truck parked for a minute, and I walked over into Rob’s yard. He was standing at the door with his cute girl friend and I just walked right up and said “Excuse me, could I use your bathroom?” I thought he was gonna’ fall off the steps! He was DEFINITELY surprised to see me! We came in (he still had my art displayed on his wall! :), visited and gossiped for a while, and then they sat with us at the Waffle House (X’s favorite restaurant - ???) and helped us delay the trip for just a little while longer.
(Rob, it was SO good to see you, and 'review old times' and meet your lady. Thank you. You have always been a true friend. Even through the fake mice debacle.*****)
Finally, we took off. Pouring rain, 10 hours to go, and no sleep since 8:30 a.m., and still my mood was good. Chris kept me awake for as long as he could playing DJ, and when he nodded off, I would gently tug his hair and he would wake for a while. It wasn’t a bad trip back, despite the cold and rain. I had to stop for about 15 minutes somewhere in South Carolina or Georgia, I think, and rest for a few minutes. I couldn’t actually sleep, but the rest helped. We made it to Stewart’s and unloaded the truck without killing each other, though by then I was basically sleep-walking, got the Pup-pup in the truck and went home to a well-deserved and hard-earned sleep.
It was a good trip, and when the time came for X & I to go back to the real world, we found that we still didn’t want to leave each other’s company. That’s a good sign, if you ask me, especially considering that the return to cold weather brought on two bad days of serious pain before it warmed up again, and I wasn’t the best company.
Back to the “real world”, away from the dream of open water, big skies, old friends, good food, exotic faces and places, memories, forgiveness, family. Nonetheless, I also return to my good friends here, and some things and places that I love. Life is about change, forward and backward. I’m pretty (darned, in some cases) good at a lot of things, but at dealing with change, I’m an old pro. It’s just nice to know that some things never change, and that I am still welcome in places that I love, places where I thought I couldn’t return for burned bridges. I really do believe that a man can measure his value by the weight of his true friendships. If that is the case, I am a very valuable person, indeed.

Much love, and more adventure,
-Sam


*Manor Daze is the live-action sitcom that we go to in Asheville every Wednesday night.
Come see it, it’s great, funny, free, and the backdrop is fabulous… ;)
Sunshine’s my mom, bitch!
**I told X it’d just be something for us to fight over when we broke up… :D
*** “ANYBODY but Bush in 2004!” I wish that son-of-a-!@#$-politician could hear Mimi counting down those days…
**** HEY, BRIAN! SORRY WE MISSED YOU!!! MOO! THANKS FOR KEEPING THE SURPRISE!)
*****Don't ask.

Hi guys.
I could spend this whole space apologizing for being so !@#$ slack, but I think that most of y'all have some idea of what I've been going through and can forgive me - hopefully. There's been so much space between posts that I've felt like I've had to have some Opus Deus ready for you guys, but then I thought: "You know what, this is supposed to be a DIARY/editorial kinda' thing. These people don't expect Great Literary Endeavors from me*. What they want is DIRT and HONESTY. And frequent updates. And maybe a laugh or two upon occasion.
I can do that.

So. Dirt.
I have a little dirt. But it's good mooshy dirt-about-me, so I will keep it brief and vague.
:)
My most excellent and lovely bf is STILL around. In nine days, we will have been dating for six months. This surely seems like a brief mayfly flicker of a relationship to some of you, but for me, the six-month line is an important one. Even if I like a guy, if it is obviously not going anywhere, then by six months (or sooner), we sort of "phase each other out". If I DO like a guy, for sure, but he is a weasel, then I have usually either figured this out by six months and dumped him, or am on the verge of figuring this out, so he dumps me. With only a few exceptions**, this has pretty much been the case every single time.
But here X and I are at the line, and it just gets sweeter and mooshier and more real every day. Scary, huh?
A week ago today was the worst pain I've experienced with this !@#$ !@#$ so far. Chris called in to his professors and then stayed home with me until he had to go to work that night. He put my blankie on the grass, brought me tea and fruit, helped me get around and lay beside me and read while I rested. He helps me around the house, leaves me nice notes and does sweet favors for me, we make each other laugh a lot, and we look forward to seeing each other and talking every day. He's not ashamed or embarassed of me in any way, he tells me often that he thinks I am beautiful and that he likes me very much. And I can tell that he means it. Yay, me.

In other dirt, "Oof, with the Ren-Faire!" Sheesh! (but also "WOW!") We have a HUGE cast this year (Stewart is playing THE starring role, that of Lord Biggles, Baron of Lower Tidmarsh and father of Rebecca, our Bride, who is REALLY getting married during the faire on Saturday. I wrote the storyline to work this in - and it's GREAT!)
We have an acting troupe, tumblers, musicians, fractured fairy-tales, rogues, ladies, kids, villagers - in other words a HUGE cast (we had 75 at auditions!). There will be song and dance, funny skits, a 'Sleeping Beauty Variety Show', more catfights than even YOU could dream up, Seamus, and lots of people, both Rennies and Muggles, having the time of their lives AND doing something good for the world...
I am one of three (very frazzled) directors. Lisa is in charge of the Chess Board (and I believe that we will have about 12 fights on the board this year - !!!), Hamilton is in charge of Logistics (scheduling the stages, making sure that we remember all the important stuff, and just general assistance, labor and moral support) and I have been in charge of writing the overall plot, planning it all out, getting all of the directors, actors and performers organized and then teaching/helping them to write their scenes, and then helping to coach them in learning and performing their scenes, plus coordinating costumes, props and subdirectors. Whee! Buffy and Brett and Ken have also been with us all along, teaching the stage-combat, helping us with the scenes and with costume and prop ideas, and mediating between the !@#$ committees, not to mention offering food, solace and shelter at the end of long days.
It's going to be a BIG show, and, if we can keep it up, a really clever, funny, fun, educational and interactive show. Yay, us!
It will be held on May 15 and 16 at the AB Tech campus in Asheville, in case any of y'all want to come and join us!

Oh, and one more bit of lovely 'dirt'... well, this is more 'dish' than 'dirt'...
'Lord willin' and the creek don't rise', I will be taking a road trip with Chris (the beau) and Esme (the truck) to Ms. on Easter weekend to attend - and SPEAK in - my beautiful Ninka's wedding!!! :D :D :D I'll also get to spend some time with Charlyn and the kids, and enjoy some old-school, down-home fam-love. Yay, me.

Now for some HONESTY.
I'm still having a hard time. My body seems to be trying to show me a number of new tricks, most of them involving new places to hurt and new levels of pain. I have made a drastic change in my diet, with no more cheating than the occasional cup of decaf, and some french fries*** last Wednesday****. I've given up wheat and sugar, caffeine and processed foods with weird ingredients. I eat a lot of rice and fruit and yogurt and other monkey/hippie/baby foods. It's not too bad. I'm learning. It helps, too, but I am also discovering that, no matter what I eat, sometimes, I am just going to hurt, or be so exhausted that I can't do ANYthing. I am reading all about it, and doing Ellie's yoga tapes, and even running a bit when I get an energy-burst. I'm fighting (bad) depression, I'm learning a lot about my body and food, I'm doing my best to make the most of the times when I feel good, in other words, I'm trying.

So, it seems like I just need to work on 'frequent updates' and 'laughs'. I'll keep trying. And HOPEFULLY, new DayOff update SOONSOONSOON! I REALLY appreciate y'all writing and calling and checking on me and asking for more. Thank you. That definitely helps keep me going.

Much love,
-Sam


*well, not EVERY time, at least...
**I was with EB for almost two years, KR for about a year, Steve for five.. and that's it.
***sorry, that's "chips" for my limey love, and "freedom fries" for those rare few right-winged freak friends of mine. :)
****the french fries, btw, caused me no grief at all. The decaf, however, can bring it on with a vengeance. Boo. But MAN, were those fries good... mmmMmMMmMmmm...

You know what I’m craving (besides fried chicken, that is…)?
Beach time. It doesn’t have to be big white sands and surf, either. It’d be just duck-lovely to be sprawled out on one of those folding chaise thingies out behind the Pink House*, facing the inter-coastal waterway, with my head-phones, baseball cap and cut-offs on, less than ten feet from the dock, watching the birds swoop and dive over the marsh, with no more plans for the day than to eventually get up, grab a co’byar, stroll down the dock and tie the innertube to the rail, take a dip, then climb in the ‘tube with my beer and take a nap… maybe towards evening, go hunt some boiled seafood (which I CAN have, !@#$-damnit…) and one more beer… then perhaps a little night swim if the tide is right and then a good night’s sleep, with my head next to the window so I can hear the water and feel the breeze ‘til the sun comes up. If I was feeling spritely, I might borrow a bike the next morning, pack a backpack and ride down to the beach for a few hours, but I also might just like to take up my spot near the dock again, and go on pretending that the rest of the world is just a dream for a little while longer…
I need big sky. I need warm water. I need warm sun and a place to rest my body (like in the warm sand. I bet that would ease the pain some, youbetcha.). I need to be out of the HATE I’m living in every day – at least for a while (but honestly, it gets worse after each reprieve). I need time to figure out what matters, what I can really do about my situation, whether or not there’s any point to anything any more…
What am I worth if I can’t DRAW? If I can’t help my friends – and enjoy my friends - and go dancing and take long walks and fight and play and smooch and eat good (bad) things and have whole good days – several in a row, even? What is life worth without those things?
This, of course, is a hypothetical question, that nobody can really answer but me. But as it is, as my life is right now, these days, the answer is “not worth a damn.” I am ashamed to be having thoughts and opinions like this, I promise you. I know this is not my real, usual self, but I am the one living in this body, and it seems that the picnic is OVER. The ants are getting into everything, thunderclouds are building up, and I have to pee.
Frank said he has a friend who did a lot of yoga, which allowed her to go back to work after a year. How in the hell do you take a year off in the first place? I am working full time and I can’t even afford yoga classes (yes, this is even with my !@#$ raise.), even if I could get the time off to take them. Work leaves me so tired that I can’t do anything afterwards anymore. Last night I went home and the best I could manage for dinner was 12 crackers and some !@#$ grapefruit juice. I spend my days off recuperating from my days on, praying for the strength and energy to be able to get some laundry and dishes and cooking done, and usually everything else has to slide. It is becoming a major undertaking to go out and get gas and groceries and pay bills. !@#$ this.
Bleak, y’all. I’m sorry. Please forgive me for feeling and being this way. I swear to y’all that I KNOW this sucks – I suck**. Y’all only have to have rants and intermittent visits, but I have to live with me and all of this all the !@#$ time. My friends and real family are the best thing I have in my life right now, and it’s killing me to see what I am and what I have to offer now. My friends have always loved me because of the very things that I am losing day by day.
And sitting at the computer in a public place and crying is not helping. *Sheesh.* As if i weren't worthless enough as it IS.
I’m sorry folks. In my heart I am still the same me, and that’s what hurts the most, that I know who I am and what I am and what I have been capable of, and seeing all of this change, so much of it beyond my control, beyond my ability to cope and accept, is worse than I could have ever imagined.
Nonetheless, I still have – and it’s just about all that I really have -
much love,
-s

*at the wonderful Doar-way in Sunset Beach.
**shut up, Mike. You are NOT funny… ok, you are, but STILL, shut up!

Alright folks, here you go. What's REALLY going on in Sam's world...

Well, I’ve listened to my doctor, asked a lot of questions and I’ve done a bunch of research, and I’m pretty sure that what’s wrong with me* is that I have fibromyalgia.

I have discovered that what I eat and drink has a VERY noticeable effect on the level of pain and exhaustion. Since I started this new diet (NOT to lose weight, but to find out which foods affect me in which ways) I have noticed the HUGE effect that eating ANYTHING has on my body chemistry. This diet basically involves giving up every good/bad thing that I love – no sugar, no wheat, no heavy refined starches at all (yes, that’s potatoes and white rice), no caffeine**, no chocolate, very little – if any – meat (fish is good), and LOTS of brown rice, tofu, vegetables, soy-milk, non-wheat grains, and fruit. Luckily, I love all of these things too (yes, even tofu and soy-milk), but I’m telling y’all – it breaks my heart. Fast food – gone. No pizza, no Chinese food, no (mmmm…) Whoppers, no Taco Bell… no NOTHING. Bupkus.
Kill me now.
No matter what I eat – even if it’s the most disgustingly light and wholesome thing you can imagine – I get veryvery tired and “brain –foggy”. That lasts until my metabolism catches up. Depending on what I eat, the length of time that I am both tired and “stupid” varies. If I eat something bad (I cheated and had a hamburger), then I am basically worthless for hours afterward. I can’t do anything but go to sleep.
I have decided that, once I get myself leveled out, I am going to treat myself to the occasional beloved thing – a small bit of dark chocolate (less sugar), or grain-sweetened chocolate, an occasional cup of black tea, a coffee, a gin and tonic - but it seems that I will literally not be able to have more than one or two of these ‘treats’ a week. When I do this, I will have to be prepared beforehand for the increase in pain.
Is that not just !@#$ MISERABLE?!
I would NEVER do this to lose weight. But I have got to do something to try to keep all this in check, or before long, I am not going to be able to do ANYthing most days. That may happen anyway, no matter what I do.
!@#$.
Another thing that I have to learn to deal with somehow is that, no matter what I eat, no matter what I’ve done during the day, after 4:00, I’m done. My energy level starts dropping between 3:00 and 4:00 every day, and then for the rest of the day (like on Fridays, when I work until 7:00), I am a zombie. The only time that this is different is if I’ve been resting for days. My energy level still drops (on bad days, I go to sleep as early as 6:30 or 7:00 and sleep ‘til morning), but if I rest a bit, or if I’ve been rested for days, I get a second wind late in the evenings. If I have a lot of things that need to be done, then I just have to go to bed before 9:00, get up at 5:00 in the morning and do everything then.

Currently, I am on no drugs other than the 150mg of welbutrin that I take every day to help me get better sleep. I sincerely hope to keep it that way. I’m worried about work, I’m worried about taking care of myself, I’m worried about how happy I can be with so many of my important things (not just food, but my energy and strength and vibrance) taken away from me… I’m worried about whether or not I can live with this, and about whether I am wasting my few good hours a day being a monkey for the county and it’s Tyrannical Overlords (Evil Underpants***) as well as kissing ass and wading through !@#$ red tape all day long. I’m worried about whether I even have any CHOICE, and about how THAT concept makes me feel… I’m worried that I ought to do my very good (best ever) boyfriend a favor and break up with him so that HE doesn’t have to worry about all of this… I’m worried that my life is basically over at 35 and what’s really left for me? A slave to mediocre (and diminishing yearly) medical benefits? Keeping a job to keep my benefits that keep me alive and allow me to do nothing more than work and come home tired everyday to sleep so that I can work again the next day? Where does my art fit in? I am losing it, simply because when I’m done with all my obligations, I’m too tired and in too much pain to draw… and I know that some of you realize that it is THAT that really keeps me alive. Not just surviving (though my art has pulled me through times that NOTHING else could get me through) but being ALIVE.

I’m sorry, this rant just sounds like the complaint department, but I started this website to let the people who give a damn know what’s happening with me. This is what’s happening. Right now, I’m so tired and bunched up from pain in my shoulders and head that I can’t even really think straight anymore. The thought of turning around and doing this all day tomorrow and Sunday is just… !@#$!!!
But, what can you do?
Watch M.A.S.H.?
Much love,
-Sam

*besides the obvious.
**that means NO coffee. No TEA. Oh, my beloved tea…
***MST3k, in my favorite episode, “Mitchell”, this is what Gypsy calls the Dr. and Frank.

hello, peeps...
nobody probly even CHECKS this anymore because i've been gone so long... *snif*
i can't blame y'all. i try.
*snif*

:) i'm not really cryin', i've just been VERY sick. i had the flu, and was sick for a week straight. i would say "sick as a dog", but i've never seen a dog as sick as i was. in between all the effluvium and misery, i've still been busy as a one-armed, uh, something-or-other in, um... a very busy place.

i was trying to think: what's the MOST important news i have to tell all of you, since i am here, posting, !@#$ FINALLY... and i think i know what it is:
I GOT A MEXICAN WRESTLING (luciador?) MASK!!!!! :D
i got it when i was in texas with my sibs - which i also haven't told y'all about.
oh, there's lots. i just need to !@#$ catch up.
sorry, peeps.
if i'm not posting, and i'm not dead, then that means that 1. i'm busy, 2. i'm ill, 3. big brother is watching, 4. all of the above.
i'll say "4", bob.
snoo.
i will try to get back in the groove folks - thanks for hanging in here with me. i know that at least ROB is reading (HI, ROB!) and i know that my rants matter to some people (i played "therapy" with all my girlfriends last ladies' night, and i now know that my rants actually MATTER to them. moo.
also, 'don't know if i told you, but this site called "the insight - a spiritual directory" wrote to me and asked if they could link my blog - THIS blog to their site!!! (???) so, i said yes, and if you go there and click on "spirituality" and then click on "enlightenment" (???), and scroll through all the sites, you will find ME!!!
what were these people thinking?
oh well. i AM spiritual, and i suppose, in some way, i AM enlightening.
thank GOD i am not drinking anything right now... i HATE cleaning herbal tea out of keyboards...
:D
OMNI MATTE PATME OM, PEEPS!
i'm going to go home, and, uh, meditate now.
much love,
-sam

Today's message from the oracle is not a happy one, but it is poignant, and it is timely. Trust me, today, you'd rather have Edna's words than my own, and the sentiment is wholly shared.

It is also the birthday of this impressive lady.
"At Vassar, she was the most notorious girl on campus, famous for both her poetry and her habit of breaking rules. Vassar's president, Henry Noble McCracken, once wrote to her, "You couldn't break any rule that would make me vote for your expulsion. I don't want a banished Shelley on my doorstep." She wrote back, "Well, on those terms I think I can continue to live in this hellhole." She started sending her poems off to magazine editors in New York City, and she always included a picture of herself with her submissions. She had red hair and green eyes and when she'd lived in Camden, Maine, people had often stopped and stared at her on the street, she was so beautiful. When she moved to Greenwich Village after college, most of the men in the literary scene fell in love with her, including the critic Edmund Wilson, who proposed to her and never got over her rejection. He wrote about her in his novel I Thought of Daisy (1929).
Millay wrote poems about bohemian parties and free love in her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), and she became one of the icons of the Jazz Age. When she gave readings of her poetry, she drew huge crowds of adoring fans. She recited her poetry from memory, delivering the poems with her whole body. Many critics considered her the greatest poet of her generation. The poet Thomas Hardy famously said that America had produced only two great things: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She became the first woman poet to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.
But after her marriage, she began to suffer from debilitating stomach pains, and she became addicted to morphine. By the end of her life, her poetry had fallen out of fashion. She died in 1950, at the age of fifty-eight, after falling down the steps in the middle of the night.

Millay wrote, "My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— / It gives a lovely light!"

What My Lips Have Kissed

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings so more.


from The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
and The Writer's Almanac

"It is not having been in the dark house, but having left it, that counts."
-Theodore Roosevelt

Well, as my dear, old* ‘Burg buddy Rob pointed out – there has yet to be a single February rant. Rob wrote to my guest book and very kindly blamed this on Chris – the BF – and I really wish I could blame it on him too, but such is not the case.
Moo.
Actually, I have been a combination of extraordinarily busy,
(we’ve had MAJOR work changes which involved several all-day-long training sessions – including some on my !@#$ days off, !@#$… as well as other massive work-related projects; ren-faire is kicking into high gear and I have magically found myself to be a MAJOR part of that whole process; I am also doing some volunteer work for a non-profit theater company in Asheville on top of all of that; I have several pending commissions art-wise; and I am trying to SERIOUSLY budget my money – which takes more time than I would have ever imagined. Oh, and I am trying to stay warm. The only breaks I get from this hectic pace come when we are snowed/iced in, and unfortunately, those have been fairly frequent… eurkX50.)
- and extraordinarily ill,
(my pain-stuff, the pain that caused me to have all those tests, has reached an unbelievable, unbearable intensity. It has gotten so bad that sometimes I can’t sit upright or walk, and sometimes when I am upright, walking and ok, it hurts so bad when I finally sit down that I nearly pass out. I have now been in pain 100% of the time for years, and it has accelerated in intensity drastically in the last 8-10 months. On the best days, it's like an all-over-body head- or tooth-ache, and on the worst days (like last Saturday), it's like having ever bone in my body broken. On top of that, I am allergic to housepaint, and they have painted the library interior, so yay – insult to injury. Needless to say, I am feeling like 500 miles of really bad (like, backwoods, Louisiana/Texas) road. My shine is off, I am exhausted ALL the time, and I feel pretty damned hopeless whenever I slow down long enough to think about it – thus the ridiculous busy-ness.)
- and so I am sorry. I miss my rant, too. : )
I could say that I was just waiting for someone to miss me. Thanks Rob. At least I know I couldn’t be dead in a ditch for more than a couple of weeks before somebody – ok, at least Rob – would wonder where I was… ;)

Hang in there, don’t give up on me – at least not until I do.

Much love,
-Sam

*old as in, ‘have known him a long time’, not as in, damn, boy, you OLD! he is younger than me…

Hello, Faithful Readers!
Didja miss me?
:)
I have some REALLLLLLY big (well, 7pounds, some ounces... :) news, and lots of little tidbits and treats, but first I need to actually RANT a little...
- just a little.
I meet a lot of wonderful, interesting and unusual people at my job, seekers of knowledge and amusement, mostly. 'S nice. But I also meet some real... knob-ends. There is one lady in particular who is one of THE most annoying, awful people I have ever met (and that's saying something)*. Her FAVORITE hobby seems to be coming to the library to sit at the front table (which is 22 feet from my desk - I measured), read the papers and sit there and moan and sigh loudly and dramatically at all the bad news. E v e r y d a y .
*sigh* (*moan*, etc...)

ok. I feel a little better.

NOW FOR THE REALLY BIG NEWS.... DRUM-ROLL, PLEASE...
(brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.................................)
SPROUT IS HERE!!!
Sprout = Ariana Caitlin (sp?) Campbell-Cook**!!! She was born on Monday - Jan. 26, during the ice storm, a little while after lunch - 1:20'ish, I do believe. Proud Papa Burt called me to give me the news. Mama Jen (my roomie from 'round this time last year) is still in the hospital, recovering from her c-section. Uncle D. called me to give me the news, too...
When Jen first found out that Sprout was on the way, she called to tell me, and very sweetly said that she wanted me to be there to be Aunt Sam and teach her all about sparkle and "whee!"... :) moo. She said "You have to be around to give her - or him - glitter, ... you know us, even if we have a boy, he's gonna need to know all about that stuff!"*** MooOoOOOOoOoooooOOOooo!
I can't WAIT to see her! Sprout, we're so veryvery happy that you are finally here with us! (ooh, yay, baby at dragon-con!) WELCOME TO THE WORLD BABY-GIRL!!!
(And Jen, I am so happy that you've gotten the "woo" and the "whee!" that you asked for - and boy, HAVE you!... you deserve it, dear.)

In other entertaining baby-news, Andi invited Stewart and I to come see a WONDERFUL film ("Love, Actually" - DO see it) with her and her friend Sonya, and Our Aeryn.
Now I personally think that people who bring their infants (or even worse, toddlers) to the theatre should be publicly caned, but I trusted Andi, and Andi trusted that her (our :) sweet, precious baby-girl would be fine. It was the last night for that film to be playing at the Skyland (which is a small screen, more informal brew-and-view that shows art films) and Andi said that she wanted her daughters' first film to be a Colin Firth (and who can blame her? UHN!)
Well I am proud to say that Miss Aeryn was a delightful patron! The only sounds she made were an occasional giggle (the loudest during Colin's Big Kiss Scene! That's our girl!). She was RIVETED by the screen and watched the whole film intently. We each got a turn holding her on our lap during the movie, and afterwards, the other film-patrons made a point to come by and tell Proud Mama how amazed they were at her good baby, how beautiful Aeryn is, how they even forgot that she was in there during the film - until they heard her giggles, which delighted them.
I know for a fact that if Aeryn had fussed, Andi would have taken her out into the lobby in a heartbeat. We all offered to take turns, too, if needed, so all contingencies were covered. Andi is a serious film and theatre aficionado, and would never take the chance at ruining someone else's good time. I am so glad for her that she could stick to that and still go and enjoy a film and share a special time with her four-month-old best friend. How nice.
Thanks for that lovely experience, ladies. I wish more moms and babies were like y'all.

Oh, and thank you, also for the lead-in to the Bohunk-O-Rama section of today's rant, inspired by Thurs. evening's Firth-fest...
I was surfing the web to find images to update my desktop (currently: aragorn tiled background; replaced the big viggo pic with a new, hot - big surprise, eh? - vin; switched jet for bruce; and switched benicio for colin... hey, i'm NOT fickle. variety IS the spice of life!) and i ran across this very poignant and, um, inspirational quote:
From Premiere Magazine (January 2003)
Question: What do you think makes you sexy?
Viggo: I don't really know how to deal with that question. I'm sure that there's just as many people who think I'm a grizzled hack.
Q: I guess Brad Pitt's the pretty boy type of hunk and your the, you know...
V: ...the grizzled hack version? Do you think we should play brothers or something?
Q: You should.
V: Or lovers?
Q: Maybe lovers. Yeah.
V: You think people would pay to see that?

uhhhh.... ummm... er.... uhn... oh, where was I?

Oh yes, beautiful boys. :)
Well, I can't mention Andi and Colin Firth in the same rant and not pay homage to his image as well... and guys, I'm sorry. You'll just have to be the gentleman that Stewart is and say what he said Thursday night: "I'm a Colin Firth fan fan." :)
(and Andi, I am mailing you a few SPECIAL treats... :)

Here are some of my lovely surf-results. Some really good
fan art: “Acta Firthia”
© 1996 by Karen G. Jollie
A nice colinophilia site (it's more than a bit bizarre how much he looks like a non-samwise- heavy Mr. sean
"Cutie-Pie" astin in that first pic, innit?), with some extra scrummy photos…
and here, too:
and this one is ESPECIALLY for you, Jams... I know how you LOVE The Cheese! ;)

and last but not least, here’s a link to a site showing a video clip of Mr. Darcy emerging from the lake… if you can figure out how to make it play, write me and tell me!!!:

Alright, Ladies and Gents, stay warm, forgive me for my intermittent blogging and slacking on the Baby Announcement. Weather and busy-ness and bad achey-badness have combined to slow me down - but not stop me.
CHUMBAWUMBA!

Much love,
-Miss Sam (Colin Firth fan, Colin Firth fan fan, Colin Firth fan fan fan!)

p.s. shurrUP, Seamus! :) xoxox

*she is worse than the !@#$ porn-star weirdo gum-smackers, but still an improvement over the crazy pee-smelly dog-lady who simultaneously insults and hits on me, just to quantify...
**spelling and proper surname to be announced as soon as i get that info.
***Jen and Burt are harcore members of The Geek Patrol, and are seriously into costuming, gaming, etc...

howdy folks (ooh, texas rubbed off on me! ;)

chris(X?) is in a play called 'The Seven Deadly Dwarves'. Last night was opening night (i didn't get to go, but i'll go tonight) and at some point during the evening - maybe pre-show rehearsal, someone handed him a couple of mini-flyers. one of them was EXTREMELY entertaining. so much so that i will share it with you.

this is a quarter of a sheet of neon paper, no picture, and the type reads as so:

It's cheesy and silly, but still, oh so... Goth...

3rd annual

Goths on Wheels
aka: The Aquarian Birthday Party

We'll be Roller Skating to Bauhaus
well past the witching hour...
So wear your vampire best
and join us for a night of the strangest
roller skating party you'll ever see.

Tarwheels Skating Rink
Friday, February 6th
11:30 pm, 2:00 am
Cover: $10 per person

Take I40 to exit 55.
If coming from the west, turn left off the exit.
If coming from the east, turn right off the exit.
Then, turn right at the stoplight.
Tarwheels will be 2 1/2 miles down on the left.

************************************
d., you KNOW i thought of you and k.k.!
you gotta love a boy who brings you things like this...
man, i wish i could go - and bring my antonia*.
if YOU get to go, PLEASE be sure to tell them that SAM'S DAY OFF sent you!

MUCH love, and don't fall on your face and break your fangs...
-sambolina (who doesn't skate and definitely doesn't do "goth")

*my camera

Well, I’m back! Texas survived us and we all survived each other! Hooray! I will have some photos for y’all SOON!

I have two major bits of news today. One is sad. Bob Keeshan – better known as Captain Kangaroo - died today. He was 76 years old.
I was just talking to Chris about him a few days ago. Chris is a big Mr. Rogers fan – we all are. But the Captain had an edge to him that Fred didn’t. I loved Mr. Rogers, but I always thought how messy I’d look in his neat, quiet little world. I would have blended in KangarooLand, though. Things were wilder there, and the Captain looked like a happenin’ kinda’ guy. He had that Beatlesy haircut, those WAY cool sideburns, that sharp red coat with the giant pockets and white trim, and the characters on the show were just LOONY (Remember Mr. Moose and the Ping Pong balls?). Not to mention the big crush I had on Mr. Green Jeans…
People made messes on the show, sometimes things got loud. He had Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings - “Well you know my name is Simon…” and he had “The ToothBrush Family with the “brush your teeth” song, which I still sing today… Bill Cosby came on with Mortimer Marker for Picture Pages (I still know that song AND the Simon one, too…),
I loved watching Rollo the Hippo and the Dancing Bear break it down, and I always wanted to know what Mr. Green Jeans would be inventing next… Kevin dressed like my family… and the Captain sometimes hallucinated a little tiny marching band…
Yeah, definitely a place where I’d fit in.

So today, raise a glass (even – or maybe ESPECIALLY if it’s rootbeer) and have a moment of silence for the passing of this good man who loved kids and life, who dang sure made ME smile when smiles were sometimes a rare commodity...

And now for my good news – FRANK BAILEY FOUND ME! HE’S NOT LOST FOREVER IN THE WILDS OF JAPAN!!!
Huh?
Frank Bailey is a dear, strange bloke who befriended me – and my sad little waif of a best friend – between my junior and senior year of high school. That was a pretty yuck year*, I was new, I didn’t know anyone yet – except beloved Buck (he’s another story for another time) and his Cowboy Bros., so I got a job working in Merry Go Round at the mall until school started. Frank was working… somewhere in the mall – record store? I think so. And we went in there to look at music we couldn’t afford and flirt with a couple of cute guys who worked there (who was that sexy Middle Eastern guy, Frank? The great artist who’s father forced him to take BUSINESS classes**…?)

ANYWAY… Frank adopted us, or we adopted him, and he became our sort of Guardian Angel. He drove us all-the-hell over Deep-South-Central Louisiana, listened to our teen angst bullshit (poor, poor, Frank. You shoulda’ got a’ medal!), saved us from bad drunk guys, bad drunk parents, and occasionally ourselves. Ever a gentleman and a most reliable friend… I wouldn’t have made it through that year without him.
He also has the “honor” of being privy and witness to some of my most often re-told adventures. Frank was the inspiration for mine and Lisa’s favorite joke:
Sam: “Lisa, can I be frank with you?”
Lisa: “But I thought it was MY turn to be Frank!”
(Frank: “I AM Frank, and I NEVER get to be Frank!”)
Oh god, and mom's "Hey Frank, wanna' get LEI'D for your birthday?" joke. Poor, poor Frank!
He might have been there when I had my hands in Henry Rollins’ hair, but if he wasn’t I know for SURE that he heard all about it the next day…
He was there – and a key part of the evil revenge/fun on the night of my one and only blind date (with a guy named HARRY GARY. I am NOT joking. His father was Elmo*** Gary. Remind me to tell y’all THAT story sometime… sheesh.)
He was there – and drove - the night Lisa freaked out (big shocker THERE, huh, Frank) at Jason’s house and had to be physically removed, then slept with a shard of broken wineglass to her throat the whole night… He was there for the midnight fountain slamdance (though we wouldn’t let him watch); he was witness to some of the earliest and most extreme hair adventures and didn't fuss at me - too badly - for cutting myself; he picked me up at truckstops and let me play HORRIBLE music in his truck... and SO many other crazy (mis)adventures. He bravely tolerated our fledgeling attempts at voodoo – despite the fact that he was VOCIFEROUSLY opposed to it; he sat patiently for hours while we decided what to wear (or not wear – Lisa) and he listened – and sometimes came to get me – when I called crying in the middle of the night, afraid for my life and my sanity…

And he contacted me today out of the deep, Texas blue (YAY, SAM’S DAY OFF & GOOGLE!) and said**** that he thought I might not want to contact him because he reminded me of bad times…
PUH-LEASE!
He’s the very best reminder of the good times inside all that bad, and I love him dearly. He was the surrogate when I was missing Joe and Dad so badly that I wanted to die, and he made me begin to really see the miracle that I was - that I am.

I talk to my new friends about Frank and have old pictures in my photo album. Aunt Sue asks about him from time to time (she’s gonna’ FLIP!) and I think often of how much my best friend Stewart reminds me of him. Thank GOD Stewart has an easier job (and no !@#$ LISA to deal with!), though. *UBER-sheesh!*

I thought I’d lost him forever…
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto (well, ‘Mr. Google’, anyway) for bringing this good friend back into my sphere! And thank you, Frank for not thinking I was a ticket marked “Titanic” and looking me up. You lost me once, you’re stuck with me now!

Big love and happy reunions (well, at least ones with a minimum of bloodshed, JEFF*****! ;)
-Sam

*and THAT was a hell of an understatement. It was VERY BAAAAD times.
**probly’ did him a favor, actually….
***”REMEMBER THE ELMO!”
****he also said: “You're one of “those” people, the bright sparks in life that you always look for around you and seldom find… I'm glad you're still SAM, and have never lost the magic…” MOOOoOoOoOOooOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
*****my middle brother. we like to fight - apparently. :)

Well, this time Thursday, I will be with all of my brothers (and hopefully my Ellie-sis) in sunny San Antonio! YAY!!! Mandy can’t come, ‘cause’a school stuff (she is SO smart and SUCH a good student, y’all…) but she seems so happy that we are all finally talking and trying to get together. It’s been a bad deal for all of us, parent-wise, past-wise, since day one. Our parents handed us their mixed bag of bizarre personalities, chaotic events and broken dreams, and we – the kids - have all paid the taxes on it. All of our lives. But now we are all ‘officially’ adults, and I think we’ve decided that we have a new chance. I am unbelievable happy about this.
I get so ‘homesick’, well, ‘family-sick’ I guess (there’s really no “home” left anymore), but it’s always been no use. I could pine all I wanted, but everyone in my family is at least as stubborn and bloody-minded and as ridiculously independent and hermitic (and hermetic*) as I am. The past haunts us when we are together even worse than it does when we are far apart. In the past few years, though – after a lot of trials and upsets and yelling and, well, the usual – “the grandkids” (aunt Sissy’s three, uncle Bubba’s (dad) five) have made more of an effort to be just us, a family in our own right, trying to get past the past. The biggest steps of all have been made very recently, and it means the world to me. There is hope. I may have a blood-family yet.
Not to discount my “non-blood” family here, though. I will be seeing even MORE of them in the coming months, as faire season is starting, and this is a good thing, too. A very good thing.
Yesterday was the “kick off”. Our annual Improv Workshop. Lisa, Hamilton and I are the entertainment committee (at least, I think that’s what we’re called… I dunno.) We are responsible for the storyline, casting, character development, the stage combat stuff (thank GOD for Bruffy!), writing and directing the chessboard, etc. I am reallyreallyreally lucky to be on a team with Hamilton and Lisa (Hamilton was my acting partner first-year, and Lisa’s the girl I went to New Orleans with in Oct.) I like them, they seem to like me, and we work well together. In fact, thanks to them, Andi and Buffy, I didn’t completely panic over finding out that in one week, due to the sudden surprise dropout of the ONLY !@#$ trained actor on this particular team, I was going to have to come up with and present a four hour improv workshop. AUGH!!!
No fear, though, it went GREAT! We had such a good time. Lots of people (about FIFTY!) showed up, many new ones, and before the day was over, our scenes were as funny and sympathetic and tight as people who’d been at a summer-long acting camp. It was AMAZING! I was – and am – really proud of us, and I have big hopes for the faire this year. There were some folks who came who’d had YEARS of good experience, and there were folks there who’d never done anything like this before (like myself, two years ago…) and there was some really impressive talent among all of them Our Stewart among them! He was brave, and he ACTED and really made us laugh! Chris (‘X?’**, who has been acting and involved in theatre, music and film production since he was NINE) came along too, and he was such a big help and encouragement to the ‘newbies’. He’s a good comedian, too. Moo. Afterwards he told me what a very good time he had, and that’s really what’s important.
YAY, US!
Two weeks from yesterday will be the next phase – AUDITIONS!
Wish us luck. And wish that I have a good flight Thurs./Sun. ‘cause I’m telling you, I am hating it more and more every time.***
Much love, bun-buns.
Still tired, but looking forward,
-Miss Sam, Tribal Elder.


*Encarta: Hard to understand. Obscure and difficult for outsiders to understand.
**fyi, those of you who’ve been asking about why my beau remains such a mystery, sorry. ‘Not trying to be mysterious. ‘X?’ is my written nickname for him because his name is ‘Chris Riddle’ – X – as in ‘Xmas’, ? – as in ‘Riddle’. Get it? :) I gave him a beautiful flask for xmas this year with ‘x?’ engraved upon.
*** !@#$ O’!@#$ Hare! Not to mention the !@#$ JET-ACCIDENT I was in several years ago. Augh!

Oh, monkies. I am so tired.
I’ve had a cold for a few days, and I have been in a lot of pain since the first of the year. It’s constant and inescapable. The only time I’m not aware of the pain is when I am asleep. Right now, there’s an ache in my back and in my jaws that is making me sick to my stomach, but all of me hurts. Especially a bad – now constant for several days - headache (probably from the ache in my jaw muscles), my thighs hurt, my arms and shoulders, my neck. It’s horrible. That’s probably the majority of what is making me tired.
I’m trying various things I’ve read about, and taking my prescription, but it’s so hard to keep my spirits up when I feel this way. I think the doctors have basically decided that it is fibromyalgia, and there is no medical treatment or cure for that. I am reading, and trying to stay warm – someone told me that being cold is the worst thing for this condition. !@#$ great.
Sorry.
I’m sure that there are good things to say. I know there are. But my brain is so clouded by this pain and exhaustion that I’m not much good for anything.
For those of you who know how unlike me this is, how hard this is for me, thank you for continuing to see me as my old self. Bouncy, bright, fierce. It has to come back.

I’m going to go home soon and get my house warm and prepare for the workshop tomorrow and fiddle around with my herbal. Maybe watch Monsters Inc. and skwooch my dog. Spend some gentle time trying to unwind the stress factor.

Send me good thoughts, if you have them to spare. I will try my best to pay you back in belief.

Much love,
-s

Sorry folks, I had to write a small addendum to today's rant - not related to the previous post, but in answer to a message left in my guestbook.
'Yes, Andi - and all the other moms (and dads) of all our little girls (and boys, if need be) - Sam WILL kill him if he tries anything.' *
Guaranteed.
I just - not ten minutes ago - had to have a little 'word of prayer' with a local creep who will not quit macking on one of my little Saluda girls. I was immeasurably proud and pleased that she came to me to ask for help, and I managed to make the situation clear to him without crossing any lines or doing anything to risk my professionalism. This time.
(NEXT time, I'll call in Bri-Bro, and we'll hit 'em Boondock Saints stylie! hee! ;)

And I'm glad I made you laugh, too, Andi-mom!
xoxox
-s

*this is one of the very funny threads that runs through 'The Very Secret Diaries' and
'The Very Secret Journals'. see 01/03's Tolkien Rant.

with winter settling back into the world - and my own heart, head and body* - after a few blissful, t-shirt/open-window warm days, today's Writer's Almanac poem seemed almost ironic. it is also my very favorite robert frost poem. i hope i never forget it, because it reminds me of something very important. something dangerous to forget.
another important thing to remember:
the alamo. no, really. a week and a day from today, i will be with my siblings in san antonio.
*******************************************************************

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no _expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.


******************************
much love and hopefully patience, too.
-s

*my pain has been badbadbad for the last couple of days - since it started getting cold again...