Input sought
After a friend dies, how long is too long to keep her in my cellphone book? On my facebook page?

The woman who I may be dating or am at least getting to know in hopes that we'll date further on down the line
She's decided that her screenname is Gretchen, for reasons I don't totally understand, but I'm tickled that she chose one so I can talk a little bit about her when the mood strikes.

And the mood does!

She's lovely. She's funny and smart and quirky and stubborn. She loves the hell out of her pets and they clearly feel the same way about her (major bonus points for this, btw). She has gorgeous, wise deep brown eyes that I could sit and look into indefinitely (but then she asks me what I'm thinking and then I have to tell her that I'm thinking about kissing her and then she blushes and we laugh and...well, yes).

She has some unfinished business with her ex, and she thinks that I have some unfinished business with turtle (which I guess I do, but not in terms of pining or anything, mostly in terms of logistics at this point--turtle's moving out this weekend), so we're taking it slowly. This is not my usual MO, but given how well my usual MO has worked thus far, I'm trying to relax and go with it.

I'm hopeful.

I'm obsessed with this Imogen Heap song right now
where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking feeling

spin me round again
and rub my eyes,
this can't be happening
when busy streets amass with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first

oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines (oh, you won't catch me around here)
blood and tears (hearts)
they were here first

Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmm that you only meant well?
well of course you did
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmmm that it's all for the best?
Of course it is
Mmmm whatcha say?
Mmmm that it's just what we need
you decided this
whatcha say?
Mmmm what did she say?

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling no I don't believe you
you don't care a bit,
you don't care a bit

(hide and seek)
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs

(hide and seek)
speak no feeling no I don't believe you
you don't care a bit,
you don't care a (you don't care a) bit

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
oh no, you don't care a bit

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit

Learning curve
This whole dating thing is wearing me right the hell out. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Today's pondering
Can I date a woman who doesn't eat fried food? Discuss.

(Kidding, of course. I can and just might be. I'm simply amused.)

Dating recap
I have a second date today with a lovely woman--our first date was Thursday, I asked her out again for Friday, February 7, and she countered with tonight, which charmed the hell out of me.

File it under "things that only happen to frog"
Part of my job includes shepherding any number of things hither and yon on a little cart with wheels, on which is perched a mail bin stacked with papers and clipboards and pens and other assorted crap. I take it with me when I'm doing something off-site, which was the case yesterday.

When I have it with me, I take a little elevator down to street level--it's one of those that's open all around and designed to hold approximately one person in a wheelchair. You get in, shut the door, press a button and the door latches and you slowly drop down the half a flight to the ground floor.

I trust you see where this is going.

Yesterday, I hopped in with my cart and my bag and my enormous coat and whatever, shut the door, pressed the button that latched the door and the thing dropped two inches and quit. So, there I was, "trapped" in this lift. I couldn't get out because the door was locked and even if I could get out, I'd have to leave my cart behind.

So I called our facilities people, who came and sort of shook their heads, because, really, who does this kind of thing happen to, if not me? I handed one of them my cart and my bag and the other one struck out to find a stepstool to get me out but, of course, by the time she got back, I'd already climbed up the bars of the elevator and hopped out on my own.

Still made it to my appointment in plenty of time and, honestly, thank Maude it wasn't someone who uses a wheelchair in that position, right?

A recap of my evening
Last night I gathered with the Village (and some special guests) for the first time since before the New Year. It was WONDERFUL to see them again--I missed them so much, I can't even tell you. Small Friends H, who is 8, and O, who is 9, were in my lap facing me (one on each leg, which they are ALMOST too big to do anymore) and we were chatting about whatever. O asked me if I could come to her school concert tomorrow night and I told her I'd love to, but that I have a date so I can't.

"Ooooooooh!" said O.

"Oooo la la!" said H.

A bit later, it was just H on my lap and she put a hand on each cheek and put her forehead up against mine and said, "Aunt Terri, you have BAGS under your eyes. And they look so sad! Why are you so sad?"

"I just am, H. It's a hard time for me right now."

"Yeah. I love turtle, too."

And she ran off to play.

More on the extended family
Those of you with better memories than me might remember that my cousin John and his wife, J., bought the family homestead from our grandmother and moved in, finally, last year.

J. called me on Sunday, in part to find out how my Christmas trip was but also to get my take on Leona's current behavior. Their family went to her house on Saturday for the afternoon and supper. J's nursing the littlest and when he was hungry, she went into the living room to feed him. She fed him on one side, then John's dad came to join them. She knew he had to leave for work shortly so she figured she'd just wait and finish feeding the bebe after he left, so she went and sat with Leona at the table.

"That baby's still hungry. He's fussing."

"He's fine."

"You should feed that baby. He's hungry!"

"I'll feed him after Bill leaves."

"You should feed him NOW. He's HUNGRY. What's WRONG with you?":

J took him into the bedroom and fed him and returned to the kitchen, where she was met with: "I told you that baby was hungry. If you'd listen to me, you might be a decent mother. You're a terrible mother. They should take that baby from you and give him to me to raise."

After talking with J at length about Leona's whatever and comforting her about the whole stupid scene, I told her what Leona had done during our Christmas visit. J was appalled. "But, but...she LOVES you. If she's treating YOU like that, what does that mean for the rest of us?"

Our second-to-youngest cousin is getting married this summer. It's a long way from where I live no matter how I travel. I can fly direct for about a thousand bucks. I can drive and get there in about ten or eleven hours. I can fly partway and rent a car. He and I have never been close and I've yet to hear exactly when the wedding is--they keep changing the date. In the past, I might have just said I couldn't afford to make the trip and not gone, but at this point that won't fly because my parents will fork over the money to get me there, so I think I just need to tell them I'm not going, because I'm just not.

The thing is, I don't have it in me to deal with the fall-out from not making the trip, and I don't have it in me to make the trip.

Custom dye work

I just finished a few hundred bucks worth of custom work--photos of some of the pieces are here.

In which you suffer through me learning to use the new camera; Or: Sam-Saki Artemis, Mighty Tail Hunter

For Calidris and Fern
There's now a button in the sidebar of my blog that says Donate--you can click through to contribute money to Calidris/Tringa and Fern in memory of Cali's partner and Fern's dad, Floyd, and Cali's brother and Fern's uncle, Karl.

Please feel free to spread the word.

Another letter I'll never send, but for completely different reasons
Dear Jenny,

Sixth grade sucked for me. I grew early and was close to the size that I am, now, when I was 11 years old. I'd already gotten my period by the time we saw that stupid film in health class. There was a really mean girl in my class and she managed to talk all of the rest of the girls into hating me. In one very memorable moment, I was reading a hardcover copy of Born Free, trying to ignore the needling and teasing when I totally lost my cool and threw that book at Sarah. It caught her near her eye and I was sent to the principal's office.

Mostly, I didn't care that the girls didn't talk to me, because I was still friends with a lot of the boys at that point. Sometimes the girls really got to me, though, and more than once I arrived home sobbing, only to be told by my mom that I probably deserved whatever it was that made those girls treat me that way. Still, I held out, knowing that the boys were my friends. Then they started to disappear, pairing off with the girls and no longer speaking to me because their girlfriends said so. I was down to just one friend in my class, Christopher, and he'd eat lunch with me every day. One evening, he called me to tell me that he couldn't be my friend at school anymore, it was just too hard and the kids were picking on him. But he could be my friend in the evenings and on the weekends, just like old times.

And then basketball started. Like nowhere else in the world, I knew who I was and what I could do on the court. I was bigger than my peers and I'd been obsessed with basketball since I was a little tiny kid. It's a big deal in my family and I'd spend hours in the driveway teaching myself to dribble with my left hand, working on free throws and putting up hundreds of layups at a time (three hundred a day, most days).

It was on the basketball court that I met you. You were fast and funny and you could shoot, all things that really worked for me. I was big and funny and I could shoot, and we were a hell of a team on the court. In one game, I scored 42 points and I suspect that at least half of them were off assists from you.

You took me under your wing--you didn't care what the kids in my class said or did, they were SIXTH GRADERS and you were an EIGHTH GRADER and because you liked me, the other eighth graders did, too, and suddenly I had people to eat lunch with, people to go to the mall with, and I was invited to your sleepovers.

In honor of your 13th birthday, we saw Poltergeist on Friday the 13th. It scared the absolute crap out of us and when we left the theater, a fog had settled over everything that freaked us out even more. We played Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. We ran around with your mutt, Casey. We talked long. You took me to your family reunions where I was a softball hero. We listened to Dexy's Midnight Runners on endless loop.

And, yesterday, you died. You weren't yet 40, though you were on a big health kick because you wanted to be in shape in May when you did. I only found you again a few months ago after years of wondering how you were. And this morning I got a message from one of your friends who contacted me because I was on your facebook list, telling me you'd died while you were out of town on business and nobody knows what happened, yet.

Because of you, our small town was a little less small and I was significantly happier than I'd have been without you.

I loved you then, I love you now and I can't believe that I'll never see you again. You'll always be in my heart and I'll think of you every time I hear Come On, Eileen.

All my love,

Ter

File it under Letters I Will Never Send
The last few weeks have been unusually challenging for me. When turtle and I first split up, my parents offered to pay for a plane ticket for me to join them for Christmas--my brother, SIL and Tali the Phenomenal were going to be there, and I figured, what the hell, how bad can it be? It's GOT to be better than wallowing my way through the holidays with my former partner, right?

Well, it was worse than I imagined that it could be and it's pulled things up and out of me that I thought were long since handled, at least to the point where they wouldn't smack me upside the head when I wasn't ready or was too tender to deal with them effectively.

When my grandmother told me that she'd given her ring set to K because I'd never need it, it cut me to the quick in a way I can't fully articulate, even weeks later. She and I...we've always had a decent relationship, in part because I've always been able to call her on her bullshit and in part because I didn't have to grow up parented by her, something my mom, my uncles and three of my cousins cannot say. But I couldn't call her on that, because she's right. I won't need it. What right do I have to something that will be in my possession until the day I die, for lack of having anyone to whom I'll give it? But the most complicated moment with my grandmother was her pointing out that I've never been part of the family, not really.

And that's one of those things for me, the fear of not fitting in, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being loved enough, the fear of not being chosen. All of that was in stark relief during my holiday visit with my family and, honestly, when I returned home it was there, too. turtle has not chosen me (and I have not chosen her, but that doesn't feed into my anxiety in quite the same way, so I'm setting it aside for now), she has chosen TBK.

And there was you. You were such a lovely diversion for me. It felt SO GOOD to have the positive attention of a beautiful woman, but I couldn't ramp down my anxiety enough to sit back and let it happen. I tried to orchestrate moments that were not there. I reacted to the idea of you rather than the reality of you, something I never really had the chance to learn. I pushed to be part of something that wasn't even there yet until I pushed one time too many, sort of outside myself and watching it unfold but wholly unable to stop myself.

It's the anxiety that leaves me broken and incapable of interacting in ways that other people understand, in ways that make sense to anyone but me, and they don't always even make sense to me--sometimes in the moment, but certainly not later on. I say things I think I might like to hear someday, just to try them out, and I hear them coming out of my mouth and I'm appalled. The timing is wrong, the moment is wrong, and I see the look on your face and it's all I can do not to flee from that moment, from that place, from you. And maybe that's part of the pushing--if I can get you to protect yourself and send me packing, then it's over and I don't have to worry about the very real reasons that other people have not chosen me.

Last night I dreamed that my first crush--my first love, really--came to visit me, but decided that she'd rather spend all of her time with my neighbor who she liked a LOT more than she liked me. And I kept looking for her, only to find her with my neighbor, and by the end of the dream I'd thrown my cell phone against the wall in a fit of frustration that I couldn't make her understand.

Mostly for those of you who I know from MDC
Calidris's partner and brother were killed over the weekend. A private board where she and I both post is coordinating a funds drive for her and Fern for funeral expenses, as well as Fern's college.

If you'd like to contribute, please send paypal to dyetyke at gmail dot com, noting that the money is for Calidris.

Something to think about
I wonder how it is that everyone in my life knew that things with the Nurse weren't going to work out the way I'd hoped before I did? This concerns me.

Well, that was brief
Things with the Nurse are done for now. I pursued, she backed away, I accused her of having no intention of being caught, she agreed, and she wants to be friends. She gently suggested that turtle moving out is impacting me more than I will admit. I have no discernment for dating v. going on dates, and that's a good thing to know about myself (and try to fix) and something that pisses me right off. It's also something that the Nurse didn't point out to me, so don't feel compelled to pan her. She's unpannable.

I have a date for dinner with someone toward the end of the month, which I think I'll keep, but other than that I'm done for the foreseeable future. This is too hard and I'm too soft and sad right now. I think I fucked something up that could have been a very good thing--or a whole lot of fun, anyway.

Sometimes, we hear what we need to hear even when we don't want it
I was chatting with a friend earlier, whining at her about how blue I am, how unfair life feels to me right now, how I can't seem to bring myself to care about the good and lovely things that are happening in my life. I told her that I miss my people, that I miss HAVING people. Her immediate response was that I need to not lose them the next time I have a relationship.

And that's not at all what I meant--what I meant was that half the Village is at sea for the next few weeks and my brother and his family are far away and I'm feeling lonely a lot and don't really know what to do with myself.

She's right, though. Dammit.

Year in review meme
2007 version
2006 version
2005 version
2004 version

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Put up on online personal ad

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more
for next year?
I honestly don't know on either count

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my cousin's wife.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes--Missy and Uncle Frank

5. What countries did you visit?
none

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
sex

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Late March/early April, the Week of Death
Mid-October, when turtle and I called it quits officially

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Deciding to end the relationship with turtle.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Setting boundaries.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
my new phone, a new furnace/ac unit

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Tali the Cute

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
J & M

14. Where did most of your money go?
Debt. Stupid fucking debt.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going on a date with The Nurse.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Brand New Colony, The Postal Service; Since You Went Away, Kris Delmhorst

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? thinner
c) richer or poorer? poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
See #6.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
trying to take care of other people

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent it with my parents, brother, SIL and Tali.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No.

22. How many one-night stands?
zero

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Deadliest Catch

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

25. What was the best book you read?
I didn't read much.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Kooks (thanks, delany!)

27. What did you want and get?
A new phone and a little positive attention from beautiful women.

28. What did you want and not get?
See #6.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I didn't see many films.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 37 and celebrated with the Village and turtle, as well as celebrating the week before with my parents, brother, SIL and Tali

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
See #6.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
I think this is clean...

33. What kept you sane?
Music, the Small Friends, my brother.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Kris Delmhorst

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
HRC

36. Who did you miss?
Tali

37. Who was the best new person you met?
There were several, in no particular order: The Nurse, The Dancer, the queer moms camping brigade, swim, Dani, Robyn

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008
Just because it's scary doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
Credit sucks. Don't use it.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
First there is the folding in,
To gather light and dark to you.
The journey down so far that it,
Has nowhere else to go but through.
I thought if I tried hard enough,
With endless motion like a bribe,
As if by this the will of God,
Could be bent to my version of right.
What happens next is nearly weightless,
The opening where we stand breathless,
On the clean edge of change.
She cannot live beneath my wings,
No more will he see seventy.
How many mornings did I wake,
And wished that it’d be you I'd see.
What happens next is nearly weightless,
The opening where we stand breathless,
On the clean edge of change.
And who am I, who makes this sound,
Who rode the shadow all the way down?
To the Clean Edge of Change
In the clear space of knowing that
There’s as many names for dark as for light,
I am choosing mostly now to speak,
The ones that get me through the night.
But always,with humility,
With a worn now but a grateful heart.
Having sang so recently,
Full-throated In the dark.
What happens next is nearly weightless,
The opening where we stand breathless,
On the clean edge of change.
First there is the folding in,
To gather light and dark to you,
The journey down so far that it,
Has nowhere else to go but through.

Brain purge
There's been a lot going on and most of it has been trapped in my brain, and I'm about to inflict much of it on you and for that, I apologize. You should get an award for continuing to read. Or a cookie. Or an award FEATURING a cookie.

So, the dating. There's a woman (who I think I'm going to call The Nurse)--she's funny and gorgeous and kind and clever and lovely and functionally poly and I've never, ever been involved with someone who's anything other than monogamous. Sure, I've thought about it. I have a good efriend who's poly (yeah, yeah, "some of my best friends are...") and I've been on her poly livejournal filter for years, now, and I've wondered what it might be like to maybe dip my toe into something other than (what's turned out to be) serial monogamy. Said friend has joked with me more than once that my Village is poly, without the sex. But it was never the time, I was never the person to pursue it in any meaningful way. The Nurse is challenging me in some wonderful ways and I have a lot of hope, but I've GOT to figure out how to chill the hell out if this has a snowball's chance in hell of working, even for a little while. When I'm with her, the good is very, very good. When I'm not with her, I come up with all kinds of reasons I've misread what her intentions appear to be, with reasons that I cannot possibly do what I'm thinking about doing, with some ridiculous need to be reassured that I don't think I usually have...or do I? Hell if know. What I do know is that I want to let go and have fun and we'll see where things go from there. That's the plan.

Which brings me to the tarot cards. I told you that pronoia read them for me the other night and the more I think on what they said and how she conveyed to me what they said, the more I think that I just may end this next six-month period bald and weighing 12 pounds because MY GOD. This idea, that I might not have to, might not be ABLE to control every little thing? Shit. That scares the absolute hell of me. And also? How am I going to remember to eat at regular intervals without turtle? She was gone for much of yesterday and at 3:30 I realized that I hadn't had lunch or breakfast, so I made myself a pizza. At 7, I had half a can of soup and some popcorn. I know better, but can't seem to do anything about it.

And turtle--I owe you an update on her, too. She's moving out on February 1--originally, she was moving out the third week in January or something, into some ghetto-ass apartment she'd found where the carpeting came complete with a big stain where it looked like someone had bled out. Lovely. She's met someone--I'm calling her The Butch Knight because one of the things that turtle loved immediately is her tendency to do things like open the car door for her--and she's pretty well smitten. I haven't handled the new relationship with the grace I'd expected of myself and, in fact, was kind of an asshole to TBK and turtle on one evening in particular. In any event, turtle had found this apartment, then told me that TBK is renting a house and was looking for a roommate and I encouraged turtle to think about living with her. And, so, that's what's happening.

turtle and I are going through the growing pains that come with necessary moving apart--we both know that if we continue to live together, we're not going to be able to be friends at some point and neither of us want that. So we're alternating between grieving the coming loss and wanting to be really, really close and knowing that the end is coming and pushing each other away as much as we possibly can.

I have more hope than not at this point--in addition to The Nurse, there are a few other women in various stages of interested in me, which is nice, even if nothing more comes of any of it. I think the Recreational Peeing on the part of the felions will subside once turtle leaves with Sevyn and Lorenzo, but other than that, there are no good things about splitting up the cat family.

There was a date
It was very, very good. There's a lot of smiling.

There was water, then there was fire
Last night, a friend read my tarot cards. At various times in my life, I've had my own decks but I never did much with them and they've all manage to wander back out of my life in one way or another.

Not surprisingly, the next six months will be a time of great change for me--change in perspective, change in relationships, change in how I move through the world are all ripe to occur.

Some days, I think I'm ready. Some days, I think the best course of action to to crawl back into bed, pull the quilt up over my head and wait for the ashes to fall around the edges of my life. What I don't know is what I'd do after they fall, so I don't crawl back into bed, I put myself out there, I try to enjoy what I have when I have it without worry for the consequences and the leave taking and just try to go from there.