Well, I give up. This blankety blank machine has erased TWO of my posts. :furious: and both times, I was *almost* done. IRK!!!!!!

I see you.
I see you as you really are, under the mask, aside from the pretense, YOU, the real you.
YOU, stripped of the facades,
of politeness,
of the way you want to be seen.
(Yes, I see that too).
It may well be that I see more than you care to admit.
Perhaps you resent it?
I see yous that the rest of the world does not.
Dark, happy. Sparkling, stressed and dull. Faults and good things.
But at any rate, I do see you.
And I accept you for what you are, like you for what you are...
For I can see that it isn't as simplistic as black/white, good/bad...
It is only that you are what you are.
Yes.
The real you.
Accept it.....please, if you do nothing else....accept that.

Arrrgh....I can't feel anything. I still feel numb inside.

Sometimes, I feel like I don't know what I want anymore, and my life feels so gray, so blah. I could almost shake up the world or do something extreme, just to get a reaction, just to make me feel something....anything...anything not to feel like this. Isn't birth control great?? :-/ Where is the sense in being momentarily infertile if you also feel like some kind of an android with absolutely no interest in the world around you?

I get rude and witty and sarcastic when I'm like this....as if by being sharp and cutting, I could whittle away some of the shell from around me, or provoke someone else into breaking me out of it. Ack....maybe it is just that I've been stressed.....

For once, I'm not in a bad mood anymore. I was earlier, but that was before I got an Xmas gift certificate from my boss, AND my paycheck (woohoo!!)...enabling me to splurge on groceries. Now, understand: my idea of splurging is to buy a beef roast for $7.06. Yeah, I'm happy. :-) The boss is a cool guy. He wants us to work, but hey, that's what he hired us for, isn't it? I mean, when have you met a prospective employer who says, "I'm looking for a few motivated people to sit on their asses and shoot the bull all day long." ??

Recommended sites:
wrongplanet IMHO, this is THE aspie site.
triton (server for my websites...well...I like it...sort of...)

and reading: Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams. If I could afford this, I'd buy three copies: one for my my employer's library (they WORK with autistic people, they should have an insider's PERSPECTIVE of autism...it'd make all the difference in the world), one for the local library, and one for myself, which I'd loan out liberally.

Current mood: very sad. I feel very discouraged and disheartened by the number of friends who have either dumped me or were apparently not ever friends in the first place. (And at this point, I'm not sure which it is, and it really doesn't matter). It hurts, immensely, to think that some of the people that I thought were extremely trustworthy, that I would have trusted with my life, were phony, that they were only pretending to be my friends. I think mostly, it's that...well, I believed in them. I trusted them. And above all, I thought they were *different*. I wanted to believe that the world wasn't entirely made up of phonies....Are the only genuine people in the world autistic or otherwise very different? The thought troubles me. I want to think that the answer is "no".

:anxiety: The father of my 3 youngest children is threatening to take them all away from me and move across the country. Now, I may not be the most perfect mother on the face of this planet...I won't even begin to claim that I am. But what I can say is that I do love them....and I feel like I have bent over backwards to try and be as fair as possible, to them and to their father, to maintain a level of fairness throughout the parting of ways...and I don't feel like it's been returned.

What to do? Prisoner's dilemma? Be nicey-nice and hope it all works out and that he is only testing me for a reaction? Retaliate before he nails me first? :-( What?

I am very unhappy about this, and I am trying to remain level headed and not sink into a blame-game or a place where I demonize the other party.

All I can say is that I would never take them and move across the country with them where he couldn't see them, or couldn't afford to. I wouldn't even move an hour or two away. I have too much regard for what was good in our history and for the happiness and stability of the children to do that. I guess it was naive of me to think that this was a mutual thing. :-( :disillusioned:

observation: grey, silver, and to a lesser degree white or black cars are more difficult to see in foggy or rainy weather. Less safe, imho.

AND...I am really, REALLY, REALLY MAD. The guy that I dumped some time ago had five goats from me at his place (two of them were his). Once I dumped him, he quit feeding them and now he says they are starving to death and he will butcher them if I don't go up there and get them. As though I could magically materialize them to me....he lives wayyyy up on a mountain, up a road that is very dangerous in winter for my car....and the last thing I want is to get stuck in the snow or mud at his place (ack!!!!). This is the man, by the way, who claimed he "could not" butcher or kill something, yet he is threatening to do just that, who criticized their thinness (they were wormy) and gave my ex an earful about that....in fact, he cursed him. (May the curse return upon you, you fucking hypocrite!!!!) I *cannot* drive up there. I have been searching almost frantically for people to help me with this... At this point, I'm going to call either the animal rescue place or the cops. He has neighbors who come down to town several times a week, one of whom is a longtime friend of mine and knows ewhere my other goats are. There is simply no excuse for this except that he is punishing me for dumping him. God, what an *ASSHOLE*. (On second thought, no. That's a slight against the anus, a perfectly servicable organ.) There are not adequate words for my displeasure.......>:-X

I miss my children. I have to find a way to be with them more often....

Chess club tonight, I'm at the library waiting for other players (if any) to show.

I am trying hard to.....strike a balance. See, here is the issue: I'm already really weird/different. I know that. I go through cycles. Sometimes it's more pronounced. Since working 7 days a week, splitting up with my long-term partner after 7-8 years, and not having the restorative daily time with the goats, I have been a _lot_ more stressed. Heck...I don't like to admit it, but living independently is very, very difficult for me. The bills, the little thigns that have to be dealt with, the phone calls, juggling everything...and I don't really mean financially or emotionally. Just having to coordinate all that is not as easy for me as it would be for your average Jill. Throw being a single mother into the mix, plus two jobs...and it gets worse. I am proud of myself, that I've actually been able to do it alone, without state aid or handouts (well, except for the food bank occasionally).

However, there is a backlash: the stress comes to bite me in the butt. I've always stimmed, ever since I can remember. The difference is that I now stim constantly, at least one sort of stim and maybe two, and openly, in public. I *need* to stim. My social deficits are much more apparent since I am now forced to interact socially on a more or less perpetual basis (my idea of hell!!!). I am constantly on the line.... True, my social skills are better now than ever before, even though ironically the lack of them is more glaring than before. I'm also, in many ways, more blatantly weird than ever before, and NO!, I'm not doing it on purpose.

BUT I am tired of feeling defensive over who I am, tired of even trying to be normal (futile if anything ever was....I don't even know what normal is, how they think is a mystery to me...) tired of being ashamed of my self, of my identity, of the creative, wacky soul that I really am. I *like* who I am. I *accept* it. There is a beauty to autism, and I embrace it. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel deeply happy and content; partly because I've finally found another soul that I understand, *one* soul in the world that I can connect to....and partly because I feel at peace- the answers have been found, and I'm OK. Ermmm...those two are interrelated.

I don't like the way normal people are. I *hate* their dishonesty, their sneakiness, their subtleties, their emphasis on phony ritual niceness and insincerities. I DON'T get on their case, even though wehat they do infects and permeates the entire world with their taint. WHY in the heck can't they return the favor and leave me alone, to be the way I am, without undue criticism?

After three days of my car not starting, *stranded* in the parkign lot of the store where I work, I finally fixed it, myself (thanks to Tim's input!). It was such an....empowerign feeling...to be able to do that alone, rather than takign it to a shop. I don't like having to depend on other people. You never know when they'll let you down. Anyway, I was soooo happyyyyy that I went back into the store ( i was able to fix it on my 15 minute break)...clicking like crazy. And all day long, my co-worker got on my case for clicking. "REBEKAH!!!!" "That's enough of the clicking now, Rebekah", "No more clicking...." etc etc. I tried to compensate with the metal tongs (used for picking up deli food). They made a pleasant metallic click. It's good for getting the attention of customers who just stand there idly and can't make up their minds. They snap out of it and order. :clickclickclickclick: Yes. A particularly cranky co-worker snatched the tongs out of my hand abruptly. :irk!!!:

I tried really really hard not to click too much. It wasn't very easy.When I feel good, I want to click. Or spin, or wiggle, or bounce. Or tap. Or spin. Something. I want my body to reflect my mood: happy, energetic. Spoilsports. I resorted to wiggling my fingertips joyfully, but it wasn't as satisfying as hearign the clicking. So I tried to click out of earshot, mostly. Everyonce in a whiole I'd forget and see soemone's back start to stiffen..before I stopped.

See, I am not one of those people who can contain themselves. If I'm happy, I express it. If I'm miserable, likewise. I have been berated OFTEN for this. Throughout my life, people have been on my case, wanting me to be dishonest this way. :sticks out tongue and waggles fingers:

I won't do it anymore. I won't. If the way I am is not good enough, I don't know what to say...I will spend my time and life with people who can accept me as I am, and who will be as honest with me as I am with them. Yes.

Rock, rock rock. Stim stim stim...... It is hard to type when you have to quit rocking to do so..... :embarrassed:

The thought of being hurt or rejected is just....a terror of such magnitude... :shudder:......I have been known to reject people *first* simply to escape the possibility of being hurt myself. Often. Hell, isn't that what I do on almost a daily basis? I reject the whole goldanged world because I _do_not_trust_ the people in it.

But when I can't do that (or someone gets me first) I ache and hurt and rock with pain...it is so scary...how many times have people I trusted shattered and broken me into little bitty pieces, powder even, and not even been sorry, or done it flippantly? Left me there, to slowly regroup, to gather all the little pieces of myself back together one by one, sobbing all the while that I just don't have it in me to do it again, that I'll give up...but I did, and I didn't. Stubborness can be an asset.

Believe it or not, my being scared like this is actually a good sign. It means that I've had the strength, the nerve...and most of all, the need...to make myself vulnerable once again, that I've actually let soemone get close enough to me to do that. My chest has strange, streaking sensations that ache high pitched when I feel this way.....:squirm:

Four of my five children are here, talking, laughing, making noise, getting into things. It's nice. It's a bit overwhelming though, not only the noise and activity; I find it very hard to focus on more than one person at a time and even harder to choose which child to focus on- they are all special. The effect can be one of spinning mentally and physically from one thing to the other, focusing on whatever is the most urgent, interesting, demanding, etc... and in all honesty, that exhausts me quickly. That's what I usually do. After an hour or two of it, I'm feeling pretty depleted... So today I'm trying a proactive approach, to spend time with each of them one at a time.
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Otherwise....I am feeling compelled to tell/inform people about Asperger's and that I have it...and then questioning whether this is really such a hot idea? A LOT of people seem to equate autism with *mental illness*. It is _not_ a mental illness. It is a difference in thought style and patterns, it is a developmental disability at worst.
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And sighing over the nastiness life dishes out to us. Not because we deserve it, but because we are different, because we are a little more defenseless than other people, because it can be hard to sort it all out or to tell that it's coming before it's too damned late, or simply because we look gentle and quiet and like they can get away with it. >:-( God I hate people with that mentality.....WTF is the matter with them?! THEY are the normal/healthy ones?!!! Puhhlease!!!!!

Also, I have a lifelong habit of not knowing how to defend myself, of not knowing under which circumstances it would be appropriate, of not being able to do so unless I get really MAD...and it takes a lot to make me mad. And then there is the whole adrenaline-fear-anger sensation that for me is very hard to deal with...my heart pounds so hard I can hardly hear anything else, let alone think or retaliate...the words flee and leave me speechless...the emotions flood my system and I shake and tremble....if i say anything at all it is soemwhat incoherent, irate, and I say it in a tone of voice that doesn't even sound like my own, I hear my voice as though watching it...often I cry from the overload of it, from sheer rage...and that is even worse...to sit there trembling and crying when what you want to do is to scream at them. Afterwards, I don't even remember most of what I said. I'm just filled with resentment and loathing that they made me lose control of myself, that I lost control, that they got the better of me. If I end up crying an dbreakign down in front of them and they acted like they were gloating over it?...I never forget that. Even if things get repaired eventually, it will never be the same...becuase they made me cry and were *happy* about it..and I will never trust that person again.

God, what a negative post. I guess what I am getting at...oh, heck, I don't know. I am just sitting here now with bits and pieces of such scenes playing through my mind...the pain and betrayal of it poisoning me if I'll let it.

My hips are killing me today...and they hurt more sitting down...Oh well. That's life, we all have little aches and pains I suppose. I can deal with it. What used to really suck was when I was stressed out, broken up inside, AND in pain. Then it was like, the hips hurting was just the last straw... Eh, this is boring.

So, I finally have a functioning computer again. (But I'm still at the library right now. I couldn't wait until tonight, and I was stressed out and needed to unwind for half an hour before going to the next client).

So, I don't know if I mentioned this already: I have been formally and officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. The missing puzzle pieces and blanks of my life are being filled in, the failures are making sense, and I am not taking them as personally as I did before. I feel *whole*, I am OK. It is just that I am an aspie living in a 'normal' world. But I am different, and I am valid, just as valid as they are, with all the same rights to be myself that they have. Yes!

So, having this settled, I am printing out articles about AS for family, close friends, interested parties. That way, when they ask, "what IS Asperger's?" I won't be standing tongue-tied by the enormity and...how to tell them, how to explain it....

Yes. I feel better, much better. My life has meaning, purpose, I am not a freak, I am not alone. :-)

Current mood: Depressed, of the variety that I think is labeled 'despondant'. When you've gone through life alone, feeling like a freak, like an outcast, like nobody in the world understands you, there's nothing to equal, to even come close to *finally* finding out that you're _not_ alone, that there _is_ someone else out there who feels and thinks the way you do. There's just nothing to compare....the giddiness and delight of it....of finding a soul that you can truly and actually *communicate* with. I have found my counterpart, at a time when I'd given up, when I had given up on the idea of such a person existing. And...well, I'm speechless. It's so nice, I feel FREE, finally. Like flying after living in a cage your entire life.

Alas, he went home. And I'm beating my thick head against the normal world again, I fit in less than ever, and I don't even really care, they can have their fucking world to themselves...but I do want at least one ally with me, and that's enough. I never know, I can never tell, if they're mean to me on purpose, or is it my imagination? :-(

God, I am actually sitting here crying...I _never_ do that in public...but it hurts so much to feel excluded and alone.

Well, I don't have a lot to say today...I have been cleaning the house..once I actually *started* it, I hated to have to stop and go to work! Irks me to stop a job before I'm ready to....The accumulation of goods that I do not use or need is a problem....and oddly, I am sitting here scratching my head wondering where in the heck they all came from?!

I think the deal here is that I am so focused on Tim coming to meet me that there aren't many mental faculties left over...heh...heh...

Scared/happy/excited/anticipatory/wondering/waiting.......

"Create for yourself a new indomitable perception of faithfulness. What is usually called faithfulness passes so quickly. Let this be your faithfulness:you willl experience moments, fleeting moments, with the other person. The human being will appear to you then as if irradiated, with the archetype of his/her spirit. And then there may be, indeed will be, other moments, long periods of time when human beings are darkened. At such times, you will learn say to yourself, "The spirit makes me strong. I remember the archetype. I saw it once. No illusion, no deception shall rob me of it." Always struggle for the image that you saw. This struggle is faithfulness. Striving thus for faithfulness you shall be close to one another as if endowed with the protactive powers of angels." -Rudolf Steiner

That's what love is all about. The initial thrill, the surge of feeling, the exhiliration....is....elating. But love is about seeing who the other person really is, fighting to keep seeing them for who they truly are, in spite of circumstances, in spite of their faults.

This doesn't mean that one should be foolish, that one should allow abuse, or put oneself in a harmful environment....I do think it is entirely possible to move on with life and still love the other person in *that* way....but still....this is what love means to me.

:-) I am happyyyyyyy........

Except, I wish my mail program would function. I have been here at the library for almost an hour now and still can't access it. Frustrating!!!! Well, I should start up my yahoo account again, I guess. I just hate having to check two different places for mail. BUt see, this sort of thign happens too often, and I'm getting really sick of it.

Otherwise: bills are piling up mainly because I hate to deal with them. I have the money, I just dislike interacting with the outside world any more than I absolutely have to. Now is that STUPID or what??? See, that just isn't sustainable. If I don't pay my bills, I WILL have problems. What I should do it to mount a clip board by the door with bills to be paid, in a place where it will bother me to see them. When they are paid, I shoudl tuck the receipt into the billing statement and put that into a file.

It is the same way with rentals. I didn't have a lot of success b/c I hated to call around. I am no longer phone-phobic, just phone averse, (well, for the most part!!!! heh. :-P ) JObs, same thing. I have to force myself to do these thigns, and it rubs me the wrong way the entire time I do it. I soemhow have this feeling that it isn't that way for normal folks. Again: post office box. I sometimes don't check it for well over a week, even thoguh I drive right past it almost every day. I hate to do it. I don't like opening that box and being flooded with input and announcements and expectations of bills to be paid and so forth. So I simply ignore it until I realize that I really should do it...and teh thing is crammed full (mostly advertisements). And people see this stuff, and they don't understand. They think I am lazy or irresponsible. They do not comprehend that it requires EFFORT.

Anyway, enough of all that. I have to leave for work soon and here I am ranting about a world that has been desgined by sociable people in such a way as to make social interaction necessary and almost unavoidable...so that there is not a choice, so that you cannot preserve your precious bits of social energy to lavish on someone that you really care about. See, that is what I want: to spend the time with soemone who will understand me, and I them, and to whom it will matter as opposed to countless trite, shallow exchanges.

All my life, all I have ever wanted (other than to be an artist, and I knew in my heart that I already was one) is to find someone like myself, who speaks the same language, who understands the 'weird' stuff that is wonderful and priceless to me...to enjoy the companyof someone who would be *interesting*. And man, I sure have been banged up along the way, looking, searching...but I would still give it my all to find someone, just ONE person, that I could relate to and be truly close to. And now, I have to pause, because I ask myself (to self): Do you have anythign to give?? (me back to self);Well, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Sure I do. I have LOT to give...but it would be in my own way. Normal people have always been disgruntled b/c they did not want the expressions that were my truest...what they wanted was for me to fake and simulate THEIR kind of expressions. And then, when I went dead and feelingless on them, they blamed me. :-( But yeah, I do think, under the right circumstances, that I have everythign still there. It's just, at this point, there is a part of me that really begrudges all the wastedness of my life, I wish I could gather it all back up again and give it to the right person...if...as I hope...there is a right person.....

Just trimmed hooves. The goats are so soothing and restorative. I feel all calm inside.

Anyway, the rental fell through. Turns out I couldn't have goats there, and a friend badmouthed me to the potential landlords. So fuck it. I'll just stay where I am for the winter, and work on making things workable for the goats where they are. That makes more sense anyway, and I'll be closer to the little kids. I didn't like the thought of being so far away from them. See, I had a gut-level feelign of uneasiness...in there, somewhere, I KNEW it didn't resonate, but I was forging right on ahead anyway. :-( That wasn't smart. Next time, I'll wiat until I feel right about it.

So now I'm thinking that what I'll do is save (ha!ha!) and try to buy a place in the spring, maybe. I don't like renting anyways.

What grabbed my eye today: willow leaves floating on the pond, golden and gray, they were all gathered by the current of the water, which was a pondy dark green. The contrast was wonderful. Oh, the colors of fall! NOw, that is another thing; I am going to set things up so that I can PAINT. Not painting is killing my soul.

Damn....I smell like a goat....and I don't have time to shower before work....ack! Actually, I think it is just my hands....should have worn gloves.

I am moving. I have _finally_ found a place where I can have the goats. I will have to put up fencing. I will have to build a small barn or shed. BUT, I can have them there. I have been looking for this for months, and now that I've found it and put the rent money down on it, I'm not happy. I hate moving. The change is scary.

I do think thoughk, that once I get used to it, I am going to like it a whole lot better. It's out in the country, with big tall trees near it, wide open field, mountains, fresh air, only one neighbor next door...it is just the trasition and the stress of adjusting that kills me.

My car seems to have died, and at what a time! I was VERRRY sick yesterday, stayed in bed all day. Then I couldn't sleep well at night, because I had slept most of the day. My mind raced with all kinds of thoughts, and I couldn't post them or go online because the computer I have isn't, at present, operational. The night dragged on....

So today, I still felt like shit, cancelled work (and I can't afford to) and decided to go pay my P.O.Box fee (I'd remembered in the middle of the nightthat it was due at end of last month, ACK!!!) and then go to the library. The car sounded bad. At the Post Office, I looked under the hood, it all looked fine, pretty much...given that I don't have a clue what I'm looking for...so after settling business there I tried to go to the library. WELL... the car died right in the middle of the street, and wouldn't start again. A friend (the real kind) helped me to enlist help to push it into a parking spot and then go talk to a mechanic about getting it looked at (I *really* cannot afford this). Now I am sitting here at the library wondering how in the hell I'll get home without walking 6-7 blocks in a somewhat feverish state, and worrying about losing the job in Sandpoint for lack of transportation.

It's not been a very nice day; I should have stayed home. BUT, would it have been any better to break down on the way to work tommorrow? Not really....

Current mood: fragile. I just broke up with my boyfriend, and i'm not happy about having to have done that. The guy I loved more than just about anything told me that I was naught but an aquaintance to him...but I think I am finally getting some closure and slowly but surely recovering from that...and I am sick and have to go to work. Bleah. Here's to the beautiful thigns in life that make it all seem worthwhile. :-)

Wow this blog has boring. Anyone reading it would think that I think only about one thing, and believe it or not, that isn't exactly the truth.

Sitting on the smooth black leathery surface of my purse here at the library is a willow leaf, long, slender, yellow speckled with gentle brown, like a banana. It also reminds me of a gondola, the way its tip curls up.

On the wall to my right is a big (3.5 X 4') painting of local type scenery. It is a little trite and tiresome.... I'd like to be able to say that I find it inspiring..alas I do not. The only thing about it that I really like are the hills, which are rising from the water (Lake Pend Oreille?? Priest Lake?? The river? Soemthign like that). They are just as earthily sensuous in their rounded bulk as the real thing is to me, and the artists treatment sort of obliterates or blends the trees in, so that the rounded, drowsy voloptousness is even more apparent than it would be in 'real life'. (Whatever the hell that is...)

Yeah, what is real life, anyway? Working life? Is this life, to slave away, hardly concious of my own body or mind, feeling lost....living only in my thoughts and silent conversations with you, conversations that you will never hear.....To struggle...throughout the day...how to tell you, how to explain...that....it wasn't like that, not exactly...and to sit helplessly and mutely before the moniter at night...still unable to express it...knowing it doesn't really matter anyway.....

To look at my children, my goats, my former life, the parts of it that I loved, and wonder how to integrate that into the present and not entirely agreeable reality I've found myself in? I have to have them. They are not a burden, they are the only things I can communicate with, they are my sanity. I have to get the goats back, and I have to work out something more feasible for the children.

No, that isn't true. I communicated with you....somehow......how can I tell you that that was enough, that I didn't *expect* more....that....That I know I'll be alone...and it's OK, it's tolerable, I think....oh, whatever.....my life is a mess.

Here is the thing: I have this agreement, that when I fuck thigns up really badly, I'm mad at myself, yes. But what gi9ves me the strength to go on, to keep living, is that I determine not to make that particular mistake again.

For example: not to marry or sleep with someone out of pity or because I don't know how to refuse them.

Not to fool around with soemone I don't evem *like*.

Or with someone married; I inadvertently repeated this one, and I'm really ticked about that....I don't have time to repeat mistakes.

Or with someone who'll be unhappy....however much I love them, I never, ever want to do that again.

I have been bored.....really broed and depressed today. Boredom isn't a very common phenomenon for me, but when you're stuck for several hours in a sleepy, smelly house with uncooperative clients and nothing to do.....so I resumed Crime and Punishment. I let it slide for a while because it was disturbing my sleep when I read it at night.

I am so tired of being alone. And I mean alone in the sense of having someone I can relate to and mentally connect to as an equal. I am *tired* of people who act as though I'm a weird child to be humored or shown the right or normal way to do something or to think. I want someone to argue with, as an equal, who will understand that it isn't at all personal, that it's a dueling of the minds, who'll get as much fun out of it as I do. I want to be myself and not have to act nicey-nice all the time......to not have to feign submission in order to avoid messy emotional clashes that I frankly don't know how to deal with.....see, when I act meek and mild, it isn't *real* most of the time. It's an avoidance mechanism: act that way and they'll retire and leave me to my peace and quiet sooner. The problem is that they get the idea that that's me, and before I knwo it, I come out of my solitude and realize that I've, avoided myself into a veritable cage of expectations.....arrrgh!

So what I really need is to be able to be honest. Possibly, if I'm bitchy enough, they'll leave me alone just as fast, or potential conflicts will be less messy or arise less often.... Perhaps?

I think I may have begun to unravel *why* I sometimes get obsessed with people. Here (drumroll) is my theory:

• I used to be perfectly contentwed with myself and with who I was. At that time, I did not get obsessed over people (I should say, a person, it's only ever one person at a time).
• Then, the world began to beat the livign shit out of me. It told me, in a million and one ways, that I, as myself, was fucked up and inadequate. I was a dork. I looked stupid. I talked about weird things. I was interested in weird things. I had odd habits and mannerisms.
• About the same tiume that I began to shut down and close in on myself, almost completely withdrawing from any close interactions with people, I also started this thing of falling for people, getting obsessed with them, pursuing them, and getting rejected, which in turn would make me more miserable than ever.
• One peculiarity of my obsessions is that I tend to try to integrate something of the 'LO' (limerant object, or love object) into myself. I may start dressing like them, acting like them, using the same accent or figures of speech, standing or posing like them, etc etc. This is _not_ purposeful or concious, in fact I am often somewwhat surprised and bemused when I realize that I am doing it.
• So, to tie it all together: there was a huge price to denying myself. I didn't really feel like I could be my own person, I wasn't good enough. Instead, I adored someone else and tried to 'wear' some of that person, tried to become them, because i wasn't good enough.
• Or, to put it another way: getting tied up in knots over someone else was a very good way to overlook the fact that I was denying and squelching my own identity.

Hmmm. I am thinking about this. It seems a little odd, b/c I've always been weird and distinctive enough to be myself. Maybe I haven't phrased it the right way, or have left something out. However, I do think that there isn't any way for me to be happy out of such a relationship, even if, for *once* the other party did accept me. I would always feel a bit cheated and resentful, unless I were loved and accepted as I am, and I can't have or even accept that from someone else unless I can feel it myself. But I also don't think that such an obsession rules out the possibility of there having been real, genuine feelings for the other person.

:thinking:thinking:thinking:thinking:

I am crying because I do want closeness but I do not know how to accept it; in fact, I actively work against it. The more a person means to me, the more likely I am to behave in an indifferent, ambivalent, or even hostile manner towards them. Love is scary to me, and I do mean TERRIFYING. The threat of it and the pain it brings is such that I almost automatically push people away when I want them the most.
----------------------------------------------------
Brief synopsis of my history:

1. Fell for and became engaged to someone that I really, really loved. But somehow, I couldn't seem to tell him so, even though he did, incessantly. He poured out his heart to me in his letters. Mine were impersonal and informative.The intimacy was there, but it wasn't blatant by any stretch of the imagination. He wondered if I still cared: my heart was breaking. And because it was breaking, I laughed and pretended that I didn't really care at all. He was dying: I was afraid. I never said goodbye. I didn't even go to see him. He died without my ever telling him how I really felt.
2. Married a guy that I *knew* was nuts, that I knew I couldn't love. It was safer.
3. Some guys aren't available. That makes them low-risk. Sort of.
4. LTR with a guy, knowing that he didn't love or want me, that he wanted his ex. As long as he was distant, I pursued him madly. I fell for him *because* he was unavailable. But I began to pine for closeness, and it just wasn't happening, man. Towards the end, he began to pursue me, and I ran like hell. God forbid I should be vulnerable and get hurt again!
5. This was doomed from the start and I knew it. I knew better, but I couldn't help it, because I'm so obtuse that by the time I figured out why I was feeling uneasy and scared, it was too damned late. I honestly don't think I've ever fallen so hard for anyone before; maybe because I had my defenses up all the other times. Or maybe it was because he understood me, and never threatened me with more closeness than I was comfortable with. Well, I *thought* he understood me, at least. It felt that way. And if there was one thing I wanted in the whole world, it was that- just to be understood and accepted as myself.
6. Now I've taken up again with someone unavailable, but he's affectionate and sweet. I become remote and bitchy for no good reason. I shy away. And I don't know why, except that I'm afraid.

-----------------------------------------------
Another thing I've realized is that I think my kind of closeness might be different from the norm. My idea of intimacy isn't two people gazing into each other's eyes- I only seek this out with people I love, and even then, I have to force myself to it; it's painful. For me, it's more like, two people standing together, side by side, maybe not touching, or touching slightly, and looking at the same thing, seeing it together. It is less blatant and more...subtle and delicate, almost magical. Discussing a topic as though it were an object, with each party describing the side that they see until the two sides merge. Working on a task together with very little speech going on, yet synchronizing their efforts. *THAT* is intimacy. This other closeness thing- well, it kind of makes me squirm. I don't know how to take it.

But there's hope....because if it happened once, it can happen again. And maybe I will have to wait ten or twelve years (or not). So what? It'd be worth it, wouldn't it? Yeah.

Stomach flu- bleh.

I really need to get over him. I guess the thing is, he was like a lifeline into the world, at least to me. Things made sense when he explained them. A world that seemed to be teeming with nonsense, confusion, catch 22's and no-win situations, suddenly aligned itself into a logical, workable set of problems that *could* be solved. I don't think anybody's ever done that before for me. I mean, to me, to world is a whirling mess and it is loud and noisy and very frustraing to deal with. Just writing this is making me miss him. :-( I mean, nobody else has really ever gotten_through_ to me, not like this. I've waited my whole life to find someone who could *connect*, and now I just have to walk away and pretend like it never happened.

O cruel irony:

Had he been someone else, things might have been different.

Had he not been who he was, I would never have grown to know, let alone love, him.

If I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have truly known what loving someone deeply feels like.

Now that I do know, I'm too stubbornly fixated to settle for what once would have been a LOT more than adequate. The fact that he himself wants nothing whatsoever to do with me makes this all the more irritating.

I also wouldn't have known the total and complete hell of loving someone _that_ much.

Now that I know how much it hurts, even more than I was afraid it would (and I was absolutely terrified), it's veryveryvery hard for me to consider a retry.

And solitude is still satisfying, but it lacks..no, doesn't lack...I don't know. Now that I've tasted the forbidden fruit, the Eden of solidtude just isn't exactly the same anymore.

I have been reading everything I can find about autism and Asperger's. The more I read, the more frustrated I become! WHY did they have neurotypical people write *books* on a subject in which they have no first hand experience? It would be like a man observing women in childbirth and then writing a book based on his observations, to alter the behavior of those women and increase understanding of them. He doesn't have any fucking understanding of them! All he sees is the way they are acting. WHY don't they have books on this subject written by autistic people? Or,at least, written by a team of people, at least half of which are autistic, if they just can't handle the thought of an entire book written by an 'insider'. The perspective is so warped and superficial...ugh.

OK, to be fair, there are Temple Grandin and Lianne...can't remember her name and too lazy to search for it...she wrote 'pretending to be normal'. These books are not to be found in the center where I work, with developmentally disabled people (yeah, now this is starting to be a huge joke for me). Instead, there are books of strategies for how to teach them to be normal, and then they admit that they cannot really make a person 'normal'. They can only offer enough of a taste to make one cease being happy and feel deprived...as though that weren't an issue already. This is seen as an improvement? And the books always have this tone, as though the 'subjects' are not quite human, as though they have no feelings. I think they honestly believe that....*Irk*!

Anyway, this should be interesting, because today I go to work at that job and I am really angry about all this already. If one person makes a snide or belittling comment to one of the autistic clients...man I am gonna fucking lose it.....you would not believe what passes for therapy...

Realization of the day: I don't think there's been a single time in my life when I've fallen for someone, or even had a strong case of 'like', and not had someone pissed off at me about it. Whether it was a jealous (other) male, a family member, a friend, or the guy himself, someone has *always* been ticked at me, every single time. Why is that? I mean, why can't it work out, just once? Is that too goddamned much to ask? Why do I have to feel deeply ashamed and guilty every time I start to feel something for someone?

I can't really say that I feel all that guilty/shameful about sexual matters, but love, now....that is a different story...and it just doesn't make any sense.

I got another....I don't know what to call this. My friend and published quilt artist , who has great ideas but can't draw them, pays me to put her ideas on paper and to draw them in a pattern format. For example, she might say that she has the really cool idea od a red tailed hawk flying and it's feathers streaming out to merge with the sunset so that you can't say where one beginsd and the other ends. My job is to go and find pictures of hawks, flying at different angles, see which pose she likes, and then draw that my own way, a hawk morphing into a sunset. As I work, I segment it by color; black for the bear's body and head, light brown for the muzzle. I've simplified the process somewhat for brevity...it involves a lot of checking back and altering. When the work is done, she pays me and enlarges or resizes the drawing and makes a trial quilt. That quilt will be used for a book or the cover of a pattern, so essntially, my work is getting published. :-) Also, I will be credited in the book/patterns, if I am to understand correctly. Anyway, she hasn't had any work for me for awhile, but this evening she did. It isn't lucrative but I do enjoy it. Here's her site- Cedar Mountain Design. So anyway, what do you call that, a commission?

I got two library books about Georgia O'Keeffe, big oversized books with beautiful, quality pictures. I am also reading: Ringworld (Larry Niven) and Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck). It seems that this latter is the least depressing of Steinbeck's books that I've read so far. Non fiction (a partial list): The Tiger's Child (Torey Hayden), Orchids Simplified (some cretin cut entire pages out of this book! I hope I don't get blamed for it), Heredity and your family's health (a tome on genetic defects and their implications. Fascinating stuff).

What I'm listening to: Vanessa Mae- Storm is such a great CD that I think I'm going to buy it- Bach, and Elton John, sometimes Crystal Method.

Am I the only one who thinks that feminine products with deodorant smell much worse than the natural, ummm, smell?

What is it with people's hankering for nasty artificial odors? Ew.

Sometimes I want to die. It isn't, by any means, that I'm intending to take action in that direction- I'm not, and since I am in fact here, I had might as well do something with it. It's only that I really can't see living the rest of my life like this.

This song by Elton John (copyrighted, all rights reserved, yadayadayada...) perfectly expresses the way it feels to be me, to have AS:
-------------------------
Oh, I’m a dark diamond
I’ve turned hard and cold
Once was a jewel with fire in my soul
There’s two sides of a mirror
One I couldn’t break through
Stayed trapped on the inside, wound up losing you

Tell me how does it work?
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I’ve put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself I might understand
But when the wall's built
And the heart hardens
You get a dark diamond
Dark diamond

Oh, I’m a dark diamond
But you’re something else
You read me more than I read myself
The one star I could count on
Only comet I could trust
You burnt through my life to the true meaning of love

Tell me how does it work?
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I’ve put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself I might understand
But when the wall's built
And the heart hardens
You get a dark diamond
Dark diamond
-------------------------------------------

That's the way it is. I'm always the stupid one, the one who makes the stupid mistakes, who doesn't hear the vital facts even thoguh I strain and search for them with all my heart (literally). The one who just doesn't get it, who doesn't understand that when a guy is sitting there smiling at you and has been talking to you for hours, you don't mean a damned thing to him, not even as a friend, even when you can talk to him about anything. Anything, except that you love him. That sad fact reduces you to a trembling, shivering bundle of nerves.

The one who doesn't get that marrying a guy is no guarantee that he won't pick up his ex-wife and bring her back again, or, that it's a possibility, at least. Who doesn't get that you're not good enough to be seen in public with him, only good enough to fuck.

The one who doesn't get that it's easier to sleep over at another gals home rather than to come home to you, his wife. After all, her place is closer to work. It is strictly platonic. Damn, why can't I get that?

Who doesn't get that a guy will lay in your arms and gripe for hours upon end about his (soon to be) ex-wife, rant and rave about her, while you listen patiently and soothe his pain, until he feels well enough to go back to her.

Who doesn't get that what a guy wants, is for a girl who likes him, to act like she doesn't. That they want to chase something, and if they don't have to chase it, it isn't worth having. That you have to be false and coy in order to be decent and worthy of a nice guy, and if you're not, you'll probably get a jerk. If he isn't usually, he'll become one, because you were 'easy'.

Who doesn't get that a guy wants a pretty head full of fluff, especially if she acts like a confident know-it-all.

Who doesn't get that there is no seal of security- not sex, or marriage, or companionship, or statements of love or devotion, or children, or the fact that he's right next to you every night- he can still grind your heart to powder at a moment's notice, and with no real provocation, except that you're there. And, it'll be your own fault. There was a misunderstanding. It was *obvious*. He thought you knew that all along. What are you talking about?!?!?! Of course not! He *told* you. He didn't need to tell you. Anyone would know. Anyone could have figured that one out. Anyone except me......Being me really sucks. There are a _lot_ of things that I don't get.

So, I decided the other day that art is really the only thing that...let me think of how to word this.....

I don't really mind working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, except that between that and my boys, it doesn't leave much energy or time or thought or, or time left for *seeing* things, so that I can paint or draw. I don't especially begrudge the fact that I barely get by, except that it it leaves me feeling uneasy about rent and bills, etc. What I begrudge is that basically, I live for art and for thought, and there isn't really any time for it. There isn't enough time to soak in the things that I love, their scents and textures and colors and forms and sounds....it all gets drowned in the stuff I sick to death of and by the time I escape from that, I am as drained as a wrung out dishrag, with little ....:searches mind for word:...vitality? creativity? life?....left over from which to pull the art, to really *feel* the subject and to see its essence. There is no passion left, and I am so dispassionate by nature anyway, that I crave it, I long to have feeling, to be excited and enthralled by something.

Anyway, I saw an orchid (yes, the moth orchid) on sale...there were several actually, but I bought this one because it was the sexiest, most passionate looking one of the bunch, the most erotic. It is a beautiful shade of cool blue-pink, with magenta wings and tongue framing and beckoning around the flower's sex organs. I find all flowers sexy, but this is one of the more explicit ones I've seen. I'm only sitting here wishing I'd gotten the white ones with pink/magenta trim. They were more modest thoguh, virginal in a way. They would have been easier to paint- this one's color is hard to match even thoguh I bought two new tubes of watercolor specifically to paint it. I will have to work and experiment to find the precise shade it is. See, if it had been white, I might have eventually loosened up to the point where I'd interject any color I wanted into it. Ultramarine blue orchids..... But with this one, I am so in love with the color that it's hard for me to go past it.

So the plan is thus: to paint this thing, the same plant, until it wilts or the watercolor paper runs out or I have nothing at all left to say about it.

Now, there is another thing, and I hesitate to mention it. When I am satisfied and happy and contented, I don't have much desire to paint. If I am debilitated by pain to the point where I can't eat, sleep, or get out of bed, I can't paint, either. But there is a balance, and it seems that solitude is an essential ingredient. Maybe. I do know that most of the work I've been pleased with has come from times when I was really frustrated and wound up, or longing and pining.

All I've ever really wanted out of life is to be an artist and to love someone. Love is too chancy a business to invest my whole being in. So, I have to do the art, I have to make time for it, or I'll die and be nothing but a time-punching drone with a body.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually capable of having a sustained relationship. I kind of think so, under the right circumstances...and then I wonder, why all the emphasis and worry? I do reasonably well by myself. If things cannot be right, if they cannot be healthy, I would prefer to be by myself. See, I think half of why relationships go sour is due to sheer smothering... But hey, that's just my quirky point of view.

I finished not one but TWO beaded necklaces and a set of earrings last night. It's odd but I don't like most commercially available jewelry. It's never what I want. So I make my own, and then it fits me. It is mine as someone else's work can never be.

Phalaenopsis are one of the sexiest things I've ever seen. Trying to decide if they outdo their namesake. :grin:

I have a lot of bitchy things I could say tonight but I think I'll spare it for now...ah, somethign good: I didn't *lose* a single game of chess tinight at the chess club! (Did I mention that I started up a chess club in this dead little town? Yes, I did. Predictably, attendance is minimal, but so far, people DO come.)

And then, there is the comfortable lovable old shirt feeling. It's sort of the way I feel about my favorite blanket. Someone seems and feels right and comfy. This is a nice state of being, and it can be quite lasting also. It is calm and soothing like a good warm bath or shower that you want to stay in all day long. As long as the sense of security and safety is maintained and my mind is challenged and fed, I can be very, very content in this state.

For example: Relationships.

I have a few patterns

• Become infatuated with someone. I don't usally approach or tell them. It wears off in a month or so. Were the person to respond positively I would panic and feel turned off....it is just a fantasy thing, not something I intend to follow through on at ALL.
• Or, if someone gets interested in me first, again, chances are very good that I will freak out and try to establish distance.
• Getting absolutely obsessed with someone and falling for them completely, so that even their most irritating traits seem valid. This is a long term deal, usually, and can be a near fatal condition. Thankfully it doesn't happen often. I spose it's what the call love. Or perhaps not....whatever it is, it hurts a lot but also makes me very happy at times
• Clinginess: if at any time in any relationship the other person should start to act clingy I have a strong tendency to throw them off just as quickly as I would a snake writhing up my arm, to run as fast as I can and not look back. This is unfortunate....but I feel really smothered very easily.
• Most of the time I simply get tired of a person. Of course, this happens a lot faster if they get emotionally demanding or clingy at all. But, even to me, it seems a bit unreasonable, especially since I have a distinct habit of getting clingy amd attached to someone, myself. But, if I feel that the other person's feelings are more intense than I'm prepared to deal with, I back off and cool down...I can't say that I really like that side of me.....

Currently: I feel anxious. I am having a harder and harder time concealing/controlling distinctively Aspie/autistic traits. If I suppress one stim, another one surfaces, immediately. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I *mind* the stims, for my own sake....but I often snap into an awareness that I am rocking or finger flapping and that someone is looking at me, or that the way I just said that didn't have much inflection at all...or that soemone is laughing or staring at me for an unknown reason. It's unnerving, and all I really want is to be able to be myself and be at peace with that. Goddammit, I am *SICK* of having to squelch myself all the time, of having to conform. I just don't feel like I can do it any longer.

And what really sucks is that most of the people I have broached this subject with (only a few) seem to think it is just a new phase and that I do not have it....they do not understand......they cannot see me for who I am....they have always tried to cram me into a mold of who they want me to be, aughhhh!!!!!!

Things finally make sense though. To be continued.....

Love is like a cancer of the soul. From time to time I thik that I've gone into remission and am recovering, but it always reawakens, discontent to let me heal, leaves me pale and shaking. I'm so tired of loving you.

The only good thing I can say about it is that it frees me up, in a way....because I don't have to be absolutely phobic of getting hurt. After all, noone could hurt me more than you have.... so in a way, I can kick up my heels and really enjoy myself, get close to someone without getting all neurotic and obsessive. And I think, consequently, that I actually have a better chance now, than ever before, to have a real, balanced and healthy relationship. Being phobic of rejection automatically skews the balance towards the other party, places them in a position of complete power, the power to turn you away and break your heart into a million tiny fragments at the slightest whim or ripple of irritation. I'm not sure I ever want to walk on those eggshells again. There must be a better way.....and perhaps I'm finding it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On other notes..... I think I want to see about getting an official confirmation (or denial) of whether or not I have Asperger's. My entire life, I've wondered what was wrong with other people, _or_ what was wrong with me, because something has sure as heck been out of sync, and I'm pretty sure it's me. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm defective...I think that no matter what, the world's always going to seem a little fucked up to me. I just do not comprehend the way people operate, why they insist on all sorts of social niceties that are essentially dishonest. I don't understand their motivations, their nastiness, or, for thast matter, their insincere friendliness. I realize that I'm weird, but it would be nice to have some closure on the subject and a categorzied set to my weirdness, a way to say, "well, this is why X never made sense to me" and "This is why I find Y intolerable".

Also, it's gotten to the point where I'm having panic attacks on almost a daily basis. I'm not sure if it's overload from too many people, too much stress or sensory input, or what....but I'm kind of hoping that there's a reasonable answer that can be dealt with and settled.

I am depressed.... My life seems pointless......

I am working seven days a week and still not able to realize any of the goals I had set. There isn't time. There isn't money. What exactly is the point of slaving away if all you can do is maintain survival?

My life is a whirlwind. The most irritating thing about it is that people seem to take this as an opportunity to foist their wills on me, i.e., my life is 'out of control' therefore it is their place to either tell me what to do or to otherwise dominate me. That pisses me off!!! Just because it's busy and hectic, mayeb even sllightly crazy, doesn't mean I can't deal with it. What I just cannot hack is other people interfering.

Yeah, now I'm just ranting and have no substantial proofs or examples to offer. :-P

Still, I find myself mouthing apologies a lot lately, when I don't even mean it, and most of the time, it isn't even necessary in the slightest.

I'd give anything, anything, anything at all to forget you. If, by cutting off my right hand and arm, I could instantly get over you.... man, I'd do it without a moments hesitation.

Current mood: I spent almost the entire day feeling more broken up than I've been in, say, almost a month. I wasn't sure why, why today, when I'd finally regained some joy and happiness in life. Loving someone is like having a cancer of the heart, with its remissions and relapses. 
-------------------------------
If I could scream, if I could rage, if I could cry, I would....but I can't.  I can only write, here. So, maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.
--------------------------------

Is this normal: That I associate people with colors and textures, also sounds with colors, tactile sensations  or tastes, and so on.  No, I don't mean a certain person with a certain textile b/c that's what they wear. I mean, I associate certain very particular shades of color wioth certain people even though they may never have worn that shade, because that color seems as if it *is* them.

I cut my hair off about a month ago. I haven't had it this short since I was 14. I considered shaving or buzzing it all, but opted for something less extreme. It was still a pretty drastic change. I did it because:

• My heart was broken. It was an act of greiving, sort of.
• I was angry. I wanted to die, but decided that cutting the hair would be a less destructive expression.
• It was also sort of a starting over, cutting off the old stuff, turning a new page sort of thing.
• There was also an element of denying my femininity, desexing myself. I chose a man's haircut.
• Finally, I figured that I'd probably be alone for the rest of my life, so there was little sense in being attractive anymore. One of the prime reasons for long hair was that guys tend to like it. No guy in sight, why hassle with it any longer?? So, sort of a surrender.

Irony can be so sweet.........

There is some kind of a saying, either Buddhist/Zen or Judaic, to the effect that when you strive after something.. it becomes elusive, or that when you cease looking for it, chasing it, then you find it.

It's very true.

:smiling deeply from my soul:

Pet Peeves and Wayward thoughts:

---

Guys who wear (and I assume intentionally) their underwear exposed by about 3 inches above their waistline. What is this supposed to do? Advertise the brand name? Why? Advertise the fact that they *wear* underwear? Turn girls on? Is it to bring one's attention to the underwear and thence to other, more bedroomly notions?

Yeah, girls wear thongs with low pants. But that's different, because of the shape of the thong and the shape of the skin exposed. It's sexy, and it's teasing, and I personnally find the shapes of the skin/thong/pants aesthetiucally pleasing and far more interesting than a plain waistlilne. That's just me.

But the guy's underwear doesn't show anything but itself, and it isn't even form fitting or erotic in a tactile way (such as silk would be). It just looks like a sloppy jock. Ugh....

Man, I can't believe that I wasted my lunch break ranting about such a trivial thing.

Anyway- current mood, for the most part: happy happy happy

It's like...so many thoughts swirling tumultuously in my head; a slurry mess of muddy blue-green-black-dirty gray (and maybe a few little streaks of red)fighting and struggling with one another. And then.....and then when....it's like a smooth, pure white stone appearing in the center of it all, an island of calm. And all the rest is insignificant.

Scattered but interconnected musings about love-

• Ah, yes...the four letter word. On one hand, the bane of my existence. On the other, the very reason and goal of that existence.
• Why is it that I asssociate love with pain, genrally speaking? Looking back, my initial reaction, upon falling for someone, was terror...not happiness, although that was there too, but real, bone shaking fear.
• And it seems a little odd to realize that I could actually love someone without the fear, without even a fragment of it.
• However, it seems to me that our culture, and probably others as well, romanticizes pain associated with love. Indeed, it is almost as though love and happiness in the abscence of pain would be less valid somehow. What a crock of shit!!!!
• It also seems to me that in the media, popular mindset, etc etc....pain is the acid test of love. You love him? (Or her?) Is it hurting? Is he she causing you pain? Yep, must be love. (I am sitting here rolling my eyes, and yet, I too believed this.)
• Also, why is it that love is seen as static and concrete, fixed. It's not. In fact, I think if it were, it'd be dead, that is, cease to exist.
• There is also this idea that it's a limited commodity, that there's only so much to share or to give, and that it has to be jealously guarded. That seems contrary to it's true nature.
• Oh, hell, I don't know. This is all starting to get a little abstract and amorphous for me....but I do know that I've had it with the love=pain and pain=love trip. That just sucks and I don't think it has to be that way.
• See, I *can* learn from my mistakes. I might be the sort who has to *do* to learn, but learn I can. :-)

This is the goodbye you didn't let me have....it almost has to be listened to, though...reading it is just not the same. Oh well. At this point I'm past obsessing about this sort of thing, or any of it, actually.

Letitgoletitgoletitgoletitgo.....Yep...I'm gonna let it go.

This song is perfect (well, except for pool and school). I've already mentioned the fact that communication is problematic for me. I tend to believe and try to rely on telepathy to some extent, but I think the cold hard truth is that this has been a figment of my (colorful) imagination and I just wanted to believe that such a thing was possible, that it wouldn't be so goddamned *difficult*, that someone would be able to see and hear past the faltering awkward words that are so labored and inadequate for what I want to say. In other words, wishful thinking. There isn't such a thing. Oh, I don't know....maybe there is, hell, I don't know... Even if there is...but for the momnet let's just assume there's not, how many opportunuties have been lost of simply never came to pass, how many unrealized interactions have there been because I thought that somehow, the other person could read my eyes or thoughts? (Read my eyes??? It is SO HARD for me to look a person in the eye, with *rare* exceptions).

But mostly, I think I just zone out, and probably look stupid while doing so. Even if there is telepathy, how many people would be receptive of it?

Ack...I'm getting sidetracked. Anyway, here is a portion of the above song that expresses how I feel. (Song is copyrighted, Elton John, etc etc)
----------------------------
If you only knew
What I'm going through
Time and again I get ashamed
To say your name
It's hard to grin and bear
When you're standing there
My lips are dry
I catch your eye and look away
-----------------------------

Yeah. That perfectly expresses the almost paralyzing degree or shyness and social ineptitude that I suffer from.

AND WHAT REALLY SUCKS is when I finally get up the nerve to say something to someone (believe it or not I sometimes rehearse things I want to say hours, days, even months in advance), when I finally spit it out and then the other party doesn't even listen or really hear me, or they look at me like I'm nuts, etc etc..... Oh god, it is so frustrating!!! Or, they hear and listen but it doesn't 'get through' to them, or still, worse, they misunderstand me and don't give me a chance to defend myself before jumping all the hell over me (after which I go away and plan out a carefully executed reply for the next week or two). God, it sucks to be me. :sigh: :-(

I took this test and while I could have scored far worse than I did, I had an extremely difficult time with it. The answers I would have guessed weren't usually among the multiple choices. For example, for most of the women, my choice would have been 'sexy' or 'contemptuous'. The men, I wasn't any more sure about....I found myself throwing up my hands in exasperation- how can all that be inferred or read from someone's eyes??

The answers were far more complex and fine tuned than what I would have given: 1- playful, or friendly. 2, sad or else, old. 3, sexpot. 4, domineering 5, looking up thinking 6, sexpot. 7,looking back to the side as though he has just seen something 8,squinting in sunlight. 9, sexpot looking for someone. 10, rugged looking guy smiling 11, possibly a drunk or else tired. 12,skeptical sidelong glance. 13, open 14, scary 15, dreamy girl probably thinking about guy she likes. 16, I like this set of eyes. I can't be objective in my answer, so I'll skip it. These are the sort of eyes I go for. 17 dreamy slightly sad girl 18, bitchy sexpot, probably thinks she's very hot 19, I honestly don't know... 20, slightly walleyed friendly. 21, pretty-friendly 22, careful 23, alert. 24, old and sad and worried 25,sexpot acting flirty 26, unhealthy icky eyes, I would automatically avoid this person, not sure why. 27,28, sexpots looking sexy (what else could possibly be derived from these???) 29, dreamy 30, 31, same as 27 and 28. 32, old, determined, battle scarred. 33, another handsome set of eyes. This time they looked worried, or yes, concerned. Mostly they look good! :-P 34, sexpot, probably Californian. 35, sultry sexpot (whatever that means) 36, mean.

I suppose that to me, a woman wearing lots of eye makeup looks sexy and that's about it. I read no expression in those eyes, except for the dreamy ones. Not too surprising that I have difficulties forming friendships with women- they are almost completely inscrutable to me. The men are slightly better to read, but not by much. Hmmm.

All my life, I've felt like an outcast. I was never able to put a finger on *why*, but the sense of it couldn't have been clearer had it been branded on my forehead. I've struggled (mostly in vain) to make myself heard or understood, given up, sighed and fumed and raged at the perceived ineptitude and shallowness of the general population. They seemed always to be playing some sort of unspoken game that I couldn't see or figure out or read the rules to, yet was punished for failing at.... Now it all makes sense, total and complete sense (well, not the game- that will _never_ make sense to me).

As a child, I used to wonder at what people did...and I used to believe that it was my job to show them the error of their ways, of their stupid two faced social games and lack of forthrightness and honesty. I used to promise myself, that when I grew up, I'd remember what it was like to be a kid, and that I'd be true to myself, not like the adults that I puzzled over. As far as I was concerned, my mission in life was to offer my profound insights to the world at large, to teach them what was really important in life and to quit fretting over silly crap (ah, the idealism of childhood...).

But they throttled me, literally and otherwise. The happily curious and richly creative loner withered away into a brooding, withdrawn, and very confused and depressed 'dork' before I was through third grade. I kept hoping that I'd find someone who'd understand, that I could have a rapport with...really, truly...all I've ever really wanted is to have that rapport and bond with someone, just one person, and I'd be truly and deeply happy. I kept looking...and looking....and looking....and waiting, because I'm about as patient about waiting as a person could possibly be. I'd wait my entire life to spend just one year, or even a month, perhaps only a day of it with someone in that sort of a bond. Yes, I'd wait, and gladly...not begrudging a second of the time spent. Once, I thought I'd found such a person, and I was in seventh heaven for a few days, a few hours, until, until...he sort of vanished from my life. For years I tried to maintain the illusion that he had understood, that he had liked me as I really was...but finally I had to accept that he hadn't. If he had, he would have known me better than he did, he wouldn't have done certain things. He was a nice man, but he never really knew me.

In the bible, the word 'know' or 'knew' is used in a sexual context: "and Adam knew his wife Eve and they concieved a son, Abel." "Issac went into the tent and knew Rebekah and she became his wife". I don't believe in the bible anymore, but this use of the word moves me...sex and a relationship should involve really 'knowing' your lover. "And the girl was a virgin, no man had ever known her". My body is no longer virginal...but in a certain sense, I've never been 'known'. My soul has never been opened. And I'd give anything, anything, anything at all that was mine to give, to have that, but I'd sooner live and die alone than to ever settle for less again.

Anyway, long story short...whether there was actually anything wrong with me is debateable, but yes, I was and am defintely different: aspergia.com

I am really really depressed.....I think I'm an Aspie (a person with Aspberger's syndrome). I mean, in a way this is kind of a relief- it totally explains why I'm the way I am, and frankly I'm sick and tired of trying to go against the grain of my personality merely to fit in, and I've felt 'weird' my entire life- but on the other hand it feels like a sort of death sentence....it's pretty typical for Aspies to have a very hard time forming relationships, even friendships, beyond an aquaintanceship level. People with Asperger's have a very hard/near impossible time with 'reading' or misreading so-called normal people (among other things)...and this definitely seems to be a HUGE issue with me.

All I've ever wanted my entire life (other than being an artist) is to have *ONE* really close friend who'd understand me. I don't think it's ever going to happen. I've been alone my entire life and it looks like I always will be. :-( I don't know if that sort of a life is worth living.

What do you say when you can't eat, can't drink, can't sleep, can't get out of bed, can't face the world, when your mind feels like it's falling apart...and then it gets worse?

I'm trying to tell myself I deserve it, but somehow that's a little hard to believe.

Arrgh!!!

I'm depressed. I feel things so intensely, and I had might as well be a mute hermit for all the (lack of) ability I have in expressing it. The things that are within me- feelings, thoughts, ideas, insights, and so on, torment me, especially the feelings. I can be content to sit and think about the other stuff, except that it gets lonely...but feeling aren't rational and trying to analyze or transform them into something rational gets really tiresome after a few months (well, okay, sooner than that). Anyway, back to the main thought at hand: spoken words can never express or do justice to the things in my head, and it ****ing drives me crazy.

How can anyone cram what they feel into a few convenient, concise words and be contented with that? An idea- they're diagrams or images in my head, something almost tangible that I can turn over mentally and examine from several angles. It's always been this way for me- even numbers. How anyone can translate such a thing into sounds, and sounds not of music or even singing- for that seems possible to me- but of a voice speaking, just baffles and confounds me. Don't they sense the lack of vitality, the color fading from the thing, the difference between a living growing flower and a dead wilted one?

They don't seem to. Are they contented with that, are they shallow or are they able to say what they want to? How can that be enough for them?

Eh. What I'm really wondering doesn't concern them. I feel like a very plain understated package that people pass over because it just sits there, concealing what is within- many interesting and colorful things- because it is incompetent and powerless to describe them on little label. I can gripe about the bright and clearly labeled boxes or criticize the ones with the picture windows displaying their contents, but that only circumvents the real issue. I am jealous, yes!!- green with envy- because I sit on the sidelines as though paralyzed and dumb. I feel like a social retard, crippled by my ineptitude and clumsiness.

The only thing that even comes close to expressing it, (other than actions, which are inclined to be cautious) is art. I'm about ripe for another painting. People don't understand them, either, but at least I feel better afterwards for having expressed it..... :-P

Today's weird idea: they should make a watch that's a very thin patch which fastens with a waterproof adhesive to the skin. It should derive it's power from the pulsing of the veins on the inner side of the wrist. It wouldn't need batteries and it wouldn't fail until one died (and at that point, who cares if it quits oiperating for awhile? Besides, it would be a handy indicator of the time of death).

Two songs for today:white flag hello

Today's gripe (should be: "today's weird gripe"): Why is it that men have a word for their arousal- erections- and there is no suitable corresponding word for women? Men get engorged. So do women. I'm assuming that it can an uncomfortable state for them, as it is for women. It can be almost painful. I guess the fact that we don't have anything visible sticking out makes it less legitimate somehow. *Irk*!!!

I've moved to the new place. It's nice and quiet, peaceful. It's nice to have my own space and to be able to arrange matters in my own way.

Bad thoughts: I think it would be funny if soemone crossed a Shar Pewi with a Dachschund. That would be hilarious.

I had another one- oh, darn. I can't remember it right now. Dang.

Well, that was a bit extreme and not at all fair. I discovered that I was wrong, too: My grandma Amy, the one who helped raise me, loves me. She really does. :warm fuzzy nurtured vibes:

So let me restate this: I feel alone.

There may be people who love me, but if I feel so isolated that I can't feel it 99% of the time, what good does it do me? I've always been so different and struggled so hard to try to get people to acknowledge me for what I am, not what they want me to be...Let's face it: I'm kind of weird. Always have been, always will be.

The way people feel about me is largely immaterial, whether they love or hate me, if I can't be reached. If it's a protection, it's also a barrier. I have to feel like someone *understands* me- no illusions, no wishful thoughts about how I could be like other people, there has to be a mental connection; and most of the time, it's lacking.

I used to have a very strong sense of myself, and over many years I've tried to suppress it- to please people, to avoid punishment, to try to win love, worn myself out trying to figure out what they wanted me to be and trying to mold myself into that. The thing is, I was never really secure when they liked me, because I felt like a sham. And you know, I'm sick of it. I want to be myself again, and to hell with what anyone else thinks, because people who don't like you the way you are never really did in the first place anyway.

The other day I was walking through the store- (I think it must have been last Thursday, becasue I was at the store with a client in Sandpoint); and as I passed a case full of cookies with brightly colored frosting on them this thought came to me: I am unloved. There is nobody: family, lover, or otherwise. It stood out spare and bleak as against a flat featureless landscape, a plain fact. I looked at it as if from far away, as if from another person, and the thought was as though it were happening to someone else and I was unmoved....it was like coming across the corpse of something lying alongside the road- you look at it for a moment, you say to yourself, "It is dead" and the reality being what it is, you resume walking.

It sounds rather surreal, and that's the way it felt....

But I think it's probably true. There are people who *need* me, people who *want* me for whatever reason, people who like me, people who find me useful or beneficial to them in some way, there are people who feel a sort of duty towards me, and above all, people who try hard to go through life being kind and good natured towards everyone, so of course they're nice to me. :shrug: But love? I don't think so.

I think it's possible to love someone _and_ to need, want or find them useful, but if you can't love them without that, then it isn't love.

I never really got back about that painting, did I? Well, I'm not done with it yet. And actually, the idea I had sort of evaporated and was replaced by a similar but different one...but whatever. The point is that I felt like killing someone that night and I regained my sanity by painting a picture. If I go too long without enough solitude and no painting or other creative expression, I get that way, particuarly if I'm already stressed. It's abstract. I don't expect anyone will like it. I don't care. I like it.

:Searching brain for other news: I've been researching Georgia O'Keeffe and Aspberger syndrome.

Oh- I came up with this neat and arguably evil idea: one of the main limitations of clothing design is that fact that is has to be fastened to the body, and the shape has to support that requirement. There are all sorts of neat shapes and stuff that simply would not work b/c they'd fall off (or get in the way). Just about everythign functional about clothing is based on the fact that it has to cling to, wrap around, grip, or encase the body, when all clothing really needs to do is to conceal, expose, or warm the body. So I have the solution: what we ned are little skin toned adhesive patches, sort of like the medication patches they sell to stop smoking, diet, etc etc.. but the patch should hold a strong magnet to the body. The clothing can then incorporate magnets at key positions to attach to the one on the body. The magnets could be adjusted to make allowances for size and tailoring. Using this system, garments could be designed that would make the bikini look conservative, and risky (they're pretty bad about falling off). No more bands or belts or pink marks where something was too tight! Goodbye to snaps and straps and zips! No more worrying about a dress sliding down or, for that matter, riding up, if you don't want it to! Well....OK....I'm trying to think of applications for male garments and admittedly, I'm having mental roadblocks....but women would have a heyday with it!

I want to paint or draw....but I cannot come up with a picture to express the way I feel. I try: an image rolls through. Nah....not emphatic enough, not dark enough, not enough contrast there...too blah too soft too bland and half hearted too dull too.....too inadequate. They're all like that, if I can conjure anything at all.

OK wait....that might work. I can try. There is a painting on the wall upstairs that says it...sweeter, keener. It is the only painting that I have _never_ever gotten a comment or compliment on by anyone. They don't understand it. What I want to do now is darker, emptier, more spare bare boned, less bright.... Yeah. I'll give it a whirl. I kind of wish I could post the pictures here.

Need to get a digital camera.

Reading through these posts and the books I've begun reading makes me a little depressed. I don't finish half of them. I don't have the time, but it's more than that. I feel like the consant work and interactions with, well...the standard Priest River crowd (i.e. rednecks who get their kicks and thrill out of getting drunk every weekend and spending the rest of the week guffawing about the party and subsequent hangover and the coming weekend's party) is eroding my brain cells. When I'm not working, I'm surrounded and beseiged by children, which isn't much better.

It doesn't help that I have a constant comparison trip running; I compare myself with other people in different situations, or who've had different opportunities, or who have more time or solitude, etc etc (or are these just excuses??). The biggie for me is education- the lack of a solid foundation in some very basic subjects (math, chemistry, etc) makes me feel inferior. It doesn't really help that I know a lot about other subjects since these are frequenbtly discounted as unimportant (either by me or the other party) or I don't really do so well at verbalizing what I know. For me, ideas are not....they're not words. They're pictures. Even abstractions are mapped out in images or...I don't know how to explain it. It's not a picture but not words, either. Putting an image or abstraction into spoken words (written words are slightly better) frustrates me. It comes out bland and half baked. There is none of the vigor or excitement of the idea.

Anyway- I'm thinking that I will go ahead and apply for college- I was starting to question whether I would actually do this- not because I hope to get a better job out of it, though that'd be nice, or to get a degree, though I intend to, but mostly because I'm tired of feeling shorted in the areas that matter to me. The life I'm living now rubs against my grain and highlights all my weaknesses.

Sidenote: In the work with disabled people, I'm struck by the way that they pick out the person's weakest point and place a lot of emphasis on improving that rather than playing up the strong points and talents. Shy people are to go out in the community and interact with strangers. Talkative friendly types are to be quiet in public except when conducting a conversation. Energetic kids are encouraged to sit still, while stolid ones are nudged along to more activity....I'm generalizing of course, but this is the general way it works. Yeah it's good to round a person out a little, but don't they feel it to be an incredible strain? And, the minute you let the pressure off, they tend to revert to the way they'd rather be, anyway. I think there is a difference bewteen a person's natural self and their disability impairing the expression of the natural self, and the focus should be on the latter. Just a wild idea..

What the Bible has to say about women: here and here. Yeah, I'm beating a dead horse. I don't know why I even think about this crap since it's largely irrelevant to me now.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that our cultural history is based on the bible and Christianity with the result that our society is still riddled with and tainted by these viewpoints. Like it or not, believe in it or not, we will encounter this mentality on a regular basis for some time to come yet. :shrug: For whatever that's worth (I'm not sure it's much).

Ha. Get a good look at the banner ads and the text they're related to here! I can't help being a little tickled by the twistedness of that...yeah, my sense of humor is just a little twisted too, I guess.

umm...let's see here.... I'm in the process of learning how to use command lines. I fear I'm just a little obtuse about these things at times...I sort of learn by trial and error and actually *doing* things though, so it's fairly forgiving. I need to edit my website to reflect the changed status of the herd....and uh....I think I'll actually have time to paint tonight....I've got this nagging sense that I forgot to do something, in town or somewhere. Probably it's in the deli and someone else took it over hours ago... heh. I'm like that.

It looks like I've found an apartment that I can rent, which strikes a compromise between price and size.

Cool- tonight the moon- which is sliver thin- had a weak enough shadow that I could see the non-illuminated part. (Surely there is a more graceful and or scientific way to express this, but it eludes me tonight).

Today I found some beautiful seashells at a store (alas, no I did not gather them from a beach. Soemday, I hope this dream will come true. Not that it's a huge priority right now, but hey, it'd be nice...), some cool art books at the library, and got bit by a dog at the animal shelter.

Pet peeve: no kill animal shelters that rescue mean, biting dogs hoping to find 'good homes' for them. What the hell kind of a 'good home' is going to want to *PAY* to own a biter???? Geez, people, get real! And it really pisses me off that they don't at least have a padlock on the cages of the mean dogs, when children and volunteers, some of them handicapped or retarded, are being encouraged to come on in and walk a dog. That is a HUGE liability. Sure, some of the cages have a 'do not walk, agressive to people' sign, but a good number of developmentally disabled people cannot read; besides which, the one that but me had no such sign and looked quite meek...

Life kinda sucks right now. Maybe someday it'll get better.

Found two Lary Niven books today, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. There was a nice selection of LeGuin too, but they were pricer higher than what I could afford. What else: still painting and drawing, trying to learn command lines. I almost fell apart in the library today. Client I was with asked me why I was sad...I just slapped a weak smile on and told him I was OK. It didn't fool him. Mentally disabled people can be surprisingly astute.

Don't know what else to say, except that things are actually getting better. I hate the way loneliness creeps up suddenly; in a store, driving, at work, and it's so paralyzing and overwhelming. Things can be going along routinely, and then, BANG! it grips me so tightly I can't think of anything else.

Reading through the posts here...I sure whine a lot. Ick!!

The typos are also in abundance. Oh well. Live with it!

Take a look at these love poems! LMAO!!! Ha. I've never had the nerve to write anything quite that...direct.... before. Well, close...but hopefully nobody's going to read it while I'm still alive! Somehow, it just isn't deemed appropriate for women to write stuff like that, but it's not too terribly surprising when a guy does.

No, don't sit there holding your breath. I'm not likely to do so and post it here (!)

More Adoration

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Pop idols, movie stars, fairy tales, romance novels, and fairy tales. All non-threatening objects to project adoration and love onto, where the battle-scarred face of reality will not intrude. Of course, whether we're talking about Michael Jackson or Jesus Christ, there also isn't much direct fulfillment or return on this sort of investment, other than what one imagines or conjures up in a fantasy...but that seems to be sufficient and truly preferable to the all too scary prospect of dealing with another live human, giving them your all, and accepting them for what they are.

Aside from the need/desire for a higher meaning, I wonder if the desire for/belief in God is due to an innate need to adore, trust, and love someone. Think about this: if you didn't have God, you'd still want to be close to someone, right? But people are sooo hard to trust completely, and being human, we goof up, so adoring a person has to be in balance with reality and taking someone as they are.

Loving and adoring God fixes all that. He comes first. You cannot love someone 100% or adore them if you love God. He even says so and makes no bones about it. Even your children, your flesh and blood, you have to be willing to sacrifice them as Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac. Principles come first, God comes first. It's pretty hard to argue with someone who believes that.

My point: perhaps loving God is a sort of protection against having to love and trust other people, with all their imperfections, zits, and wrinkles.

I don't have much of anything to say tonight, but the past week or two's posts have been so negative that I sort of feel obligated to balance it out somehow.

I'm still reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My bosses in their office must wonder why I sit snickering (alone) in the break room... The other book is Life, the Universe, and Everything. Here is something else: the one I'm reading now is a FIRST EDITION. I couldn't believe that. On the other hand, I wanted to read it too badly to keep it mint condition, and it IS a paperback....maybe it is not a true first...

And, The Telling by Ursula Le Guin. I haven't begun it yet. It's a libary book. Also, The Blue Flower, based upon the life of Novalis. I never did get to finish reading Faust or Ecce Homo by Nietzche, and I want to. They were both too heavy to read with a brain already exhausted from working in the deli. By the time I'd get into the flow, it was time to go back to work.

I had some kind of an idea today, but now I can't remember it. The irritating thing about this job is that it is multi-tasking that entails CONSTANT interruptions. You cannot simply begin a task and follow through on it until it's done. Oh no. You begin sweeping the floor, and a customer arrives. You wait on them, they buy up all the chicken, and four or five more people swing through before you can cook more chicken. Someone wants salad, and the salad runs out, so you go to get more. FINALLY, you get a chance to rush to the back room and grab the chicken and pop it in the fryer. If a customer comes while your hands are gooey with raw meat, too bad! Someone else will have to deal with it! The minute you're done with that, more customers. They want meat, and wouldn't you know, it's meat that hasn't been sliced up yet. So, you do that, get the meat to them, and clean off the slicer, and package up the remainder of the presliced meat, all in between cstomers, of course. A crowd of teenagers march in and can't make up their mind. Then the buzzer goes off on the chicken fryer! You dash to the fryer and retrieve the chicken, get what the customers want, and start to put the chicken in the hot case. Oh- a co-worker walks by and asks you to stop doing that and do (whatever) first. So you do. Then you run back and finish putting the chicken in the case. The teens bought up a lot of other deli food, so you have to cook more of that. While it's cooking, you notice the tables are gooey and messy, so you wipe them off, and then get the stuff from the fryer to the hot case. Stand there a little dazed...because it seems like there was a loose end somewhere...ah yes: the sweeping. You resume this. Then, the phone rings: someone wants nearly all the chicken in the hot case....arrgh!!!

My point is that it's sort of remarkable if you can think about anything else at all there. Holding a thought until the end of the day would be...almost miraculous. I'm a focusing sort of person. There are things I care nothing about, and things that I focus on, with very, very little middle ground. The middle ground is merely and temporarily tolerated so that I can get to what I really thrive on: focusing on something. If I seem preoccupied, it's generally because I'm either trying to recover a thought, or trying to hold a thought until I can get some task or interaction over with and get back to the thought or preferred task. This holds true with people, too. If I look bored, don't take it too personally; I'm an introvert. If I'm focused, chances are quite good that I like you. If I'm focused AND missed you, it's exceptional, because you are.

Anyway, the scatterbrained nature of this job drives me nuts. I kind of hate it.

I'm tired of living if this is how it's always going to be. I keep on plodding along and trying various things in the hopes that someday, I'll find the magic combination of factors (that seem to come so easily for other people) and man, it just doesn't look too promising. I keep getting kicked when I'm down, but nobody ever kicks me quite hard enough to finish me off. Now that's cruelty.

Yeah, I guess I'm depressed. Need to get out the Saint John's wort again.

Have you read Animal Farm? Right now I'm playing the role of the horse (what was his name?); the one whose reply to hardships was always: "I will work harder". I've always identified more with the cynical donkey... think his name was Benjamin...

Seems like my mental world has shrunk down to two or three driving, insistent subjects. I'm so tired.

I want to paint. During the breaks and lunch at work, I draw with colored pencils. The pencils are cheap and waxy and the color doesn't build up like I want it to. Irksome!!

The doe who had the C section has been walking around and is actually still producing milk (!) This is good. The baby will have milk to drink. He screams if he sees a carton of cow's milk. I suppose it gives him a stomach ache or something.

Sigh. I want a day off, ideally a day where I don't have to watch the children all day long, too. There isn't such a day anywhere in sight. Last day off was 3/20. What sucks is that for as much as I'm working, I'm not even getting anywhere, but this is due in part to bills and debts being paid off, childcare, and gas. The car sucks down gas like a wino does 20/20.

Teeth hurt, my breath must be bad. Rotting teeth stink, at least my mom's did. Ugh.

Some few of the bulbs are blooming: 'Jumblie' daffodils, only 3-4" high and very cute and tiny, scilla, chinodoxia, as well as standard daffodils which have been here for a long time. Hyacinths will kick in soon. There are places that I planted chock full of bulbs wherre nothing at all is emerging, and sites where the bulbs grew last year but are making a very poor return this time around. Fucking pocket gophers.....grrrrrr.....There are only one or two oriental lilies, and I planted about $50 worth of lilies. But it isn't the money that matters, it's the fact that I've wanted and dreamed about these lilies for years, finally got them, and they failed before I even had a chance to enjoy them.

Is that all my life's ever going to be, a series of failed pipe dreams?

This is depressing: every day, I check my email, and there are 4-7 messages, all spam or INTP mailing list messages. There is never any personal mail I have three pages of mail (mostly old stuff I haven't sorted yet). Today, I check the mail, and there are seven pages, and I think, wow. What in the heck happened? Did the INTPs suddenly have a huge, dramatic increase in verbosity? Did I get a LOT of spam? Maybe I actually got a 'real' email today. I mean, seven pages, that's a lot, the odds are in my favor. Nope. I somehow got resubscribed to a goat mailing list that had dropped me. Nothing else but spam and one that was server related. Life sucks.

My P.O. box is the same way. No mail. Bills, flyers, adverts, religious stuff, an occasional catalog. No real mail. People gripe about my not writing. This is why. They don't write back. Correspondance is not my strong point. I always analyze it to death and wind up writing something that totally lacks color or spontanaiety. Email is better. I send it before I get to that point. But it's still an effort, and then when they don't reply, I go back and read what I wrote, trying to see if it was out of line or offensive or what. Ack!!!
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I went to my supervisor and told her that something has to be done about the gal who's been picking on me. If it dsoesn't change, I'm going to have to quit. Got my second paycheck today, and this also is depressing. I work my ass off there. In that last two weeks I've lost 5 lbs, and I was already lean. The pay for those two weeks is so little that it only covers the checks I've written (and asked people not to cash- yet) and gas and daycare for the next week, if I'm reeeeeally lucky. Basically it pays for me to go to work at the other place, where I typically only put in two days a week, sometimes three. I can't get ahead like this. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scavenging: Got- milk, bread, yogurt, half and half for the baby (goats aren't milking and we'e out of formula), a bag crammed full of kid's clothing, for free, a pair of tennis shoes that fit me (my other two pairs were falling apart at the seams) for 50 cents, a chenille sweater for 50 cents, free magazines, and two more Douglas Adams books- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and (I think) The Ultimate Hitchhiker's guide...something or other like that, 25 cents each. Also- 75 cents worth of cool little glass or metal beads to make earrings from, (I had to splurge a little) and 3 baby bottles at 10 cents apiece. Let it not be said that I've got extravagant taste!!

Anyway, so now I'm snickering and grinning like a dork over these books. They're just great. :>)