Nostalgic and homesick.....
===================================================
I had a dream about my grandmas about a week ago, and I've missed them ever since. In the dream, one of my grandmas died, and I was rally upset, because I had meant to thank her, to ask her about the Phillipines and her family there, and then bang, just like that, no more chances, all her history lost to me, all her memories not passed through to the next generation. In the dream, she died from blood poisoning following her knee operation, which is exactly how my paternal grandfather died. She is getting knee surgery....I really hope it was only a bad dream and nothing more. I've been trying to call her, but I'm afraid to. Making a phone call is this huge effort for me, and then the people usually don't even want to talk to me much. It's a lot of stress with very little reward most of the time. I need to do it, though....should set a deadline and something pleasant that I can't have until after I make that phone call.

Two of my co-workers have been griping about my perfume, which is natural essential oils of roses. They don't know that I wear it because it reminds me of my Grandma Amy. I wonder if all Catholics wear rose scented stuff, or just Filipino ones, or just the Filipino Catholics that I knew?? To me it is such a warm, loving scent, a scent that says that there is love and safety in the world. I cope a lot better at work when I wear it, because the scent is very reassuring. One of the gals is actually allergic and has asthsma (but she smokes cigarettes?!!!) so I've been abstaining when she's there. The other one simply doesn't like it. Well, I don't like her reek of poison tobacco, or that she crunches ice cubes all day long (and I am pretty damned sure that she does NOT pay for those ice cubes!) and there's not a damned thing I can do about it, so she'll just have to put up with my perfume, too. If it made her physically sick, I would stop wearing it around her, even though I don't like her....it's just wrong to make someone sick on purpose.

Anyway...family stuff. Yeah, I miss them all. They don't seem to like me very much, though, especially my father's family. I am the black sheep, because I moved to be with my mom, and was homeless for a year or two, and because I got divorced. Also, I'm probably the only one of my generation in the family who hasn't gone to college (who's old enough to, anyway). Ouch!

My earliest memories of sound: my dad's pipe organ music- Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. Some of the compositions seem to be hardwired into me. When other people play the same pieces, they don't sound right, not crisp and staccato and defined and intricate like they are under my dad's fingers. I probably heard them before I was even born. I've actually been considering going to church again not for spiritual reasons, but in order to join a choir and sing the hymns. Isn't that twisted and hypocritical? I used to sing a LOT, and I had a good voice then. My dad had us sing right in front of the whole congregation. Now I'd be terrified to do that. I don't even know what my voice sounds like anymore. It's sad.

College: since earliest childhood, I knew, almost as a given, that there were things I wanted out of life: to be a doctor, an artist, have lots of animals, and a family. Now I feel like I've given up on all of that, why live at all? I have not fulfilled my destiny. I just bounce around messing other people's lives up. In my heart, I still want it, I still want to be a doctor, but I don't see how. Also, I don't see how I could be a doctor AND an artist, and maybe I should choose. We come from a long line of doctors, I was supposed to be one, and here I am, producing fast food that I don't even think is fit to eat. I wouldn't care so much if I weren't smart...but I am....and I think too much abotu my job because there is nothing else to focus on, and then I get in trouble for taking it too serously. Obviously I need to go to college, but for what?

I've decided he's probably right. Nobody else is going to want me. Or, rephrased, none of the sort of guys that I would want are going to want me. I'm ugly, and even if I got cosmetic surgery, I still don't have the all-important social graces and poise that it takes to get on in this world where "normal" is so paramount to success.

But, I'm not going to let it bother me. I have a lot of kids, a lot of goats, and a lot of interesting things to do. The world won't end if I don't have a mate or if some time goes by and things eventually do work out between Tim and I.

I have a house to clean. A big yard to landscape and plant flowers in, and to make vegetable beds for. Paintings to paint, books to read, quilts to finish, all sorts of great things to do. There's more to life than romantic love. And while I undeniably would like that, not so much for sex or financial security or sheer romance as much for simple companionship and long term bonding, it might not happen for me anymore, or maybe friendship is what I'll get. I have a life to live. I'm not going to sit around wasting it with wishful thinking.

While at the store paying for my routine morning latte:

Checker: "oh, I like your necklace! Did you get it from the gumball machine? That's where I got mine!"

Hers looks like hematite, but it isn't. It's plastic. I am a bit surprised that such a good imitation of hematite can be produced. I proceed to explain that actually, I made my necklace myself, and it's all real: freshwater pearls, rhodonite beads, and a jasper heart shaped pendant. Her personality is rather reflective. Not much sinks in, but she bounces a lot of enthusiasm and energy around. She goes on to tout the necklaces in the gumball machine.

I wouldn't wear plastic. I like things that are real. So it's a bit ironic and slightly irritating that even when I do wear real pearls and semi-precious gemstones, people assume that it is plastic!

Oh, whatever. I take life too seriously.

::Body::

I am in the bath, in the clear, clean hot water of the freshly scoured tub.
I survey my body:

Feet- feet that have borne my weight, faithful servants ferrying me around at work. The nails are long. I reach up, find the clippers, and trim them. The thin skin over the tops of my feet still retains the impression of the socks I wore today, and the lines of the new boots, the lacing pattern. I study it, thinking about how those boots hurt at first, how it made the feet suffer.

Calves- hairy. Need shaving. I don't want to take a bath in my own hair and soapsuds. Besides, no razors, need to buy some.

Knees- Hill family knees, not well formed. They stick out knobbly like. They aren't set in smoothly, seamlessly like other women's knees. I wonder if those women even appreciate what nice knees they have. I see knees like mine in my uncles, who needed knee surgery, and I see them one of my sons. My grandpa died of an infection following his knee surgery. Hmmm. My left knee has two scars. One is where I cut it open on broken concrete as a fourth grader. I remember the concrete, because it was near where I used to bury any dead birds I found, holding little funerals for them. The other scar is longer and not as old. I don't remember what caused it. The right knee got kicked by a horse once. Luckily for me, his hoofprint circled my patella. Otherwise the kneecap probably would have been broken. As it was, I limped along for a few days, at least, with a big purple bruise. I look at these knees and wonder whether they'll need surgery when I get older.

Thighs- They're still plump with extra fat and flesh retained during the last pregnancy, reserves for breastfeeding the baby. I'm still nursing him, but probably will have to bicycle and exercise to get them firm and toned again.

Hips- Hips that have cradled seven babies and birthed six. Hips that have labored and worked hard, harder than most women here, I think. Hips that have hurt, and I can hardly blame them, after all I've put them through. The pelvis is wide. Wide and motherly, having held all those babies, but not as wide as some. I look at these hips, think about the beautiful butterfly shape of the bones....wonder if they will ever cradle and embrace their complement, heavier, differently shaped, bigger yet seeking shelter. Will these bones touch against another's or will they be alone? I look at them, and think that probably, they will. I like men entirely too much for it to be otherwise. I wonder whose, and I don't know.....

Why is it that I can go all day long and keep up a good front while I'm crumbling away inside, and then cry half the night? I must look like I have a heart of ice to the casual onlooker. I don't....but I just don't know how to show feelings, and even if I did, then they'd just say, "well, take him back then!".

But it isn't that. It's the whole hopelessness of it all. I am so fucking BORED. I really, *really* want an intelligent conversation, or just to go out and do something different for a change. It's not going to happen. It isn't so much that I'm ugly, because I've observed other people who are quite a bit uglier and seem happily mated with plenty of friends. It's that I take things so seriously and don't have any social charm. I'm afraid to flirt (don't want to seem like a slut or to let on that a guy is attractive to me), my sense of humor is not funny to a lot of people, and I can switch from laughing my head off to dead serious in seconds, which really seems to throw others for a loop.

So I just look through them and tune them out. They don't see me anyway...not really.

Sigh.......

Okay, so he's gone now. I'm all alone, just like I wanted to be. But, I feel strange. Everything else is the same, but he's gone. It's surreal. I don't even know what I feel. :-/ And I know he said he didn't mean it when he said that nobody else would want me, but I can't quite shake the feeling that he's probably right. I look into the mirror and I just think, "Blech". Who would want that? Attempts at improvement make it more glaringly ugly. Makeup...I look like a clown or a goth or something horrid, UGH.

Time for the St. John's wort, I guess.....

Oh god. He is strangling me to death with his neediness. All he seems to see or think about is memememememe...what HE needs. It's as though I have some sudden obligation to make him as utterly happy as I can, because, why? Because, in my heart, he says, I know that I want to! AAaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!

I'm trying to be nice and decent and tactful and all that, and it just isn't working. Instead, I feel like I'm on the verge of losing my mind (at which point he pipes up and says, "Yeah, me too!,How do you think I feel?")

Hello! I wasn't the one who got drunk with a baby in my care and who tried to drive off before discovering that I was too danged drunk to go anywhere, and so passed out until I could drive again (hopefully soon enough that the baby's mother would be blissfully ignorant of the whole debacle), except, luckily for the baby, someone called the cops before any driving could be done. That was you, dear, not me. That was my baby, unfed, diaper unchanged, for four whole hours, crying unattended while you and your stupid pickle-brained drinking buddy haw-haw-hawed your way through at least one bottle of vodka and possibly another. I was the one who lost 5 hours ($40 worth) of work that I couldn't afford to lose, so I could rescue my child and keep him from being taken away from me, who stood there trembling with my baby in my arms, so thankful that he was alive and unharmed. If only he could talk and tell me the truth, of all the other things he's had to go through, but he can't. He has to content himself with looking up at me innocently and sweetly and hoping/trusting that I won't hurt him or let anyone else hurt him, either. It's my duty. I'm a mother.

So enough with the damned guilt trips! Shove them down your craw! All my life, as long as I live, I'll not be able to make up what's already happened to the poor kid, and it'll be on my record with CPS, even though I didn't flipping do anything wrong except let you spend a few hours with your kid, when you'd been begging me for weeks. That's what giving in gets me. It's going to take a helluva lot more than guilt trips or begging or emotional manipulation to get anywhere at all with me in the future.

I despise drunks. I've always hated the sound of bars. How in the world did I end up in this disastrous mess? By trusting you, duh.

I keep buying things I don't need. Being a thrifty frugal sort by nature, it doesn't usually put me out a lot of money, but the fact is that in a small one bedroom house with 8 people, there just isn't any room for stuff I don't need, even it it's FREE stuff. What I should do is to make a list of things that I really need to want, and if the item isn't on the list, I won't take it, even if it's given to me. Wait....what to do if I get something cool that I never knew existed or hadn't thoght of, or never had, and I really like it?

First items on the list:

a Louet spinning wheel and wool cards
Flower bulbs
Supplies to make concrete stepping stones
possibly another sturdy sports bra, if I found one cheap.

I am learning how to upload and post images. This is (should be) my oldest son. The other pic was son #2 and only daughter. As you can see, they are all hamming it up!

Early memories and signs that I wasn't quite like the other people:

*I lived in my own little world and was very introspective. In fact, I don't remember speaking anywhere near as much as I *thought*. In addition, it was years before I could easily articulate the things I was thinking about.

*I did not understand boundaries. Oh, I got plenty of spankings....but somehow, I thought rules and boundaries were for people who wanted them, for regular people who wanted to be constrained by them, not for me.

*Other children seemed rather petty, babyish, and uninteresting, as a whole. They seemed to always be agreeing with one another without actually thinking very much about the subject they claimed to agree on.

*I couldn't understand the emphasis on money. If all they wanted was money, why didn't they just pass around an offering plate like they do at church?

*Nor could I understand clothing. I saw some big, lovely fuzzy burdock leaves and asked my babysitter why she couldn't use those for a bathing suit, so we could go swimming. She laughed as though it were absurd. I couldn't see why, they looked nice to me!

*I particularly hated people who talked behind people's backs and then acted all phony nice. I made a point to tell them what others were saying about them and to promote honesty between the two backstabbing parties. It didn't help, and I couldn't understand why not.

*The first thing I remember reading was some kind of a medical book. It belonged to my Grandfather (a doctor) and must have been from his time in the military (WWII). The book listed various injuries and whether the person had a good chance of living or not. I think it must have been discussing triage, a concept I didn't unerstand yet. I walked to school chanting silently to myself, that if a person lost an arm or a leg, they would probably live, but if they lost both legs and arms, they'd die (and all the variations in between). I really liked this book and found it fascinating, but one day my Grandpa discovered me reading it and took it away. He was really upset for some reason and I heard him scolding my teenage uncles. He seemed to think they had left it out...but I think I had found it in the attic. I looked for that book again, week after week, on the shelf where I'd put it, but I never found it again and that made me sad. I'm not sure they knew I could read. I was somewhere between 4 and 6.

*I was talking to my dad abbout numbers. He kept trying to show me about number lines, and my numbers didn't look like that. I told him that my numbers went up, kind of like stairs, into infinity, and that they were transparent and black. He went away mumbling "transparent black numbers....." as though that were an oxymoron. What I wanted to say was that in order for me to do math at all, I had to visually flip through these numbers, they were (were? still are!) like cards overlapping a little bit. When you find the one you want, it lights up. To add, you have to count ahead or skip the desired number of cards. Adding was easy, you just went up the stairs. Subtraction was hard because of the way the cards were layered, it's like falling down the stairs and then looking back up to make sure you fell far enough. You can see the numbers ahead, but not the ones behind. Multiples of ten were a different color or bolder. When I recited numbers (I counted out loud all the time) I emphasized the bold numbers. My uncle teased me for this and asked me why, but I couldn't explain it.

*Spelling was simple. I just pronounced things as irrationally as they were spelled, inside my head. So I had this constant stream going on: Ve-get-ables! Wed-nes-day! pe-op-le! (pee-oh-pull) fri-end! (fry-end) and I would see the words as I said them. I was very good at spelling.

*I daydreamed all the time. My thoughts were so vivid that people could wave hands in front of my face and I would not see them. Teachers complained of my not paying attention. I hardly heard what they said, anyhow.

*I loved art, but it was a little frustrating, because I had exact ideas of what I wanted to draw, and sometimes I even tried to trace it on the paper, but it didn't come out the way I wanted it to. I drew the same subject over and over and over and over again, hundreds of times, trying to get it right. Teachers got sick and tired of seeing the same subject matter.

*Poeple seemed so petty and crabby. They worried abot all sorts of trivial things I didn't care about, and then the things that did interest me, such as small snail shells found behind the hedges, or a matchbox, or an insect, were only bothersome annoyances to them. They expected me to care about what they liked, and yet they routinely destroyed or insulted what meant the most to me. That seemed so wrong.
---------------------------------------------------
If I think of more, I'll add that. In a nutshell, even though I was a child, I felt quite equal to the adults around me and expected to be treated with the same respect. If someone was condescending or abusive to me, I held a grudge against them for years, because I felt that they simply had no right to act that way.

::Work::

Wait. They don't care. They don't care if the food is substandard, if customers get bad service or no service at all, or the cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired. All this time I've been working my little hiney off trying to do my job the very best I can, and not only is my manager not pleased, he's pissed at me for it. Fuck it, then.

I'm always stirring up the shit. I think it's because I'm both terrified and contemptuous of complacency. I'd rather risk a bit of a reputation for constantly bringing up things people want left alone, or pointing out flaws, than to see people fall into ruts and stay there. Plodding along in the same old modes of thought day after day...not because it's the best way, but simply because it's comfortable and they're lazy. They're not going to take a fresh look at what they do or even stop to think about it unless someone goads them into it. That mindset (set? "concrete" might be a better term!) annoys the hell out of me, so I'm willing to risk a little dislike to poke them into seeing another point of view or stopping to question the M.O.