I guess that I am a broken chamoisee now.



Well, I thought it was funny. In a sick sort of way.

Image is from Waiilatpu Alpines, a fine herd of Alpine dairy goats that I highly recommend if you are looking for breeding stock.

I am trying hard to finish the other blog this weekend. Yep, that's right. It is that close to being done. Then I will reformat it so that it is ordered from beginning to end, and I will go back and edit and refine each post.

If it weren't for the fact that I lack a uterus now, I'd think I was hysterical! Hahahahaha....

Ok, look, that was supposed to be funny. :-P

Something doesn't add up. :-?

Well, shit. I am at the SUB at NIC and just realized that most of the edible food they sell has gluten. Now what? NOte to self--> eat breakfast next time.

cat stevens Wild World

It is so strange feeling to send my son flying away. Good luck, Kleber....make me proud, man.

I need to sleep...but I'm all keyed up.

Food Inventory: Herbs and Spices

• Star Anise
  
• Peppermint
  
• Dried Bird chile peppers
  
• Dried Cascabel chile peppers
  
• Dried Ancho chile peppers
  
• Dried Pasilla peppers
  
• Madras Curry powder
  
• Tumeric, ground
  
• Saigon Cinnamon (the only kind I will buy)
  
• Cumin, ground
  
• Coriander, ground
  
• Herbs de Provence
  
• Whole peppercorn
  
• Black Pepper, ground
  
• Basil
  
• Moroccan seasoning (whatever the heck that is)
  
• Shanghai seasoning (see above)
  
• Oregano
  
• Vanilla beans, whole
  
• Vanilla extract
  
• Paprika
  
• Rosemary
  
• Thyme
  
• Chili powder
  
• Cloves, whole
  
• Mullein
  
• Rose hips
  
• Valerian
  
• Cayenne pepper
  
• Lemon peel, dried
  
• Tamarind
  
• Garlic (fresh)
  
• Ginger (fresh...well, sort of)
  
• Celtic sea salt
  
• Plain salt
  
• Mulling spice
  
• Nutmeg, whole
  
• Dill weed
  
• Bay leaves
  

I think that is most of it. May have missed some.

More Food Inventory: Condiments and sweeteners

• Organic dark brown sugar
  
• Organic brown sugar (it was reduced)
  
• Organic agave nectar (the last of it, not to be replenished)
  
• Organic sucanat
  
• Honey- locally produced
  
• Bragg's Organic raw apple cider vinegar
  
• Balsamic vinegar
  
• Rice vinegar
  
• Crystal hot sauce
  
• green curry sauce
  
• Silver Swan soy sauce
  
• A.1. Steak sauce (mine)
  
• Bull's Eye steak sauce (the boys)
  
• Thai peanut sauce
  
• Spicy Hunan smokehut hibachi grill sauce (what the hell is that for?)
  
• Spicy brown mustard
  
• Dusseldorf mustard
  
• Sweet-hot mustard
  
• Spicy peanut sauce
  
• Sesame oil
  

I have to find someone with a printer to print out his reservation stuff, or he isn't going to be able to go anywhere. Hmmm. That might be a challenge.

I am still having a hard time with this. Will post a song later.

Contra dances, what was I thinking???? I don't wanna end up on the arm of some old widower who grabs me too tightly and smiles a little too much at me. Gah!!!!!!

I need to call the Bonner County extension office and see if I can scare up a fourth of an acre or so to plant my market crops on. And I need to order seeds. Um, but first, I need seed catalogs. And manure. And land to put the manure on. So, first things first.....call extension office.

Went to thrift store today after finding (or remembering anew) that running in jeans isn't such a hot idea, and got running clothes. Now I have to earn the body to put in them. Looked for a bike; nothing much there. Skis, only downhill. What is up with that, anyway? Goes without saying, there were no horses, either. ;-) Running will do for now, and it's good exercise for the dog. I still want a bike or something though, easier on the joints than pounding the pavement.

My son has a just-purchased suitcase (used) and it is sitting here empty. Resisting the urge to remind or nag....his problem.

And I need to buy dirt....to plant the date seeds, pepper seeds, and to start whatever else I want to start growing for spring transplanting. I am finding that Thai and Indian cuisines are a natural fit for the array of foods that I eat; so Thai basil should probably be one of the things I grow, and preferably in some quantity. Maybe cilantro? I wish I knew more about Filipino cooking, but there were no such books at the library and my grandma is in Illinois.....

Going to cook up some junk food (Tasty Bite entree served over jasmine rice). I know white rice is bad compared to brown, but man, I am stuck on my jasmine rice!!

I can't sleep. I have only one day left with my son, my firstborn, before I send him away to Hawaii. It seems like I should...I don't know. Despite all the conflict between us, this is going to be difficult. :-(

I need to make friends in this area. I left most of mine behind in Preist River. Just been realizing that I have almost no social life. Lots and LOTS of friendly acquaintances, very few friends. Of course, there isn't a whole lot of time for a social life anyway....but still.

:sigh: Now what? :thinking: I should see if they still have contra dances in this area. IIRC though, the closest one are in Spokane, so that's no good. The Sandpoint Arts Alliance. This is likely to fill me with insecurity and internal comparisons and inferiority crapola, but if I can manage not to do that, it would probably be good for me. Yep. That is my job for next week. Get a foot in the door at the two art organizations in town.

The dogs woke me up. I guess they had to go to the bathroom or something. :yawn:

My abnormal psychology class discussion is beginning to piss me off. These people talk about mental disorders and mental illness as though they are discussing another species. I have no idea what percentage of the population has had depression at some point in their lives (and I am too sleepy to go and look right now), but for anxiety disorder alone, 28% of the population will have had it. A sizable number of the people I meet have at least one thing that they are absolutely phobic of.

Considering *only* depression, anxiety disorder, and phobias....exactly what percentage of the population is and always has been untouched by any of these? I am guessing the number would be pretty damned low, so the cavalier attitude of "This is something that happens to other people", is totally uncalled for. The teacher is even worse, UGH!!!

It must be the food. I feel more energetic and upbeat than I have in...hell. I don't know.

If I continue to feel this good for the next several weeks, I will have to conclude that the gluten free diet does in fact have merit, at least for me. Or it could be the meat. And oddly enough, I am not having the nightmares that usually go along with meat eating, either. I am a little afraid of smelling like a carnivore, but after some consideration, this is probably more detectable to vegetarians than it is to other meat eaters. And even with other vegetarians, chances are good that their noses aren't always as sensitive as mine is.

However....thinking....even though I eat meat now, I can still detect vegetarians on the basis of scent. They don't smell yummy like they used to though, they simply smell like vegetarians. :shrug: Go figure. As long as I don't start smelling bad, it's all good.

Had a great walk/run with Brittany (Nathan's therapy dog)!

The Valley - KD Lang on the Max Sessions (2005)

This song is for Bill...and for everyone else who hurts.

I just found k.d. lang's Hymns of the 49th Parallel, at the library. I've been wanting to hear this CD for over a year! I particularly like this song. She is also wearing a haircut similar to the type I am working towards.....no thanks given to the big blond broad at Great Clips who messed my haircut up and didn't even bother to comb and style it! My hair grows quickly though...and until then, there are hats.....

Clarifying: some of the time she is wearing that haircut, the cute short bob...

I need to find something to do with my time while waiting for my kids during school. Can't afford to go back home and drive back to get them. Tired of sitting around and shopping to blow time. Went walking/running today (not very far) and that felt good. I decided that even though I don't have a horse, a bicycle, skis, or wood to split or stack, I still have my legs and shoes!! Used to run all the time; haven't since my parents restricted me from it. I don't know that running is my thing anymore, but since the list of alternatives is pretty damned short, it will have to do for now, and it certainly beats sitting around getting flabby. Some friends said something about giving me a mountain bike.....I will have to see about that. Bicycling is easier on the joints. But until then, it was nice to breathe the fresh air, see the plants and trees, to feel alive and in my body.

Tomorrow I can afford to go to class and get my hands into the clay again. Yes! I wanted to spend the winter break doing a lot of this, but instead, much of it got consumed with children and cleaning up after other people. Which is partly OK, I guess, but I still feel kind of shorted.

Oh! I got diverted; I was thinking that if I can find either a little piece of land to grow market/farm crops on (like a fourth of an acre) then I could do that on the days when I don't have to go to class but still have to be in town. Or, if I can find some kind of studio space....all it has to be is warm with access to water....then I could work on the clay and not have to worry about my work being destroyed by kids. I already applied for a job at the place I wanted to work for years....and obviously that would take precedence over th eother two options. Or...once summer comes on, I could do an apprenticeship at an orgnaic farm or market gardening operation......Nah. I don't want to be someone else's workhorse. I know how to grow things, and how to grow them well. Just need the space.

Anyway, hungry, so it must be time to blow money at a store! ;-)

Increasingly becoming aware that I am not really seeking a relationship at this time. Being alone holds no terror or panic for me. Winding up with a controlling, suffocating, or unappealing person does. I enjoy the quiet, the simplicity of being alone, and unless I find someone who has enough appeal to eclipse that, I'd rather stay this way. Moreover, I'm not especially motivated to go looking.

So the rest of what I am going to write here may seem a little contradictory, but I'll try to reconcile the two. Hmmmm. thinking....will edit.

Edited to add: Never mind. This is not an appropriate place to write such things.

First batch of tamales (all meat) is steaming as I type. As usual, I made way too much of the vegetable tamale filling. If veggie tamales sound uninspiring, here is what is in mine: peppers (ancho, pasilla, small sweet, bell, anaheim chili), green olives, black beans, cilantro, monterey jack cheese, tomatillos, and corn.

And the fractious teen is driving me nuts!!!

In spite of having to deal with an intransigent teenager, I am having a good, productive day:

• Cleaning: I'm throwing all sorts of stuff away, cleaning out both the front and back of my truck (have to haul a buck goat for a friend tomorrow), doing laundry, and sending stuff to the thrift store. I will haul a load of stuff to the thrift store tomorrow and bring the goat back. Getting rid of stuff is oddly freeing and exhilirating. In one of my favorite books, Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed, there is a place where materialism is unpopular and simply not done. The residents there call excess stuff "excrement", and I sort of agree. If you don't need it, and don't really even like it all that much, then why keep it cluttering up your life? To the dumpster! To the thrift store!
  
• Planting: No, not outdoors yet. I have been buying all sorts of fruit with seeds and planting the seeds. Things planted so far: Meyer lemons, Key limes, kumquats, starfruit, blood oranges, honey tangerines, papaya. Still to plant today or tomorrow: Hawaiian papaya, minneola. Hmmm. The minneola seeds look dried out. They may not grow. Will see if I have another one to get seeds from. The are lemon seedlings coming up already (not Meyer lemons). The Cara Cara navel oranges had no seeds at all, and neither did the pummelo. I should go to Spokane in early February and hit the ethnic markets for more weird fruit and stuff.
  
• Cooking!: Making tamales, my first time using beef, and of course, some of the vegetarian ones too, because I also like those. I am trying the tapioca recipe yet again, because even though I don't mind buying it from Winter Ridge (the health food store here), they do not have it consistently. After the tamales are done (I will freeze many of them for later use in lunches or as snacks), I will make a beef roast, probably tomorrow. I have all sorts of nice veggies to roast with it: Butterfinger potatoes from Ronningers, rutabagas, celeriac, turnips, parsnips, leeks, onion, and of course, herbs. That will be so good. Mmmmmm.....
  
• And after the kids go home tomorrow: Clay. I want to make an ermine, because the ermine is an animal I relate to and respect, a small, intelligent, and tenacious creature. I admire the courage and fearlessness of the ermine/weasel. I guess you could call this an aspirational figure. Heh...How many people aspire to be like a weasel? They are so maligned, like bats and spiders, coyotes and wolves.

But mostly, I am in a housecleaning mood. Probably had a bit too much caffeine (yeah, I never did kick it entirely, just cut back, lol).

I am in the mood for farming and growing things. Mood isn't really the right word. Yearning is more accurate.

It probably has to do with the warm, gentle wind that unexpectedly caressed my face late last night when I opened the door, and the scent of thawing earth that greeted me this morning. Or maybe it's that I found a "pumpkin" (actually a cucurbita maxima winter squash) variety that I've wanted for a year or two, that I bought seeds for last year, only to have my ex boyfriend keep them, and all the other uber-cool winter squash seeds I bought, too. He didn't even hand pollinate them to keep the seed lines pure, and I had never seen some of the varieties before. They are down the drain now. Jerk. I didn't take his seeds, but he somehow felt entitled to keep the stuff I selected and bought. Why on earth he thinks I would want to date him again is beyond my comprehension.

Anyway.....taking a deep breath.......I want to find an acre or so of land to borrow or lease for this growing season, plant winter squash, pumpkins, blue barley, garlic, flour corn, and other stuff on it. It will need to be reasonably accessible, sunny, have decent soil, and be very affordable, or available in exchange for a portion of the produce. There was something else I wanted to grow...onions, sunflowers....I had a dream I was planting sunflower seeds. Oh yeah. Now I remember: hull-less oats. All these things need to be relatively strong crops that can take a few days without my presence. Also, the land will need to have some water...for the squash at least.

Some of these things I will keep for myself, (onions, flour corn, blue barley) but others will be to sell, or at least to sell some of them. Hmmmmmmm........thinking....thinking......

And I need to get a source of free manure and start hauling it to this place now.

Oh, no. I have become one of them. You know, those people who are never without their cell phone and panic if they don't have it? Yeah. I, the phone averse one who scoffs at the social neediness of others, at their inability to tolerate silence for any length of time at all, have succumbed to this sad fate.

I cannot find my phone. I know exactly where I set it down, over by the CD player. I have tried to call it from my son's phone, to no avail. And this is driving me nuts. What if something goes wrong? What if there is an altercation? How am I supposed to plan out my day tomorrow without a phone? What if someone tries to call me and I don't know about it? :-(

Oh, this is so, so, sad....

On the other hand, maybe the fruit and produce is symbolic....lol. In that case, it would mean that I dream about sex all the time! And that I am a total perv!

Other people dream about things like sex. I do occasionally...like maybe once every few months. More often (but not nearly often enough) I dream that I look into someone's eyes and see love and acceptance there, and arms opening out to me. Or a gentle hand touching my shoulder or arm, that sort of thing. That is my favorite sort of dream.

But mostly, I dream about....yeah, that's right, produce, especially fruit. I'll be in some weird ethnic market seeing stuff I never knew existed, or at a regular store, seeing all sorts of variety that isn't usually found. I pick the produce up, turn it over in my hands, smell it, look for blemishes, talk to other people about it....scrutinize it for color and ripeness. My dreams are very vivid that way...I get *all* the senses. :-)

And then I dreamed people were talking about Bill. Bill, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry people think it is inappropriate to talk about sexual abuse while all sorts of other sexual stuff gets aired next to every checkout lane in the supermarkets. I'm so sorry that people like you and I are expected to keep this sort of thing quiet in order to protect the people who hurt us. And I know what it's like to feel like damaged goods, to turn the rage inwards toward oneself, to feel irreparbly soiled and defiled. But most of all, I am sorry beyond words because I was there, played Boggle with you, talked with you, was right there, and had been so well trained that I never betrayed what a rotten past I had. We could have talked about it. But could we? Skeletons tend to come in chains, not one at a time. And people really hate it when you haul those skeletons out into the daylight. I don't know. I just wish with all my heart that I had known. :-(

My nephew (or alternately, my children's cousin), Bill Zeller, killed himself a few days ago. I didn't even realize it was all over the news: huffington post article

He left a detailed and lengthy suicide note, and because I believe that what he wrote needs to be heard, really heard I am posting it here. Folks, this is why people who have been raped and molested cannot, and should not "simply keep quiet about it". When we do, it kills us....slowly.
================================================================

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I
assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right
decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by
definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not
writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up
loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've
never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely
draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has
affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I
can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified
and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In
kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified
whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained
social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me
from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical
impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours
playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold,
plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing
I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or
listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling
dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never
connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the
darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required
intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming
appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of
computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would
provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up
something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less
of a refuge.

The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime
is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no
amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I
feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It
manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or
sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or
constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every
hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It
makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what
feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and
furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the
control it has over my life.

I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this
hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought
and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk,
unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around,
viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable
to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to
take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I
wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better
able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would
always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to
escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were
the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision
and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen
the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my
situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had
no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but
it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched
alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol
will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my
life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness
will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he
would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source
of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I
thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or
lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created
programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California
or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would
feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I
did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was
in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change
anything.

I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my
first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness
affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be
separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as
a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began
to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it
is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships
and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about
him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship
in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic
interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for
a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return
and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome
threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the
more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long
as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something
good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would
envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround
her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I
thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him.
Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became
interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I
thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at
all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over
why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected
sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I
convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college
after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity,
not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept
finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the
answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but
I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I
will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will
never leave.

Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met.
Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how
much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be
with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up.
Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had
left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her.
It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me
and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the
darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had
and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I
realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or
only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside
me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of
all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content
or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic
part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as
soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely
that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken
up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do)
even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short
time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with
anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough.
Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the
darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy
feasible.

So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time
limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the
darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of
problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should
have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing
what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever
been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as
well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively
quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another
relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal
connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people,
because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was
very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was
because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving
and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the
circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in
those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally
planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of
this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing
this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a
possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only
dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one
more person in a long list of people I've hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that
were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the
darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my
inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is
that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.

I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone
about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while
to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they
claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a
few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful
the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be
betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised,
they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels
incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone
and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in
particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this
is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a
friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the
damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to
trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened
to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need
to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not
something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to
what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of
killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this
decision should indicate what I'm capable of.

So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated
with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically
harming others.

I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has
defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me
the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know
any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart
from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel
fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke
up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world,
living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a
relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling
the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what
uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with
someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to
give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly.
I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through
the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel
intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I
did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt
many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget
about me quickly.

There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to
leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about
something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've
seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other
issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was
never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent
a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was.
And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both
because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it
would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of
doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear
stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories
that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor
who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who
thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and
have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling
herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single
doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was
gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live
in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I
realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're
based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a
profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to
continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't
feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a
temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old
problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people
have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I
really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day
for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who
can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who
can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can
experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant
misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a
stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no
longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will
probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do.
My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.

---

I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise
everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional,
dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a
better place when they're dead--one with less hatred and intolerance.

If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist
Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially
when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for
themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive
by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love.
They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us,
"saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage
of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by
teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.

A random example:

"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the
Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics
who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child
molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point),
that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by
those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family
and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy
their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never
believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was
literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run
by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others
were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is
going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist
but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds
of other examples, but it's tiring.

Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal
ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure
why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like
having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life.
Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should
have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time.
At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly
believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me
very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is
because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since
she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell,
which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going
to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is
much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot
intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her.
Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will
cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know
is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I
couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be
done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a
bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more
acceptable, but I was never so lucky.

---

To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with
all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the
person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a
better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I
never got very far.

I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another
option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you
can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.

Bill Zeller

---

Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want
people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I
might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to
restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In
fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and
drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its
entirety.

People smell. Not necessarily bad smells, but everyone has a scent, and some days, like today, I can smell them more clearly than others. Could be because I'm at the library, a relatively neutral-scented area, which is to say, there are a lot of perfumes and scented products in the building itself, other than those carried in by the patrons themselves.

The lobby/entryway smelled like teen sweat and testosterone like it usually does, because so many teen boys hang out there after school, flirting with girls.

The first computer I sat at STANK like serious dirty house. I did not look to see if there was a smelly, unkempt looking person nearby from whom the odor was emanating. I just moved, quickly.

The person I am sitting next to now has a woodstove, smokes pot, and has a definite scent, although not offensive yet, just strong. If I had to guess I would say that water availability might be limited. I can understand that. I never noticed woodsmoke on other people when I was in a wood burning household. Now that I'm not, the scent carries a lot of nostalgia for me, and I notice certain woods more than others.

OK, so glasses aren't ugly, but I've decided that this particular pair makes my nose look big. I have a good sized nose anyway, but I've never really minded it before. It is straight, looks more or less like my Dad's. In fact...thinking....I sort of like distinctive noses in other people too. I think a strong nose can lend dignity to its wearer. LMAO..... seriously.

It's just that these glasses aren't doing anything positive for mine, lol.

Found out that I can order textbooks online and still use financial aid to do so. This is good.

Random observations from the day:

Glasses make men look sexier (my opinion only). Which isn't to say that a guy can't look hot to me without them, just that the hotness factor goes UP once he has glasses on.

This is interesting to me because when I have glasses on, I feel less attractive. Yet, I suppose that there men who don't think that glasses = ugly. Somehow this has never before occurred to me. Which is strange, since the above preference has been pretty constant for years.

My dog has been on a killing frenzy!! She killed two mice in the house, nailing one so hard that there were squirt marks (yech!) and has been consistently getting them when she's outside, too. Yay, Bebe!

Now that I have committed to taking the Abnormal psych class, I'm wondering if I should have taken Art History instead, because I am still not sure psych is the direction I want to go in. However, in either case, I want to understand the DSM better than I do; how these classifications are made, what they entail, etc. Besides, art history is boring. Well, not as boring as say, the history of mechanized vehicles, but I guess that since art is abotu process and creativity to me, the history part is just terribly dry and static.

Things will be OK. :-)

I finally managed to get into the math class I need. Final schedule:

Math 143 (college algebra)
Abnormal Psychology
Advanced Ceramics

The psych is because I still have not decided whether to major in psych and go for some kind of art therpay emphasis, or major in art and take the huge risk involved there.

The deal is this: I cannot make "pretty" art or work that is designed solely to please the customers. I make what I make, and if people like it, great. If they don't like it, well, it means something to me, and it's perfectly ok if they don't get it, because it was probably deeply personal anyway. I also am not good at replicating one thing over and over again. Every single thing I make is apt to be different, even if only slightly different. I am not the sort who can happily churn out 20 identical coffee cups.

On the other hand, I am also perfectly happy to allow other people to make what they want to make and to express themselves freely. In fact, I encourage it, because in my mind, mimicry is akin to heresy when it comes to creative expression. I am not terribly concerned with the product or outcome. The creative process itself is what matters, and if the outcome is pleasing, great. So, (shrug) maybe art therapy is soemthing I have potential to do....as long as I can work with people more or less one on one. I do not want to work with, say, a whole class of children. Would be ok, though, with a very lively, active young child, as long as that kid was the only one I had to chase.

Yeah, I don't know. Thinking about this sort of stuff makes me feel better though..... And now I have to find a way to get to school, because the bus service closed down, I am out of money (unless some pottery sold!) and I just do not want to hitchhike (because how on earth would I get back????). I emailed someone about the ride share, but they haven't replied. Sigh....Dammit, and I have to get my books, too. Only the Ceramics class is on campus (the others are internet), but if I cannot at least go and get my books, I am *screwed*!

Planted today: honey tangerine, Moro blood orange, and kumquat seeds. One of the Phaleonopsis orchids has two flower scapes developing. Once I eat the papaya and limes, I'll plant those seeds, too.

And then there's the house to clean.

Am having one of those days when I really need a hug and to be told that honestly, things are going to be OK.

Sigh. I made a wonderful beef and vegetable stew and neither of my kids ever ate it...and there's a lot of it, too. I took a beef bone and some vegetable broth and mushrooms, leeks, celery, and simmered all that together...and then roasted parsnips, onions, rutabagas and turnips with a thin coating of olive oil, rosemary, thyme, and a bay leaf....and after they were roasted, I cut them smaller and threw them into the stock (took the bone out) and added salt. The root veggies were so good roasted that I might make some more and eat them like that without making them into a stew. If I'd had a little wine, I would have thrown that in, too. It was pretty good.

When I'm happy and upbeat I go and do all this cooking, and then the kids won't eat it half the time.

After this stew is gone, I want to make a winter squash curry soup...unless I make dahl first. The winter squash soup will have a winter squash, roasted first, then partly cubed and the rest mashed. In the meantime, sauteed onions and garlic with curry, possibly a pepper...and add cocnut milk and then the mashed squash and some chicken or vegetable broth is necessary, and when that is hot, the cubed squash. Maybe, maybe a very small amount of chickpeas.

And then I wonder, why on earth am I doing this? Why am I cooking all this food when nobody else eats it? I mean, I like my food better than most of the stuff I could get in a restaurant...but geez, I cook so much of it. :-/

They did not even try it. Not even a bite.

Skinny leg, saggy ass pants make butts look big and unattractive.

Feeling better now...a lot better. :-)

My son is moving to his dad's house in Kauai. I will miss him a lot, even though we fight often. Thinking about it makes me feel guilty, but I would rather have him go now while we are still on speaking terms than to be permanently estranged from one another. And he is almost 18 anyway....so he would have been out within a few months.

I really and truly hope that he gets a positive new start there.

What can I say? Only that the broken-hearted cynic and the hopeful dreamer within me are waging war in a serious way.

Had a crappy weekend and today is not much different. Don't much expect anyone to care, but it is what it is.

Hope? Let's be honest. There's not any. But doggoneit, you rub my nose in that unpleasant little fact, and I will definitely make you pay. It is just not nice to antagonize people that way.

I don't know. I just hurt inside. I hurt a lot.

Bleah. I should eat, but am just not hungry. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

You know what, I feel really irrational. I think I am just sleep deprived, having gotten only 4 hours of sleep and not very sound sleep at that. Going to bed. Tomorrow will be better.

I hurt. That is all.

Finally got more minutes for phone, the one where people can't hear me even though they are crystal clear to me. And I have a new phone which is exactly like the old one except that I can't register it, and this one should allow two way conversation, a phenomenon which has begun to assume luxury status in my mind. I actually wouldn't mind just calling people and having them talk to me and I could just listen, but apparently I am not friends with people who want to yak and yak without receiving input. For that I should be thankful, lol!So theoretically, I should be able to transfer my old phone number, account, minutes, and contacts from the old phone to the new one, and I tried to do so for at least one very aggravating hour yesterday. The website said I need a new SIM card which they are sending to me. I don't know what the heck that means. I just want my phone to work. So I called the toll free #, and I got some snippy woman who said that she couldn't hear me, and for me to try callin gher back, and I was like "NO! YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, MY PHONE DOESN'T WORK, THAT IS WHY I NEED TO TRANSFER THIS ONE TO THE OTHER ONE, BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN HARDLY HEAR ME ON THIS ONE. DO NOT HANG UP!" I had to say it loudly because even when I talk loudly, people say I sound like a mouse. It is sooooo frustrating. And of course, she hung up on me. Finally I got through again on the neighbor's phone, only to be told that they will mail me a new SIM card. :irk:. I am kind of peeved. Will have to wait until Wednesday at least, and possibly 7 business days, before I get it.

In the meantime, I am deluged with my wondeful, very loved children. They are (well usually) great kids, but I had to escape, so am here in the laundry room away from my house...accessing internet....because it isn't working at home right now. Woke up at 4 AM and got a good head start on the day before them....so maybe will get a chance to work with the clay today.

Huh. That all sounds so ho hum. There is a lot more going on inside me, but I just do not want to talk about it here. Will put it into the clay instead. Need to keep working on the other blog and drag myself through 1990 so I can get that part out of my head. Later on, will try to come up with some kind of New Year's Resolution.