measure your life in love
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Chels" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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07:50 pm
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Hope and Love.
One day you wake up
and the next you sleep and every day after that, you sleep.
Do you dream? Lucid half-waking dreams that trick you into falling asleep again, and again?
Just how lucid, am I?
What is the moment of death? Is it the cessation of organized electrical activity in the heart? Pulseless, functionless pump that's ceased its beating? The end of meaningful neuronal communication? Common sense tells me both, but I know it's just not that black-and-white.
It takes a long time, for example, for blood cells to suffocate.
Epithelium can continue on in a nutrient-rich environment for a while.
Hair cells, renal filters, hepatic cells all can continue minutes or more after their oxygen supply has ceased.
More philosophically: what is the precise moment when the soul, that elusive thing made of hope and faith and dreams, relinquishes its final grasp on this temporary housing? And, does this moment coincide with the recorded moment of death? Is it a slow process: a soul having had years to shuffle itself free finally releases its fingertip tendrils, taking with it any meaningful life, but not necessarily ending living? Is it a quick eviction: a whole soul, however weary, learns its time is up by figuring out the body around it has quit?
All I wanted for you, to not hurt, to feel loved, I believe you had these things. I believe you were safe and cared for and went as dignified as you could have.
You gave up, you gave it up, and maybe your soul left a long time ago, but you still carried a light that could be seen, and a life that deserved hope and love.
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08:25 am
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North Division.
I want you not to be scared.
I want something dignified for you.
Finally starting to grieve for a death years past, I think.
The parts of you that I ever knew died a while ago, it's just what's left that's left.
The parts of you that I ever knew, the doughy soft parts, baggy sweatshirts and food for an army. The money tree lamp that fascinated my 6-year-old eyes, the black and white bars and colored buttons that said "Rumba", "Polka", and "Boogie" before I knew what music meant.
I remember being surprised, told you were once a nightclub sensation, that you had talented creations beside casseroles and pink pillow coverings.
Afternoons in the too-cold pool, on the astroturf, under a colossal lilac and perfect climbing cherry tree.
Your damp basement held a child's secrets, squeals and spooks. And a trunk with a pirate in it that smelled like laundry, must, children, and wood polish.
I remember your curiously cushioned commode, with a sign that said "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie!"
I spent a small lifetime peering down the laundry hole, up the haunted stairs, through the black fencing wire, over the pool's edge, around the corner and through the trees.
The woman who lived there has gone somewhere - perhaps worn away, eroded through and washed off in the current.
Perhaps just hidden, layered beneath days and months and a long lifetime of cigarette ashes, cat fur, diet coke, and bottled analgesia.
I saw you once, withered now and broken, the life gone from your smile. I wished I could ask you more, I wish I could have known more than your oversized sweatshirts, brown shag carpet, reading glasses and a cup of milk left for your ghostly cat. I was too busy digging worms, and too far off to hear you very well.
And now I don't know whom to grieve.
But I do know I don't want you to hurt.
I don't want you to be alone in your last breaths.
I have watched many clocks tick down to the last awful seconds, watched thin-skinned hands grasp at air, with no-one to rub lotion into their feet, no-one to tell them it's all going to be ok, no-one to reassure them in their last moments that they are loved and wanted and someone will miss them when they're gone.
I have seen so many people without these comforts. I want them so badly for you.
I want you not to hurt.
I want you to go ahead without fear and without shame, surrounded by the love of your family.
I want you to know you are wanted.
I can see a little better now, the gifts you had, the things stolen from you.
Wish I could see better.
But more than anything, I wish you peace.
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03:03 am
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Bilateral.
Zap-happy.
Having failed failings, who really did the disservice to whom?
Is it ever worse to have lost the memories of any happy life you might of had, and to gain the prospect of forming new ones?
Perhaps they will include me, old ones to be erased and new ones to be puzzled and danced and bounced like it always was together.
Hard to see your little forest. I hear your wanting silence, slowly spoken through so much fog.
Can't go home, and can't stay here. Can't rely on your own misgivings anymore, can't rely on anything so just wipe it off.
Wiping away the creeping fog, your cloudy far-off eyes. Your dulled heart in its nuclear winter.
I hope this thing is not overwhelming.
You want trees and sun and art, I fear you'll only find a quick and easy exit, there.
It's so easy, you know. Of course you know. But if you were lying down in a field in a forest with no-one who loves you to tell you to wake up, wake up because there's more than this... If you decided that the clouds were so lovely and the breeze so sweet, caught up forever in one fleeting moment, that you just might sleep a while... You'd have no-one there to remind you to breathe.
I am so fortunate to have stumbled across someone who reminds me to breathe.
Abandoned, in the deserted city - do you think you'd find one that's not so desolate?
Zap-happy, then. Another step, maybe slowing this sinking sand a little. Maybe not sucking dust anymore. Losing and loving and breathing again, Dorothy stepped through the looking glass into technicolor triumph and wonder. I wonder, can you? I remember that sepia feeling, I remember the threshold I remember feeling just 4 inches to the left and exhausted by scrambling to hold all my marbles in one bag. All I was missing was three white dots, but you seem to be missing so much more.
What else do you miss? Less now, perhaps. Can't miss what you never had in the first place.
And so, I am sorry. I am sorry I am not there to hold your hand and soothe your rattling grey matter in the twilight. I am sorry I didn't make more of an effort, I know it wouldn't have mattered that much, but still...
Maybe you could sleep a while. And not suffer this anymore.
Current Mood: helpless
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04:02 pm
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Cotton Mill Hill
Thank you to my father, who taught me to value adventure in life. My mother taught me some stability, a measure of responsibility, and duty.
But it's my father's sense of adventure that brought me here. Two planes and an hour's drive to somewhere unknown to train at a circus school.
What's next, New Zealand?
Talked interestingly today with my instructor, who talked about different aerials styles (traditions? Schools of thought?) like that the widely acclaimed Cirque du Soleil style is just uber-tech, uber-high with an expensive background.
That's not to say that the Cirque aerialists aren't totally amazing, but just that they represent the kind of beauty and skill that I will never attain. Part of the appeal is the "Wow" factor, almost their freakish skill. Now, I'll never get there. And, maybe if I could, I'm not sure I want to - I'm more interested in a cabaret-style, burlesque close enough to touch and to connect and to take someone up in the silk with me for a moment, make them laugh, make them think "I could do that..." Inspire them to the aerialist within themselves and cascade back down to earth with a wink and a flip of my tail...
Or maybe I'm just bitterly envious and trying to improve my self-esteem because I'm surrounded by people who are very, very good at what they do, and I'm having a hard time not focusing on my shortcomings.
I'll get over it.
Small barn cat purrs furiously in my lap, his little claws, honed for rat guts, dig kitten love into my arm. I found a picture of my cats the other day and it made me a little sad. Sad that I can't feel their thick fur, their small warmth, their round purring at night. So, despite my impending sniffly nose, I encourage this soft and sharp thing to stay and be pet more.
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04:03 am
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Some have gone.
So, I have this dilemma.
I had a person from the past track me down through Myspace. (I knew it was a bad idea... but it's getting me gigs so...) Back in high school, this person was one I might have called a friend. I was nice to him, he could be funny, and was very musically gifted, probably too eccentric for his own good, and had a pretty gnarly speech impediment, among other things, and appeared to cry for no apparent reason. This made interactions occasionally very, very awkward. He wanted to be more than friends, and took it as far as to join the clubs I was in, show up at the parties I was at, even driving by my house at odd hours. I got several pages of a letter once, talking about melting every piece of metal I had ever given him down to make a ring, and a wedding party planned down to the food, and flowery shakespearean language that I just couldn't take seriously. Creee-py. So, I did what any high-school junior would have done in such an awkward situation: pretended I had never read the letter. I just avoided the topic, and thought of this guy as very, very strange, but still tried to be nice to him. I soon took to avoiding him entirely, or feigning business whenever he was around. Poor guy, I just didn't have the heart to tell him what I thought "You're wierd and you're being a creep and you need to leave me alone." He went off to college, visiting every now and then. I heard from him once or twice in college, he somehow found my email address (which wasn't hard, but still creepy) and while I can't remember what he wrote, I remember it was wierd and long and creepy. Can I say how creepy this guy was? I'm sure he meant no harm, and he really was just a nice guy with a crush on me.
So, I haven't heard from him in YEARS, and he tracks me down on myspace, again with the flowery language, but really just to say hello and how are you and this is what's going on in my life. This confirms the eccentricity, not just love-letter embellishments.
I have not answered him. He even sent me a message saying something to the effect of "if you don't want to talk to me, just let me know and I won't bother you anymore." only with a little more of a guilt trip to it.
Do I owe him a "hello"? A "hello, leave me alone"? A "Hello, you were creepy and wierd in high school and I was being nice to you because no-one else was and I am a different person now, and you are still creepy with your wacky language and boastfulness and don't ever talk to me again"? Or can I just not respond? H says it's better to not respond, because, having had experience being that obsessed creepy guy, he says that the guy would probably take it further than some emails, and get all wierd again. I still feel a little guilty, though, like I pretended to be his friend for a while, and never cut him off, just let him go on thinking he had a chance...
Some have gone, and some remain.
Can't sleep, but I can eat.
One package of Garden Variety Ritz crackers down the hatch.
Followed by several slices of dried mango, a cheerio or two, and a cup of chamomile tea, just for good measure.
I have got to start taking my pills in the morning.
That's my New Year's Resolution, you know.
About every 3 months or so, I think "Hey, I'm doing pretty darn well! I don't need these pills anymore, I've got it all figured out!" I think I have healthy coping mechanisms in place and can handle the world, sans chemical rose-tinted glasses.
Not so.
I spend a couple of fuzzy days sleeping, grouchy for the few hours I am awake, and finally swim through the fog enough to figure out that, no, this really is a neurotransmitter imbalance you have, and yes, you really do need to be medicated to be normal.
Thankfully Wellbutrin levels build up quickly, and it's only a few days before I'm happy as a clam again.
So I've been doing this for like, 3 years or something like that. You'd think I'd learn after the first couple of miserable attempts.
Thus the resolution: continue faithfully taking your Happy Pills. For whatever reason, you need them. H thinks that there may be some withdrawal effect, and that a month or so might bring an upswing, but the middle of the winter isn't the time to try it.
Are clams really happy? Or does the saying just come from some grin that's been anthropomorphized (word usage?) onto their shells. Or, maybe it has to do with the Ivar's commercials from back-in-the-day.
I must admit that I get a little burned out on Controlled Burn sometimes. Herding cats is fun, but gets exhausting. Decisions need to be made, and no-one's making them, but I don't want to make them either...
I need a change of focus, I think. Need to just Keep Clam and work on organizing my own ideas.
Show Director is me, I guess.
Cold hands, cold feets, cold noses. Wishing there was a cold nose to keep me warm. New messages from space remind me, now that I've had a break, some of the dusty good things in life.
Ain't no other man, can stand up next to you.
I have an amazing partner in life. Tag teaming Controlled Burn and life in general. Sometimes we are together, sometimes one picks up where the other left off, but it's always a seamless effort. I've never talked to anyone so much in my life, (except maybe my mom).
Two years later, still head-over-heels-over-head-over-heels.
My mom says "diarrhea of the mouth" sometimes, I wonder if this qualifies as "diarrhea of the fingers."
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08:36 am
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Ask again later.
Had an awful, awful few minutes the other night.
Awful moments of
What have I done.
What did I miss.
How could this have happened?
A woman came in bleeding, too much too early.
Tha jagged little line said her baby was o.k.
The ultrasound counted heartbeats, I saw the moving valves myself in 2-D reassurance.
She moved to a different room to stay the night,
And somewhere in between, despite all signs pointing to 'yes', her baby died.
I stayed in the room long enough to see those valves again, but still.
Half an hour earlier, I had seen it's proof of living. And now,
"Fetal demise". "It's confirmed." to my horror.
What have I done. Racking my brain, my training, my intuition for an answer.
What did I miss, were there subtle lates? Should I have given her more Terb?
I asked around, no-one said they would have done different.
I asked again, no-one saw anything wrong.
It just wasn't this soul's turn.
I am still really shaken. Most days I wouldn't take a desk job for triple the money.
But to never wonder if I've killed someone, ever again...
Makes me think pushing pencils might not be so bad.
But then I'd miss all the other moments.
Seeing a new father's tears of joy.
Hearing a screaming new life announce her arrival.
Watching a mother hold the most precious thing in her world for the very first time.
Ushering the very best gift into the light...
Most days, it's still worth it.
If it's ever not, most days, then I'll find somewhere else to go.
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08:24 am
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Holoprosencephaly
I had a twelve-fingered baby tonight.
And an alien-headed one.
Not bad for a Thursday.
There's awful hush in those rooms.
The ones where everyone knows what's going to happen,
But no-one has the words to say.
There's some fear that if you say it, then it will definitely come true. Or someone will come unglued.
Really, what do you say?
"So... Your baby's gonna die, huh? That must suck."
"So... Are you having a boy or a girl? What's her name? What theme did you pick out for the baby's room? Did you get a lot of pink... Oh yeah. Your baby isn't going to need clothes."
"So... How 'bout those Mariners?"
There's no talk of birth or death. It all happens in airy euphemisms like a funeral home. It's "when the baby comes" and "it" and "when the baby passes" (gas?)
"demise"
"the falling leaf card"
"your loss"
Not "when your baby is born" or "when your baby dies". There's a sort of finality to it, when you say it that way, I guess. A terminability that we aren't used to in labor and delivery. Birth, born, all these have connotations of warmth and joy of new life, and when everyone already knows that that little life will be fleeting, it really spoils the fun.
We reassured the mother. Like some women, part of her was horrified by the thought of holding her strange son, not knowing whether he would cry, or move, or breathe. Perhaps the images she had conjured up of his blank, staring eyes was enough to make her turn him away. The pain of knowing he was dying was made even sharper by feeling his warm, living flesh.
We reassured her, that if she didn't want to hold him, couldn't bear to watch him die, that we would carry him; that he wouldn't be lonely.
He wouldn't die alone.
We stood outside and patted eachother on the back. "I hate it when they breathe."
"I hate it when they cry."
"Yeah, that gasping is the worst."
We try hard to pretend there's a speck in our eyes, as two very pregnant women waddle expectantly around the corner.
Labor and Delivery is supposed to be a happy place. Crying nurses make healthy women nervous.
We have such a unique job of every day welcoming a new soul into the world; watching a new family fold around a sweet little life with a big future. When we are faced with a dying baby, it's a hard gear to shift. I had welcomed a newborn, red and screaming, into the light only an hour before. And now to hush my voice and try to think of ways to be helpful, but not trip over my labor & delivery patter.
"So... How did you get his name?"
"So... Are your other little ones excited?"
"So... How does it feel to be saying goodbye to your only child, when you only just said 'Hello'?"
No-one has the words, everything you say seems like a mockery of the situation.
I am sorry. I am so sorry.
My new twelve-fingered friend down the hall howls at his mother's breast. He clutches and unclutches the extra tiny finger hanging from each of his pink pinkies, and yawns toward his smiling parent. With all the things that can go wrong in our development from oocyte to "ooh! She's cute!", the miracle is that we get it right so often.
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12:23 am
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Scales.
I am a dangerous creature, you should know.
Smoking eyes, soft sleight of hand stealing your sense while you give it away.
All that glitters may be only your mirrored lenses.
If it is one of us, it would be me.
If or when, the fallout's never cut-and-dried.
My slinking stealth catches even me by surprise, I'm suddenly overtaken and out of focus.
Calling that earthquake mine.
Would I lay open the fields, move mountains and rip up the ocean's tides?
Or could I let a sleeping dog lie, dodging the wake.
Little white snowflakes whisper songs into my ear as they fall.
Each singing its own lullaby, a wild cacophony as I crane my neck to watch.
I would love to slow down a while, and hear each one's sweet tune.
To unfold their crystal petals and melt their tiny secret hearts.
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12:59 am
[Link] | "Clever got me this far.
But Tricky got me in."
Alone and something creeping, tonight.
Something creeps in the corners, surprises me at every turn.
Ten good words might be enough.
Twenty sometimes isn't.
"Maybe people shouldn't..." Maybe you're the one who shouldn't.
You've all known that.
"Whatever just as long as I don't feel so desperate."
Cold calm sweeps past my carvings. I tremble a little, and remember the power and strange comforting horror.
But I release.
I relinquish; regret a little, but I'm not sure which I regret more.
I am not often alone and aware. This, I think, is why.
I am sometimes dangerous, a raging consumptive thing that feeds.
My wings itch. My soft, colored underbelly stays my hands.
Easing passage.
My wings of hope, of calm and peace and triumph.
Of a vulnerable strength. I have many motives and a purpose, sometimes they get a little transparent.
Winged fire, carry me.
Hardened carvings, redwood casing flexing breathing icy creeping.
Stinking bones gone home to rest.
When you'll wake I'll whisper wild and wide. Think of me as you go.
Used to be.
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01:11 pm
[Link] | Back again, 24 hours worth of planes, boats, and automobiles to get home.
If I never have to walk through another security screener again, I will die a very, very happy person.
Besides our luggage being in limbo somewhere between San Francisco and Reno, our travels around the country and back home were uneventful.
Thailand is beautiful- full of wonderful people, excellent food and gorgeous sights. We spent 2 days (just enough, if you ask me. I'll skip Bangkok from now on.) in Bangkok, then went to Chiang Mai for a couple of days - we saw the sights around the city, visited the temple on the mountain, ate by the river, shopped in the night market every night, took a Thai cooking class. We then moved to Ko Lanta - a lovely island on the Andaman coast that is a royal pain in the butt to get to, but entirely worth it. H and I spent one night in Phuket what a zoo! Patong beach is a nice beach, but you might as well go to California. The Jet skis and parasailing and speed boats and people stopping you right and left to sell you stuff and mostly naked tourists... It's not Thailand at all!
My favorite memories:
I dragged M & C & H to Patpong in Bangkok - this is the infamous red light district, which just happens to have a good night market. The market was fun, all full of silver and t-shirts and little Thai trinkets and it took up the whole street. As soon as you got within earshot of the sidewalk though... "Wanna see a show?" "Pussy show?" "Pussy ping pong." "Banana show." "Wanna see a pussy show?" "Pretty girls." "Pussy show?"
I've been there before, and I didn't get approached nearly as much as poor Howard. The poor guy hated it, and quickly learned to stay in the middle of the market. When I tried to go after something shiny and pretty near the sidewalk, he dragged behind saying "Let's not go over there." it took me a while to get the hint, but I finally figured out after a while that all the "Pussy show?" "Wanna see a show?" was really getting to him and we left.
All the things Thais say to get you into their shop in the market: "Hallloooo" is a musical word, sung to all passers-by. "Come looking." "Look here first." "I give you special price." "Good price for you." Only think "Koo pie faw yu." and "I kif yu sapeshaw pie."
Being sick as a dog, fighting a fever and napping heavily after a day's travel to Ko Lanta, and having my nap joyously interrupted by M & C & H bursting in the room singing me "Happy Birthday" and carrying a towel full of M&M's, Wasabi peas, all sorts of Thai sweets, and a tiny cake replete with candles. It was a wonderful, wonderful birthday.
Roti. 'nuf said.
That's all for now folks, more later. We're off to the Nevada Day parade for now! (Until the jet lag gets us...)
Photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90452631@N00/sets/72157594348307676/
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04:28 pm
[Link] | You there. Far-away one.
I want to tell you that it would all be better if you came home for a while.
But I know it's been coming for a while.
Duck-paddling through the rapids, someday you'd have to take a screamer.
You'd have to take a few.
I hope your bright eyes and bouncy hair make it through the swirling depths.
I want to tell you it will all be alright.
But I know it won't.
It will just be easier to ignore.
Your voice on the phone, your space in my life, they are all flat and too far off.
Filtered through some wiretapping surveillor, some creeping detective who clips your soaring wings along with your dragon talons, so you can't scratch yourself.
You are in three of the five pictures on my desk. The Washington Monument, my wedding, and laughing with a cigar.
My favorite memories, the ones that make me smile, are of you.
Of nights across your roof, wild adventures, a thousand things we should have gotten caught for.
Mozzarella and baguettes. Stolen drinks and bouncing car rides.
Two unlikely friends, so different but somehow so alike.
I want to crawl in your feather-down bed, take comfort in its weight and familiarity.
I want to tangle my fingers in your tangled hair, sit in your sink and have it all help.
I want to be your protector angel, because you need one.
I want to catch you and set you back on your feet.
But you'll take life as it comes, chew it up and swallow some of it.
And I'll hear your dim heart through the phone and mourn its slow decline.
And I'll wait for your smile to return from its wintry hibernating.
And I'll always be your friend, no matter how far off.
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02:31 pm
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Molting.
I am warm. This makes me happy.
Brown-color tea warms my cold little hands, skinny dry fingers that can't keep my ring on.
Bubble under my skin, see-through yellow - my war wound from the Battle of the Weeds.
I turn on the light because you'd want me to.
I own four pairs of sunglasses now, more than I've ever owned in my life, even one at a time.
Thank you for your concern for my corneas.
Tib-Fib fib-fib. Tonight going to try to help a very old chasm heal itself.
Sometimes healing requires open reduction and external fixation.
Be impeccable with your word.
Don't take anything personally
Don't make assumptions
Always do your best.
-The Four Agreements
I can smell the tension, the drama that will unfold as it always has.
Babies, serious illness and therapy change people. Otherwise, people don't change.
I can smell too the fragrant, humid morning. The ocean salt, the cooking soups.
I remember the bright flowers in the market wrapped in yesterday's paper.
I wonder what the flower-sellers do with their unpurchased goods at the end of the day.
If the flower-seller gets sick, do people send them flowers?
I can hear the canned smooth voice overhead singing out the stops:
Silom square.
MahBoonKrong.
Siam square.
I lean into my chair and feel a satisfying twinge that tells me I'm back in the air.
I'm in better shape than I thought, but still not good enough.
My hamstrings aren't long enough yet.
My hip sockets too frozen.
Life is better when I'm upside down.
Feather-warm blankets my days. It's becoming sleepy time, I will spend months counting the hours until I get to curl up again.
Wrapped in dreamland, not so dreadful anymore. This Rip Van Winkle existence - I will wake up ten years older and regret time ill spent.
But I can't resist the temptation - the sweet allure of the couch. Its soft pillows and piling cushions beckon me. The blankets call my name.
The backs of my eyelids really are quite interesting. Really.
The wind blows outside my window, I get new feathers today.
I will molt and be pretty and shiny.
I want to be upside-down.
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05:02 pm
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Why Evacado Hates Bitching.
*snarl*
Alright, so Exodus sucked for many reasons this year. Not the least of which is that I ditched out. Also, for many reasons, recruitment wasn't as strong this year as it has been in the past, so they were horribly staffed. I feel terrible for ditching and not doing Exodus because I failed to meet my commitments, and should have communicated better. I'm glad I didn't do it beacuse Exodus makes me not want to go to Burningman again. It makes me sick and unhappy.
So I'm already sort of emotional about this.
And now I'm starting to get emails about how much Exodus sucked. Now, I'm all about education and teachable moments, and I like to reply with something about how we were short-staffed and you should volunteer next year. (You don't like it? Change it your damn self.) But then I get this:
"Thanks for getting back to me.
I have to say that the Exodus being understaffed doesn't really cut it for me as a burner. I am not unaware that Burning Man is a privately held corporation of benefit to its shareholders. Lack of volunteerism would not be acceptable, for example, in the realm of portapotties. I'm fine with Burning Man being a profit-making endeavor for its owners, but only if they in provide the services that are necessary, such as getting people off the playa in a reasonable manner at the end.
Relying on free labor is one of the bones I have to pick with the Borg."
So, Let me get this straight: because Burningman is rolling in the dough, Larry Harvey needs to sell his Lexus and PAY for Exodus volunteers so that you can GO HOME FASTER. It's not your fault for not volunteering, not participating, it's Harley and Maid Marian's fault because the public service that is Exodus should be paid for by the people for the people. Burningman is not an organization founded on volunteerism, participation, gifting, radical self expression-radical self reliance, NO! IT'S A FUCKING PUBLIC SERVICE THAT SHOULD BE RUN LIKE EVERY OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCY AND MEET MY EVERY NEED SO I CAN PARTY FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS AND GET HOME WHEN I WANT TO!!!
I sound like my father.
Read the Afterburn Report. Educate yourself on where your Burning Dollars actually go. Note how much of it goes to salaried people. Note that there are some people who get year-round salaries, and people like me who get a 250$ check each year included in that total. There are at least a hundred people who get paid to Work For The Man.
And don't send me whining, bitching emails like this:
"Just another complaint. Took me six (6) hours to exit.
Won't do that again. You need a little strategic
planning for the future."
Because we said oh, 30,000 people leaving out a one-lane road in two days? No problem, we don't need a plan at all! All these hippies will realize that lots of other people will want to leave during the day, and no-one will want to leave at night, and so they'll wait and leave at night! Everyone will organize themselves and it will all be alright.
No, mob mentality will not seize these people and turn them into dangerous, selfish beings. They can think for themselves, we don't need any STRATEGIC PLANNING!!!
Of course we had a plan, we didn't have enough people to carry it out! Volunteer to help, and DON'T BITCH.
Few things irritate me more than pointless bitching. Even when I'm doing it, like now. It's like walking by the Gaza Strip and saying "those people need to stop fighting."
end soapbox.
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12:35 am
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Fruit.
The same flavor, but not as good this time.
The usual questions of love and God and death hover in the hallway,
a plaintive whine just above the squeaking of shoes and the far off beeping
of some monitor designed to distill a man's experience of life, his hopes and fears, pain and memories, his first kiss and last dance
into a number between 92 and 100.
96.
Nectarine.
I watch this husk or container
all wrinkles and stubbly hair with a catheter bag that's too big and an IV bag that's too big and
used to be, nothing was too big.
This broken-down version of my father, 5.5
eyes that roll in their sockets, crying out for relief from pain, from heartbreak.
From a hundred anxious rats that gnaw at his back and his soul.
You can see from here to Lebanon, but not your name on the board,
not the writing on the wall.
Where did your structural integrity go? Used to be, it was unlimited, too.
But you don't know where it went, you don't know how you got here, or if anything is real.
It's just that this train just runs a little slower, now. The tracks less smooth, less straight.
Somehow the scenery was too blurred along the way, got caught up in the caboose with your eye behind the camera lens and forgot to look where you were headed.
The nights are shorter and the days between them shorter still.
Peach-pit stones clatter off an elephant's back to the floor, going mostly unnoticed. It's hard to step around the elephant. It's never really in full view, only this leg or that flank.
That's the thing about rats: as soon as you think you've caught them all, you find another hole in the bag.
Another hole that lets the rice out, slipping away like grains of hourglass sand.
Sticky-sweet juice runs down my little finger onto my wrist.
I should wash my hands.
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06:45 pm
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For those who know him...
I went to see Nathan last night.
He looks very peaceful. He has a lot of bandages on his head. His face looks ok, besides some swelling and a couple of stitches. The nurse who was taking care of him last night is a wonderful and caring woman. She had cleaned him up really nicely and put powder all over him to keep his skin healthy. I saw the powder between his toes and thought it was playa dust. It's funny, from the end of the bed, he looks like he's been out wandering the playa. He is intubated because he cannot breathe on his own. He did not move. I did see pictures of his head, his injuries are extensive. At first I wasn't sure this was the Nathan I thought it was, but there in the torn pieces of his scalp were hints of bright blue hair.
No-one knows right now whether he will die or live or be somewhere in between.
They do know that our friend is not suffering right now, but sleeping in deepest twilight.
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05:09 am
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Circus School
So, I have written before that I would go to Circus school if I had some balls. I consider this a very courageous thing to do (My dears jennaxide, CB, and other seattle acquaintainces are on this trajectory and I admire them immensely for it.) but have not put a whole lot of thought into going myself. It sounds like it would be a fun thing to do, but not something I have a huge hard-on for.
The older I get, it seems, the less faith I have in long-term plans. H and I kick around ideas of moving back to Seattle, living in Sequim, getting off the grid, living in or near Seattle, essentially having the green, wet Northwest as our endpoint. Quite a bit of the reason for this is that we'll eventually get around to making a rugrat or two and I'm not tackling that task without the expert assistance of the woman who did a fine job of raising me. So, as time goes by, this endpoint keeps getting pushed a little further out, and our meantime possibilities get more obtuse. The latest: H came home the other day and handed me an article about companies that specialize in international locum tenens. This is like travel nursing, but for doctors. You see, doctors with established practices sometimes want time off, and cannot just close the clinic for a couple of weeks or months. So, they hire locums docs to come see their patients. For these travel docs, housing and other expenses are paid for by the employing clinic. It's not a way to make your fortune, but it is an excuse to hang out somewhere else for 6 months or a year. One of the companies places nurses, as well, so I could get a job too! (As much as I'd like to say it would be neat to be a housewife, I'd actually probably be bored out of my gourd.)
So, these companies place locums in Australia and New Zealand. Each of these lovely countries just so happens to have reputable circus schools, which brings us back around to the point: how far does Chelsea really want to go with this? More and more these days I am 'going with the flow', taking whatever opportunity that Fate hands me and going with it (thus I'm in Reno, married. Two years ago, my plan was to work for a year or so and then head off as a travel nurse, travelling some and working some. I'm very glad that I didn't stick to that plan just because it was the plan.). So, having been handed more and more opportunities to study aerial silk, do I continue along this path? I'm not super passionate about making a career out of being an aerialist, but is that just because I'm not allowing myself to dream big enough? The practical side of me says that I'd never make a good living at hanging from the drapes, so why spend a bunch of time and money? Just have fun and keep an entertaining hobby just that.
Or....
H gets a year or two locums contract in Melbourne, Australia and C goes to the National Institute for Circus Arts and earns herself a Diploma in Circus Arts specializing in aerial silk and clowning.
Back when I joined Cirque de Flambe, my poor mom used to joke about me running away to join the circus. So what if I really did? I'll always have nursing to fall back on, I can work Per Diem between aerials gigs, H can go around with me doing locums until this whole arc comes to its logical conclusion.
I've never put this much thought into it. This is interesting, verrrrry interesting.
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03:59 am
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01:06 pm
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Tag! You're it!
So the object of the exercise is to tell you all who tagged me, proceed to tell you 8 wierd facts about me, and then tag 5 other people.
A_Delle tagged me, so here goes:
1. I know the entire score of the musical Rent forward, backward, and in Italian (not really, but I know it really well.) and I sing snatches of it at times... ("Rogerrrrr... This is your motherrrrr..." "...so let her be a lesbiannnnn.... There are other fishies in the sea love mom!" etc...)
2. I identify as straight. This may actually surprise some of you. This does not accurately reflect my score on the Kinsey scale.
3. I hate airport good-byes. I don't like people to come in and wait with me beacuse there's nothing worse than waiting for someone you love to leave you. I even make H drop me off at the curb.
4. I spent 3 months in Thailand during nursing school. The focus of some of my work there was sex workers. I didn't know enough Thai, so I taught them how to salsa dance.
5. I love the smell of fireworks. When I was about 10, I went around the street after the 4th of July and collected a boxful of spent fireworks and kept it in my room until my mom made me throw it out.
6. I am a member of Mensa. Ok ok, I let my membership lapse... Is there a Procrastinators International?
7. I am a labor & delivery nurse. Washoe delivers 400 babies a month, we are the high-risk pregnancy center for all of northern Nevada, eastern california, parts of southeast Oregon and western Utah. I have seen all sorts of deformed babies, pregnancy complications, labor complications, women in the worst pain in their lives...
I want to give birth at home.
8. Most of you know this but just thinking it wierds me out because it is SO out of character for me... I met my husband in a fire circus in Seattle. I eyed him across the stage for several months. He was dating a nice woman at the time, and I was sort of dating some other men. I finally got the nerve to ask him out in August. He was about to move to Reno. While we did go out on a date, and I did end up back at his place afterward, he turned down my offer of a little somethin-somethin because he was still dating her. I have never been turned down before, and it was the hottest thing ever.
We spent Burningman together, having broken up with our respective "someone else" (plural, in my case) and he asked me to marry him, less than a month from our first date. I said yes on the spot and our friend Suz married us in a windstorm. The Fabulous Q stood in for my dad. At the end of the week, E said "You're going to Reno with him, right?" So I called my mom "Guess where I am!" thinking she'd be as surprised as I was that I had gone home (to Reno, not anywhere near Seattle, mind you) with this random guy. "Reno." she said. My mom knows me better than I know myself. I stayed a couple days and then had to fly home. I hate airport good-byes.
Two months after that (three months after we had started dating), my job fell through and I asked him if I could move in with him. His words were "ok." He told me he had been preparing for me to come down to Reno since he left.
Asked him out. 3 weeks later got married. 3 months later moved in.
A year later got married again - legally, this time. All this from a girl who reportedly once said she never wanted to leave Auburn, tried really hard to be engaged to her high school sweetheart, was known to date several people at a time and not commit to any of them through college, and had her life for the next 5 years planned out to the week.
So here I am in Reno, madly in love with the man of my dreams. Who knew? I certainly didnt!
I tag Jer, Brett, Leilani, Cory, Howwoward, Smooches.
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04:44 am
[Link] | Something there? A spark; no more
An ill-defined sphere, here or not
One or not
Live or not
not dead nor two nor there, quite.
Not quite up or down or large or small, but all and none, all the same.
All the same blame, for now.
But it's not time yet, too early if at all
It's not time yet to grace our space
Erase, no more.
Don't stray too long, before long it will be time,
Time to sing sweet memories to light.
To love and live and teach us all
Don't stray too far, though it's not time yet
It will be.
It will be.
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02:54 am
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Nothing better to do...
1) Are your parents married or divorced?
Divorced. Only once though, I had a friend whose parents divorced and remarried (eachother) something like 6 times. Now she's a psych major. Go figure.
2) Vegetarian?
Oh no, I'm straight.
3) Heaven?
Enlightenment.
4) Come close to dying?
I have tried to, but failed miserably at it.
5) What jewelry do you wear 24/7?
My wedding ring most often, but my fingers get skinny in the afternoon, so I have to take it off.
6) Are you eating?
canned peaches.
7) Do you eat the stems of broccoli?
Mmm... Green things...
8) Makeup?
When I remember. Shadow and mascara, liner if I remember, and a little concealer on my purple eye corners when I'm feeling particularly vain.
9)Would you ever have plastic surgery?
Nah, I've been blessed.
11) What do you wear to bed?
As little as possible!
12) Have you ever done anything illegal?
No. Um... no. No. No really, I haven't.
13) Can you roll your tongue?
Oh baby wouldn't you like to know!
14) Pluck your eyebrows?
When I remember. Not lately.
15) What kind of watch(es)?
Oh, I buy one every couple of years and then stop wearing it when its battery runs out.
16) Are you more of an inside person or an outside person?
I'd like to say I'm an outside person, but I must admit I spend far too much time in front of my computer.
17) Hair color?
Brown brown.
18) Future Childs Name?
Lily, Eva, Sam.
19) Do you snore?
Dunno, ask H.
20) If you could go anywhere in the world on a vacation, where would you go?
Thailand. (Going in October, in fact!!!)
21)What's for dinner?
Bag salmon. I grew up in the northwest; eating frozen salmon from a bag feels like a mortal sin.
22) If you won the lottery, what would you do first?
Not tell anyone. I'd stash it for when I'm old and don't want to work anymore. You might think it's selfish, but if people know you have lots of money, it just creates lots and lots of problems. I think the best way to keep people from knowing you have a lot of money is just not to spend it. Or I'd quietly donate it to Campfire or Empower or something.
23) Gold or silver?
Silver.
24) Hamburger or hot dog?
I like my snausages.
25) If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
fruit.
26) Beach, city, or country?
country
27) What was the last thing you touched?
my fork.
28) Where do you eat?
At my computer, in the car, at the desk at work (for shame!!)
29) When's the last time you've cried?
Earlier today - watching the movie version of Rent - Angel's funeral (particularly Collins' opening bars of the I'll Cover You reprise) freakin' gets me every time.
30) Have you read blogs?
Daily. I'm voyeuristic like that. I always feel like it's kind of a naughty little habit.
31) Would you ever go out dressed like the opposite sex?
Heck yeah! I wear my Utilikilt out in the summertime - someone once commented on my crossdressing.
32) Ever been involved with the police?
I've been pulled over a couple of times, but I've always smiled cutely and escaped the ticket.
34) Do you talk in your sleep?
I used to.
35) beach or pool?
Beach.
38) Window seat or aisle?
Window!
39) Ever met any famous bands/singers?
Nope.
40) Do you feel that you've ever had a truly successful relationship?
I'm terribly happy in my marriage, but what defines a "successful" relationship? One that encourages growth and learning in both parties, or one that lasts forever? One that ends well? How does a relationship "fail"? Is it when you break up? What if you're still friends? What if it was great while it lasted?
41) Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?
Twirl. I dated a guy from England briefly, and he twirled his noodles up in a spoon - I had never seen that done before.
42) Rickie Lake or Oprah Winfrey?
Chuck Palahniuk.
43) Basketball or Football?
Fire spinning.
44) How long do your showers last?
They're my luxury item. Scalding hot and time depends on my stress level.
45) Do you drive a stick?
I wish - so much more fun!
46) Cake or ice cream?
Ice cream! I've never really been a cake fan. Actually, I like the cake, it's all the fillings and the frosting and the crap that I could do without.
47) Self-conscious?
About a couple of key things. I try to stay mindful of my self-consciousness.
48) What time do you get up?
4:30pm.
49) Have you ever given money to a bum?
I have, but then I heard a story on NPR about some sociologist studying homelessness and that most people begging for money are doing so because their status as 'wanted' or 'felon' disqualifies them from such. That or feeding a drug habit.
50) When was your first crush?
I think I was all of about 4 - kid named Peter at my day care in the Renton Highlands.
51) Where do you wish you were?
Somewhere warmer. My house is cold.
52) Have you ever broken someone's heart?
Sadly yes. And way, way too many times. Some I regret, some deserved it, if you will.
53) Have you ever rode in an ambulance?
More times than I can count! But only once for medical reasons. My dad owns an ambulance. It's his work truck.
Burningman 2002. I had an ear infection (my first one ever) so bad that my eardrum ruptured. I ate an oxycodone to try to relieve the pain on an empty stomach and puked. I was so sick and feverish that someone called REMSA and they put some O2 on me and trucked my pathetic ass from 9:00 to Center Camp. I got some antibiotics in town the next day and spent the rest of the week dripping green pus out of my ear. It was uber-gross.
55) Last gift you received?
Besides a kiss from my sweet husband (time with him is always a gift), I got a pink sticker from the Flaming Lotus Girls at the San Francisco Fire Arts Expo.
57) Things you spend a lot of money on?
Aerial silk, home improvement, clothes.
58) What state do you live in?
perpertual bewilderment
59) How do you eat an OREO?
I separate the cookies and scrape off the filling with my teeth and then eat the whole cookie at once.
60) Last wedding attended?
Mine!
61) Favorite fast food restaurant?
Dick's
62)Where do you work?
Labor&Delivery
63) Most hated food?
Sushi (raw fish and seaweed, to be precise)
64) Can you sing?
ish. I like to sing, I think I can carry a tune o.k., but you'll have to ask someone else.
65) Favorite drink?
Oh strawberry smoothies, how I do love thee...
66) Current Crush?
There's a cute anesthesiologist I work with (he looks like Howwoward *swoon*) that I wouldn't mind seeing in his birfday suit.
I'm sure he can sense me undressing him with my eyes every time we do a C-section together. Nothing turns me on more than the sweet smell of a Bovie in action...
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