Traveling, Friending, Writing

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After seven hours on the train and a five hour layover in Penn Station, I got home just in time for the phone conference with my middle son’s teacher and my oldest son’s prom and I’m still not quite recovered from three and a half days away. I really do believe that for any vacation taken, you should be given an equal amount of time afterwards to recover from your vacation.

It’s going to take me the better part of next week to catch up on my sleep and unpack; I never unpack in a timely manner. I have to figure out how much money is left in the bank since I went away alone and at home, my husband continued to use our checking account, so I don’t know how that’s going to reconcile but must before I can pay the bills.

I went to visit my best friend, attend a fandom party for the Supernatural finale, met some Tumblr friends and got to wander around a recreated historical town as well as play around in the kitchen, meet the parents, see the gardens and taste things.

Because of such variety, hopefully I will have one or more postings to share with you. This kind of trip was really nice, especially for a writer. It’s as though I was on four or five separate trips and therefore it’s given me many prompts and inspirations as story starters:

1. Visiting friend

2. Fandom Finale Party

3. Touristy things

4. Traveling alone

5. Train travel

6. Food tastings

I’m not sure how many of them will see the light of day, but consider this my little brainstorm.

It was a very nice visit with normal stresses like getting ready for the party and making sure that I was entertained while he was at work, but it was truly a nice and special time for me and I think for him too.

I also managed to get the family a couple of souvenirs that were inexpensive as well as obligatory like pencils and candy for the kids and a shot glass for my husband. I collect pins so I made sure to add to my collection and was even able to replace my Welsh flag pin that broke a couple of years ago.

I think I forgot to mention that I have three pieces I need to write for workshop homework this week. There are two workshops, but three essays due, and as always I will try to post them here as well depending on how far they go into the personal realm. Without promising, I would also like to post daily since I do have so many ideas I’d like to write about from the trip and I’ve continued to collect prompts that I will use all through the summer until the next workshop starts up in the fall.

Tomorrow after Mass, reading the mail, making a school related phone call and two personal related phone calls, I will post something even if it’s a short something.

I’m looking forward to seeing you then.

Kb

Random Acts for Misha

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I’ve known about Random Acts for several months now when my friend told me that this coming Fall I’d be participating in GISHWHES (pronounced gish-weeze), which stands for The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. It was started by actor Misha Collins and holds the world’s record for largest scavenger hunt.

Random Acts is his non-profit that raises money to do random acts for people that need a little extra something, and encourages people to pledge to do random acts of kindness for strangers.

On April Fool’s Day, the online fans of Misha Collins held a Mishapocalypse where hundreds of people on Tumblr changed their avatars to a particular one of Mr. Collins and then it kind of escalated to every single post that passed by my dash was some kind of gifset of Misha Collins – the more ridiculous, the better for the next twenty-four hours.

For his birthday, it was suggested that his fans do another Mishapocalypse. Instead, however, because the entire Tumblr being taken over did actually bother some people, something different was suggested.

Random Acts 4 Misha was born and began to ask people to ‘donate’ random acts of kindness to take place on August 20th and somehow document it with a birthday wish for Mr. Collins.

This is the link to the Tumblr: http://randomacts4misha.tumblr.com/

This is a link to someone who came up with 50 brilliant, low-cost ideas for random acts: http://trulyexpendable.tumblr.com/post/49703352342/random-acts

This is the link to the Random Acts organization: http://www.therandomact.org/

I’m not sure what I’ll be doing but I know that I’ll be doing something. I am an ardent fan of Misha Collins (and his wife, the PhD and author) and I have had many random acts done for me in a variety of ways that I would like to pay it back, or forward really. It’s not a trade, one for one, but it’s been so nice for me to have received them that I want to share that joy with others, and I know that Mr. Collins would really love it being done in his name.

Anyone interested, please remember to coordinate with the above Tumblr I’ve provided the link for. They are in contact with the Random Acts people and there are restrictions about raising money, so since it’s an official activity, they want to know who is doing what, especially in the case of money.

This is where I love this fandom; coming together and supporting the things that are important to all of us as a member of the world. It reaffirms my faith in humanity and the goodness of people.

When Life and Fiction Meet (and Greet)

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I’ve been reading a lot recently about whether or not it’s valid for a person to use fictional narrative in describing the events of their life. For example, when I go to Chuck E. Cheese with my kids and I get a wary feeling, I’m reminded of Sam (from Supernatural) at that kids’ play place where he’s terrified of clowns. I don’t pretend to be Sam, and I’m not terrified of clowns, but I empathize with him and I get the feelings he felt, and yet they’re still my feelings. What I’m feeling is valid, and in trying to make sense of the strangeness in my mind, I equate it to Sam Winchester.

This is normal.

Not only is this normal, it is what writers want you to take away from a piece of writing, whether it’s a book, television series or a movie. Writers write, and readers don’t read. They feel. They long for. They want. They want to be.

If all you get from every piece of fiction you encounter is purely as an escape, I feel sorry for you. You’re missing a lot of the point. Yes, fiction can be an escape, but it is more than a simple escape from your life. I’m not suggesting that you will get the personal feelings from every piece of fiction, but something should speak to you in a very personal way, and for some of us, we need, absolutely need to talk about it, to put it into terms that our friends will understand when we’re too emotionally withdrawn or fragile to talk about the real life issue. We can, however, use our shared fictional experience to relate it to people to understand our mental or emotional space.

How many of us watched Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, and say to ourselves, “Look at that beautiful, self-assured Black woman holding her own on that man’s ship”? How many of us wanted to be Uhura? I’m not African-American, but I wanted to be Uhura. No offense, but I didn’t want to be Yeoman Rand. We saw her in the context of secretary, and there’s nothing wrong with being a secretary, but Uhura was a Lieutenant. She was the officer in charge of communications. She was gorgeous and yet she wasn’t reduced to her looks. As a Black person, as a woman, she was equal to the rest of the crew. No one singled her out as different, and she was a role model.

In many of those role models we find ourselves, and sometimes our self comes to us in the strangest of places, where we’d least expect it.

Some writers will beat you over the head: 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight. You don’t think because the writers have told you the story. If you like that sort of thing, great; have at it.

But some writers are much more subtle. Stephen King, Bernard Cornwell, Russell T. Davies, Ben Edlund. It’s a little easier I think to be subtle in the writing of a television series like Doctor Who and Supernatural (the two I currently watch regularly). Easier because there are more than words to the story. We get a fuller picture because of artist intent, the actors’ facial expressions, hand gestures, if their words match their faces.

Because of that overall and more complete picture we truly see the ‘magic of television’, and we can relate the narrative much more to our own lives.

There are superficial ties. When I say the word, ‘well’ in a conversation, in my head I hear David Tennant saying, ‘welllll, four things and a lizard.’ I usually don’t say this out loud.

From last week’s The Great Escapist, It is one thing to say that Castiel is lying in the middle of the road and Dean nearly runs him over. It is quite another to have Dean slam on the brakes, the Impala screeching to a halt, the car barely stopping before he jumps out and the look on Dean’s face says it all, but before the emotion can take over, Castiel asks for help, but not in a begging ‘please help me, I need you,’ but in a humorous way, the way Dean relates to, the subtle, dry, humorless-humor that Misha Collins displays so brilliantly. On his face, you see:

Thank G-d you didn’t run me over, Jimmy’s vessel would not have taken well to that.

Thank G-d it’s you and not Crowley or Naomi.

Relief to see his friends.

Relief and pushed down joy that it is Dean, that they are reunited, that maybe they can talk about what needs to be talked about, but not yet, oh hey, by the way, I’m fucking bleeding.

Fuck, this hurts, would one of you pick me up and by one of you I mean Sam, like NOW.

When I get in the backseat, I better not get blood on the upholstery.

That’s what Castiel is feeling.

But what am I feeling?

Why am I worried? Why am I elated at this brief tease of a reunion? Why am I jumping up and down and fist-pumping? Why do I want to both smack Castiel and hold him close?

The main reason is that I care. But why do I care?

Because I live a life, and I can relate to these things. I can feel the emotion of a loved one being hurt, being the victim of violence, returning to a loved one, missing someone so much that seeing them for the first time is painful and ecstatic and wonderful and scary at the same time as you wait for their reaction, frightened at the sight of blood, so many emotions and feelings that I only have because I have something in my real, non-fiction life that makes this scene important to me.

I’ve talked recently about my friend being murdered and another friend being shot (during the same violent act) and so many things revolve around this anniversary that is coming up next Tuesday. My senses are a bit heightened, especially in this storyline: to the blood, the victim (in this case Castiel) being the victim of a gunshot wound, the reunion after the act, the relief that he is okay. I could even stretch it to a domestic violence relation with the angel involvement, calling Ion his brother before pushing the angel blade bullet into his eye and the abuse that Castiel has taken at the hands of Naomi for millennia, family in the very strict, blood sense of the word.

If I didn’t feel these things as they relate to my real life friends and their pain, I wouldn’t be human. Superficially, the writer wouldn’t have done his job either. The writer wants me to feel. Why else would he write? Most of them (us) don’t do it for the money (although some would be nice). We write for the human experience, the need to make people feel things, and to make them feel things that they haven’t necessarily experienced but can still relate to.

I’ve never been shot (and I hope to never be), but I can imagine the pain; I can imagine the wet, dripping, sticky stuff on my hands as I try to keep it together. I’ve had to keep it together before. I can extrapolate what I read in a book or see on the screen to my own life and feel the empathy. Or the pain. Or the longing.

Another thing that writers do is create parallels.

Why do I care about the abusive nature of John Winchester? Well, in my case I wish Dean could have had a father like I had. I had a great Dad. Not everyone does, and this shows some people who have not so great Dads that they are not alone, and if Dean can get through it, so can you, but Dean doesn’t do it alone. And being able to ask for help or lean on a trusted friend is a good message to send to folks in a similar situation.

In Houses of the Holy, when Sam talked about his faith and the look on his face when the light came from behind the angel statue, I knew exactly that feeling from my last year of attending Mass at the Catholic church. I believed what he was saying because I’d said those very same words; I had that very same look on my face. I wasn’t appropriating Sam’s character or minimizing my own faith journey; I related. And I cried over it. Real tears.

When Bobby says, ‘family don’t end with blood, boy’, I feel that, not because I had such a crappy family; I didn’t and I don’t, but I’m close with people I never expected to be, people not of my blood, but if asked, I would share my blood with them.

And no, creepy, stalker people, I don’t mean some kind of Satanic blood ritual; I mean a transfusion or bone marrow or whatever my non-blood family needed.

Why?

Because they are my family.

When Eric Kripke or Russell T. Davies makes reference to the Judeo-Christian Bible, whether it’s through the literal (Kripke) or the abstract (Davies), we know what they’re talking about. We have a base for knowledge. We all have some kind of religion, yes, even atheists. There are many things that atheists believe with the equal zeal as a religious person believes, and that’s why many of these narratives speak to all of us on a basic level.

Look at Doctor Who. One single entity, yes a man, but with two hearts, not of the Earth, but loving the Earth and her people so much that he can’t stay away. He’s worshipped like a G-d, and when he’s not recognized as one like in the episode where we first meet The Master, ‘you don’t know who I am? My, the end of the universe is a bit humbling,’ he even begins to believe he is a G-d. It was almost his downfall in Water of Mars. Just look at this week’s Supernatural when that same thing happened with Sam, talking to G-d’s scribe, Metatron: “How do you not know who we are?! We’re the friggin’ Winchesters!”

The visual of the trinity, so prevalent in Christian mythos: The Doctor, Rose, Captain Jack, and with every companion, The Doctor and Donna, The Doctor and Martha, there is always the shadow of Rose. Infinite combinations of threes: Doctor, Jack, Martha. Doctor, Amy, Rory. Even now, we have the Doctor, Clara and the Tardis. Pay attention this season, clever people.

In Supernatural, we have Dean, Sam, Dad. Bobby, Dean, Sam. Dean, Lisa, Ben. Dean, Sam, Castiel. There are almost always two henchmen with Crowley and Naomi.

Lucifer fell, leaving three Archangels: Michael, Rafael, Gabriel.

Metatron hiding on the Earth, not human, but living as a human, not only before the modern age of religion, but before Christ himself. And isn’t that what G-d did with Jesus? He put Him on the Earth to live as a man, to understand man, to have compassion and empathy for man, and then to die as a Man and to come back as a G-d, not on his own, but with the worship of G-d through Him. You come to the Father through Me.

Sam and Dean are with Metatron, who wrote all of the tablets. Technically they don’t need Kevin; Metatron can help them with the rest, but Kevin is family. He’s not blood. They can justify abandoning him as choices that he made as Prophet or there is a big picture here, but that is not acceptable to Dean. Kevin is family, family don’t end in blood, family doesn’t get left behind. Dean is the patriarch and he’s the glue that holds them together, that keeps the family together.

These are all narratives that we, on some level can relate to.

We’re supposed to relate to them.

If I didn’t relate to the characters and situations and make parallels to my life and use those examples to grow as a person, I wouldn’t be doing my job as a reader or a watcher of fictional television. The writer wants me to draw those parallels.

It’s easy to mock what you don’t understand, and so when I see someone mocking me (or others) for taking the stories too seriously or that we should just get a life, I’m disheartened. I understand the subtext of the fiction because I do have a life. I feel badly for those people who engage in the fandom or just watch the series and don’t see the bigger picture; the picture that relates to my real life.

For Dean and the Doctor, I see so many things that they overcome and I feel as though I can overcome my own obstacles. I have depression. I talk about it a lot. I use coping mechanisms. But in addition to that, my depression takes up about 80% (or more) of my constant, so when I read something, I relate it to my depression. When I watch something, I relate it to my depression. My life revolves around my depression and it can rule me or I can rule it, and in Dean and the Doctor I see new ways to cope and control because in them, I see myself. Good G-d, Donna! Donna was a perfect role model for me; I loved her, and I am so sorry she’s not with the Doctor anymore. I just couldn’t relate to Amy as much as I loved her. But I still watch.

I still watch because there is always something that someone else can teach me.

That is what the fictional narrative is.

Try this.

Pick a show. Any show that you have some kind of familiarity with, and watch an hour or two. Write down the character that you most identify with. Write the character that rubs you the wrong way, and then write down why. I bet it’s because they remind you of someone. Write down a flaw that a character has that you also have. How do they cope? How can you cope? Do you get any ideas from the show? I sit with a little notebook and I don’t take notes as much as I take ideas.

It’s not delusional, or getting lost in the story; it’s being human and fulfilling my part of the narrative contract with the writer.

So, when I write meta (or anything really) that comes from the heart and I relate it to Supernatural, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Daydverse or any number of things that have been filtered through my head and heart for the last four decades, they almost always refer to parallels in my life and revolve around my depression, anxiety, sense of self-worth, friends, lovers, family, kids, education, hobbies, travel, stress, life trauma, coping, advising, experiences, and my life intersecting with the fiction that I’m attracted to is my narrative and I intend to claim it every chance I get.

Tickets, Please!

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In a couple of weeks I’m taking a trip, kind of spontaneously, and I’m a little nervous, but I’m trying to look at it as an adventure. I don’t have many of those.

I travel very rarely. As a kid, my family took yearly, sometimes twice yearly vacations. I went with my college roommate to the UK in 1987; alone to North Wales in 2009; to visit friends in Denver in 2011. As an adult, three trips in three decades are not very much.

I’d like to travel more, but money is certainly one issue. I’ve also only recently begun to enjoy some of my own time alone. I always hated the aloneness, but I started taking random ‘field trips’ and where once I thought eating alone in a restaurant was sad and lonely, I kind of like it now. I have time to think. I have space to write. And lunch in an actual restaurant is about the same price as going to McDonald’s or getting an actual meal at Starbucks without the noisy, bustling background. I also like libraries and parks with trees, but that’s me.

I am also a very nervous traveler. I couldn’t get on the last two airplanes without a special talisman to calm my nerves (as well as a prescription pharmaceutical). I travel so seldom that it churns up my stomach and I hate all of the things you need to do for travel with the packing, security, where to put my bags once I get onboard, who will I sit with and a million other anxieties tied up into what amounts to a fifteen minute procedure.

This upcoming trip is by train, and I’m excited (mostly); I haven’t been on a train since my first trip to the UK on BritRail. This journey will be twelve hours between onboard and changing trains in NYC with just enough time to buy breakfast. Is it wrong that I am really, really looking forward to a real NY egg bagel with cream cheese? On the way back, I’m hoping for a knishe. Oh, it’s been too long! And of course, another fifteen hours back including a five hour layover.

I always feel that I need to bring everything but the kitchen sink just in case. What if I need X, Y or Z? When I travel by air, I have the need to buy a bottle of water and a Time magazine. I’m not sure why that is and I don’t know if that little ritual will hold up for Amtrak. I should be able to bring my own water and save three dollars. I always bring a snack that I almost never eat and my journal which was missing for a while. This trip, I also have the luxury of a Kindle Fire, which will most certainly be welcome.

Although after much searching, I’ve finally found my special journal that’s gone with me to Wales and Denver, been to Tea Tastings when I was notating the experience, and my Fall Writing Retreat both in 2012. I will be sad when this journal is all full. I should have enough pages for this trip, possibly one more, but no guarantee of that.

The main reason for this trip is friendship with a side of fandom. I was supposed to visit my best friend before the summer, but that fell through so when he suggested coming for the fandom party/dinner/viewing of the finale of this season’s Supernatural, I rearranged my schedule to be there. There will be good friends, committed fans, good food and of course, the finale.

I haven’t done one of these types of things since the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation, possibly Deep Space Nine. Yes, my family does make a big deal of Doctor Who night and my son got the dinner he begged for: fish fingers and custard, and our weekend schedule does revolve around Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and this weekend is Free Comic Book Day, but I haven’t been to a convention (maybe soon, though – *crosses fingers*) in about a decade. For the weekly watching of Star Trek, we would head to our friend’s house and we would get chicken parm heros and drink soda and eat ice cream and laugh loudly and cheer and gape at the wonder of the Enterprise and her crew.

Now, it is a new group, a new fandom, very Supernatural-type Americana/diner food and I’m excited for it. Apart from my best friend, I have not met anyone who will be there. To begin a friendship with a base already in place is one of the wonderful things about fandom. Hey, I know your name, and we like this thing and yes, I think we can be friends, pass me a chip.

There is something so brilliant about people and food and traditions that are continued by new people and while it’s different, it’s the same or at least similar, and in some cases it’s better, and it’s really comfortable. We don’t know each other, but we kind of know each other. I am a tiny bit nervous, but that’s just my personality bleeding through. It’s not at all like going to my sister’s and explaining what fan fiction is or how I know that Misha Collins’ wife just published a book on stewardesses or why I care or why I laugh harder than everyone else when a Moose shows up on the local news in someone’s swimming pool or confuse her by rattling off my own personal canon for Harry Potter.

My sister is a fan of many things, but she is not in fandom and that is sad.

The second part (or first….) of my quick trip is visiting friend; good friend. We talk often but see each other infrequently (sadly) and I’m looking forward to this very much. We only get one day together before the fannish things begin and the good thing is we are both in better places since we last saw each other and he gets to show me around his town and his animals and his space and we get to talk and talk and catch up on and store extra hugs and make more plans, and it gives me time to breathe and remember how to do that and not worry about this school thing or that financial thing and I’ll gather ideas and prompts to occupy my second ride on the rails for the trip back.

I would love to travel more; just get up and go.

This little thing has been just an introduction. I hope to have more stories about my trips, past and future wanna-be’s, things I’ve learned, things I’ve forgotten, places I want to see and things I want to do. My mind yearns to take my kids places but it also yearns to go out into the world by myself. My most recent visit to Wales was that. I traveled alone, did things that I would have refused if you asked me first and I learned how to be by myself, which is always a good thing.

We all need that time to ourselves, to find ourselves and be available to the others in our lives and that is the one thing that I want when I travel; to come back a slightly different person.

If I know, I’ll let you know who I am when I get back.

Relapse

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There are so many things coursing through my mind that sometimes it’s hard to keep up and get it all out. It’s been going on longer, but the last four weeks have been a really bad place for me, throwing me, well, not throwing me, but sliding me back towards the beginnings of my depression and I do not like it. I noticed that something was off, but as per my custom chose to ignore it while at the same time being hyperaware of it. When my friend asked if I was alright and noticed that every time he called I sounded sad and asked about my mood, I realized that I wasn’t imagining what I had been seeing.

Lately doing anything is a chore. Not something like a responsibility that you know you have to do but are procrastinating doing, but an actual chore, pushing myself to, if not make dinner at least state what dinner would be and getting someone else in the family to make it. Cooking was one of the happy places that I lost when I sunk into depression and it hasn’t bounced back.

I did the cooking and baking for Christmas and my middle son is the only one who doesn’t get a store bought birthday cake because he always asks for my cheesecake (Philly 3-Step variety) and so I oblige him and did, but the daily cooking and experimenting that I was enjoying so much – baking bread, frying chicken in the newly discovered (for me) peanut oil, Pinterest recipes, caramel and ginger cookies. The love was there. The want was there. I just couldn’t get past the chore of getting up and actually doing it.

At least, we’re not eating out constantly or bringing prepared food in. That is something we definitely can’t afford to do as we struggle this year to pay the bills, some that are not always getting paid and our tax refunds going to repay friends who helped us in our time of need. There’s a lot of pasta and grilled cheese, but at least it’s getting made.

I try to have a list for each day, and those usually help, but it seems that my brain has picked up on all of last year’s coping tricks and is sabotaging them. In the Jewish faith, each year on the anniversary of a parent’s death, you’re supposed to light a memorial candle called a Yartzeit. You light it at sundown of the death day and it burns for twenty-four hours. You do not blow it out. This was something I learned when I was a child. I also learned that you never light the candle if your parents are living. I don’t know if this is religiously true or if my mother was just superstitious. I was supposed to do this on Saturday. It was written on at least two calendars. I said something to my husband on Saturday morning. And then I just forgot. It slipped my mind. Literally. I didn’t remember until I was looking at the calendar Monday morning to check the week’s schedule, and I didn’t actually remember it; I read it and had a V8 moment. I thought I would burst into tears. How could I forget my Dad?

For everything else, I’m not so much lazy or unmotivated as much as I just don’t feel it. I want to write, but if I don’t it’s alright. I want to make a phone call, but unless it is anxiety driven, I don’t until the anxiety builds to explosion levels and that is no good for either of us. I want to sit and do homework with my daughter, but if she decides to do something else, I just don’t want to be bothered, and don’t chase her down, and this is the scariest feeling of all; the not wanting to be bothered.

I’m not back in the place of completely mentally paralyzed or suicidal, and I credit that to recognizing the downward slide as well as my friend who knows me so well calling me out on some of my lethargic behavior and moods and knowing when to poke me and when to actually push.

My medication dose has been changed and I go back to the doctor in a week or so, but it doesn’t feel any different and I think it should feel a little better; just a little. The next few weeks are bringing things that are stressful and fun and I should be looking forward to them, but it’s making me feel anxious and as though I’m going to let everyone down including myself. I’m afraid to build anything up because it will be a disappointment; I’m afraid to get excited and I’m worrying over things that I really do have no control over, but they’re still there. I want to scream at some things, and I want to cry at others, and I’m trying to hold it all together so I don’t push away the people who are always there for me, who reach out and care for me, but the next few weeks….I just don’t know how to get through it and actually enjoy the parts that I’m supposed to enjoy.

This list includes Author’s Night at my daughter’s school, Free Comic Book Day, a doctor’s appointment, a therapy appointment, pay the mortgage and other bills, attend a birthday party, Mother’s Day, my oldest son’s prom, my daughter’s birthday party, visit my best friend at least four states away, Memorial Day weekend, which is also my deceased mother’s birthday and a visit from Grandma (the kids’ grandma, my mother in law). And that doesn’t include writing for my memoir workshop even though it won’t be in session and I’ll miss one session but I promised to keep up on my writing. And all of this is off the top of my head. I’m sure I forgot something. Or several somethings.

In trying to come up with some positive things to write about and ease out of the bad place, it is not easy. On a good day I’m at best a realist.

I’ve been very good since declaring my New Year’s Resolutions and my reaffirmation of much of them for Lent. I have been very good since Lent and have stuck to only two cans of soda a day with very few exceptions. I usually will drink those with meals, and I have primarily been drinking green tea with jasmine and water, the colder the better.

I have tried (and mostly succeeded) in eating oatmeal three times a week. I add a touch of brown sugar and a handful of cranberries and some milk. This really has decreased my cholesterol, and it is very filling and tastes good, and much healthier than a bagel.

I am skipping some desserts, and last night didn’t actually have dinner except for a bowl of strawberries and some sour cream, a childhood comfort food that can only be made better with sliced peaches and blueberries.

Except for three bad mornings, I have continued to attend morning Mass and have tried to add Sunday Mass into my week. If I don’t get to the church (and on the days that there are no Mass), I read the Mass in a Catholic periodical that publishes the daily Masses.

I’ve given away several sweaters that either no longer fit or that I know I will not wear again. I have a pile of baby clothes to do the same with as soon as I call the church’s office manager. We are very slowly clearing out the things that we haven’t used in years and that are taking up much needed space that can be used for other things.

I have been writing more even if I haven’t been sharing the really personal ones or the ones that need too much explaining to understand context, but sometimes (more often recently) I’ll start something and just leave it there and not go back to it.

I am not where I want to be, and I think that adds to the chemical issue of depression and brings on extra situational stress and in the place I’m in my level of tolerance and ignoring things is just non-existent so I find myself shutting down.

I also know that I can’t go back to last year; I barely lived through that. I also can’t go back decades and change decisions; I can’t return to college and choose different majors. It’s hard to move forward; though it’s not easy knowing that one changed decision could change everything now.

Or would it?

There is no way to know, but this is one of the questions that weighs heavily on my mind and in my relapse into depression and increase in anxiety, it plays over and over again as though a broken record or a film on a loop.

Quick Update

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Sorry for the spammy presence today.

I posted three things that I’ve had in my notebook for a few days: Train Derailed, Radio and Inhouses. I’m hoping to add one more random prompt/free write before tonight and get back on track.

I’ve gotten quite an influx of new followers (I have no idea where you’ve come from, but you are most welcome).

My absence is due in part to a reassertion of my depression. As I like to note, depression is a continuum, and the recovery can sometimes be rocky. These have been a few of those weeks. Forcing myself to update things today is step one, and seeing the doctor on Monday is step two.

🙂

 

Train Derailed

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(* This is something that spewed out suddenly during my workshop on Thursday while someone else was reading. My mind wouldn’t let me stop until it was written and I didn’t know what would come out of the pen until it was on the paper. It is not an assignment of blame. Just thoughts. I don’t know if this will be expanded on eventually or left as is. It’s not quite poetry, but it’s a bit more emotional and the cadence isn’t quite prose.)

 

My eyes hurt. I haven’t cried today, but my eyes want to. I’m not sure about my heart. I’m full of feels. Feeling melancholy. The lingering sad, inappropriate considering this week’s events of a heaviness, the lingering of something, loss of memories not to be. I was afraid to want, but I wanted so badly, needed so badly and I let myself grasp it and blow the embers keeping it warm, building the flame of expectation, of want and need I didn’t know I needed, but I did. This is strike two. You know me better than I know myself and you can’t heal me. You can’t fix me. And I want that so badly.

Radio

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Mexican radio. Wish I was in Tijuana; eating barbequed iguana. I grew up in the 80s, one of the best times for music. People may scoff, but it is the most imitated, most reunioned, most innovative music. Synth pop, new age, punk, alternative. The second British invasion. We were home to one of the best alternative stations, now defunct, WLIR 92.7. We used to stalk the DJs when stalking had a good natured connotation. We’d call and believe it or not, they remembered us.

Willobee, Larry the Duck, Malibu Sue, Donna Donna, Bob Waugh – just a few of the countless DJs who were themselves near iconic.

On the weekend, they used to have special themes like WLIR goes to the park or goes to college. This was before the prevalence of the internet and you could only listen if you were in the broadcast area. I was told when the weekend of ‘goes to college’ was when I was at college in Oneonta and I called them.

Collect.

And they accepted the charges.

Now, I listen to WEQX out of Manchester, Vermont. Some of you may have recognized the name I mentioned earlier: Willobee. The one and the same. He has since moved on to Scranton (with wife and baby), but I was able to call on his last day and thank him for a lifetime of good music and influence.

People might not believe me, but I like to say, and it is true that the music I listen to is either twenty years old or twenty minutes old.

I may have to change that to thirty and thirteen in another couple of years.

Inhouses

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I have had so much trouble with outhouses.

Not using them mind you, but writing about them until someone suggested I just write about unusual bathrooms or something like that, and that’s what I will try to do.

First, when we were kids, my parents used to say we should write a book about all the bathrooms we used on a car trip. It didn’t matter when the last time we used the toilet was, but if we saw a sign for a bathroom or stopped for gas, we absolutely, positively needed to use the bathroom.

My parents said we were taking inventory or reviewing all of them or something.

When I got older and had my first son, he, of course, used public bathrooms even though we also had a portable camping toilet in the car in case he needed to use it on a long trip without a rest area.

I remembered what my parents said about writing a book and so we took pictures of my son and the places where he used the bathroom – McDonald’s, thruway rest area, gas station, library, you name it. If he used the bathroom, we took a picture of it (the place, not the actual bathroom or the toileting) and we made a little picture book for my Dad.

He loved it!

The second thing that came to mind was my first trip to the UK in 1987. I knew enough not to call the bathrooms bathrooms, but other than that every time I used one, I was not only surprised, it was an exercise in how the fuck do I flush this thing?

Here’s a normal toilet with an American style lever. Okay, no problem. That was in the airport. They like to give you a false sense of security in the airport.

Next toilet. Pretty normal for me, but the tank had a large push button on the top of the tank.

There was a large push button on the wall above the tank.

There was a small push button on the top of the tank, on the side of the tank and on the wall above the tank (these were three separate toilets).

And then I used the men’s room in a pub. It was New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square, and there was much drinking and carousing and the toilets were needed. It’s New Year’s Eve as I mentioned, so the line for the ladies’ was ridiculously long, and my friend and I did not want to wait, so we went into the men’s room. Unfortunately for the men who came in not knowing that a woman was in the stall, the looks on their faces when we left were pretty priceless.

However, this toilet almost kept me. This was probably the most unusual and certainly the most unusual I had seen by far. The toilet itself was a regular public bathroom toilet, no tank, no lever.

I looked around for a floor button (yes, we’d seen those.)

Nope.

I checked the wall for a push button.

Nope.

I don’t know why I looked up, but I did. There’s the tank, way up practically attached to the ceiling, but not with a long chain hanging down. I pulled the chain, everything worked as it should and I left, calling out a warning before I left the stall and waving at four surprised (more than likely extraordinarily drunk) Londoners.

In Scotland, you had to pay 2p to pee, an irony (and a pun) that apparently took 26 years for me to get. You could also get a public shower in Scotland, but I think that was a pound, perhaps more.

Bathroom.

Toilet

Loo.

WC.

Johns.

Porta-pottys.

Los banos.

Ty bach.

The most important thing you need to be able to ask for in a foreign country, whether they are inside or outside.

Pass Me a Fry

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I feel nostalgia welling up inside, ready to burst out. There is sadness and melancholy and what’s next, and I just don’t know. I have my lists of things to do. It is only March, and that’s good. The kick in the butt is good because it is still early in the year and I can get it done. Well, get it started. I just need to be unafraid. Not an easy task. I don’t want things as they were, though; I want them better. Is that even possible?

I don’t know why, but right now I’m thinking of McDonald’s fries. When I was a kid, my Dad would drive way out to Queens to get McDonald’s for dinner. (Believe it or not, but McDonald’s wasn’t on every street corner.) So we’d drive out to Queens and whoever went with him got to sneak some fries. Mainly, he’d ask for one, and the person holding the bag would pass him a couple of fries and then take a couple.

All the way home.

They were so hot. I almost always burned my mouth. By the time we got home, one of the fries were completely or almost completely gone.

We started buying an extra order of fries for the ride home, so no one was mad at us when we got there.

Even today, eating a cheeseburger or a Quarter Pounder makes me remember those moments as a kid with my Dad eating fries. It is not lost on me that it isn’t when I eat the fries, and it is only those two burgers. They taste exactly the same as they did back then.