A Step into the Unknown

Two hours ago someone I knew in life passed away due to some form of cancer.  This person was an abusive ex-boyfriend... but the whole story is sad, and in the end... I do not rejoice over his death, rather, my heart aches for his wife, his friends and those who I know he affected in a positive way during his final years.

I want to type his name to honor him, but not everything I have to say about him would cast him in a positive light, so out of respect and love for his wife, I'll refrain.

I met him one night in Felton Fair.  I was hanging out with my little sister and maybe a couple other girls and he came out of Safeway with his friend and maybe a couple other people.  They had a bottle of Jägermeister and we probably had drugs in some form.  (At that point in my life I was dabbling in methamphetamine and general wild living - I was 18, after all).  For whatever reason our two groups started interacting and we ended up driving somewhere near the Zyante Fire station and parking our cars for some drinking and drugs.  Yippee.  Looking back it seems so silly... but whatever.

At some point the dearly deceased and I started making out and there began a shallow relationship that revolved around the use of meth.  A lot of bad things happened during the month or so that we "dated".

He ended up getting arrested so he spend about half of our "relationship" in jail.  When he got out he slept with a homeless girl before sleeping with me, and when I found out I was terrified that I could possibly have AIDS or something.  Before he got out of jail he told me we were going to move to Arizona to be near his father.

We broke up and I ended up running off to Reno and marrying his best friend.  After we were married my husband showed me letters the dearly deceased had sent him while he was in jail, saying that he had no intention of taking me to Arizona and that he was just using me to store his stuff or something.

I ended up divorcing my husband (for unrelated reasons) and left the whole mess behind me.  There were a lot of hurtful things that happened during the time of my life that I spent with those two friends... and the individual incidents are not the point of this story.  The point is that I was deeply hurt by my experiences with them and though I try to forgive people, memories can still hurt.

Years later I learned that the dearly deceased had become a Christian and, repenting of his sins, started attending church.  How did I discover this?  Who knew that I knew this person?  Why, no one other than my own mother.  This man, who had violated me, was now a born-again Christian and had chosen the same church that my mother (who had once joined in my hatred of said man) attends.  She not only had forgiven him, but they had become friends.  He became an active part of their church family and started donating his time to food outreaches and other service/charitable type things.

This particular church is the one I grew up in, and subsequently left when I was around 17 years old (because of church politics - another story).  A girl who was in my youth group apparently still attended there and I guess she and the dearly deceased caught each others eye.  This particular woman had lost her mother to cancer when we were teenagers.  I remember it.  It was very painful for everyone... I can't imagine what it was like for this woman.  The woman and the man decided to get married and I think they did all the things that he told me we were going to do.  I was happy that the story he wanted had played out.  I was nervous at first for the girl I knew, until it became apparent that he actually did care for her and was intending on staying with her until they died.

At some point he found out that he had cancer.  I don't know if he knew this before he and the woman connected... I don't know if the woman married him knowing he would die...  He battled cancer for a few years, I guess.  Everyone thought he was better.  Everyone thought he had kicked it.  But he died today, at 7am I guess.

My mom sent me a text at 8:37 this morning letting me know.  In months past, she had encouraged me to try and forgive him or to see some good in him.  I did forgive him, I just didn't care about his new life.  I was glad he wasn't hurting people anymore, and I was glad the woman I know had a happy marriage.

But when my mom told me that he passed... I couldn't hold back the tears... I think just because it's sad when someone you know passes away.  It's unbelievable.  Even if it's someone you don't like... you feel the loss because they had been a part of you in some way.

I'm mostly hurting for his wife, who has now suffered the loss of her mother and her husband to cancer... and I am hurting for my ex husband... who I have recently been reconciled with after a troublesome relationship and a decade of avoiding each other.  

I'm not rejoicing over this loss, but I guess the happy ending is that a monster of a person was able to turn a new leaf and affect some people for the better before he passed away.  As for me... I can't help but wonder why this sort of thing happens.  I suppose I'll be mourning today.

The sun is out.

They Make Me Violate Them, No Matter Who They Are

It's difficult to be married to Ted. Sometimes I question that choice. It all comes down to my relationship with his band as an entity and with the individuals that make it up. I feel like Ted and I had a very peaceful marriage in during the time that Craig's Brother was on Hiatus.

We (myself, Ted and the people in his band) are all very self-absorbed people with exasperatingly strong personalities.

After more than ten years of desired and attempted amicability, it has finally occurred to me that I don't have to be friends with, or even like, the people in Ted's band. Just because we're family doesn't mean we are friends. I have hard relationships with some people in my true-blood family... enough so that I know the score with my band family... that is, if we are truly family.

I am weak. I am a quitter. I am. I would rather walk away... I guess... but instead I straggle along behind, bitching and moaning the whole way. It's hope that keeps me going, but hope is not enough to give any mission full power. Desire is a forceful aid if it's strong enough. I have desire... but I also have mental issues. I get offended at the behavior of Ted and the people in his band sometimes. I hate it when they become so wrapped up in the happenings of their project that they act like the proverbial chicken with it's head cut off, only in the plural.

My attempt to reconcile my own self loathing and to discover what I am worth in this life, doesn't take aid from their constant, focused narcissism. "Go off and do your own thing, then" you might say. I can't. I just don't have it in me. Don't like the bitching, eh? Then I would direct your attention to the button at the top of the screen that says, "next blog", and I further ask that you forget you read this. Sure it's public, but it's not for anyone who doesn't care, so please don't waste your time reading what I have to say.

Sometimes it helps just to get it out. I don't really have any friends, and the friends that I do have are either far away or are not really interested in what I have going on as much as what they have to gain by lending an ear. I obviously can't name names... but the saying, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer", certainly does not go without merit. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between my friends and my enemies.

I have been watching Black Lagoon. It's awesome. I have never liked dance music as much as I did on E, but Mell is pretty cool. :)

Title goes here?

I can't figure out how to make the posts in this blog have a title... nor can I make my images or videos properly fit... I'm no good if a program is not completely user friendly.

Sometimes it's ok to just go along with the story. Do you ever catch yourself trying to figure out what's going to happen in advance of a story line of a book or movie (or show, whatever)? I don't intentionally go into a story trying to figure it all out at the beginning but sometimes some item of informaton will be placed in the story to give you a nudge one way or another and so you start to wonder if the writers are trying to fool you and it becomes a game.

I've been following the Fables graphic novels by Bill Willingham and his writing is riddled with such sport... at least, I perceive it that way.

Sometimes, though, it's fun to just go along with the story as they're showing it to you. For example, in the book I've just finished, the main character, Jack (of beanstalk climbing, candle jumping, and basically any fairy tale involving a character named Jack, fame) is caught by an anti-fable brigade and while incarcerated he rally's the other prisoners for a jail break. We discover that the warden-type character knows about the impending escape attempt because he has a spy, and the story guides you to believe that it is a certain character... so, in that situation, I would question the writers motives and be challenged to do some detective-like deducing myself and figure it out before the characters themselves were aware.

I kind of did that this time... but I also tried to just go along with the story and be surprised by what ends up happening.

If you are at all into graphic novels I highly recommend getting the Fables comix. They are so incredibly awesome and fun to read. Jack is a spin off, off shoot? It was inspired by the Fables series no doubt and begins when Jack leaves the Fables community. (Fables are fairy tale creatures like in Shrek). It seems like the Fables writers possibly had to make an entire Jack side-series because his adventures were so grand that they needed more time to tell than they could give him during the main Fables story... who knows... now I have to go dig up some interviews and see if I can find out what happened.

Go buy, "Fables: Legends in Exile" TODAY. That's the first one.

Oh! I just realized that I should use the image thingy that blogger has in the tool bar... duh!

My Favorite Bible

My favorite Bible is a piece of shit... as far as books go. My favorite Bible is long devoid of the hard brown cover, and my favorite Bible ends at Revelation 18:12.5. It has consistently spoken the truth to me for years. The truth I find in my Favorite Bible, tattered and worn from hours of being read, forgotten about in bed and slept with, shoved onto tight a shelf amongst fellow volumes and, most often, tossed on the floor - providing easy reach for the next reading, has been painstakingly pondered.

Omnifarious seasons pass exploring the well traversed yet unknown depths, while knowledge accrues then disseminates as soon as you realize an old, familiar passage doesn't mean what it used to.

Today I realized that Luke 17:34 isn't talking about the rapture, as I was taught growing up. It's talking about people who will die, and who will live. I feel stupid even saying that. It seems so obvious.

I like the fact that I can honestly say I have a favorite Bible. We have many Bibles, a Book of Mormon, the New World translation (blech!) and I want to get a Koran just so I can see what it says. Have you ever heard a pastor challenge the congregation to get that Bible off the shelf and actually read it? I heard that once when I was a youth and lamented because I knew it was right but I was really just interested in spending my time in alternate ways. Later, I heard that sermon again and felt smug because I had been reading my Bible... you could call it sophmoritis... and then later, when those feelings of smugness arose I would remember that it's not under my own power that I accomplish anything. So, thanks, God. And thanks to Ted for being my Bible Buddy.

And thanks to my little brown, beat-the-fuck-up, ever loving and loyal NIV. We may not always agree, but you have been there for me, Buddy.

I need to schedule my life.

There is no point to my day when I don't have someplace to be, and when I DO have someplace to be, I usually just dick around until it's time to get ready, then I leave. I get dishes and cleaning done, but there is no routine to it. No plan... and I think I'm a more scattered person because of it.

God knows Ted isn't good at planning a routine... but he can conform to a plan so if we tried it, it would work.

Take, for example, getting the kids to school on time. Back when we only had one school-aged child, we had no routine, really. Try to get up on time, get dressed, eat and get to school on time. it wasn't working for us. I got a letter from school saying that my child's habitual tardiness was affecting her ability to properly learn (this was first grade).

I developed a schedule. We started getting the kids up at 6:45, handling everything in between, and literally driving out of the driveway by 7:50 am. if that meant I had to go out at 7:40 to warm up the car on a frosty morning I had to remember to do it.

By the time my son was in preschool (a year or so later) we had the schedule down and I was Captain Carpool in my neighborhood... only, it pissed people off when I told them I was leaving at 7:50 and actually did. I was willing to even take people's kids to school after I returned if they didn't make my bus, but i had to leave by 7:50 to beat the line that forms and sluggishly makes everyone in it's children late for school.

If a morning routine to get the kids fed and to school on time worked for me, why couldn't a personal schedule? I'll tell you, it's because I'm guiding them through the schedule, and giving them little opportunity to deviate. I can't enforce shit on myself. I let my vices (coffee, laziness, etc) rule me. After Ted and the kids are gone it's just me, my cats and dog. I usually make another pot of coffee and see what's going on in the news and who has given me a pellet of social nutrition, usually on facebook.

I'm trying to blog more because it's better for me than fishing for attention on facebook. I might start video blogging too, just to get even more attention. Fuck you, at least I'm honest. I want attention just like most people. School is out right now, and I didn't really get to go to school last semester because of my injury... so I've been in my house for months with pretty much no social interaction aside from what I can get on the internet... which is substantial but tricky.

The internet sucks me into this virtual world... where everything is virtually as I want it to be... at least, as close to I want it to be as I can get it. I have shunned all of my friends preferring Ted's company to any of theirs... and only tolerating friends who either come to me or who I play music with... and I only see them when I'm playing music.

I have been playing guitar with my girlfriend Caroline for a couple years now. We take months long breaks sometimes. She is more folky and I have a solid punk and jazz background... but our mixed sound seems to work... I want to take out little acoustic thing and make it amplified. I think I'm going to switch to bass and recruit a drummer.... only, Caroline wants to play acoustic guitar... and I want to have a rock band before I get older, damn it! Ted won't help me... he actually told me to ask my friend Paul for help. his words were, "Why don't you start a band with Paul?" and I was like, "because Paul lives in the UK!"

But then I remembered the wonder of the internet and that we both have home recording equipment... who knows? Maybe file trading will commence. Maybe not? All I know is, I'm going to be 32 in about 9 months... and though I've been in a few bands and played live tons and tons of times, I have never had "my own" band. That would be awesome.

I just need someone to help me write songs so I can recruit any local female talent to play "my" songs. What an idea.