Jun 24

It all started out with so much promise.  All the makings of an exceptional story were in place.  I had the opening line and the events that would lead me to a story unlike anything that had been told before, but somewhere along the way I got lost.

I can pinpoint certain adventures that I could have had, but missed out on, for whatever reason, but those specific moments can’t explain how I got where I am today.  Everything in my life, until recently, were the stuff that grand adventures are made of.  Those missed opportunities can’t account for the life I lead now – mostly solitary, rather lonely, unremarkable.

I’ve made no lasting mark on the world.  I’ve had my moments of internet infamy and possibly, in dribs and drabs, my 15 minutes of so-called fame, but, at 33 years old, I can’t help but feel that I should have done more by now…  that I should have done something noteworthy.

I never wanted to be famous.  Fame is a sucker’s game and, for most, just leads to hardship.  Not that I’m afraid of hardship, I can’t be, having experienced so much so far.

My mother always told me that I could do anything I wanted with my life.  I believed her and my childhood dreams of the future were grandiose.  I would be the first female president of the United States; I would be an attorney trying cases before the supreme court; I would be an actress, making movies of great social and political import; I would be an activist.  I am none of those things today and I don’t think I would want any of them.

My early life was rich with adventures and characters, the like of which I will never experience again.  No, that’s not right.  My entire life until recently has been rich with adventures and characters.  Even a simple bus ride would lead me to an exceptional story, prompting cries of “Oh, come on, I don’t believe that.”  The better people get to know me, the less likely they are to disbelieve, since most of them have experienced some of the bizarre stories that accumulate in my life.

Recently, though, all that changed.  No matter where I went or what I did, nothing happened.  I know, for most people, this would be no big deal, no change to their daily routine, but for me, it’s disturbing.  Simple things like the erratic behavior of mostly even-tempered cats keeps me hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I haven’t lost my life in interesting times, but the longer I go without a good story, the more I worry about it.

I used to write all the time.  If it wasn’t the blog it was stories or poetry or songs or letters or something.  I don’t do that anymore.  I don’t have much to say.  I used to have adventures, but now I go to the same familiar places and do the same familiar things.  Almost to the point where I’m no longer interested in many of them.

It doesn’t feel like depression.  I’ve been there before and this isn’t the same thing.  I think that, somewhere along the line, I’ve become unremarkable.

To me, that’s the worst thing that could happen.  The idea that “you are unique, just like everyone else” is one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.  Some people are amazing and create or explain or impart or somehow stand out in a crowd.  I know I used to be one of those people, but I don’t know if I am anymore.

Maybe it’s just a hiatus, but I work my job, day in and day out.  I do as much as I can, but there’s never enough work to really keep me busy.  I cook dinner for my teenage son when he’s home and we fight about stupid things that teenagers and their parents fight about.  I see movies with friends, I play poker from time to time, I visit my family, I take pills to manage my medical condition and visit doctors as needed.  That’s it.  That’s my life right there.

Now I know that I pledged to focus on my health this year, but somehow that’s come to mean that there’s nothing else going on.  My adventures are gone…  I don’t meet new people except those at medical facilities, which doesn’t count.

Something is missing.  The element of the unknown, perhaps, or maybe it’s something I’m doing wrong, or not doing anymore, or…  I don’t know.  I think, if I knew, it wouldn’t be missing anymore.

I spent most of last year and some of the previous years feeling broken, and I was.  I don’t feel like I can use that word anymore to describe how I feel.  That broken feeling is gone and this is something different.

I feel unremarkable.  And I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.  I’ve always felt like I was someone exceptional, someone who was a good person to know.  I was the person who almost always had a joke, who always had “a story to tell you”, who could find an adventure in anything at all.

I don’t know where all of that went, but right now it’s lost.

I wish I knew how to get it back.

Mar 21

On some level, at least, I think I’m still trying to recover from this past weekend. Sleep deprivation is hard to get past, but I think that all the other stuff that has been weighing on me is also coming up at night.

I couldn’t get to or stay asleep last night. I read something recently about sleep deprivation that said if you can’t fall asleep in 30 minutes to get up and do something relaxing so you’re not stressing about not sleeping. That totally didn’t work.

I started writing a new song, but that, in and of itself kept me up even later as the tune ran through my head and the words tried to fall into place. Though it’s all written down, none of it would stay on the paper.

I also woke up every 45 minutes or so. Wednesdays are hard for me anyway, but without having hit REM, I find it especially difficult.

I’m tired. Not just from today, but the entire month is taking its toll. Also, I don’t know if it’s the time of year or some other factor, but I’m antsy and feeling the need to get outta Dodge. I’m working on that piece.

I really dislike sleepiing on the bus, but when you can barely keep your eyes open and there’s more than a half-hour to go, what other options present?

ZzZzZz…

Jun 19

When I was little I had a book called Owl at Home.  It must have been my brother’s book, since I would have been around 7 when it first came out, but it was one of my favorites for a long time – well after I could read past that level and one of my favorite stories was Tearwater Tea

If you click the book link above, you’ll be taken to a page that talks a good bit about Tearwater Tea better than anything I could say now, at 4am, but that’s something else entirely.  I often find myself thinking about Owl, oftentimes after crying, but also when the moon follows me home :)

It never occurs to me to catch my tears in a kettle.  It never occurs to me to catch them in anything, at least not until after I’m done.

Owl said the tea was very salty.  I believe him, but I’d also kind of like to try it for myself.

Feb 22

There’s just too much.  Too much in my head that I want to get out, but I can’t.  Too many things that I want to say, but I don’t know how to do it without hurting people or being stupid about it.

There are people that you mean who set your teeth on edge…  not only do I know a number of those people, I have recently been forced to socialize with them…  I also met a new one under circumstances that were uncomfortable to me.

How do you tell someone that they are being ignorant and exhibiting the exact same behaviors they accuse their (seemingly) polar opposites of doing?

Shouldn’t it be the case that two friends should tend to like the members of each friend’s social circle?  It seems like it should, but why is it so rarely the case?

I saw 4 movies in the theater the past 8 days.  Two were tedious, one extremely so.  One was about strippers…  I think Curious George was wonderful and I bought the soundtrack.  (I dig soundtracks.)  It was probably the best of the four.

I took my niece to see the Moscow Circus.  Paid $5 to have the worst photograph of her taken with a monkey.  She will never, in her life, take a picture worse than this one…  it is, right now, her favorite thing.  The monkey was in the newspaper and she was excited because that’s the monkey she met.  While we have determined that she is afraid of clowns, she says "That was a very nice clown.  He say Hi!"

I think that I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight, which sucks.
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Feb 13

I have no details to give.  Frankly, even if I tried, I’d leave out important parts, so here’s the summary:

Starting on Thursday, I didn’t really have much of a chance to stop for long.  A friend came up on Friday for a long weekend and we kept right on moving through the whole weekend.  I have to admit, one of my favorite things about having the Cowboy in town is that he trusts me to find the really cool places for just about anything and he knows that in my capable hands we will have a good time no matter where we go.

Best breakfast place in town to kick off our Saturday and, on that foundation we headed out to Troy to spend time with his friends.  The most interesting bit, for me, was that even though we were vastly outnumbered by boys, I spent the majority of my time hanging out with women for most of the entire day/night.  This is extremely rare for me, and I get the feeling that it’s pretty rare for the other girls, but it was pretty nice to do that at least once.

After being bombarded the previous weekend with text messages from Miz, I was under strict orders to do the same to her.  She got the text, but the picture mail didn’t go through.  I’m going to have unlazy myself and email some of those pics, but I’m thinking maybe the better plan is to just upload them and send a link to the couple of people who want to see them…  and in the process try to find a way to motivate Ryan to send me his pics, too..

A long day of drinking, socializing and hockey.  It’s always a really nice thing, I find, to be able to put faces with names.  Heh, and after hearing over and over again "You know so-and-so" (when I don’t), it’s nice that I can finally say "Yes, yes I do."  I’m also pretty pleased with myself and my showing at poker.  I always look at my buy-in as lost money as soon as I’m bought in, so counting the two buy-ins and the money the Cowboy and I won, it paid for most of our weekend.  I couldn’t have asked for more than that.

Sunday was a lazier day in general, but there were still places to go and people to see.  I spent some quality burn-me-out time with the Child of Chaos while listening to music and experiencing a Fair Trade Coffee Tasting.  I liked the Sumatra and managed to spill almost all of the Jungle Love French Roast all over myself.  Woo hoo!  Go me.

The Cowboy took off for a while after we got back to do yet more socializing while I just sat and read my new book., which may very well be the best mystery I have *ever* read.  It’s more humor than mystery I think and in a couple of spots, it has made me laugh out loud.  I highly recommend it, if you’re looking for something unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

We ended the weekend in a lazy morning today (yeah, no holiday, whatever…  every day is Saturday for me).  I just need to say that in mid-February it should not be SO HOT in my apartment that I can’t sleep…  or at least stay asleep.  Something’s got to give around here because this middle of the night so hot I can’t breathe is really affecting my sleep patterns.

But now I have today off to spend with the Spawn and a Valentine’s Day date with Princess to see a movie about strippers.   I have another movie date on Wednesday and we’ll see what the rest of the week has to bring.  It seems that this goes in cycles, I am either Ms. Popularity for LONG stretches of time or not at all and go stir-crazy for it.  Maybe in a couple of days I’ll tell you about the court-appointed sexist or the impending custody hearing, but for now I think I’m going to finish the mystery of who killed Humpty Dumpty and figure out what we’re going to have for dinner tonight, while I’m still plan-less for one evening ;)

~FG };^>

Feb 10

There are certain conversations that it seems I am destined to have on a regular basis. 

If I say "the When Harry Met Sally conversation", do you know exactly what I’m talking about?  It holds true for some people, but not for all people.  I’m one of the people it doesn’t hold true for.  Since I vastly prefer the company of men to the company of women, if I only spent time with boys I was sexually attracted to, I wouldn’t have as many friends as I do…  no offense to anyone I know, but it just makes things too complicated sometimes.
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Aug 26

I’m totally off my normal sleep schedule.  This past week I have been at my most productive after midnight, and not tired, so I’ve been working for several hours at kicking the place into shape and passing out in the wee hours of the morning.  (I have also been playing as hard as I work, so I’m not NEARLY as burnt out as I otherwise would have been.)
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Aug 18

These are really starting to bother me.  At first I was able to chalk them up to the insane heat, but now that it’s cooled off, there’s no good reason for me to still be up at 3:10am.

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Jun 27

I can’t ever get to sleep on Sunday nights.  Even when I go to bed on time or early I just lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling, NOT sleeping.
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May 4

I’m rapidly getting to the point of burnout.  I’ve been doing this job for six months and am now out of patience.  I have no patience for users, no patience for the scripts, no patience for my own ridiculous mistakes.

One friend of mine keeps referring to me as a raging bitch :(
 

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