Bad for horses

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Premarin Approximately 20,000 mares per year are used to produce Premarin (Pregnant Mare’s Urine) and the Premarin family of products, which include Prempro, Prempak-C and Premphase. These hormone replacement drugs are used to treat menopausal symptoms in women. Harvested for their urine, the horses suffer terribly for the production of this drug. They are kept continually pregnant in stalls too small for them to even turn around in order for their urine to be collected by filthy, bulky tubing attached to their bodies. When they can no longer reproduce quickly they are sent to the slaughterhouse. Their meat is then sold for human consumption or dog food. Approximately 11 million women take Premarin each year, making it the number one hormone replacement therapy drug in the world. Together with the six million women who use Prempro, the two drugs had combined sales of $2.1 billion in 2003. A Premarin foal hoisted for slaughter Photo Courtesy: Horse Aid Mare with a urine collection device strapped to her body Living Conditions At pregnant mare urine farms –- found in Canada and North Dakota -- mares in their third or fourth month of pregnancy are placed alone in narrow stalls. They are fitted with a short rope or chain, a harness, and a urine collection bag which scrapes their legs, causing sores. As a result of these restrictive devices, the mares are made virtually immobile. They can take only a step or two in any direction and are unable to turn around or lie down comfortably. Because farmers find sufficient bedding costly and bothersome to clean, the animals frequently have no protection from the cold concrete floor. Moreover, farmers restrict the amount of water given to the mares because water dilutes the concentration of their urine, making it less profitable. Their food supply is similarly inadequate, and they do not receive sufficient veterinary care. Most mares are never removed from the stall and allowed to graze. Deprived of exercise, they cannot utilize their natural athleticism and sociability, kick up their heels, stretch their muscles, or flex their joints. Reproduction The vast majority of Premarin mares give birth to a foal every year. Afterwards, they are almost immediately impregnated again. If they fail to become pregnant, they are sent to slaughter. If they do become pregnant again, their foals are taken from them at the premature age of just three to four months. Most mares naturally resist separation from their babies so they are often whipped, kicked, or beaten with an electric prod until they finally allow their foal to be taken. Foal carcass at a slaughterhouse Foals Some foals are killed immediately after birth. A few of the females will be raised to be "Premarin mares" and join the production line. Most will be sold and sent to feedlots to be fattened for slaughter, then transported by trailer to slaughterhouses and killed. Their meat will be shipped off to Japan, France, or other parts of Asia and Europe for human consumption. Transportation Like other "food animals," mares and foals are typically deprived of food and water during transport to the slaughterhouse. They do not have an opportunity to rest, nor do they receive veterinary care. Instead, they are crammed onto trailers so crowded that the smaller ones, particularly the foals, are sometimes crushed under larger animals. Those that are too weak to stand will literally be dragged off of the truck along with the animals that have died en route. Corporate Greed Thousands of horses suffer to produce Premarin even though several humane estrogen replacement therapies exist (see below under “What You Can Do” for alternatives). Why don't Premarin manufacturers switch to a cruelty-free alternative? Because they say it would cost them more money. The Law Animal cruelty laws and government regulations do not apply to the treatment of mares on Premarin farms. Instead, the standard of care is dictated only by an inadequate “code” which is poorly enforced. Thus the horses receive virtually no legal protection. Health Problems Common to Mares Used in Premarin Production Overgrown hooves • Dehydration • Hoof injuries • Leg injuries, sores, and lacerations • Swollen joints • Edema • Liver disorders • Kidney disorders • Premature death VIDEO CLIPS of our Undercover Premarin Investigation Premarin Investigation Videos High Bandwidth Warning: These Videos are Graphic in nature Click Title to Play Video Pee Barns Auctions Foals to Slaughter Feed Lots Slaughterhouse/ Corrals Butchering/ Transport Lagoons Premarin Investigation Videos Low Bandwidth Warning: These Videos are Graphic in nature Click Title to Play Video Pee Barns Auctions Foals to Slaughter Feed Lots Slaughterhouse/ Corrals Butchering/ Transport Lagoons What You Can Do: Make the Switch If you currently take Premarin, Prempak-C, or Premphase, ask your doctor about equally effective synthetic or plant-based alternatives, including Cenestin, Estratab, Estraderm, Estrace or Ortho-Est. Make Some Noise Contact Robert Essner, president and CEO of Wyeth-Ayerst, the maker of Premarin. Demand Wyeth produce a more humane product! Robert Essner Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Wyeth 5 Giralda Farms Madison, N.J. 07940-0874 Phone: (973) 660-5000 Fax: (973) 660-7026 CLICK HERE for a sample letter. However, keep in mind that personalized letters carry more weight. Please send a copy of the letter to LCA's Campaigns Department at our mailing address, fax, or via email at Campaigns@LCAnimal.org Write a letter to your local newspaper about the cruelty of Premarin production, and the safe alternatives available to women. Educate others about the suffering inherent in Premarin production. Go Vegan A healthy vegan diet can reduce menopausal symptoms, especially those diets supplemented by soy products containing plant-based estrogens. For More Information: June 2005 – the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.N.’s cancer research agency, has reclassified Prempro from “possibly carcinogenic” to “carcinogenic.” CLICK HERE to read more. The Women’s Health Initiative has done numerous studies on the health impacts of Premarin products. These studies have revealed the negative health risks associated with these drugs and the danger they pose to women's health. CLICK HERE to view the Women's Health Initiative studies. CLICK HERE to download LCA's "Know the Facts About Premarin Production" leaflet. CLICK HERE to view LCA’s Special Investigations Unit’s comprehensive investigative report of Premarin production in Canada. LCA Claims Victory for 40,000 Horses. CLICK HERE for more information.

Premarin

LIFESAVERS WILD HORSE RESCUE

The Heartbreak of Premarin Farms

Premarin is a drug whose name originates from a key ingredient, pregnant mare's urine. It is prescribed to alleviate the symptoms of menopause by substituting equine estrogens for those naturally produced by the human body.

According to 2000 statistics, there are approximetley 450 farms in Canada and 50 farms in the U.S., located in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Indiana with approximately 60,000 mares.

Pregnant mares used for Premarin production are confined to narrow tie stalls where they cannot turn or lie down for weeks at a time without release for exercise. This chronic lack of exercise can cause severe swelling of the legs, breakdown of the hoof structure and sets the stage for colic. They are harnessed to urine collection bags six months a year. The mares may be kept in pregnant for production for 8 to 9 years. At the end of their use, they are sent to slaughter.

60,000 grade foals, the by-products of this industry, have almost no chance to find homes as sport horses, working horses or pets. The majority will become casualties of slaughter. At two to five months old, the foals will be taken from their mothers and sent to auctions where they will ultimately end up in the slaughterhouse.

Each September, several rescue groups unite to purchase PMU foals from the auctions and from the pmu farms to save them from a horrible death. Lifesavers is working to raise funds to rescue another group of foals this year. The meat packers are paying more than ever for horsemeat due to the threat of Mad Cow Disease as well as Hoof and Mouth Disease infecting beef cattle, sheep and other livestock overseas. The prices have nearly doubled in one year, making it very difficult to raise enough money to rescue, house, vet care and transport the foals from Canada and the northern states.

The cost of saving each individual foal is more than $800. Many of the foals are draft breeds, although some of the PMU farms are now breeding their big mares with more popular breeds such as quarter horses and paints.

Lifesavers will help pay for the purchase, vet and transport of as many foals as possible this year. Once rescued and safely in the U.S., Lifesavers will have the foals delivered to our ranch and will find loving homes for these babies.

Our first two Premarin foal rescues are Dually and Diesel who will stay as Lifesavers ranch mascots to help educate visitors of the Heartbreak of Premarin Farms.

If you are a woman being prescribed "Premarin" which is manufactured by Wyeth-Ayerst as an estrogen replacement ask your doctor about synthetic alternatives such as:

Cenestin by Duramed, Climara by Berlex, Estrace by Mead/Johnson, Estratab by Solvay, Ogen by Upjohn, Ortho-Est by Ortho-Mcneil, Provera by Upjohn, Estinyl by Sherin, Estradrem by Ciba. All of these products are made from plant materials such as soy, yams and other vegetable sources.

The only way we can stop this atrocious treatment of mares and foals is to squelch the demand for the product. Please do not use any product made from Pregnant Mares Urine. The synthetic alternatives are safe, reliable and very effective. Most importantly there are no animals suffering from its production.

The above information was comprised from brochures printed and distributed by the ASPCA, United Animal Nations, and other various animal welfare websites and publications.

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a little Aricept please

After my shower today I had to recall my birth year, and count up...
because I forgot how friggin' old I am. 32, 32, 32... . For 5 months now.
And stuck on 31.
This is not the first or even the second time since July this has happened.

Dear Fellow Drivers,

Item 1: Random Braking
Please do not step on your brake pedal at intervals of 5 to 15 seconds when there is no change to the traffic in front of you or in your direction plans because when you suddenly brake for a good reason I think you are just faking again; plus this repetitive braking makes me want to poke your eyes out and step on your head and in general ruins my mood. If you are unable to work the gas pedal without losing control of it, stay home or pull over and get the hell out of my way.

Item 2: The light panels on your car
Newsflash: When it is sunset, or overcast, or raining, and you are driving a gray/black/brown/dark blue automobile, it is really freaking hard to see you when you don't have your lights on- I will be happy to help jump you or call AAA if you forget to turn them off and your battery dies. I will be unhappy to pick you out of my grill, or vice versa, if we collide because you blend into the freaking dark.
P.S. The blinking panels on the sides of the headlight areas are not holiday lights reserved for Christmas time- they are turn signals, to be used BEFORE you turn; slamming on your brakes and then turning on your blinker is not first choice, but acceptable as a last alternative.

Item 3: Tractor Trailers
Changing lanes into the path of a 65 mph oncoming tractor trailer within 10 car lengths, and particularly within- ahem- ONE car length, is death wish; Knock it off.
If you must get in front of a truck leave at least one car length for every 10mph of speed you have accumulated- otherwise there is a darn good chance the truck driver will jackknife trying to brake in order to save your stupid heinie.

Item 4: Motorcycle riders
Are human beings who don't want to be smooshed under your tires. Stay off their asses and don't pull out in front of them. They are wearing leather, you are wearing a car.

Item 5: Police cars
If you are driving within the designated speed limit and you see a police car, there is no need to slam on your brakes. There is also no need to drop 10mph below the speed limit. The speed limit on the signs is not an April Fool's joke.

more odds and ends

I just hit the 'run program' on our thermostat, and the heat kicked on, and I thought, 'What the hell is the program anyway?'
I just had the urge to photograph my laundry basket; or rather my empty basked and pile of clothes on the bed: the sideways basket, the fabric softened jumble of clean pastels appeared a cotton comfort cornucopia.
I feel an immediate kinship toward anyone else whose spine convulses at the first note, or mention, of, "The hills are alive with the sound of music... ." There was much Nutcracker, Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory in my childhood. I am maxed, done, overloaded. The only sound I want alive in my hills is squirrels and chipmunks rooting through the underbrush, thank you. Keep Julie Andrews the heck on up outta my camp site.
Peaches, onions, and tuna compliment one another in a green salad.

the meltdown of the melting pot

If Keith Ellison undertakes an oath on his Koran, rather than the Bible, will Christian churches everywhere begin to crumble brick by brick?
Does the country have it s Constitution in a bigger twist over this than it did over our rights to privacy being infringed upon?
I think I sorely misunderstood "Separation of Church and State" in elementary school. The Catholic Church has quite an effective voice in how this country is run.
When violence performed in the name of protecting the Koran is listed, I wonder if all the violence done in the name of the Bible has been neatly tucked aside in the hopes of 'out of sight, out of mind'. Or perhaps if the violence was done to protect 'Your' religious beliefs, then it is acceptable?

Besides, I would hold greater faith in an oath Ellison swears on the Koran than in any he takes on the Bible. What retribution can he fear if he swears on a book that holds nothing over him?

unrelated

I find your blog, dive in mouth open lungs unplugged rolling every word around my tongue and swallowing up your life. Your rib cage is spread, your secrets undefended. I feel like a spy and then I feel entrusted.


It giggles me up inside when my lover makes an excuse with his face and secretly smells my hair.


The real event would infuriate me and draw tears, but walk up to me and say;
"Kick the dog down the stairs and beat it with a stick."
and I will laugh.
What phrases or terms make you laugh every time?

Nice to meet you all over again

Recently reacquainted with an old schoolmate and crush-target I watch his face in amazement. Sometimes it seems the thirteen year old boy opens his mouth and a man tumbles out. The creases around his eyes fascinate me with a tenderness my own will never elicit. His chest hair nearly made me giggle.
What a wonder it is you all grown up sporting that beard!

love this song

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1469122187">Bruce Springsteen - I'm On Fire

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Asking for a favor

There has been another factor in all this:
a friend of mine was injured recently in the war; he is still overseas having difficulty fighting internal infections and could use some extra good wishes and prayers. Thank you :)

The Longest Trip I Never Took

And in the end, after the cleansing cries and the soul searching, the heart to heart talks, the hypothetical circumstances reassured to the maximum, I did not fly to Washington because:
because I realized while emailing my emergency contact list that I have many friends who have proved they would drop everything and find a way to rescue me anywhere, any time.

because I hadn't even left for the airport yet and friends, family, and coworkers are already worrying about my traveling, about my safety in Washington, about my return; a coworker who has known me only six months said,"You have my number; if anything happens, anything at all, call me and I will figure out something."

because my friends and family welcomed my emotionally shocked self back from Maine open armed, cleaned me up, set me back on my feet, and never uttered one peep about the inconveniences I know were caused by my return and by me cancelling my wedding three months before the date.

because they have held my hand, taken my every distraught phone call, waded through my suicidal thoughts in late spring and my withdrawl from them all summer to contemplate executing said thoughts, and still drove 1 to 3 hours to celebrate my birthday with me.

because even though they were all worried about me flying to Washington, they still offered their support wanting me to be happy.

because it would be extremely selfish of me to cause them more worry, or to consider moving far away on them again the same year I ran home to them;

and I feel happily responsible about that.

It is 3AM and I have some unpacking to do. Maybe even sleep.

Finishing what I started...

Last night I finally broke down; the sobbing, the laughing, the covering my head and wanting to punch something forcefully; the 'thank goodness I have shriveled up unused wet-wipes in the car because if I don't blow my nose my head is going to explode and what will I use to clean that up?
Sometimes grief feels to me like a well dug in my center- apparently I haven't finished grieving for Nate and I, nor dealt with all of the guilt. The good news is I am getting closer to excavating the bottom.
Last May,I asked a great friend of mine to allow me one full year-or until April 2007- to whine about leaving my fiance. She felt that was more than fair. One year's permission to grieve granted.
However, I have not yet ever given myself that long. I am impatient. I want the pain over because it was so severe at first I feared living it for any longer; because I have feared never recovering from this, never again being capable of sustaining a relationship.
A few times since I've felt ready to date. Although each experience has moved me a little further along, each has also been unsuccessful- I go along gloriously until... and I can't go farther.
This year have been full of self-medicating platitudes: don't look back, just look ahead; life goes on, whether you like it or not; life is messy; time heals all wounds. There is a 1970's (?) song I like to hear that although most unrelated to caucasian heartbreak does help carry me along when I need that little extra something-

Ooh, Child, things are gonna' get easier,
Ooh Child things'll get brighter

The things I am trying to learn

(addendum to insanity)

I am still finding my way and I am going to have helloes and goodbyes in the process.
I am going to get hurt, and I am going to cause hurt.
I am going to keep making mistakes, and sometimes I will be someone else's mistake.
It is okay to be scared.
It is okay to have limits.
It is okay to change from what I always thought I was to what I thought I would never be- it is okay to want to sink roots.
I may need to give up what I want to have what I want.
I do want to be a parent.

Psst: I'm Insane

(AKA Giving myself headaches again, AKA Neal was right; if I don't change how I am, I will be alone forever; AKA Why is this shit so hard for me to do and why does it keep getting harder every time?)

It should be a simple decision: fly to WA or don't.
A. I promised to go and it isn't acceptable to break plans.
B. It would be great to meet this person I've been speaking with for two months.

For lots of people this decision would be simple.
For me, every single romantic decision any more leaves me feeling twisted and nauseous and wondering if I am truly mentally ill.

For me, the decision has become:
A. It isn't nice to break plans.
a. He will be disappointed but will understand.
1. I will still berate myself for being an evil, no good, down and dirty dog for cancelling plans.
B. I don't want to lead him on.
b. He has been forewarned.
1. I will have a very difficult time following through if I want to walk away after seeing him.
C. I am afraid to fly so far away.
c. People fly on planes every day.
1. Is it my gut telling me not to fly or am I just being a wuss?
2. I used to be so adventurous, now I'm a stick in the mud.
3. I could use an adventure and some new sights.
4 I have plenty to take care of here like finding a second job, getting back in shape, getting some groceries in the cupboard come pay day.
5. I feel guilty leaving my cats for several days (oh boy-)
D. I have a friend in the army who is now in the ICU in Germany and if he comes back to the states I want/ need to be here. (he has strongly expressed his need for my current support.
d. He has let me down in the past, but I've let him down too.
1. In the end I'd rather be here for him now and risk being without later, than not be there for him so I can get something for me now.
2. I would want and need to check for email from him while visiting in WA and that doesn't seem fair to WA.
E. I still hurt for leaving my ex- I still miss him.
e. The pain is gradually less and less and it is harder to get to now and much less violent, really not violent at all anymore, when I get there; but deep down I still actively hurt.


F. I think I need a glass of wine and a therapeutic SCREAM.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Ahh.

Of beans and men...

Last month on one of my meandering beach walks I made a mental discovery (half my marbles have been missing for years- it wasn't that; if you find a stray marble please mail it to... . I think I just discovered the source of all those lone, used screws strewn along the sides of any road... .)
Refocusing-
In the seven full years I have successfully been out of my mother's house, this is the very first time I have been 'un-boyfriended'. At the age of 32 this is my very first time living as a single adult.
Hmm.
Your thoughts?

My soup making that dropped the cabbage in my sleeve also made a pot of Yum!~
(unlike chum and scum and... I bet Dr Seuss never ended a sentence with Yum.)
One bag of soup mix beans
One head of cabbage chopped into 1.5in pieces all over the counter (be sure to tuck some in your sweater for a bedtime snack)
One very large Vidalia onion, strong enough to roll the tears, chopped into your bite size preference
2 lbs baby carrots-each carrot cut in thirds (I'm usually too lazy now to peel carrots)
4 to 6 tablespoons of natural peanut butter
all the fresh garlic I had in the drawer, sliced very thin
sea salt and ground black peppercorns to taste
For medium, I prefer water or Emeril's Organic Vegetable Broth

I made mine vegetarian, but I bet bacon or ham would be good in here!

Chia Head

I have been growing out my hair again. Remember my super-hero wish to have that doll arm that when flexed at the shoulder grew my hair ultra-long in under seven arm pumps?
Umm, hasn't come true yet so still growin' out the hair- the good news is my shag long ago reached out-of-the-eyes-in-a-barrette length. And the top-most stuff is getting long enough to reach the bottom-most stuff: seyonora, mullett days!
I peeked in the bathroom mirror quite recently to tell myself, Your hair dried looking pretty nice today- It would look even nicer if you brushed it.

I opened my top dresser drawer to get ye olde hairbrush; when I lifted my arm to reach in for it, a hunk of cabbage fell out of my rolled up sweater sleeve.
Don't fear- I am not saving vegetables in my sleeves the way your grandmother (both mine did, anyway) saves tissues like she is going to get the world's worst nosebleed ever the very second that world runs out of Kleenex.
I made soup today- It's so recently 'done', the apartment windows are still fogged.
Making soup meant whining that I had to cut the baby carrots in pieces (that lazy), being impressed the onion was strong enough to shoot tears down my cheeks, and teeny bits of chopped cabbage all over the counter- and apparently in my sleeves.

Sing a Tale of Turkey

A very happy, healthy, warm, and safe day of Thanksgiving to everyone!

May your lives be each touched today by some nugget of love, joy, inner peace, whatever you hope to find.

(that was meant to be published Thanksgiving morning,but I was late getting ready, rushing out the door---)

In retrospect, how was your day of Thanksgiving? Tell me your favorite part!

Sometimes my favorite part of a holiday spent with loved ones is simply soaking it all in, leaning back and watching my late-in-life cousins and my cousins' children chase one another through the house and yard so intent on their imagined adventures, simultaneously appreciating their individuality while imagining that is how it was when my peer-group cousins and I were that young, and my aunts and uncles and parents our ages;
missing our grandparents, blessed and enriched by the addition of cousins' spouses and babies;
aunts reminiscing the years when their adult children were small, uncles full of tryptophan and red wine still falling asleep on the couch;
enjoying the ability to know my aunts and uncles adult-to-adult and old enough to know they have wisdom to impart.

Happy holiday season to you~!

Before I go today, I want to share one more thing:
At 3:30AM this after-Thanksgiving morning, as I read blogs like bedtime stories preparing to tuck myself in for the night, I stumbled onto a link at 'mom on a wire'-

A link to http://ashesandsnow.org/


In that near-sleep state of opened-soul, with headphones on in a sleeping house, my soul was re-energized, my core of peace and dreams enlivened.
Very recently in watching my younger sister, I've begun to remember the energy I once had, the dreams and drive to find my truest place and fix the world; and began to wonder what happened to my plans, began to see how unbeknownst to myself I am settling into blind comfort.
Thank you mom on a wire for sharing this- Inspiration is an understatement.

Go, look, listen; Experience.

I 've been Poison'ed

Strolling my slippered feet onto the bathroom tile several minutes ago, I quietly sung, "UN- Ski-knee Bop-BOP!"
And stopped dead to quietly sing, "What the F**k?"

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quietly missing Nate

Perhaps it is something in the November air, or simply the first November we have been apart since before we came together.
Last night I found myself unexpectedly transported to our old apartment, our home.
I know it was winter because I welcomed the heated air that wrapped itself around my body as I stepped into the kitchen from outdoors, and it was night- the lights were all on inside; this is also how I knew he was home.
I called Hello loudly down to the living room and he instantly rose from his chair and came out to greet me with a hug, ask me how my day had been- more than twice my size, his warm body wrapped me up entirely.

Retrieving things from my storage units I have opened boxes containing the smell of that home, the smell that will never be exactly created anywhere else ever. At first it was painful, grinding my self-made loss in deeper; now that the pain has become something smaller and gentler and part of me, I sink my nose into those sheets and clothes and bath towels- bury my face and do my best to breathe up every last molecule.

Sometimes, when we are emotionally strong enough, it is nice to visit these places we will never ever get to be any more.

Ass attack

I slipped into my workout pants a half hour ago. Yes my body was quite shocked! Did you buy us new pants? it asked. I don't remember ever wearing these before.
To which I said, Oh just shut up!
And then I said, Why does my new underwear suddenly feel so snug on my butt? It fit fine two days ago!
I don't get my period, ever, but I get some of the other stuff like gaining nine pounds over night, like needing a box of Kleenex and a hug to get through a grass seed commercial- and I am really hoping my butt is answering the call of the end of the month.
Because a girl who cut back on the sugar in her Light Soy Milk coffee, doesn't eat dinner any more, and stopped her cookie treats altogether should not be growing out of her underpants!
If it isn't the hormones after all I'll blame it on the wall squats- my glutes are just getting bigger!
But that doesn't explain my top set of cheeks looking chubbier now does it?
Damn!

Fat raindrop, deep pond

It ended in the same place it began, in the place she hired me, in the place where I met her son: where I confessed my crush one Saturday when I'd been called into work and there he was picking up his sister who was then but a sophomore in high school; and there in the whirlpool room that cold November morning he asked me to the movies that night and gave me a hug. Around the corner, one Thursday morning nearly three years later, I surprised his mother with my engagement ring- nearly as much a surprise to me. I had known for two years I wanted to marry him, but then there it was. I told my mother by calling to say, I am engaged, I think, whilst staring at the ring on my finger with incredulity and disbelief.
And we were off and running; engagement changes life in ways I wouldn't ever have known without being there.

In that same building, three months before our wedding, three days after we'd supped at her home, and three before she was to dine at ours, she found out I was gone- No wedding, no shower to throw, no family coming from Belgium; no mother of the groom, no in-laws to be gained; no rehearsal dinner, no photographs for the hall.
I knew as cold feet grew that leaving would cause great upheavals, would create a giant mess, but it is only now I am beginning to comprehend the ripples of my decision.

Sweet tired

Tonight I am the tired with the constant weight of a yawn in the back of my throat; the tired with so warm they nearly itch eyelid edges; cheeks feeling weighty, gravity too heavy on me tonight; and my body knows the bed will take it tonight the way a tub of maple syrup accepts a lump of pancake- soaked down, down, down into enveloping velvety warmth.

Gotta grow me some fur.

Holy Hanna BarBera and big men in little tights- first I'm whiny cause it's 70 degrees in November, then I'm covered in goose bumples and "Brrr..."-ing all over the apartment because the heat is too expensive to turn on and I'm wearing only one sweatsuit!

P.S. I wish someone would bring me a steaming plate piled high with buttered and syruped blueberry pancakes! Does IHOP deliver? Shouldn't they? For a bribe?

I am not surprised.

You Are the Swedish Chef

"Bork! Bork! Bork!" Your happy and energetic - with borderline manic tendencies. No one really gets you. And frankly, you don't even get you. But, you sure can whip up a great chocolate mousse

The Muppet Personality Test

Karen's Confessions #12

I love raw batter and dough- which means running my finger along the inside rim of the pancake batter bowl, repeatedly, and licking it off througout the pancake making process- then doing the same with the ladle and the almost empty bowl when the last pancake-worthy batter has been dumped into the pan.
It means saving one or two uncooked specimens from every container of Pillsbury tube biscuits, for eating cold and squishy and gloriously tongue-bitingly yeasty while the rest go about their merry cooking.
It means sneaking back-end pinches off risen bread dough, so chewy between my teeth before sacrificing the loaf to the oven.

Autumn Cleaning

Well I have deleted a few of my previous posts, and turned others from published back into drafts- sometimes I throw out old journals, crumple and toss therapeutic letters I wrote never to send;
so here I occasionally toss away what I no longer wish to see.
I do truly apologize if this should inconvenience any one, as I do have readers who are kind enough to not only read but even enjoy my writing week after week and I am so glad you keep coming!

an evening's walk

It gave me goose pimples walking the boards when the horizon was purple, the dunes rustling East, and the church bells chiming off 6 '0' clock.


I looked up to find dust bunny clouds on top soaking up the color of raspberry popsicles from the spill of a good-bye sun and the shyest slice of northern moon barely making itself known.

11/02/02

When there was nothing but the sky and the silhouettes of you and I
I remember the dark and the jagged pine branches along the horizon ,more stars than ever I'd seen and puffing our breath out misty into the cold where it floated and died absorbed into the night. And it was only us in the cold in the black with the stars over our heads and our voices that wandered and faltered and fell silent again heads turned up as we cuddled the very first time.
Just you and me and your breath on my face

Say Satisfaction

The wind whipped up this afternoon after the sun came out- sitting in the car in my scrubs facing West at a red light on my journey home from another day's work I smiled with pleasure at the breezes coming forcefully through the driver side window cooling my face and ruffling my hair; looked straight up and smiled again at the macrovisible speed of the clouds- cumulus? never got that quite straight- across the sky somehow against the wind.
It certainly all changed the tempertature in the apartment. At 7PM I closed all the windows, stood my goose-pimpled, white fingered body under shower water so undeniably hot it sent sparkles of shiver from my scalp down my spine.
And I grinned some more.

A little estrogen goes a long way.

I am terribly cranky today.
Dropping the bag of recyclables into the bin whose top edge meets my chin, I tipped the bag too far toward gravity spilling empty glass and plastic containers into my face. I mostly behaved- the previously-mayonnaise jar clanged satisfactorily after being whipped top speed at the bottom of the dumpster; I did not wing it at the asphalt though I craved the sound and impact of shattered glass.
My driver side door lock finally turned under the key, after I kicked the side panel while my three canvas bags and 25 pounds of groceries worked at sliding off my shoulders.
Groaned at work when the 3PM showed up at 3:45 and all my nauseous tummy wanted was to go home two hours ago.
Just plain grouchy today- Princess Irritable. Wherefore art thou, Prince Valium.
I am blaming it on normal monthly hormonal cycling. Some months I weep over Anderson windows, others I restrain myself from putting my foot down hard on the accelerator and annihalating the elderly woman who took the right of way cutting me off on the traffic circle then, once on the circle afore me, stepped on her brakes and- Stopped. In front of me. In the middle of the circle. At rush hour. As traffic rushed up behind me. I behaved myself and though my teeth were grinding satisfied my homicidal urges with two toots on the horn.
I don't menstruate without a uterus, but it is the third week of the month, and my boobs are snugly filling up my bra, sweet chocolate is unsufferingly calling to me for the third day in a row (I nearly went out in my pajamas in the rain at 11PM last night on a Hershey's quest), I had a headache today, and yes the urge to strangle basically everyone, unwarranted or not, is strong.
I'm blaming it on the hormones.

Ode to a Charlie Brown kind of dog

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley

Your Daily Get Fuzzy
http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20061017.html
http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20061018.html

Get Fuzzy is one of my sweet addictions. Though it has lately waned some in the giggle soliciting factor, I still read it religiously. I adore these little cartoon guys and I never know when an entry is going to crack my grin wide open.
I have nearly all the books, except for the anthologies- because, I have all the books. Some were gifts, one of them a Christmas present from Harold who so patiently and lovingly answered my pleas of "Hey (Harold), Come 'ere!" and left what he was doing on the computer over and over on single nights just to stand at my bedside and read yet one more Get Fuzzy cartoon that had me in stitches. I devoured each book in a matter of hours, unable and unwilling to put it down even though it meant staying up past my self-appointed bedtime.
He liked them, too. At one point I would sit in his lap and we would take turns reading the comics out loud with me doing the voice we were sure must belong to Satchel, and he handling the role of Bucky. With Rob, we just took turns.

Roll 'em

I have avoided blogging lately because, let's face it, my life these past six months is monotony on a roller coaster- strapped myself into stupid and the lapbelt jammed.
I have four modes now- into some new guy who is shooting babies and white picket fences out his ass and is going to make me Donna Reed with plane tickets; missing the living bejeesus out of Nate and whining about such; done with men and Nate and finally on my way; or avoiding blogging about it all.
In other news my posture was evaluated earlier this week- to put it mildly, if I don't start straightening the fuck up when I walk, my next career move will be ringing the bell in the tower and frightening village folk.

What my little heart desires

Am I dangerous just now or ripe for the picking?
I had a personal trainer assessment tonight and at several points he touched my body- to take my measurements, to point out particular muscles- fingertips along my back, hands against my waist, the palm to palm of a handshake- and I reveled in it all, the sanctimonium of touch.
I am not truly worried about slipping and having sex with someone I barely know, (I'm actually more worried I'll never surpass the gut level cringe when a date tries to touch more than my lips): it's a greater risk I'll snuggle a near stranger.
Because that is what I always miss the most being single, in a way I often don't notice until I'm having a crappy day and two arms holding me tight would make it all better if only I could find someone to hug me; until someone absentmindedly or companionably touches my body and every muscle relaxes in a way that makes me realize how tight I've become all over.
Someone who makes me feel peaceful, someone warm and snuggly who holds no sexual threat as I am oddly threatened by sexual advances these months- to come and curl up with me for a few hours.
Go hug a single person today!

Irony

When I was 15 my parents separated (to later divorce and bitterly scorn each other to this day)- and my father left, among other things, his rowing machine which I began to use while watching television in our finished basement.
I had to sneak.
Because my mom would yell at me, telling me as she so oft has through my life what I did and didn't want for myself.
"Karen, I want you to stop using the rowing machine- it's ridiculous. You don't want to have big developed muscles."
At age 25 I started to lift free weights, and continue til this day. Last spring a mandated college fitness course arose and of the choices available I opted for weight lifting. Finally my trepidation in the weight room, so predominately a man-populated area, began to wither. Now I feel like I belong there as much as the often 100% male population that surrounds me on the benches. Guess I knew my own mind on that one.

When I was 14 it was suggested by one of my many revolving psychologists - my mom is also big on diploma'd psychology, and no one could figure out why Karen had such low self esteem (my guess is natural shyness and introversion coupled with ostracism at school and in public) or diagnose my tics- anyway, it was suggested I volunteer at the hospital as a candy striper. The duties of a candy striper were explained to me by this therapist, and it all sounded fabulous to me. Please, Mom!
An absolute NO. Because, like so many others things I've wished to do and done, it would be too dangerous for me. Too many germs.
I never got to be a candystriper, but I am a nurse now; clinicals done in the hospital, work days in various longterm care centers and physician's offices. I've worked around flu, pneunmonia, hepatitis, AIDS.
So much for protecting my from the world and myself, though she still tries.

I did not choose nursing or weight lifting to spite my mother- rather I found myself involved in these things before remembering her wishes against them; just two more veins running naturally through my life.

Excerpts

(from The Mininster's Wooing, "The Sea"; Harriet Beecher Stowe.)
"And ever and anon came on the still air the soft, eternal pulsations fo the distant sea,- sound mournfullest, most mysterious, of all the harpings of nature. It was the sea- the treacherous, soft, dreadful, inexplicable sea."

(from The Chimney Corner, "Conversation"; Harriet Beecher Stowe.)
"Real conversation presupposes intimate acquaintance. People must see each other often enough to wear off the rough bark and outside rind of commonplaces and conventionalities in which their real ideas are enwrapped, and give forth without reserve their innermost and best feelings."

pearls and caviar

I was reading This Fish archives (http://thisfish.ivillage.com/love/archives/2004/08/my_confession) and reminded of something- I am a high maintenance friend, always needing cleaning-up-after.
I'm flat broke, my love life is dead, my car is falling apart, I'm having an identity crises- it's always something again.
But I know I am high maintenance and thank the good people who persist in loving me no matter how often they have to step in and put me back together.

And they're off

How can I convey the humor of an old and bent over grey haired husband and wife, she in a printed cotton dress and green sweatpants and taller than he, each hunched over a walker yet vibrant and energetic- He yells, Where are we going? from behind; she calls back, Follow me! and off they go, speeding in their own way down the corridor, one tailing the other.
Would that, could that, be me and a long-loved spouse some day?

Ode to the NJDMV

There once was a child of four
Tossing a fit on the DMV floor
Mom grimaced and sighed
Silently counted to five

My sympathies lay
With the child in tears
His wailing and kicking
Assailing our ears

I'd have been there myself
If I weren't twenty seven
Dear God move this line!
I invoked to the heavens

Then to my right
A Suit hit the floor
Screaming into his briefcase
Down went one more

Ladies in dresses
Kicking and cranky
The Blue Hair beside me
Bitching into her hanky


The cashier was frenzied
The child dumbfounded
He counted to five
Then yelled, You're all grounded!

Generation X (cellent!)

Things to be unknown by our grandchildren:

1)mercurochrome
2)mercury thermometers
3)the Twin Towers
4)carry on luggage
5)television station sign-off signal;
and sitting in front of the television early in the morning,watching the technicolor vertical bars, waiting for television stations to come back on.
6)Bob Barker
7)Johnny Carson
8)cassette deck
9)walkman
10)station wagons
11)...and 'riding in the way-way back.
and your sweaty thighs sticking to the vinyl bench seats in the summer.
12)roller rinks-and roller-skating birthday parties.
13)hand written letters; S.W.A.K.
14)missing a phone call if you were out
14)typewriters
15)...and typing or writing out school papers before correction tape and white out;
ergo, ripping up the page and starting over if you made a mistake- even if you were on the last line
16)owning your first complete set of encyclopedias
17)the importance of the no. 2 pencil
18)knobs on the TV for vertical hold, color, and contrast
19)playground structures made of metal and cemented into macadam
20)Tang with breakfast
21)playing the original Atari when it was brand new- and Pong was cool.
22)buying something new on a 33rpm- or borrowing mom and dad's 45's
23)getting up to change the channel
24)waiting for the theater movie to come on television
25)dialing the operator for assistance
26)asking the operator for an address and getting it
27)flash cubes
28)at the airport meeting/leaving someone directly at the gates
29)chicken pox as a childhood given-Do you have a pock scar, too?
30)Your turn!!!



Can you think of anything else? Something from your generation?

Karen's Confessions

1)I jump on the bed in hotel rooms. There's a reason kids do it- it's fun!
2)I double dip at Continental breakfasts- I figure at 90-100 per night they can afford to feed me a second frozen bagel and cup of coffee.
3)I also make or strip my hotel bed in the morning and gather all my used towels in the tub! and pilfer all the samples. (but none of the linens or toilet paper!)
4)I empty the rest of the bread basket into my napkins to take home (except at fancy places)- it's getting thrown out anyway!
5)I recycle my foil and ziploc bags until they have holes.
6)I've literally clotheslined people (Jay!) with drying laundry strung at my height across the kitchen.
7)I fell ass over teakettle down hardwood stairs onto ceramic tile when I was six knocking myself out cold and gained a concussion-
to this I attribute all lacking mental capacities ;)
(I was in sock feet cradling marshmallows in a napkin instead of hanging onto the railing)
8)I talk to myself everywhere- yep, even in public places. It's increasing with age.
9)I try to get away with mouthing the Happy Birthday song so no one will be tortured by my singing.
10)In desparate times, I've eaten bittersweet baking chocolate- and almost liked it.
11)While sleeping I somehow pull the topsheet to the right, and the quilt to the left- I even them up in the morning and wake the next day to find them pulled opposite directions again.

Not alone

That morning I flipped through the radio as usual on my short 8AM drive into work.
I stopped at 95.5- Ray Charles singing America the Beautiful.
Smoke spreading through the sky from a nearby woods fire seemed appropos.
Within a mile the tears started, and it was comforting to be certain there were other people crying for the very same day.
By the time I arrived at work I was a little weak, nerves jangled. Not alone there either.
Through the day we talked of 09/11/01, and of how we were feeling that 09/11/06; spoke with each other, with the patients.
People sported little flags, stars and stripes shirts, ensembles in pieces of red, white,and blue.
There was talk of loved ones lost that day, of where we were, of how we first reacted, of how on 09/11/06 we watched the news, listened to the radio, thought about it all and cried.

Five years down the road

How did your world change? What do you remember?

Visit the artist's Website!

N.G.B.

just little memories, the rain falling down, how I miss you sometimes,
wonder what happened to our bed
our home so warm your face against mine never lie in those arms again and i miss you so sometimes
we're gone it's gone our home so warm your hand in mine and I miss you so sometimes
someone else's pain makes mine so fresh today your voice your love your skin against mine and I miss you so tonight.

every new season that comes brings fresh memories
the things we had, the things we did, those we never will
one day more with you or take back what I did, Iwould

Just make the coffee

So it is back to the work place tomorrow! Spoiled by this third day of a weekend, looking forward to the next short work week! Which will be Thanksgiving, for me.
I hope you all (how far is that really from Y'all?) enjoyed your weekend, long or short. This is the first Labor Day I've had off as holiday since 1993. (and I am thankful.)
Another summer come to a close- it's bittersweet here. We are lucky for the tourism money we receive- our state is so financially corrupt (okay, not just financially) we need all the help we can get! It is also nice watching those who don't have daily access to an ocean shore enjoy ours.
All the same, here on the coast September and October are some of our favorite months- the beach weather is still lovely but the badge mandate has gone, as have the crowds. We have our parking spaces back, traffic is lighter, lines are shorter, gas prices are lower.
Some tranquility returns.

How to mold an Emmy from Wonder Bread

My girlfriend (one of the two I met that first esteem-crushing month of belittleing high school) informed me last night, as I walked along so innocently beside her enjoying the evening's beach air, that we have a 15 year class reunion being planned for next summer.
I said, (wailed), "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!"
Or maybe I just thought that.

One year. To get married, adopt two kids, buy a house, lose 10 lbs, become a professional body builder, finish my BS, and get a face lift and breast enhancement.
Holy crap, it's gonna be a busy year!

I told her to make me go- meaning, drag my kicking and screaming self all the way there and push me through the doors.
After all, the last time I saw these people we were nigh on 18- I'm hepped to see the bitches turned fat and greasy, the mean guys have supremely bratty children and marriage bellies.
And cavort with the rest of the people the aforementioned made cry.

Well, a little.

Truly it's a bit frightening and a little exciting to imagine finding out what everyone has done, how life has gone. Who has grey hair and kids- wait, the kids come first, then the grey hair, right?
What a time warp this might be.

Ease on down the road

Phew! I think I have again successfully evacuated my head of unwanted contents-can't promise nothing important went out with the trash.
After encouraging myself, supportive words from friends, a long and very pensive walk, I think I am back out of the ex-fiance quicksand.
Treading carefully away... . To a safe place to skip.

Saner than I sound

P.S. Do I sound yet unstable in the previous Nathaniel post? I hope not, cause I'm actually standing on strong legs again.
Here-
Did you ever have a very bad wound? One that hurt terribly every day for a long time.
Eventually it heals to the point that days and weeks go by without you remembering it's there.
Then one day you walk to the bathroom in the dark and don't see the wall in your way and WHACK! You smack the crap out of that nearly healed wound and GOSHDARNIT SONS of HUCKLEBERRIES does it smart.
So you dance about a little holding it and shed a few tears; then you put some salve and a band aid on it from the first aid kit that's been in the cabinet all along- and you go back to bed.

That's what it was like before, during, and after talking the other day to the man I almost married.
And now I'm going back to bed!

I've a task for you...

I love hearing "how we met stories". I also love to hear "how we got engaged" stories. I like them all.
So tell me if you will...
How did you meet your spouse/significant other?
How is it you got engaged?

for Nathaniel

Tuesday night I had a fretful time falling to sleep and dreamt of my ex-fiance when I finally nodded off. Not knowing he'd left a voicemail on my charging and therefore turned off cell phone shortly before I went to bed. There's a vein in my life of mild clairvoyance. Awareness of things in my world prior to them actually making themselves known.

But that isn't what this is about. This is about Nate, or to Nate, or for Nate, though he'll never read it (unless I am struck with selfish meanness and send it to him.)

When we were talking yesterday it felt like old times- just you and me on the phone. It felt good and I wanted to talk to you more. What can I say- I didn't leave because I didn't love you. I left because I was homesick and having cold-feet anxiety attacks that got worse and worse and I couldn't make them stop.
After I left I wanted to talk you but I was afraid of what you might say, I didn't know what to say, and I decided to suppress any desire to talk to you because I had caused you enough pain; in other words, I thought, I left and now I have to stick by my decision-if I start changing my mind it's only going to be cruel to Nate. As if the way I left wasn't cruel but at the time it was all I could do and in the immediate weeks after I left I was in shock my self.
It's only now, five months down the road, that the dust is clearing and I am thinking Oh my God, I just up and left? I can't believe I made you wake up into - finding your fiance gone. What hell that must have been.
You see, for all the things I thought were problems, I got all wrapped up in myself.
I loved you. I got so scared and caught up in it that I forgot the importance of how I still loved to sit on your lap and cuddle, to make you nourishing dinners and cinnamon rolls, to cuddle you when you came to bed in the morning, to sit at your feet and watch dvd series together while you played with my hair, to watch your expressions at the movie theater, to hold hands and rub feet under your parents dining room table, to ride somewhere listening to Car Talk or short stories on NPR, to snuggle with you after sex, to wash your hair in the shower, to go grocery shopping with you, to go for walks and listen to your stories, to skip over to Gifford's or Soup for You or the Homestead in the morning for breakfast before you went to sleep, to be there when you woke up, to go camping or hiking, to make out any old place, (including sex in your front seat at the drive-in theater on my birthday), to have Christmas and Thanksgiving with you, to stack the wood you split in the cold air.
Everything we did together- miniature golf, bowling, driving range, cooking, WalMart, ordering out, staying in- we had fun together. Every thing. How did I lose the importance of that? When did I stop asking you to go for a walk or to play cards? When did we stop getting naked all over one another outside?
I miss your parents and your brothers and sisters and your grandparents. I missed Jebediah graduating high school. I missed celebrating your black belt with you.
I sometimes wonder, what would have changed if I'd gone to church with you that last Sunday or if I'd tried to talk to Father Roger about my fears.
I had a rough summer- I was very suicidal for a while and depressed but I brought it on myself- who knows what you went through because of me. I'd been doing okay, moving on, but talking to you yesterday made me want to talk to you again.

All or Nothing Karen.

Two nights ago I dreamt of my exfiance and of his family. Last night I dreamt of my ex-fiance. This morning I had a voicemail left last night while my phone was charging.
It was my ex-fiance, asking if he can send any of my things. I was able to call him back on my lunch break today. It was the first time we spoke since the emotionally horrid weekend in May that I moved out of the apartment in Maine. ( I purposely left some of my things for him to use- some furniture, my radio, drinking glasses. Other things I forgot like two serving trays I adore and the Lenox bud vase my mom gave me for Christmas four years ago.)
Oh, I called his cell phone once or twice over the summer to try and reach him.

It was great to hear him again and he talked with me some too. I miss all the good we had and if I have to forcefully refocus myself. Even that doesn't totally work. What does work is remembering how much I hurt him and how unfair and unkind it would be to put myself back into his life after what I did.

equinox musings

I am feeling unequivocably lazy this week (unintentionally outdoing last week's lassitude?)
Like all else, there is a time for industry, and a time for relaxation and content.
A time for multitasking and a time for taking stock and gearing up for the next big energy burst.
The seasons are readying to change; so too am I.

I've continued to run the engagement and leaving through my head- it's kind of constant circulation until the puzzle is solved. Well, today it dawned on me - I left because my gut knew I could not for the rest of my life continue to be who and what I was in that relationship. Finito.

The millions of reasons and problems not solved that snowballed- they are why I could not sign myself up to be that person for life- but the final reason, the real driving force, is the fact that my gut knew what my head and heart couldn't see and wouldn't admit; I couldn't truly be myself and it had already gone on far too long.

Just for fun...

I did another. Actuall rather accurate.

Men See You As Understated
You are an intreguing mix of girl and woman.
You're feminine, quiet, and a total mystery to most men. Yet they often feel the urge to protect you, even if they don't know you.
You *are* a flirt, but you usually only flirt with those you know well.
http://ynr.blogthings.com/howdomenseeyouquiz

~ morning coffee ~

* "And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down... ."

It seems I am going to grow my hair out again; ergo, I am willingly going to look like a neglected chia pet for the next year. That is my life- over grown shrubbery with brief hiatuses of well kept- I grow it, I cut it, I grow it, repeat.
I've been asked more than twice what super power I would have for myself and never can answer; how silly. I've got two.
First, to borrow from Inspector Gadget, I want the ability to extend my arms and legs at will to get the box of frozen peas off the top shelf in the freezer, to reach things on the counter while maintaining my hold on a surgical site, to reach the touch lamp from the far left corner- and only comfy divot on the futon- of my bed when I hit the ultimate cozy position in full lamplight.
To maintain visibility in a crowd! To see the band instead of some mans' sweaty back. To see the Penn Station exit not backsides and diaper bags.
Second, to grow my hair with arm abductions. Who remembers the commercials for the doll whose hair grew when you pumped her arm? I'd have locks to my waist in ten minutes! Cool!

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe
But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated.
You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys.
Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites.
And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.
http://ynr.blogthings.com/whatkindofcoffeeareyouquiz



An aside- my younger cat is cracked. Oh, I love her and I'm proud of her like any cat mama- but she's a bit of an egghead. A few nuggets short of a full box of kibble.

*(as sung on an original Winnie the Pooh record)

A Saturday evening's musings

My sister has this cat that feels like a sack of silky cartilage when you pick her up - her meow is the cry of a baby doll turned up side down, or a real baby in the tightest corset.
Labor Day is coming again and with it our shore is returned to us- even though I'm a clamdigger in bennie clothing, rolling about with Maine license plates, I was, like it or not, born and raised three miles from this seashore. I know what these towns looked like 25 years ago and almost every year since. The wood floored over priced restaurant in Manasquan wasn't long ago a dust covered dark laundromat where I played Frogger in the early 80's while our clothes rolled in warm places and my parents waited for a new dryer (and I waited for a new box to play in).
The molded plastic swing set at Orchard Park once had jagged screws and rusty chains like those that tore off my cuticles in childhood. There was a merry go round there, too, on concrete- I remember falling off the edge and landing on my head when I was six during my mom's softball practice. Mom never knew about that one!
And the houses you live in? The developments you call home? One was a patch of woods where kids rode dirt bikes and smoked cigarettes- other things too I'm sure- lit fires, made out (made babies?), drank beer and left the cans. Another was a working apple orchard with a friendly horse. That's why you have a road named Old Orchard Lane.
Have you ever seen Grosse Pointe Blank? (great movie!) Do you remember when John Cusack goes to visit his childhood home and finds ... a convenience store in its place? Sometimes living back here feels a little like that and I laugh. Well, sometimes I cry first. But when I make the reference, I laugh.

Today

All is wet, coming in pinpricks of cold on my cheeks; the leaves are dark green, cars spraying puddles on the lawns and pedestrians. In turqouise T-shirt and khaki capris I'm slightly chilled by breezes coming freely in. The cats lie easy, curled in C's in kitchen chairs.
Tonight will be the slumber of cool cotton striped sheets and fabric softened two seasons worn in two piece pajamas, snuggling in deep under my blue-flowered quilt.

Glee

I have a best friend who is also my cousin but feels like a sister we grew up so closely- sometimes I find myself thinking of her as my sister until I remember we are cousins!
We are mostly all grown up now at 29 and 32, and still we get the giggles together; the giggles that leave us lying on our backs gasping between the stomach cramps, the giggles that are so good we egg each other on and put up with the cramps just to keep the laughter going.
When is the last time you laughed so hard you couldn't even breathe and loved every minute of it?

Spraying the sky

One of the absolutely coolest beans things ever about living in a house in West Long Branch, north of the scungy parts and one block from the beach- besides being one block from the beach and the ocean breezes billowing my lacy white curtains out into my Westport Blue bedroom in the fall and spring-
was being able to watch Long Branch town fireworks from; the front lawn, the glassed in front room, my bed.
Very cool.
Always a sweet surprise to suddenly hear fireworks happening and plunk down on my quilt to enjoy.
I was reminded again of this when I came out of WalMart and found the weekly Point Pleasant fireworks happening far beyond the parking lot.

Up in Industry, Maine there is a farm that lets out it's fields every July for Independence Day fireworks- we're talking hundreds of cars. I sat on the roof of my car reading a book and eating my snack for two 1/2 hours, listening to kids running around the field, the laughter and companionship of innocent tailgate parties.
And then the deepest, biggest, loudest, most colorful fireworks I ever remember seeing. May have been the environment rubbed off on my perception of the display.
(I miss that state.)

Odds and Dead Ends

After my session at the gym last night I swung over to the inlet and laughed after getting out of the car and walking a few steps- my quads were so plumb tired my body wanted to fall down at the knees. In Tae Kwon Do I learned the 'so glad I came to class today' drill- and it's awesome on the thighs; go down into a normal stepping front lunge, hold for 3-5 seconds, then in controlled fashion stand bringing the rear leg up in front in a high kick, and down in front into your next lunge- Repeat around the room. Love 'em!
For one summer, years ago, I went with a boy named Jason- the experience left with little other than intimate knowlegde of the inner workings of a bowling alley, and my first glimpse of phosphorescent jelly fish which hail our way in late August (which I accidentally saw last night- lovely to watch them nestled down among the rocks in the dark water, lighting up every time the water rolled over.)
Thinking of Jason and the bowling makes me ponder the lives I've been privy to through my relationships. I've dated a many-years-clean-and-sober rehabilitated heroine addict, a Radio Shack manager, an artist, a bowling couch potato computer buff who went on to make a very sweet salary, a nurse's aide, a Volkswagen Bug afficiando business man, a jobless weed smoker, an employed high school teaching (what the hell DID he teach? ) weed smoking deer hunter... and many more but I think my brain is sparing me the recall.

My Daily Reads

http://aylathegrump.blogspot.com
http://2carolinacats.blogspot.com
http://littleblackfurball.blogspot.com
http://2tabbys.blogspot.com
http://missmaggiemay.blogspot.com
http://fatericandfriends.blogspot.com
http://thesmitten.ivillage.com
http://smittenkitchen.com
http://www.mightygirl.net
http://gardavson.blogspot.com
http://funnymom.ivillage.com
http://willows95988.typepad.com
http://www.dadgonemad.com
http://grrlgenius.ivillage.com
http://thisfish.ivillage.com
http://paisleywallpaper.blogspot.com
http://fumblings.typepad.com
http://www.alphamom.com
http://themater.blogspot.com
http://playgroupdropout.clubmom.com
http://mamatulip.com
http://wordgirl5.typepad.com
http://kathompson.blogspot.com
http://forkinthehead.blogspot.com
http://charmed35.typepad.com
http://ex-veggie.blogspot.com
http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety

A bike ride

My boss is a wonderful team player. He appreciates his staff and expresses his gratitude every single day.
Every Friday he asks us each personally what our plans are for the weekend (as every Monday he asks each one of us what we did over the weekend, and how it went.)
I told him that I hope to go for some bike rides, since it didn't work out last weekend. (after I left work last weekend I started feeling feverish and a little odd- I spent the night and all weekend dehydrating myself with one mother of a virus.)
I told him how I've loved riding a bike since a was a kid, how happy I feel every time I'm out, how I bought myself a good bike a few years ago but just don't get out;
and he told me about the bike he bought himself when he was coming out of med school, over twenty years ago. Same bike he just had refurbished- frame in fabulous shape, needed new parts. Same bike he rides several mornings a week.
And then his face lit up and excited energy suffused him as he spoke of the wind through his hair, rushing around a turn-and concurrently in myself rose the thrill of speed, of human power, of being out in the elements just you and the bike and the ground under your tires, the earth flashing by on both sides because with every muscle in your body you are flying.

notes from August 1st

How can I feel so young and so old in the same morning?
Young- my life agead of am me barely half there decades ahead and room to be something new twice in each one.
(In my twenties I was seven different girlfriends. I went to college and dropped out. I became a nurse. I moved out of Moms'. I moved to Pennsylvania and Maine. I lived with Jason. I moved in with Nate. I bought a horse and started Tae Kwon Do and learned to kayak. I got my first passport. I had my first plane ride. I got raped. I lost 10 pounds. I gave blood. I taught myself how to bake bread and sew blankets. I adopted my cats. I owned my first rat, raised over fifty fancy mice, and buried a fish. I learned to like fish to eat. I started to run.)

Old- watching Jill come home from out all night no wrinkles in her face slimmer hips like I had once- but I had my chance. I was 26 once too and staying out all night just because the fun was too good to sleep, and coming home at dawn to nap.
I had my time to be 26, and it was good.

And here right now is all I need- muscular calves coming out the ends of rolled up pants legs pores tingling with melanin release, book half lifting off my thighs in the morning wind, eyes closed to the sun falling over me, flames from far away.

Will I sit some day curled up in your a sweatshirt of yours?
I remember sharing my blue fleece mittens on the inlet, one for me and one for you. I think your arm was in a sling.

You're a good man Charlie Brown.

Many a good word for Mike who did call me at 12:45 that following morning and did make plans with me for last night. In the end the whole thing didn't work out- but what a sweet, gentle, fun,loving and repsectful man he is.
It ended very amicably- it's a shame we can't stay friends but I've pulled that off just once in my life; and often over the four years since, there have been rough spots requiring serious elbow grease.
So amicably it came to a close- not quite there enough for either of us. It happens.

Back in the saddle again

aka Dumb fucking saddle aka Don't let the door hit you in the ass- Oh, that's my ass the door is hitting, right where your boot struck it!
So, it was great for a few days; we had chemistry, he liked me and the sound of my voice, called me lots, kissed me and didn't try anything else. He thought I was cute, told his friends about me, took me to watch his softball team.
We shot hoops, snuggled on the couch, flirted on-line... until he asked me if I was on birth control, and I had to tell him what I'd planned to tell him in person tomorrow, what you don't tell a man on a first date or even a second. I can't have kids. Just can't. And there it ended.
Best to get it out of the way now I guess.

Just this side of sleepy

I can feel a cinnamon dusted cereal crumb in my slipper. My neck feels like silly putty, my throat filling up with impending yawns, the rims of my eyelids extra warm. I am growing hungry because my breakfast time is drawing close.
My cat wouldn't let me change the bed sheets tonight. Okay- it was partly my doing! She climbed up and laid down smack center on the bed as I was about to begin and as she is deserving owner of much of my heart I didn't want to disturb her. To the friend or two who read here and know this kitty, I will say- Sylvia.
This is the kitty who was rescued from behind a restaurant at 1 1/2, the kitty who barely let me touch her and swatted my face if I got too close when I first adopted her six years ago.
This is also the kitty who spent five days lying on the foot of my bed staring at the floor the first time I took a vacation and left her at home (with Harold who loves her and gave her excellent care).
The kitty who will lie awake beside me watching me and protecting me from what disturbances she can prevent- for days if need be - whenever I am sick. The kitty who comes and rubs my face then settles quietly beside me when I am sad.
The kitty who absolutely gets bed preference tonight if she is snuggling comfortably amongst the quilt rumples.

Happy Birthday to me

My birthday was the 18th- I am officially 32! I was treated to a lovely dinner out with my mom and stepfather, and we shared a wonderful BBQ -indoors!- on Saturday attended by most of my friends. Standing at the sink sharing dish duty with my cousin, Jen, I realized being surrounded and celebrated by 15 people whom have shared my life no less than 10 years each, is a very happy benefit of being back in NJ. Wow- three 'shares' in one paragraph- somebody get the thesaurus! Quick!!
I have watched my closest male friends become husbands- grow the little bellies of contentment and nights at home, enbroil electricity and plumbing in their conversations and weekend duties. I am now watching them become fathers- carry diaper bags, cuddle tiny daughters, nurture pregnant wives.

Photo

I am the brunette 'down in front' holding the flowers- this was taken prior to my cousin's wedding in October 2004.

take one down and pass it around

Welcome to the world of Kleenex Dating! Take one out of the box, use it, toss it down. Maybe one will be a handkerchief to stick in your pocket and keep.
I am not complaining-how unique for me. Those who would know would agree on the novelty.
For those who don't know, I haven't truly dated in over seven years. My last two boyfriends I met, we went on a date, and spent the next 3 1/2 years together. Which does indeed take us back to early 1999.
And up to online dating. It is pretty cool for the likes of me who does quite poorly meeting people without assistance. I am completely not gregarious.
So to post myself like a yard sale commodity is ingenious.
I have been on three dates in two states in two days. But it's physical speed dating. I want to play the tease game wherein our proximal hands play squirrels-around-the-tree the movie theater arm rest for 90 minutes until that first all-telling blissfully tingly hand clasp. I want to spend the first date or two snuggling really close because we want to kiss so badly but are both
too shy.
On the good side, the head games have fallen away. You don't talk unless you like each other's photo. You don't meet unless you have a good IM session. And if you have a weak meeting, you move on.
I am totally enjoying all my conversations and have met three super-nice, handsome, funny men whom I wouldn't have otherwise met.
And meeting them has been fun. It's also kicked me out that terrifying door into DatingLand again.
One-man-at-a-time girl feels a little socially guilty for dating three people in one weekend. But that's the rules of the board game.
So on I go hopefully with the rest of us hopeful romantics and lonely people and friend seekers.
Wish me luck, and fun.
And yes, wonderful concerned friends of mine, I am being careful- my gut is turned on full alert!

In lieu of a time machine

Either I'm going through puberty again or my acne missed the hormone greyhound and is REALLY damn late.
If it's puberty again, I want some boobs.
If it's early menopause, I want a six-pack.
I thought the years of spot-bleaching my pillowcases with Clearasil were over!
I say I want a date. I've said I want sex.
What I do actually want is some male friend company. I want someone just to go for walks at night with me and talk and laugh;
someone to get up in the morning and call to say, "Hey! Let's drive to Maryland today!"
Someone to call over for movies on the floor on a rainy Sunday.
Over the years my guy buddies have gotten married and made families, or in my absence just gotten other lives and I really miss them. I like their wives and their children; I like the advancements in our friendship and the time we do have together.
But I really miss the 'hangin out'.

How it should be...

Grocery Cashier- Hey, Depressed Girl, where do you think you 're going with that two-pound tray of iced brownies?
Depressed Girl- Home???
GC- I don't think so; Brownie Intervention on Aisle 4!
BI- Here you are Miss, One square today- tomorrow come back and I'll give you another square.
DG- What are you doing to my ankle?
BI- That's a Brownie Alert Bracelet, Miss. All grocery stores and bakeries are connected by computer. You're profile is on alert to keep you from purchasing baked goods elsewhere until your depression is over.


This is how it should be. Otherwise Depressed Girl might sit down on a hot July day and eat herself literally ill on two pounds of icing laden chocolate brownies.

that's what you think

I did not slop hot, soapy water out of the kitchen sink- I was mopping the floor. And my slippers.

my first train ride alone

Me on 9:30 AM train into Penn Station yesterday morning- perky in curve hugging pink Calvin Klein T-shirt, slimming khaki capri pants, shampoo scented hair in a clip, smile on my face.
Me on 7:07 PM train out of Penn Station last night- hair out of clip hanging bedraggled on my shoulders, sweaty T-shirt and socks balled together stinking up inside of backpack and soaking through papers, round trip ticket soggy in pants pocket, blue gum stuck on left butt, pen mark on right knee, suntan lotion smears on left shin, general dirt markings on right.
Who gets so messy being bored? I had a most excellent day!
And slept extremely well on that thin futon mattress that felt incredibly good last night!

Eat your vegetables!

Eating a bag of brussels sprouts for breakfast two days in a row does strange things to the tummy. (!)
I like mine steamed to just this side of mush, salted. Another nurse at work likes hers sauteed with bacon and garlic and onions. Sounds good to me without the bacon part.
Is there anyone here who doesn't know what 'asparagus pee' is? I actually knew a person who ate asparagus and hadn't ever noticed the pee.
Our father (my sister and I are living together now) gave us a potted tomato plant and there is one gorgeous green baby getting bigger every day! My first-ever garden in Long Branch NJ had very fertile soil. I threw a half eaten squash on the dirt, and got yellow squash the following summerfrom a three foot wide vine trailing bush. I threw the previous autumn's Indian corn out the following July, and we had corn stalks in August. Apparently someone dropped some tomato beside the front steps once- what a nice surprise to have a productive tomato plant appear!

da da da dum

I need something superbly awesome to do next Saturday, my planned but bailed-on wedding day. If I wore my wedding gown on the train up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art would I be mistaken for an installation? If you cross paths on the 1st with a petite brunette in misplaced trailing white chiffon, send me a wave!

I am into smelling people. I was about to adjust that statement but, no, it's true. If you are hugging me, I am going to sniff your clothes.
The sniffing to which I was about to allude is the getting caught in the cloud of strangers- the flavor carried by the wind away from the bodies of passers-by.
Granted there are occasional wallops of stank that force me to hold my breath until my lungs try to burst.
But most of the time it is soap and shampoo, laundry detergent and dryer sheets, delicate eau-de-toilettes and pheromone-antagonizing colognes. Each personalized by the individual bearer's body chemistry.
Yum! says my nose.

a hobby

The sky was crawling up over me sending the cool wind ahead of it to soothe my neck and lift my tendrils from my behind my ears and across my ticklish cheeks, into my eyelashes to catch and hang.

I hurried, appreciating how quickly my bare feet and calves propelled me up the seaweed spattered concrete. Fishermen began to take up their lines, call to one another. "Hey Bill- It's gettin' close; you goin' in?" Bright flashes came from behind and atmosphere-shivering grumblings. The daylight was lessening. Another bolt.

I hovered at the stairs, one foot in the sand, caught in an onslaught of wet surfers and their boards. They know better than I when it's time to vacate; I oughtn't go, I thought. And lingered still. Near the metal Keep Off the Dunes sign, beside the metal flagpole. And reluctantly turned up the stairs to join the wet-suit-clad in the gazebo.

Stepping precariously across a white, sex-waxed fiberglass five-footer I settled my bum on the floor boards feeling the cold water seep into my pants, the tracked-in, blown-in sand granules settle against my weight. Oohs and Aahs, Cool!, Did you see that one? came from all sides and soon I was leaning under the eave myself to watch the somehow still glassy surface rollick and roll, a trawler enter the inlet tipping sideways, a personal speed boat hammer for harbor as lightning struck down between the jetties. My arm shot out to catch roof drizzled rain in my palm.

Silent, I absorbed talk of wind in high pressure areas being drawn into low-pressure areas, stories of surfer-worthy waves created by Hurricane Cindy riding slowly up the coast in the late 90's, 200 miles off-shore. Did you know as soon- as very soon- as a storm subsides on the West coast, surfers head for the water before the wind dies and leaves the water despondent?

Daylight was growing again stronger and the rain fizzled to sporadic drops. We hadn't seen a bolt in several minutes. I stepped over the tail fin rudders of a red board and headed for the concrete again, pausing to splash the sand from my feet with a puddle. Walking westward on the side of the fence closer to the ocean I watched starkly white seabirds diving toward steel grey chop for surface visiting fishes.

Trying it on

I've been unsure exactly what people have meant saying I need to get used to being single. It is Friday night. I don't have any plans. I don't have money tonight to take myself anywhere, or the gas to get far. The friends I called aren't answering the phone. And they live too far away to just stop by, or ask the same of them.
So it's just me. And the cats. And kind of lonely.
What did I do before? If I had money would I go into Red Bank? Is the Downtown Cafe still there? Still having bands? If my car weren't going through oil like I go through a bag of chocolate chip cookies, would I take off?
I made popcorn on the stove, started a movie, played solitaire on my bedroom floor while watching.
I have always loved riding horses and have even owned- would buy a horse again before a house. There are stables around. I tried golf lessons once and liked that. I'd like to skydive, skuba dive, learn to sail. Love to kayak. There are things. Do I try them now?
I want someone to do these things with, but is the point of it to do them solo?

unexpected packaging

In my life I am hardly ever out of anything for long. Just when financial destitution is hitting I get a refund check or find money on the street. Just when the fridge is as empty as the dip bowl after a slumber party, my dad calls offering me frozen vegetables he would otherwise throw away.
Just when I was certain I had forgotten my grandfather's laugh-after all, seventeen years have come since he left- a client comes into the office where I work with a laugh that wraps itself around my heart and squeezes. When I told this man how his laugh reminded me of my grandfather's, he said, "Then I will have to laugh more!" And bless his joyful soul, he did.
I told one of the other nurses the tears balancing in my eyes came in a good way.

I was a Jersey Girl wandering Maine on an extended road trip. I am back in Jersey now full time but with a little of Maine attached.

Jersey has my roots embedded deep so returning always feels like coming home. But this time I came back to find someone had redecorated Monmouth and Ocean County. Which adds to the strangeness. It's like wearing a blindfold and being spun for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I knew I was still in the yard when the blindfold came off but had difficulty getting my bearings.

I haven't been a single girl for seven years. After being committed to a relationship for so long I am still relearning what being single means. It is different at 32 than it was at 25.

What I always miss most is snuggling and someone to talk to at the end of the day.

And we could have had sex- but the snuggling was so important.

I Want Your...

Alright. I can amuse myself for days, months, years even. Even through a Maine winter. But three months single and I've had it. I want to go on a date. Actually, I want to have a Newport and a glass of wine on the porch at 2AM, swim naked in the ocean under the night sky, and get me some sex.
Yes, sex. What's a girl to do to get a clean one night stand with a hottie with sexy shoulders? I am wondering if hitting a bar in my short dress and heels might help. That might rule out the clean part. Plus alcohol breath is nasty and drunk men are foolish.
Is there a stigma associated with these needs? Who out there thinks less of me now? Who has felt the same way?

Afterlife

My particular experience was unique: no two assaults are the same. I am not alone in having been assaulted. I know there are men and women all around me every day who have been affected personally and secondarily by sexual assault.
Two weeks after my rape, when I picked up my last paycheck, a waitress whom I had mutually befriended told me she had been raped five years previously. Five years! At the time, I was counting off every day one by one- one more day's distance, one more day survived. I was so impressed at her five year mark that it became my goal. If she could survive five years and seem so normal, I could too. Now I've doubled that and it no longer marks my calender.
It's been a long journey.
I went to counseling the summer after my December rape. I cried through my first visit and often during subsequent visits. Some days I just didn't want to deal with it, didn't want to live it or go through the anger and fear. Sometimes I just cried and cried for the person inside he had killed, the me I would never be again. Sometimes I burst into tears in the middle of a store. What right did he have! I could scream and scream and beat him in my mind, bite chunks out of him and how I wanted to- I wrote often in a journal, and kept a pad of paper with me at all times never knowing when the need to write it out might strike. Still I had scraps of paper stuffed in books, notes made of brown shopping bags, receipts taped together end to end.
I dreamt of him sometimes and woke up panicked. Other days I would spend all morning puzzling over my inexplicable anxiety to remember by noon him haunting my dreams the night before.
It was embarrassing and frightening telling my parents. They still don't know the details. My dad was furious and wanted to go to Pennsylvania with a gun. My mom is certain I brought it on myself by living there and she didn't feel it was appropriate to tell the rest of our family.
These days I think of telling them but wonder if my own relief is worth what pain or discomfort I might cause.
I don't know what it is like for anyone else. For me it's been hard. It isn't over but every time I face it down I heal a little. For me hearing the stories of others, reading the stories of others, was reassuring. Just to know there were others who had been there and healed, others who would understand.

All by myself (don't wanna be...)

So, when I was first single again, for the first time in seven years, I felt invigorated, invincible, inspired- now I feel single and dumpy. What happened?
I should be enjoying this time and making the most of it, not hoping it doesn't last forever. I can do almost anything I want right now- my goal posts are wide open and unmanned.

Howard "Bud" "Buddy" Joseph Tarleton
__________________________________________

On another topic altogether, yesterday- June 3, 2006- was the 17 year anniversary of my maternal grandfather's death. I was almost 15 when he died.
He was a salesman for Kimberly Clark after he got out of the army. He was a WWII veteran, but never, ever talked about the war.
He was my grandmother's second husband- she was a WWII widow the first time around. She and my grandfather met right here at the Jersey shore while she was vacationing here one summer and they moved here permanently in the late 60's, just several years before I was born and after 3 of their 4 children were married. I grew up less than five miles from my grandparents and saw them several times a week plus Sunday dinners and sleepovers on the sofa bed with the steel bar that broke our backs all night. My grandmother laughed about that bed for the rest of her life.
My grandfather was a fisherman and a golfer, too. He retired from KC in the late 70's and in the 80's he took a job at Spring Meadow golf course in Spring Lake.
He often fished at the Manasquan Inlet and had coffee almost every morning at the Freedman's Bakery in Manasquan. Almost everyone would say so about her grandfather, but he really was an extremely kind person. His was the kind of name you could mention if you wanted to find friends. Just by being Buddy's granddaughter I had an instant welcome.
My grandmother is buried with him now. Several days after her funeral I went to the site and laid down on top of the grave under the tree. Thirteen years elapsed between their deaths. It was comforting to be with the two of them together again.

A voice-for mature audiences only

In December of 1995 I was living naively in a rooming house in Columbia, PA. I was 21 and waitressing, eating free bread at work and canned soup from a hot pot for supper- actually, that was my food for the day. No sheets on my bed. A beach towel for a blanket. But I was gonna make it on my own. I was.
One night I sat on my bed at 11PM feeling oddly anxious and apprehensive but managed to fall asleep. Two and 1/2 hours later came yelling in the hall and pounding on my door. My first thought was to grab my keys and take off to my friend, Todd's, in Millersville, twenty minutes away. But the man in the hallway was after me. When he grabbed me and said, "Take off your clothes," I thought, I am going to be raped.
I broke away three times, finally making it out to my car (and losing my room key along the way). I sat in the driver's seat, my perpetrator somehow (I don't remember how he got there) in the passenger's seat, and the sounds of my sobbing astounded me; like a terrified animal. There were words- lots of threats on my life, and the landlord there by now, standing outside my door, laughing (yes, clearly laughing) at me.
What can I say? Yes, I went back inside. Where else could I go? My keys were missing in the dark parking lot. There was no where to run he couldn't catch me. And he would shoot me if I tried. Or so I was coming to believe. I don't think he even had a gun. But how could I risk being shot in the back at now 2AM in a silent, dark, impoverished neighborhood?
I next remember being back in the room, and eventually naked. Stopped shaking or I'll kill you! over and over.
It lasted near to three hours. Rape, sodomy- both ends, punches to the back of my head, one prolonged strangle hold. And he bit my cheeks. But left them intact. Why? He had plans to prostitute me. Can't ruin the packaging, I guess.
What did I think? My mind strayed away and let just my body stay. I thought of suicide. My main concern became keeping myself useful to him.
And I maintained this plan as he kidnapped me to Philadelphia. To prostitute me. Which thankfully never happened because I'd left the condoms at the rooming house. Oh, he didn't wear one. But he certainly didn't want to get anything from any customers I might have.
Staying useful. Playing sweet and dumb. Playing dumb got him talking to me like a friend.
Once we got to Philly he paraded me around a while, showed my tits to strangers- then took me to his aunt's somewhere deep in Philly, from where I never would have found my way out. He raped me once more and let me go to sleep.
I woke up several hours later to see an older woman smiling at me kindly while she braided a young girl's hair for school. She'll be dead in a year, she said as she looked at me. And I started to cry, and to pray harder than I ever have. To silently mouth Help Me. Help me.
Here is where I go foggy. I don't remember her leaving the room. I do remember HIM coming to my side and taking me to the kitchen to say his aunt had told him to let me go, I wasn't ready, and out of respect for his aunt, he would.
How wierd was it to be taken upstairs and snuggled into a bed made on the floor by my rapist, covered up, taken to breakfast later, even questioned about dating. I just kept playing my cards, being nice, promising never to tell, knowing that was my key home.
He told me he raped me because he saw a rich little white girl, and he really didn't like that. I think he was high when it happened and over the hours he realized I was a person.
I didn't take him to court- I only filed a report. I regret it now.
But when I got home the following afternoon I forgot how I'd always said I'd go straight to the hospital or police if I ever got raped. I forgot. I laid in bed dazed, and then I took a long, long, very hot shower. And the next day I went to work.
I stayed with a friend the rest of the week until the night she worked late and I decided I couldn't take it any more and drove home to my uncle's in NJ.
When I quit my job over the phone, saying I'd been raped, the manager didn't believe me.
For two years I was terrified of shifty looking black men (I am sorry)- I believed he did have mafia connections and had told his hitmen who would find me and kill me. He'd had my license plate number- I believed he could find me that way.
For two years, I didn't have a clue who I was. In one moment the girl I had been- well I don't know what happened to her. I remember her clear as day, but have never seen her again. I wasn't anyone. For two years an undecipherable personality hung on me- a personality I didn't recognize as me but knew must be me.
Every night I looked at the dark back yard, cars occasionally idling in front of the house- every night I was terrified.
It didn't occur to me once that night to bite him or to hit him- to hurt him back. These defenses are unnatural to me.
Now- now if anyone tried there is a rage in my so strong and deep I might kill before he got anywhere. With my teeth, with my fists, with every piece of me that will never, ever be raped or have my living in someone else's hands again. Somewhere in this once all sweet, all trusting person there is a ferocity of hate and revenge. No one is will ever hurt me like that again.