chosen one.

Good Morning my long lost loves, Oh wait....I have been missing, not all of you. I began a blog the other night, on the eve of my 42nd birthday but then something (which I cannot remember) distracted me and I was off like a rocket in a different direction. Go figure, me who finds it so difficult to sit still long enough to kick out a blog....I turned 42. I made it through the monumental forty first year. I feel both relieved and sad. That number has such significance as did, this past year of my life. I learned a lot about who I am, who I am not and what I DO and DO NOT want to become. And the craziest thing just happened....I had written about a paragraph more and suddenly it disappeared....Was that a divine intervention? Wow.......At any rate, I said that this year has proven to be mostly about becoming completely comfortable in my own skin and then....realizing that everything comes down to choice. I CHOOSE to live a certain way - or not. There are no victims, even me. And although bad things happen to good people and it feels completely unjust, there is a choice involved to handle yourself in truth and grace and gratitude or to just simply sit back in the darkness and blame. And....I have learned about myself this past 365 days and counting, that I have a dark side which I have always embraced a little to keep it satisfied, but man....There is a lot further my dark instincts would like me to go....I could really choose self destruction should it woo me with it's charms and I am sure point a finger as easily as my counterpoint....Last week I had a conversation with an old friend. He tried to convince me that "room mates" are the same as always. That the clock is ticking and time is running up, excuses are waning, time...I thought to myself, wow - I tried to warn the next victim - and for a moment I felt compelled to reach out BUT then, I thought...CHOICE. I have a choice and she has a choice and so does he. We all have choices. I am not comfortable in choices that are icky, no matter how much I may try and justify it with some piss poor excuse. I always feel as though I need a bristle brush and some AJAX to scrub myself clean. Because my dears, although there is dark in all of us, choosing dark means consequences and man do the dark choices yield dark payback. I will just wear a lot of black, dark gray, purple and merlot colors this year and call it darkness quota met constructively - we will call it healing through fashion Fall and Winter collection. I feel stronger as though the bullshit is really that and I am too smart at this point to take the bullet willingly - it feels better than it did like a month ago and that is a relief I cannot describe with words. When someone says "I love you, I miss you, soon" and that person is not capable of love in any real form - and you choose to over look that blatant fact - you CHOOSE to invite harm to your life. I chose a lot of harm this past year, a lot of harm too close to home, too close to the people who ARE capable of real love. Like my kids. My kids......God I love my kids. They are fantastic and unique and hilarity. Anyone who does not know the value in that, does not need to be anywhere near my beloved's and anywhere near me. My friends have referred to my Daughter a lot in trying to talk sense into my black abyss of a head (lately) - they have asked me "If this were Emma, what would you do?" That one has packed the punch. "What are you teaching Emma by throwing all your fantastic alongside in the gutter of life?" What have I taught my girl? Nothing good, except that you can see the light if you fight hard enough to get closer to what appears a pin hole - and that the in hole grows until eventually there is no longer a contrast. Light begets light. My Nana would like that. Yesterday me and and my brats (the little's) and my friends, the Suling's/Ramirez's went apple picking at Carters Mountain. We had crazy fun, crazy always goes hand and hand with our clan. I enjoyed myself immensely, the weather was perfection, the foliage breathtaking, Virginia was in all her glory and I was in the thick of it with friends and kids. Happiness is my Sunday. We then went to Mexican after because where else can you feed 4 kids for 8 bucks (love the boys at El Vaquero for keeping American ideals in tact, as an aside...go figure) - we laughed our asses off all through dinner and even commented once or twice on how sad it was that missed opportunity at real happiness was missing from the table x 4. Missing opportunity was probably unaware that such opportunities even exist and that somehow made my appreciation even sweeter. CHOICE my dears, I need to make the right ones and yesterday I was lucky enough to have that be old hat, normal, at my finger tips. Yay for me. I have a blessed life - this coming year it has to be all about making those blessings count even more that I have. I MUST get my childrens book published - it is such a great little story about such an important issue and I am so ridiculously proud of it - I want to share it so badly. I also, must dance again. Me and Dave are in a a dancers love affair, he has rattled the cage of my middle aged arch's, they curve and dance around the house, reborn. I would love to get Emma into a mirrored room and teach her how to feel the music in her muscles. Ahhhhh, nothing feels quite as good. I must also, SIGH, sign up for classes - a bachelors degree is not an option. I need to be back in school, especially considering where this country is headed. And I am not talking politics - I am talking personal responsibility and humanity. I want to be well versed in the history of the rise and fall of every civilization, if it turns out that there isn't much left of this one. I am a great story teller, around a fire may be the alternative to this web site. Can't say that I wouldn't find the discomfort a little comforting, just hoping that we as humans find moderation before we are taught a lesson that most of us are completely unaware is coming, hence ill prepared for. I cross the street to greet someone, so maybe I will be okay when the shit goes down? I teach my kids to do the same and although the learning process doesn't always indicate results, I think they are on track.....At any rate because I am fidgeting and need to move, this year has been a big one. Like I said when I started, bittersweet emotions are involved in the transition phase I find myself in. I am grateful to have made it through 41 and although I want to keep 41 forever, that would mean ending there and I am no where near ready to end. I will keep 41 securely plugged into my important memory file. I get to have it all it seems :) I am not perfect by any means - but I get a little closer with every lesson. I think getting closer to the unattainable is better than to have never tried to imagine it possible. I prefer this choice, thank you very much. I have no idea what I have said this morning, I hope on some level it makes sense. It will to me at a later date and I guess that too is what really matters. word of the day - CHOICE. If not for Sesame Street I would not have just said that..... Peace Out.

slave to the music

I had no intention of writing anything at all tonight, my back hurts way too much to be sitting in this hard ass chair, hunched over this laptop....I just was thinking that my life is something else. I had a week...I was a groupie and met David Gray. Coolest part was that I watched my adult sons shake his hand and thank him for the music. I told him my kids were raised on his songs, he was a lot of the background noise of our everyday existence. Very cool to be so old and still be meeting my musical idols like the groupie music freak I am. I am in possession of a lot of memorabilia - I have out my arms around a lot of them. My goal for this upcoming year is to make out with PINK!....But I digress like I so often do.....Music is the foundation my family has been built on - good music with good messages. I am proud of the love of music that I have passed on to my kids. I bet if I were to die tomorrow - my kids would talk about how they were both amused and frightened of my car dancing. I have ALWAYS been dancing, snapping my fingers and singing. I am real happy about what they have watched, watching their Mom rock out. I don't know many kids that went to their first Dave Matthews show when they were 2 and all in one night, went back stage and got drum sticks from Carter Beuford himself, pictures of a toddler in guitar pj's with Dave.... It has been a melodic ride and I am so pleased with this week and that October 28th I am going to the counting crows show, a milestone skimmed way back in the past..... I love that line I just wrote. And I think my back is done with you. Have a blessed night and listen to some music just because. Love you.

unintended extremes

I had no intention of getting on this blog site tonight...I had every intention to go straight into a coma and remain that way until 6am tomorrow morning. But....I was in the shower singing and thinking - I was thinking about my ability to read people....Like I have this uncanny ability to read people - I very quickly see who someone is and in addition what they need - or at least their terms.Then I thought, wow you think highly of yourself Miss Deb....then I thought of children and then I thought. well yeah I should be sure of myself. I know people, I know this because I know kids and although they are the most unassuming, they certainly lay themselves out in the same way that they assume nothing. They tell you who they are, if and I say if, you are paying attention. And kids are my favorite people, they are so new with themselves and untainted about anything and everything... I do kids well. I always get on their level and let them have my full attention and my capacity of patience. "oh you will love me, watch me win you over on your terms baby braticus, the decision is all yours" (Sydney) Or to Leona, "I hear you girlfriend leaves are powerful tools of persuasion and for us special girls, like you and me and your momma, they double nicely as tools of expression too" I see the human being. That is a kick ass gift.....You doubt me? Go ahead and as any of my friends with kids - I am overly interested in the baby person, more so than any other adult friend. I love that my friends kids are pieces of my friends in legacy, the torch pass, the future, the time. Today Leona was in the shop and I watched her while the new Dave played on the stereo. Rachel's eyes swollen and puffy from the nuances of the nights listen. I watched Leona go towards the music, physically, she put her self directly in front of it, she went so far as to push herself into the tightest corner by the speaker. I told her, if I were her, that is exactly what I would have done too. Then I looked at my beautiful friend Rachel who has gone from childless woman to woman with child and I thought, 'I was here before, during and would you look at that after - a baby girl self shoved in a corner by the artistry. I am lucky. I am so lucky to have so many friends with so many fantastic kids - so many co-parents in our greatest and most difficult journey. My friends kids are family - we are in for the long haul, the tears at graduations and the she's one of my Mom's dearest friends wedding invitations.... Today I saw my dear friend Gigi's daughter Taylor on the mall... She is living in Manhattan now, a model. Her mom died 7 years ago, one of the greatest losses of life I have ever witnessed.....Taylor came walking down the mall as I worked on a rack outside, I heard "Deborah" said only the way her voice would say it....I remembered her instantly a long lean dark, green eyed beauty who would say at ten "oh Deborah" with her too big for her mouth teeth making a lisp sound at very beginning of my name. We would have been disagreeing over something like the merits of a chocolate bar a half hour before her Mom would be serving her dinner.... Taylor stood before me a woman - I thought, I wish her Mom could see her now. Kids struggle and then they learn to endure - in Taylor the ability to endure has manifested in enduring beauty - she is breath taking and I miss her Mom. I paid attention and the pay off is sweet. My perspective over time is more refined than everyone else.... So sure of myself. Kids are where it is at. Watching them grow is where it will be. Being me is difficult in so many ways - my fierce perception makes the world equally painful and beautiful. I just feel both ends of the spectrum to the extreme. It is not an easy way to live. But, I don't think I would be able to function otherwise if a choice were presented and a viable option. I am me and me is all I will ever know. I will be the crazy old lady in the nursing home talking too loudly and in the middle of dinner about oral sex. I will make the quiet old ladies laugh under their breath, curt hand covering their smiles and the irritable bitty's will throw food at me in disgust and cry to the orderlies about my offensive mouth. I will also be the old lady that as you push her by in her wheel chair and she catches wind of a child, well, I will extend my old crow talon, a great wide smile will spread across my crooked dentures and my watery, cloudy eyes will see clearly for the first time since the last time I set eyes on a child.... I hope I grow old after making a lot of money because the old folks home I will be in, will have to be privately funded - I am going to make the insane amount of money they charge worth every damn penny. Kinda like my Papa did, only with a whole lot of Nana too.... I will also see Christmas trees that aren't there and accurately know all the birds business in that tree across the way from the sitting room window. I miss them. My Nana and Papa. And see, crying now. One joyful extreme to the painful other......... I live to live and die to die. I have a question?????? AND SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER ME OR SEVERAL, OR EACH OF YOU THAT READ THIS --------- DO YOU GET WHAT I MEAN WHEN I WRITE? THIS IS IMPORTANT. DO YOU GET ME? DO I COMMUNICATE IT?

belly full.

Good Evening. And yes, yes it is. I am in a way today. This new Dave Matthews CD is doing strange things to me. I am having bursts of creativity that are exhausting, but they just keep coming and coming. okay I admit it, this is the kind of worn out that I could get used to. My brain is on overdrive....The artist in me has awakened in a way that I have not experienced since I was a teenager and YET the perfect thing is, it's that girl - on the verge of 42. There is such a richness to my spark right now, It's like watching the leaves die and scatter on a perfect Autumn breeze, with the right music score, fluttering the changes melodically. I worked my ASS of today with Rachel after coming in the store in a flurried monologue. I explained to Rach in near hysteria, that as I drove into town, I choreographed an entire interpretive dance of the song Gaucho - it involves Emma and pleading, black leotards and blonde hairs flying. I haven't seen anything so creative so clearly, in so long. I then threw up texture and color artistry all over the boutique - a frenzied fashion statement. I was worn out from all the camaraderie, ease, laughter and good taste. By the time 7pm came I was dragging my over caffeinated ass about and my posture had gone from starlet to hag. I drove home listening to Dave and eagerly I might add, as I had been tortured all day long by Rachel who would not allow me to listen to the new Dave, because she was planning on going home tonight and really giving it a ear phone, trance like listen. I get it, so I conceded. FUCKING JACK JOHNSON won't give up by the way - no matter how many times we struck him thumbs down on Pandora, that motherfucker kept on coming. I got home rejuvenated somehow and decided first thing after kicking off my cowboy boots and throwing down my bag, to move all the living room furniture out of my way and dance. Yes dance, like I have not danced in years. Daveeeeee the things you keep making me do against my will. You know what I love????? The strength in my arms and legs. So strong and muscular, athletic and yet still so graceful. No matter how big my boobs are, no matter how strong those shoulders, I still can move like the air. I want to move like the air, don't you? The kind of air that you tilt your head up into, close your eyes and deep breathe. That kind of air. yessir. AT any rate, I danced until I was dripping sweat, my hips loosening like childbirth, my fingertips extending into infinity - I danced until I was soaked. And then, cause I am me, I took it to the porch and gave a show to the neighbors. And then I sat quiet and still and listened to the nuances and imagined Rachel listening to the nuances too. And then I got overwhelmed and had to write and say whatever it is that I just said. This album has me distracted and I can honestly say that I have NEVER connected to an album this profoundly, this immediately, this completely. Every track is significant, every track is a great conversation about something totally pertinent on my current state of mind. EVERY TRACK. I am not a normal music lover - go figure. I cannot wait until the next time I see Dave here in town. I am going to hold him and say thank you until I am physically removed from his person. Thank You Dave, thank you for contributing to my life so substantially, so sustainably. I wish I had more to say, but I gotta just listen again. You should do the same. So far tracks drunken soldier and gaucho and belly full are my favs. But then there is if only...and snow outside and mercy and..... Had to stop and go find my friend and then ended up at the bar getting my kid and mingling,then we took the long way home drove around cranking.....yes - the new DMB CD. I think my kids have grown up Dave too - wait I don't think - I know. If only I could have you just the way I want you...If only. great motherfucking song. My Bob song from this album... If only. ha. Goodnight lovers. I said I was going to bed early tonight. NEVER HAPPENS life has too much going on and I'll sleep when I'm dead. I ain't dead yet.

EJC my blanket

I woke up this morning with thoughts of my step father. This happens a lot, but not quite like this morning. Today it was though he were a blanket, I felt him lift off of me as I became more conscious, aware of my surroundings. I got colder as the space where he was, became noticeably empty. I miss my Da. For those of you who don't know me, My step dad was my only Dad. We are Irish and so I affectionately referred to him as Da which is commonly used over seas, short for Dad. He called me Dot. Short for daughter. I call my own daughter Dottie sometimes, I always say it with a heart full of love and grief. I have lost a lot of people I love to death. It seems natural enough because we all die and yet, it is the most unnatural feeling to live without someone you love, someone who has always been there. I am almost forty two years old and I am still reeling over a death that happened when I was eighteen. The sadness never goes away, like the emptiness they leave behind can never be filled. I miss my Da. He was a good man. When I think of him, I wish most of all that I could hear his laugh. His smart short one, the one that would shoot out of his smile when someone said something sarcastic, unexpected, truthfully inappropriate. I miss that laugh most of all. He has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to define in my own mind why it is that I continually choose men who are bad for me and lock out all the good ones as though they are the problematic peeps. I thought of him especially the other day while driving up route 53 on my way home. The radio was on which is rare, I usually have a CD in. I was singing along with Pinks new song blow me one last kiss and suddenly as I rounded a corner, the station gave way to another and there was Elton John singing Levon. I could see me and my Da in his black Ford Taurus, driving by Boston College on our way to Chestnut Hill, it was Autumn and I was at the wheel, colors all around us as we passed the campus. We sang together at the top of our lungs "and Levon blows up balloons all day, sits on the porch swing watching them fly and Jesus he wants to go to Venus, leaving Levon far behind" I cried while I smiled, remembering that moment and longing to feel it again, if only for a split second of reality. When he died suddenly, the shock made the reality hard to comprehend. I feel like the shock is beginning to wear off - my Da is a blanket of dreams that I rouse from, not here for real anymore. He was the best man I ever knew. He is part of the reason that I write and part of the reason that I am not dead. Sometimes I think about the people who intervened in my life and gave me love when I felt none. I think that if it were not for them, instead of the artist angst I live with, instead of picking bad men who hurt me....I probably would be dead - gone to a bad drug addiction or a murder in an alley somewhere, a victim to some man that I couldn't identify through the haze of my own anesthetization. I would have surely been a statistic of a different kind had I not been intervened upon by a man like my step Father. I hope he knew that. I hope he knew that singing Elton John with him, kept me out of a dark alley. I miss his face. I miss his voice, I miss the way he crossed his legs, the way he smiled. The way that I ALWAYS FELT that I was getting his BEST. I wish he were more than a blanket I wake up with on lucky days. I wish that February 7th had come with warning so that I could have told him he was a blanket in my life back then, he preserved the garden in frost. I always think of him more in Autumn, his turtle necks and cowboy boots. He was so unexpected like that - a suit and tie guy with the most badass cowboy boots. I have them in my closet. When you are cold a blanket makes the difference. Thanks Da, I love you.

DIRECT QUOTE

Using the blog for this pisses me off more than my own skirting..... But, if you are a friend of Bob's or his 'girlfriend' - please don't read me anymore. This blog existed before Bob and is not a way to monitor my behavior in context to him. Read me because I make you laugh or cry, but not because of drama. Truth is, it's like I said - he and I know what we are and we will continue to and no one else matters. The temptation to skirt is there if I know you are reading. I have self control issues, so....And you have to wait to know what is really going on until the book comes out too, and by then well... If you are connected to Bob, please stop reading - it is Deb Does Life, not Deb Does Bob. Bob is a huge part of my journey and is going nowhere from my blog, but only read about it if it's MY journey you are interested. I will tell you that I am right, and so are you Jenny. Now stop reading me please.

growing up Dave.

Good Evening Blog readers, It is a lovely Virginia Autumn evening and I hate to say this if it's rubbing someones face in it, but....there is no more beautiful smell than the air in Virginia - pick a season it, it applies year round. But man do I love it crisp, the kind of air that begs to be stayed out in, constantly. I see that I have been monitored today by the present "girlfriend" - I should probably apologize to Bob via her, for insulting his alter ego, the Rooster. Although I will say that Roosters primary concern is not his "chickies," but rather his choice and numbers of hen vagina and his big mouth that he likes to run while the world is still in quiet. But Bob doesn't associate with him for that reason at all, and I truly know this, deep down - it's not his over possessiveness, or the fact that his stump must be above all the females, or that he is also called a cock....none of those reasons either. I know there is a reason though.....Have I mentioned how much I make myself laugh out loud? Love that..... I am sorry Bob for all inaccuracies. You know better than anyone that when you are good and pissed off, well venting helps. Especially when it is all you have...I know baby and I'm sorry. I really am sorry. I made a few cracks that were pissy - can't imagine why... I digress and laugh AGAIN. Thing about Bob and Deb is that we are the only two who know - well and Becca and Ben. But really just me and Bob and REALLY those are the only two people who matter here. I write about my life openly, but lately I have blogged in codes and hidden meanings - I have not just told you the whole truth and nothing but the truth - I have skirted. Maybe skirting is pissy, but telling the story is the book PROOF. You are all going to shit your pants..... Cause I write the activities that take place in door frames for real, for real and that my friends may be too much real for most. You will love every character and hate them too. You just wait. And with that heartfelt apology to my one and only Rooster - I now write the details of this moment, the one we are entering.... The air reminds me of kissing David Arend when I was sixteen. DAMN. one word only - DAMN.....I love you David, since I was sweet. Sea glass eyes and a perfect mouth to crawl in. Thank you. But my first David is a path to my always David. Dave Matthews.... I can't form a word, I just deep breathe - that is all and everything I got. I have been obsessively listening to this new CD AWAY FROM THE WORLD. Are they for real with that title right now? LOVE THEM. For those of you who know me,know that this is out of the ordinary fan/musician relationship. You know he is something to me for which there is no word. The CD is playing now as I type. I am thinking that we have grown up together. We are always in the same place at the same time. I never feel alone or misunderstood in his company, their company. They are integral parts of my coming of age. They each play a part, a significant role. I said "Carter does unexpected shit - like blue note back beat jazz shit, but even so, it's the reverse of what you anticipate - what you think makes sense - but then you find that he fills empty space you didn't realize was empty until he filled it." The obvious. Because it's Carter Beuford on the drums. Heard that line a few thousand times in my life - and I am crying and smiling. Literally crying. This music and these men have filled the unknown empty spaces more than the men that dug the holes could have ever dreamed. Real Workers. They are the music of my mind - if I could have, I would have, but then I wouldn't be me and me them, and than it wouldn't be - we need each other to be who we are for it work. But if I could have it would have. But it is. I watched Dave deliver Leroi's eulogy, hands wringing behind his back. The grief was overwhelming and when the church filled with his sax sounds even though his casket was in front of me, I though I might faint for the pain of it all. I say it to Mary, "it's like Dave said about Leroi....watching him struggle, one of the greatest gifts of my life" That is love. Watching your friend struggle into themselves, being a part of that is a great joy. Only you who understand that will get it. I miss Leroi in these songs. I can hear the lack of him and his spirit, nowwwww I am really crying. I loved Leroi Moore with all my heart. His saxophone solo in #41 is the oil in my hips, the sex in my shoulders, the drop of my neck in surrender, my soul's most honest singing voice. I miss Leroi Moore. I will always miss him. BUT........the they endure for me and we grieve about our lost ones together even though there is a sax and Jeff Coffin is just evolution because this never dies it just changes, adapts. JEEESUSSS I am in rare form. Dave Matthews and Stefan Lessard, Carter Beuford, Tim Reynolds, Boyd Tinsley, Rashawn Ross and Jeff Coffin, Leroi Moore - well they do that to me. This album is brilliant, I am in that space. Right the fuck dead smack in it. My birthday is coming....October 11th. I leave the 41st year soon. I am dead smack in it and reborn. Yikes. But anyways, I cannot concentrate because I am hearing lyrics I missed previously, picks on a string, a triangle jingle.... I love you guys. Little steel guitar just now. 'Come the winter I will build you a fire from the bones of what I used to be.' I get it Dave. Gotcha. I have to go dance with myself now, my body says so.