Sickened, period.

Good Morning,
I have about five minutes to write as my endocrinology appointment has finally arrived and is this morning in just a bit.
Really, blogging is about the last thing I should be doing, but.....You know me, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say.....
Yesterday I couldn't find the words to say anymore than I did. Yesterday the violence of the world had pervaded my head and hurt it so bad all I could do was breathe through it, forget about articulate.
I won't get into details, because I cannot - I will just say I witnessed something I never thought I would, EVER and it was a little too close to home for me. A little too close to my own and the randomness of it, the sheer carelessness and disregard had me reeling emotionally and raging on the inside - to put it ever so lightly.
There is a lot of violence in the world and I don't do well with it. Especially, most specifically when it has to do with a total disregard for the value of life.
Violent acts repel me.
I am the pansy that changes the channel on the TV when I see violence, can't do the stab wound scenes or the sound of flesh to flesh combat.
Really, I am far too sensitive for all that, literally turns my stomach.
And that is just on TV - when I am privy to real life violence - I become emotionally challenged and internally unhinged.
That was where I was yesterday, in limbo of the big question that plagues me - REALLY?????
Like REALLY????? and the WHY of it all?
I have no answers and certainly no power to change it - oh wait who am I kidding - I have answers, it's violence in the main stream, shitty ass parenting, selfishness and accessibility to handguns.
The NRA will love me now.
And I have no time for that debate, or to elaborate on my opinions this morning - unfortunately.
I will just say this.
We are all someone. I am someones daughter, sister, aunt, friend and MOTHER (among other titles)
what is it that a person who commits a violent act cannot conceptualize that we are all valuable, life is valuable and the right to extinguish that, is only God's?
I wasn't threatened or hurt per say, but by way of association - I was.
And would have been, if what I witnessed had been a successful attempt.
I have no fucking patience for violent people. No patience for it at all - pushes a button in me that makes me want to fight the oppressor but hide in my closet all at the same time.
Frustrating as hell and sad....
So Sad.
I hate to see it, hear it, read about it - it's everywhere.
And so I have to stop and go get in the shower and fill out a health history form that I have been dreadfully avoiding.
I guess I will end with this...
Life is valuable, there is no reason good enough to snuff it out in a careless act of impulsive violence. Get some self control already.
Have a blessed and SAFE day.

what a night.

Hi,
what is happening to the world? I am so confused by what I see around me. It scares me and makes me sick.
That's it for today. Too sad at the world to even write about it.
sigh.

And so it begins.....

Good Morning Blog readers. sorry for the hiccup in my postings (for those of you who read me daily) - I have a really good excuse though, wanna hear it?
I started writing my book....Oh my God, I started writing my book.... I type that and than ponder in my head of the nearly seven thousand words that I have typed in 'The Canary Memoirs' - how many of those will I actually keep, how many words of the first draft will make it until the final draft? I rewrite chapter one in my head morning noon and night while I should be doing other things, writing a book is a creative process that kinda takes over the writers life.
And I said it, I am a writer.
I remember last year when my Grandpa died, after I had read the eulogy, my cousin Eddied asked me, "So what are you a writer?" and I answered "Well not yet, but I am trying to be" Mary elbowed me in the chops so hard - "YOU ANSWER YES, WHY YES I AM A WRITER, NEXT TIME SOMEONE ASKS YOU DIP SHIT...."
Yes, Yes I am a writer.
I am an artist.
Ha, I love that. I AM A WRITER.
Last night my college school girl professor crush was talking about, how for authors being published is the ultimate goal. Being published means that your work has a chance to be known - I sighed a heavy, labored sigh as I sat with my head resting in my palm - yes, I want to be published so bad it hurts my insides to even consider it.
I want more than anything to see my name on the bottom of a hard covered book front and MY words to be bound on numbered pages with a dedication to Mary on the first page and my bio with a decent picture on the back flap.
I want to know that they (my words) make out into the world and will remain for all of time. I want someone, someday to come across my novel and laugh that it's a dinosaur back from the days when books were printed on paper.
I better hurry, frickin kindles and nooks are taking over....
Unfortunately for me and I imagine most writers, writing an actual book is a slow journey, one that comes like the tides.
It's here now - get to a computer and write for fucks sake.
Oh shit, no computer someone give me a napkin and a pen please, yes fine a receipt back and a pencil will do.
Like this morning for instance...I woke up thinking of chapter one and realized that the blinking green lights of the firefly's on the lawn would be better served, metaphorically speaking, as a vacancy motel sign, not suspended mini emerald cities. And so I must go back to that place in chapter one and begin the slice and dice....
Chapter one will not be left alone so easily.
I know that most writers write and marinate in what they have written and then go back and tweak what wasn't quite what they were trying to say - this is when my nagging self doubt is going to have to be managed like a disorder...
I will have to keep my quitter alter ego tied up somewhere with duct tape on her mouth and her hands bound thrice in a heavy twine to keep that meddling bitch from deleting entire paragraphs and throwing mouses in frustration and self deprecation.
She quits too easily and hates even easier.
But she's manageable OH NO I'M NOT, go away chubby Debbie, this doesn't involve you except that you are the main character hahahahaha.
She hates me, the new improved stronger version. The old me was comfortable in her misery - "better to know something than to know nothing"
HA, just quoted my book.
I am such a tease aren't I?
And so my blogging love bugs, I may have to get in and get out of this page quickly each day so that the novel writer had more time to get her head in the game.
I love you all though, with all my heart - your devotion astonishes me as I see the "view hits" number rise and rise in my blogger stats category.
Thanks for all your support - your comments, when you reveal yourself to me, make me feel like I belong and that my words mean something to you all - priceless that feeling, being understood and encouraged...
Priceless I say.
Makes me feel worthy.
And with that worthiness I must go, depart you all for the time being and go be worthy in my life for just a bit.
I really need the pool today as I feel like my head is in a vice grip this morning - I think my thyroid is playing games with me again.UGH.
I need to relax in my head and splash in some salty water, feel the sun on my belly flab.
Before the pool I have to act like a Mother though and make beds or something....
I bid you all adieu and say - if I am not here as much, it's because of the book.
And I know you all want to read my book, right?
Blessings and love - Deb

Marry me Mary - NYC 2012?

Good Morning Peeps,
I am one happy girl this morning minus the raspy voice and still really sore throat and now, unfortunately, a tight feeling in my chest with a cough - this is definitely a viral issue.
But let us not dwell on the negative :)
As I went to sleep last night, I had a very wide smile planted on my pillow. Anderson Cooper had just reported on the State of New York legalizing same sex marriages....Visions of happy NYC drag queens danced in my head.
AMEN for New York - now to get the rest of the country on board for what is the only right thing to do.
I don't mean to be offensive here - I don't like offending anyone, I am far too 'you do what makes you comfortable and I do what makes me comfortable' to be into offending anyone's position - BUT - I just looked on Lady GAGA's website as she is my Momma Monster and I follow her mission regularly.
I don't get the biblical references, I don't get how anyone here (on EARTH I mean), thinks they have the corner on God's perspective?
I remember vividly a moment from my Ethics class back in my first semester - I believe we were reading ethical perspectives on abortion and a huge fissure broke the center of the classroom, dividing us into oppositional sides. Someone said something about the bible - and I cannot quote or even loosely paraphrase, but basically he insinuated that the bible was thrown down, all written and bound in leather from the heavens, constructed by Gods hand himself.
Um yeah, nope, not even close and I say, you really ought to know your facts before you take a side.
The Bible was not written by God - it was written by men. Men with a political mission above all, and trust me it was tweaked.
I am not debating that any one of the prophets who ever walked the earths surface may have 'received' messages from god himself - a burning bush seems plausible to me, I guess - but I am not banking anything on a burning bush or a man.
I am going with my own gut - and my own gut says that although the bible is a beautiful work of art, an epic collection of stories, I don't believe that the answer to sexuality, or proper judgment of love resides there and only there.
If it is, well than I disagree with the whole of my heart.
I personally have never understood the issue with homosexuality - I personally do not give a flying fuck who loves who, or who has sex with who.
Why is what anyone else does, any of my damn business?
Love is love. Period, and it is not selective nor should it be based on opposing sexual parts. I love plenty of people with vagina's and dare say, they would make better life partners for me than any man I have ever come across.
And yeah okay, I get that the penis fits like a puzzle piece with a vagina and that it seems that is the how it was intended as the meeting of those two make life.
Yeah men and women can pro-create, BUT, I dare say again, that just because we can, does not mean that we should, and more over, a penis and a vagina meeting up does not EQUAL love.
Sure it does sometimes, but not always. How many babies do you know that were mistakes born out of the puzzle pieces being jammed together when they should have been left apart? I know a lot and I am not even touching (in my mind) on the incest and rape issues we deal with every day world wide.
I say, we would be far better suited spending our time dealing with human trafficking, rape, incest etc. etc. and leave the gay people the fuck alone.
The truth is, homosexuality has been around since the beginning of man - anyone who doesn't believe that homosexuality is a valid sexuality is just plain crazy. Of course it is - the ability to make children is not the definition of love or sexual preference.
I don't know about all of you, but when I am making love, kids are the last thing on my mind.... Just sayin' and I have four who I adore and really wanted...
So I just don't get the bible thing - the bible is beautiful yes, but people use your hearts.
It is my opinion that if a woman and a woman want to commit themselves to a life long partnership, well than damn it, who is anyone in congress to say no to that?
Why should those two women not have the same rights as a man and a woman?
Maybe I am naive, maybe I am a sinner, but really - I just don't see the big deal.
I never have and I never will.
I will admit, the opposition to homosexuality makes me really really sad and perpetuates a cycle of hate in our country that makes me sick. It so daunting for young kids to come out of the closet with confidence.
Life is hard enough - we have closets for clothes and shoes and accessories, not a safe place to keep the gays.... that phrase annoys me.
So if you are 'straight' you do not have to announce it to the world, but if you are a homosexual, you have to come out of the closet?
So wrong. How about we just open our hearts and minds to a place where no one has to define themselves to anyone else BECAUSE whatever you are, who ever you love, what ever you choose is yours and OKAY.
I say the lessons from the bible we should be paying attention to are the ones about judgment and not passing it - because if God does hate the homosexuals, I'm leaving the casting to hell fire to him and then, I am definitely sneaking into that party for sure.
That's where the best dressed will be, the music will be off the hook and I know for sure, no one there will turn me away for being different....
I don't know about all of you, but when Kurt kissed his boyfriend on Glee for the first time last season, I cried my eyeballs out and called Mary and said, we have just witnessed something monumental - a teenage boy on boy kiss. Praise Jesus.
I was overjoyed for all the boys who love other boys who live in fear that they will be judged poorly when they lock lips for the first time in their high school hallway.
Boys love who you want. Girls you too.
I know my words are controversial - I just don't understand why? And if you read this and get angry with me, get a taste in your mouth you don't like - STOP - for a second, allow it to marinate and question yourself if you would. WHY?
If you come up with a good reason I would love to hear it, as long as it is respectful.
Although I have spent the longest part of my life involved with men, I do consider myself on the sexual fence. I could easily fall in love with a woman. What the hell is there not to love? Women are beautiful creatures, Goddesses - their bodies are perfection - what is not to love about peaks and valleys, soft and smooth?
Yeah I got no objections to the female.
I could easily go the other way, in fact I have been begging Mary to just consider the kind of wives we would really be for the better part of our seventeen year friendship...haha, but no really....
Am I bi-sexual? I mean, I don't know the answer to that, not sure it is a question that needs to be asked even - I will tell you that about ten years ago I was sitting on the down town mall and this woman walked by me and I was like "Oh Man Yowza, bring that on" - I would have followed her to the ends of the earth if she had given me the come hither finger.
I don't know why I felt that, I just did. And it was intriguing to say the least, but not ever, not even for a second ALARMING.
I am all about the love.
People were lamb basting the GA this morning, attacking her bi-sexuality as though that doesn't give her ENOUGH ammo to count herself in the fight for real.
WHAT???? WHATTTTTT???
Anyone who wears a meat dress to make the statement about equality being the prime rib of our constitution is in the fight for real.
Love her with all my heart - GO GAGA GO.
Straight- BI - Gay - LOVE is all that matters, all you need is love.
I loved NYC before, but I am lovin' it even more today -

Freaky Friday

Good Morning blog peeps,
So I just went through my two blogs from yesterday and did some much needed editing - holy typos batman. I really do need an editor, I am horrible at editing my own work. I rarely read my posts before I hit the publish button, and if I do, because I know my own expression - I skim the words at best - doesn't make for great editing. I apologize for all the moments in yesterdays blogs where the continuity was disrupted by the wrong word or a missing letter. I will work on that, I promise.
Today is Friday and I should be at work, but I feel like ass and so I have called in sick for the day - no linen for me today.
It's not exactly that I feel miserably ill, it's more that my throat hurts and my voice is shot - a goner, I have no doubt that my children will capitalize on my inability to scream at them btw - I probably would be safer at the shop, truth be told...This week has been kinda hellish and not the least bit relaxing.
I would do best on a beach in solitary confinement - I could use a little alone time and some tides to watch as they move in and then out....
I either have a virus or my thyroid is to the point of extreme compression and tightness. The raspy Stevie Nicks thing I have got going on cannot be cured by tea and spoons of honey or the gazillion cough drops I have been sucking. Raw tongue by the way, that may permanently taste like mentholated strawberries. Gross.
Yesterday in the course of like a half an hour three people noticed and commented at my swollen neck - and dramatic like too.
Mary and I discussed the possibility that maybe it won't be the Nan's who will disrupt the PH book writing week, it could very well be the thyroid - my appointment to access the situation is June 30th - five days before I am supposed to fly home - what if they say this stupid enormous gland is cutting off my vocal chords and it needs to come out? I will admit, I cannot currently swallow my calcium supplement or my daily vitamin horse pill - or eat any kind of bread (especially french) which out of the three unswallowables, is the okay one, because yeah, no gluten anyways = no breads.
They make gluten free breads, bagels etc. but, every time I consider buying a loaf, I think "can I swallow that - do I even miss bread?" No, not really - I really don't miss bread.
Although I would be lying if I didn't tell you that last night I picked up a piece of the Artisan garlic bread (whole cloves baked in the bread oh my) and sniffed it, deeply inhaled the aroma - fought the urge to bite it for like a half a second.
I keep reminding myself that this no gluten no dairy business is MY choice and I can cheat if I want, but so far so good - minus the bite of Brian's almond snicker bar the other night - yum, that is a good candy bar.
On a positive note, my Nana has apparently come out of the danger zone enough to be moved from ICU and I say with mixed feelings - PHEW.
Maybe I will get to see her again :)
What a week of worrying and looming though - so stressful.
Mary's Nana also has a stellar day yesterday - these two old broads are definitely our Grandmother's - fighters....And so, we may just get off without tragedy for the time being. (shouldn't have said that - just knocked on wood)
Maybe the lost voice is a manifestation of the stress - bet my family wishes this would happen all school year long. College work load stress on top of crazy life = no voice for Mom....It would amount to total anarchy around here, they would probably have me tied up in the closet by the end of one silent week with me...
Let's hope it's temporary and let's hope that the rasp isn't permanent - I cannot sing right now to save my soul. I lost my mind momentarily yesterday in the shower and began to belt out the National Anthem (I haven no good explanation) - what came out sounded like a dying animal begging for mercy...It shamed our country for sure.
I kinda remind myself of Courtney Love right now and even I find that a little disturbing - the crack head voice is bad news.
If I get to see Nana and sound like this, she is not gonna be happy.
I fell asleep last night watching Anderson Cooper (this is a subject change btw), he was discussing the days events regarding the Casey Anthony trial - I have to go on record as saying "Are you fucking serious?" -
My gut tells me she totally killed her daughter, IDK why I feel that, but I do with every fiber of my being. And I just have to say "Really Casey, really?" - why not just let her live and give her up - get back to your partying ways and allow that innocent child to realize her life's potential? Man that pisses me off so bad.
And I am of the mind that typically when a Mother kills her child it it because she is suffering from a mental illness and the voices say "kill them" - very rarely do I feel it is from a selfishness, a throw away effect, the whole my party life would be better served without you - I feel like Casey Anthony thought just that as she tossed her two year old in the trunk of her car and smelled the rotting flesh.
A child's death at the hand of their parent has surely got to be the most tragic death of all - what do they think as they look at the person they love most extinguishing their very life?
It is no wonder this case is getting so much attention - it is infuriating, confusing, sad beyond conception.
I am a cynic when it comes to our legal system, often feel like the process is more political than anything BUT in this case I hope the truth comes out and that justice IS served.
And I guess it is possible that she didn't do it, although her pathological lying certainly indicates an fundamental instability and character deficit.
I wish parents would not kill their kids - I wish that violence at all would cease to exist. I hate it in every form.
And enough said there because now my own blood is boiling in my veins.
I dislike the feeling of a blood boil - I feel it a lot, built to get all emotionally charged - it's how I grow.
Speaking of growing....My kids are growing like weeds and I will admit it is freaking me out. Don't get me wrong, I CANNOT wait until they are a little more self sufficient, a little less needy - I hear "MOMMY CAN YOU...." like a gazillion times a day, oh my - BUT when it comes to my Emma girl, I will admit that it is pushing my panic button already. This morning when I got up, she was in my bed (she always is) and I looked at her long and hard before I went to brush my fangs. I lingered over every fine detail from her head to her toe and walked away feeling like I had been punched in my gut.
Here's why. She's beautiful. This morning she was wearing a pair of PJ bottoms like my very own, baggy cotton with some silly design all over them. She had the waist band turned over twice just like I do mine and she was wearing a thin spaghetti strapped tank top - her bare tan shoulders a stark contrast to the crisp white shirt.
Her bleach blonde hair was in a mass of tangles and curls and hung around her face in all the right places accentuating her freckles and chiseled chin - my heart stopped beating at the sight of such beauty - her long limbs wrapped around blankets and pillows, she looked like a perfect pearl all snug in a clam shell. I wanted to eat her, every pretty little inch. She's huge and she is not really a "little" girl anymore. Yes she is only almost eight, but she is changing right now as I type - she is getting closer and closer to puberty and it is freaking me out bad!
I fear for her, really I do. I think that she will amount to an effortless beauty, the kind of girl that does absolutely nothing to up keep and is gorgeous despite not a lick of make up present. She is going to be the hair gathered a mess on top of her head, in sweat pants and a tshirt type, that makes young men yearn to get in her comfort zone with her.
She is going to be like me, only a thousand times more beautiful and with legs that reach to the very heavens.
Let me clarify that when I say like me, I don't exactly mean in the physical sense - I mean more alike in spirit - she is wide open and hysterical just like me - a lover like her Momma and a deep thinker to boot.
She will be an attention target and this stresses my nerves beyond belief, already sigh.
I have always been told by men that I ooze sexuality. I have no idea what the hell that means, but I will say that whatever it is that I give off, it is unintentional as far as instigation is concerned (most of the time)
My personality and "I don't care what you think" stance has always made people, especially men interested and speculative about what it is I have got going on.
I keep my goings on, mostly to myself although I do connect profoundly with a lot of people in need.
I KNOW that I am mistakenly judged a lot and I worry about that for Emma Claire. She is not going to give a rat's ass what anyone thinks either and that is easily perceived as something altogether different, especially to men.
Men view "I don't care what you think" as "oh yes please dominate me, yes yes yes"
I don't know why that is - never really have understood the man brain.
SO how will I keep my natural beauty with her wide open lovers spirit, safe???
UGH.
Where is an ugly stick I can beat her with so at least the outside attracts less attention???
I'm no Casey Anthony - clearly that's metaphorical.
All Mom's of daughters have to go through this right? Seems inevitable that when you catch the momentary glimpses of them as teenagers you freak the fuck out...
I know I did this morning.
I want to kiss her all over, why wouldn't everyone else.
I want to protect her from everything ugly in the world, but especially from the ugliness that comes with being female. We are so objectified in our society - I could dress all dowdy and buttoned up conservatively, but that would just confuse her because clearly she understands her mom is a rainbow. Gotta be true to yourself despite what others contrive...
I will just have to talk to her a lot about owning her power and not abusing it - we females DO rule the world.
I will have to teach her that yes, her outer is pretty BUT her inner is even prettier and she needs to guard that and selectively share, hold her cards close to her chest and by way, close to her own heart - and my weak one....sigh.
Good thing about my Mimz is she has an army of older brothers - no boys will get within a hundred feet of her without having their lives threatened three times over first - Thank you God for birth order....I will work with those brutes on effective intimidation tactics.
Simply put, gotta do what I gotta do :)
Well, I need more tea and to do a shot of honey - throat is killing me, so off I go.(where ever have I heard that phrase before?)
I hope you all have a beautiful Friday and a glorious weekend full of happiness and joy.
Peace and lots of Love xo

Happy Birthday Boo

Oh my god I am back again...
This rain shit has got me trapped in my house and this is a no good situation , me and rainy weather have problems to begin with, forget about on a blue mood day. I have done just about everything that a person can do and absolutely nothing all at the same time...I am avoiding the real work, like cleaning - I think I would rather drive the end of thumb tacks up under my nail beds, which btw, I did my nails and Emma's in our new 'crackle blue' - like I said everything and nothing. ugh.
I surfed in itunes in desperate need of new music and found nothing that peaked my interest at all, except for an old Jackson 5 song "I wanna be where you are" - GOD I love that song - used to request it on KISS 108 back in Boston all the damn time....I miss that song and I need it, but to buy it you have to buy the entire album which is like forty bucks. I am all set with that and so I have put out a status update on facebook hoping someone here in Fluvie has it.
I roamed around my house in my comfy sweatshirt, looking for a good place to plop and landed here on my bed. Then I remembered...It's Omar's birthday today - he would be forty one.
What I do not need today is a trip down memory lane, but yeah off my mind went back to 1986....
What a beautiful love affair we had - and with that. fucking more salty tears - All I can say is Thank God I am not hormonal right now, because ovulatory rage would be really an unfortunate ingredient to add to the already perfect recipe for a nervous breakdown.
I thought about my boo - couldn't help myself.
And there we were before my eyes in the dark shade of my lonely bedroom - we were in the clawfoot tub back in the apartment in Belmont - no one was home - we were in a bubble bath together, him between my legs while I washed his hair, piled it high in a soapy beehive - he looked like the bride of Frankenstein. We did that a lot, the bath thing - I washed his hair all the time for him, deep conditioned it to try to heal the damage of too much hairspray - yes I said hairspray - it was the 80's and he was a 'metal head' - he used more hairspray than me. Those were really good days - we had a lot of really great quiet, private moments that I will cherish until the day I die.
We talked a lot and touched while we talked. Arms tangled, heads resting on each other, finger tips touching, quick thumb wrestle, fingers entwined, laughter a good neck bite. We were very happy then.
I find that now, all these years later, when I look at my own sons who are in that same stage of life that we were in back in the tub, it's hard for me to see my kids in a love affair of that caliber, hard for me to imagine them in that kind of quiet intimacy.
Omar and I were like and old married couple from the first time we kissed, we settled into a routine that felt older than our ages combined. It was as if we had been lovers before somewhere in the cycle of time and that 1986 was starting us off at our golden anniversary or something - old souls in young bodies.
Strange to imagine that intimacy now, strange for my finger tips to be unable to find his, still lonely for them after all these years.
When we finished our bath, which was when the water was too cold to stand it anymore and our skin had literally turned elderly - we would hold each other in towels and cuddle for warmth, lay on our bed - his wet, black hair splayed across the pillow case, getting the linens sopping wet. I would sit him up just like back in the tub, between my legs and comb his long hair out with all the gentleness of a Mother to her child. But like a lover more than a Mother, because usually the drying and bare skin and the sensuality of the hair brushing led us to getting tangled up in love making and there went any plans we had of real productivity.
For us, productivity occurred in our conversations, it occurred in our eyes when we stared into each other and said absolutely nothing at all. We enjoyed being alone, we enjoyed the quiet, we enjoyed simplicity of just doing absolutely nothing-together.
I remember when he painted me in the velvet arm chair in the living room - we ate Kentucky Fried chicken and listened to Journey and I complained that I couldn't sit still, he told me to shut up and quit my bitching - sit my ass still. He smiled at me then from around the side of the canvas and I threw a chicken bone at him and he said, "missed loser" and he smiled again around the canvas and mouthed the words "I love you" with a sparkle in his eyes and his lips closed in his 'I'm sorry I am teasing you' side smile.
I love you too.
And here come the fucking tears again, Jesus.
He was beautiful, one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen in my life, still to this very day. His father was from Iraq and he inherited his Fathers strong features and dark skin - his skin was so soft and taut and warm. He had the MOST beautiful hands I have ever seen, perfect hands, long fingers, perfect nails - clean and gently calloused on the tips from his base guitar strings. Gentle hands, hands that made music and smoothed hair, traced the shape of my lips ever so slowly. His eyes were always behind his hair except for when his hair was wet or when I gathered it in a high bun on top of his head like a samurai warrior - then he looked like a little boy - his eyes twinkled all the time, like the whites were littered with flecks of glitter - his brown eyes were the color of good chocolate. My favorite thing about his face were his lips, most likely because his smile could settle any disagreement and smooth any of my ruffled feathers instantly - that, and he had a little ball of flesh that protruded right on the underside of his upper lip, directly in the middle. He would bite it, I would bite it - I would kiss it all the time when he had his mouth open and he least expected me to pounce, something about that little ball of lip that put me right over the edge of desire.
His lips were a great shape, they were adorable when he spoke.
He was so dark and had such long dark hair and he was always in black leather and people assumed he was a bad ass and I put emphasis on the bad there.
He was the kindest, most gentle spirit I have ever known - he took care of me in a way that I have never felt again.
He was completely perfect in my eyes and I always thought that we would return to each other and live forever.
I have a sneaking suspicion that he knew better.
Two months before he died, he came to me under the apple trees one afternoon - he told me that he was miserable - he wanted to move to Cali and apply to art school out there - he produced his Mother's emerald ring and asked me to go with him.
I should have said yes - but, I didn't... When we sat together on a park bench in Harvard Sq. a few weeks later, my legs over his, holding his hand that read BLADE across the knuckles - his Johnny to my Rio the red head - we discussed our love affair and why it had happened we decided to take a break and date other people - when it was we would end up back together for life? He talked about the cowboy boots his Mother still wanted to buy for our baby, we laughed like we had all the time in the world - but again he said with urgency, "please come to California Boo" and I again, said I couldn't go - had to graduate, had to do one thing right...
The day he died, he had called me and I called him back on my way out the door to work - he was in the shower - his Mom on the cordless stood in the doorway to the bathroom, I can still hear the water running and his voice, "No tell her to wait, I have to talk to her it's important" - and me late as usual "I gotta go, tell him I'll talk to him tonight."
I stood in the shoe store where I worked, Xanadu it was called, and I stared at the huge neon clock on the wall and felt as though my insides had frozen solid inside of me - I believe now, it was the moment his lungs filled with water and left no room for air.
I was most upset that I didn't get to wash his hair - that custom is reserved for the Father - that, and that I didn't hang on my end of the phone for thirty more seconds.
The day of his funeral I got out of the car and my hands twisted up like an old witches, fingers gnarled and couldn't unwind - my first real panic attack.
As I walked away from the grave stumbling on earth that now held on to the body that made love to me, the boys from the band handed me a notebook full of songs and poems and doodles and sketches about me.
A piece of me died as I opened it up and looked for the first time at words and pictures I never knew existed - I remember thinking, oh Jesus what is happening?
It was the beginning of a very dark period of my life that I have maybe only just now in the last few years come out of. I lost track of the girl who washed his hair, I lost track of the girl who knew what real love was.
I know that he is profoundly happy to find me healthy again after all these years - he has a hand in every good thing I do for myself - I feel him push me along when my own stubbornness makes me hold my ground for no apparent stupid misguided reason.
The medium who stumbled into my store one day, pulled by a young man with dark hair and eyes that needed her to say the word Worchester to me, confirmed he is over my right shoulder, stuck to me like glue always.
I can feel hm smiling back there right now I think.
Young love with us was old love - He would be forty one today and I wish so much I could see him with salt and pepper hair -
He told me once as I thrashed in fear - "I will never leave you."
Sometimes I think it was a conscious choice to leave me here in this place, to never leave my side again....
The line that divides his world and mine feels so thin to me, like I could poke right through it and touch him -
Today I wish I could slap him on the ass forty one times and tell him he's an old man now....Instead I am the old broad and he is still eighteen.
Happy Birthday my love - I love you forever and a day.

Out of my hands

Good cloudy Thursday morning to you all.
So last night my son Brian said, "Really Ma, two blogs in one day - is that necessary?" Oh my if he only knew that right now, without a real life to live, I would be writing 24/7...I am on the fence about my Grandmother's eulogy. Do I begin it - do I wait? Do I begin it now, because now she is alive, and presently I am not in the throws of a gripping and horrific grief - where it's very possible that the right words will not push through? OR do I wait, because maybe she won't die and maybe the truth is, that my best writing about loss, comes while I am treading water in my own pool of tears? I just don't know - so instead I blog and pour out what I can in preparation of whatever comes next. I am emotionally wrung the fuck out. I think I have a handle on my feelings about Nana and then I realize that I don't at all and then I get to a place where I do and then I return quickly to a place where I do not. It's exhausting.
The thing that really sucks about this kind of limbo is that it is terribly inconvenient. I don't mean to sound selfish and terrible, let me elaborate if I can accurately articulate it - What I mean is that I must live my regular life, right? Still gotta function as Mother, still got work to go to, still have an upcoming trip to consider, yada yada. Still have to live life as though it's live-able, when really, with a death looming over my head and heart - it just isn't. I want the clock on real time to suspend it's ticking too - while she is in health limbo, I think it's only fair that my life should also be.
It is that, "well is it going to happen or isn't it?" kinda pervasiveness - it's in every act I attempt to get through. It looms over the laundry pile....Do I get down the suit cases from the attic? Do I pack for the just in case? But if I do that, what will the open suitcase in the bedroom do for me - how will that effect me - how will that symbol of impending doom make me feel?
I am miserable to say the least.
I went to the pool yesterday afternoon with the kids, thinking that my private Dave concert and otherwise amused kids, were the answer to the looming - that there in my earphones, I may be able to detach myself for even a short time and find that when I re-attached to the thoughts I felt more prepared - but yeah no, the complete opposite happened. Laying there with my bare skin in the sun, the heat oppressively taking hold of my breathing, I felt beat and weak and helpless. And I stared up into the clouds when they eclipsed the sun, I stared up into the white/grayness and I saw Nana there - saw my times with her in the sky. I cried and cried like an idiot as Dave crooned and crooned and of course, I had chosen the Dave and Tim acoustic concert from Vegas and that album is tear inducing for me on the best of days as is. Dave said "the way the rain, the rain, the way the rain" and what he means is "the way the tears, the tears, the way the tears" and so they ran in a stream down my face and I had no reprieve from the looming - instead it settled down on top of my bare skin, my splayed out and weak body parts, like a heavy blanket of sorrow.
Sigh.
I could find no good place to escape it, it plainly said, is inescapable.
I thought about my relationship with my Nan. Do people get it, when I say my Grandmother may be dying? Do other people know what my Grandmother dying is to me? Did they/Do they have a Nana like mine? Did they/do they have a relationship with anyone of this specific significance?
Hard to explain what she is to me - hard to explain what she means - she means everything - she is my best friend, has been for all of my life.
The only person who calls me DEBORAH ANN and gets away with it - who will call me Deborah Ann when she is gone?
Fuck fuck fuck I hate this.
And yet, she has suffered so....God has she suffered so. And I hate her suffering far more than I hate never hearing her speak my name ever, ever again.
And I have no power - no power to do or change anything that is happening, not the illness, not the fear, not the timing, certainly not the inconvenient looming...
I am angry, yes, I am angry but I don't know why - at what - or at who?
I just feel a rage inside that this happens at all - I feel a rage that life inevitably equals death and death inevitably = pain for those left behind.
I would like to say, I have had enough of death - but the sad reality in that statement, is that really, if I have had enough - I must die to escape any more of it because there is an entire generation of up and comings in my life - really the losses have just begun.
I am not ready to die and so I wait...
And I hate WAITING more than I hate anything, except of course death. Waiting is the ultimate exacerbation of the lack of control I possess over everything that is out of my hands. I am not a great waiter. In fact I downright suck at it. I want to throw shit and cry and scream at the sky and say "REALLY - this is the best you've got - WAIT AND SEE?" Jesus Christ, for the love of God.
I want to pitch a fit like a two year old and writhe on the floor, kicking my legs and pounding my fists - I want to rage against the waiting, but I know, trust me I know - been there done it - it does little to relieve the anxiety or make the waiting any easier to cope with. Tantrums just wear you the fuck out and then make the debate concerning the laundry pile and the packed suitcase even more tiresome and cumbersome.
I wait and I hate it, and I hate that I hate it, but I accept that I am a wait hater and there is nothing to be done to change that.
I want to be in control and I am not, period.
I like to be in control.
Part of me wants her to die right now. Book my flights, pack my bags, write the words and get this done - for her sake. Part of me wants her to hang on until I get there, rebound and hold steady until July 5th - be her usual silly Nana self and dote on the kids - get to see her Emma Claire - her Deborah Ann, one more time, lecture me about my cleavage and hike my shirt up for old times sake.
Part of me wants none of this to be an issue at all - just someone please find the elixir to a youthful life and infuse it with her saline IV drip already and let me and my sisters keep our beloved Nan.
UGH - I am wreckage, plain and simply put.
Mary called me last night to remind me of who we are, cause momentarily I think we both forgot.
She said "So this is what will happen - my Grandmother will die at the beginning of the week, then your Grandmother will die mid - week and we will spend the book writing week in PH at wakes and funerals - what are we stupid to ever think we would get a week at PH in peace?"
And she has a valid point - we don't do easy. We tried that when she came here years ago to do the Washington DC experience - she was blown down the stairs at JFK's grave in the weirdest wind storm in history and as we sat at the Emergency room waiting to have her swollen ankle x-rayed - a lunatic went on a shooting spree at VTECH and killed a bunch of innocent students as we watched in horror and disbelief. And who can forget the Dave Matthews show where I was sexually assaulted by a security guard and when I fought back to defend my body, because it is MINE, I went out in cuffs, ejected from Leroi's last show....Oh and then there is puke fest 2010 which was slated to be a relaxing week of kid fun - just our families together doing family stuff - and then it happened Cameron barfed on the rink and then Nana, then Colby, then Shawn, then Matthew, then Emma, then Mary and me, well I did a few shots of tequila because everyone knows that tequila will kill any bug in your stomach - me, no puking, but a constant state of churning nausea - the entire house puked and ran fevers the entire week - changing barfed on bed sheets, washing puked on towels and changing the liners to a million trash cans that were set up like cones on a road throughout the entire house - puke check points. RIDICULOUS. We just don't do easy. Mary had to make me aware, in case I had forgotten, that nothing is ever as we planned - buckle down baby, prepare for the worst case scenario. Fuck me.
I don't want that this time....Selfish....I want the kids to visit Pam and have a great time with their Aunt, I want to go to PH with no stress and write the Canary Memoirs - no broken ankles or lunatics with guns, no sexual assaults, no puking, no death.
Is that so much to ask for once in my life?
Selfish - I know.
But damn it to hell, just once????? JUST FREAKING ONE TIME WITH EASE.
Thing is, I have more than enough material for the book - just gotta have the time to write it.
I want whatever is best for Nana and I don't possess the answer to that. My little sister Toto Bird thinks that she still has joy in her life and that she isn't ready to go - I am not entirely sure I agree, but secretly, okay publicly now, I hope her perception of Nana's state is the right one. If it is, I will get more of her and I always want more Nan, no doubt.
I apologize profusely for my rant this morning - I just have to get it out so my head does not explode, I have enough to clean up as it is.
I am doing my very best to survive this with grace.
I will say that for all the stupidity of my life, when it comes to Grandparents, my Sisters and I lucked out - we have been the luckiest three girls in the world to have had the very best Nana and Papa anyone could ever hope for. Funny and intelligent, loving and nurturing, caring and devoted beyond my wildest dreams and expectations - everything they did for us was perfection. I dare say, we three got the very best of them and for that, I am eternally grateful.
I plan to give it to my Grandchildren one day - plan to be the kind of Nana to them, my Nana was to me - plan to rock the role hard core. I have had the very best example.
I know she isn't reading this - but Thanks Nan for loving me so perfectly, I love you with everything that I am.
I hope she is peaceful today whatever the day may bring for her. I know without a doubt she is saying the rosary in her head, I think I may go pray one round too, maybe it will join us from a far.
Hail Mary full of Grace, the lord is with thee....