Looney Tunes

I seem to be suffering a relapse of sorts. I'm regressing. I have no idea what's bringing it on or what, but I'm finding that it's harder and harder to live the life I've created in the last 8 years.

Many of you already know that I feel as if I've been living a double life for a long time. I have the professional part of my life - which I truly hate - and the other part...The Real Me. The Real Me has struggled with sobriety for the last few years. The Real Me has, in fact, been clean of all illicit drugs since 1998. The Real Me smoked for 17 years and quit cold-turkey.

But The Real Me has also borderline-abused her prescription meds for a few years now. The Real Me quit AA cold-turkey and started drinking again - more and more often as of late. The Real Me resumed smoking (in secret, of course because we all know my boyfriend and parents would shit themselves) Marlboro Menthols. The Real Me has started keeping secrets (3.5 of them, actually) from everyone in her life except one woman: her best friend. I'm not even in a place where I can feel as if I can trust my therapist and tell him everything yet.

The Real Me has started acting like a lunatic. I'm losing my house, I hate my job, I lost my grandfather, I lost a great friend, and I feel pretty damned alone. I've been betrayed by someone I thought was a friend, I feel as if my boyfriend is kind of fickle and that his affection is conditional, and I almost feel as if I have nothing else to lose. That's over-exaggerating, but it's my perception most of the time.

I spend too much time daydreaming about other ways I can perpetuate my downward spiral. WHY? I don't know.

So today I was thinking about the drugs I used to do, the ones that I was using during the best times of my life, and then started doing Internet searches to see if I could find any more information about it.

My "gateway drug" was LSD. Is that even a gateway, or just jumping straight off the high-dive? Whatever. The first kind I had was called Looney Tunes and was printed with tiny images of the Looney Tunes characters. The first kind I ever saw on a full sheet of blotter paper with repeating patterns of Daffy Duck. I'm amazed at how many images of that particular design are all over the web.

But the one I remember the most, that was actually manufactured in my city and was around forever was the Blue Hawaiian. I can't even begin to tell you how many of these I took. I even remember helping my boyfriend split up sheets upon sheets and bag them up for sale.

 

Right or wrong, I sure do miss the trip. I don't hear about my students taking this kind of stuff. I have no idea if anyone even makes it anymore. Maybe I'm just around the wrong demographic of teens.

I wouldn't go down that road again, no matter how badly I want to. I know for a fact that Troy would leave me in a heartbeat if he found out. His whole family likes me and thinks I'm wonderful. My family has always known I'm a powderkeg so, if I relapsed again (yes, again), it wouldn't surprise them one bit, I'm sure. But I don't want to disappoint an entire family that just accepted me and enfolded me into their lives and I'm not sure it's worth it.

I'm functional. I don't get drunk on nights when I have to work the next morning. I don't smoke in my house. I haven't used prescription drugs in ways inconsistent with their labeling since about the time Steve died in June. I need to keep myself under control but, as my title says, I'm really just "one JagerBomb away from a breakdown."

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Stress Management What?

It's Back to School time and, while parents everywhere are cheering and celebrating, teachers like myself are cringing. Well, not all of us. But I am.

I've been seeing this guy off and on - a football coach at my school - and he seems to have positive things to say about this year's batch. Take into consideration, please, that he's seeing motivated kids who are willing to be out in the Texas heat over their summer just to play football. So, yeah, I would expect them to be rather good right now.

I don't hold out a whole lot of hope. As our state rolls out a brand-new, revamped, reworked standardized test, our elected representatives found a brilliant way to cut funds for education. Teachers across the state have been laid off and districts can't afford to spend money on any programs and even supplies. Where many teachers bought supplies with their own money, that's an impossibility since I think every district has frozen our already-substandard salaries.

If we weren't overworked before, we certainly will be this year. The last few days of trainings and meetings have brought back all the physical symptoms of job-related stress that I was feeling at the end of the year (oh, hell...who am I kidding? it was ALL YEAR) and it's killing me. My stomach is all tied in knots and my digestive system is all jacked up. I've had a headache for days. So bad, in fact, that I've been vomiting and it mimics a migraine - although I'm not sure that's what it was, technically.

I don't want this year to be the one where I walk out in the middle of a day, never to return, just to keep myself healthy. I have no idea what I'd do for a job if that happened, anyway. I've been trying to maintain a positive attitude about the upcoming academic year and, let me tell you, it's been hard. I don't buy in to the rumors and stories coming from the other teachers. I prefer to develop my own opinion of the kids once they show up.

Anyway, I have this weekend to fully relax before I go back to start Teacher Week Back. The Boy's taking me on a camping trip to a lake north of here and I plan on thoroughly enjoying myself, thank you very much! I'm excited and I'm going to take this time to appreciate what's left of my summer...all four days of it.

In that same vein, I gotta run. Time to get packed up!

About Last Night? Where Do I Begin... - IndieInk Challenge

This is an entry for the IndieInk Writing Challenge. Liz Culver challenged me and her prompt is at the end of the post. I challenged A Lil Irish Lass with a rather long prompt you'll have to go read about at her blog!

About Last Night? Where Do I Begin…

            My head felt like it was floating, full of teddy bear stuffing. The groan I emitted upon trying to sit up out of bed sort of reverberated throughout my skull and jaw. I’m pretty sure my teeth were wearing mittens and my tongue was a scarf.

            The sheets beneath my stark-naked ass were smooth and cool…definitely not my own. The room was light with windows around the entire room painted plain white. As I looked around, alarm began to rise up from my core (or was it vomit?) but I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. Where am I? What the HELL did I do?! Oh, GOD, Ryan’s going to kill me. I began to scrutinize my surroundings. There was an old steamer trunk covered in chipped white paint next to the bed being used as a nightstand. On it, an alarm clock displaying the truth that I’d slept until 10:30, my cell phone and car keys (thank GOD), a couple of remotes, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a note.

Unfortunately, there was nothing else around the room except for a few live music fliers and a rack system stereo near the corner. The hardwood floors were scuffed and scratched. There were two four-panel doors on the same wall. Both were closed.

I tried to piece together what had happened the night before. I was pretty good at working the evening backwards, usually. It wasn’t working this time. I flat-out blacked out at some point.

Okay. I met some friends at the diner. I had a BLT with Ruffles and a vanilla Coke. We walked three blocks down to a small, crowded bar – one of those places with pendant lamps and velour upholstery. Ryan suggested that maybe I’d had enough to drink but I disagreed. I remember getting into a small argument with him while our friends Chris and his new girlfriend Elizabeth stood by, helpless, and I went to the bathroom. Elizabeth came in to talk to me but I didn’t want to talk to her – I just met her last night. I remember talking to some other guy at the bar. Ryan came up to us. And then…that’s pretty much all I remember. Fuck. How did I manage to ruin my entire life over the course of a few drinks?

I picked up my cell phone. There were no missed calls and only one text from a friend in another state: “Are you okay? You sent some pretty effed up texts last night! Drunk again?” But no missed calls. Ryan never called. I checked incoming and outgoing calls. Ryan never called. Fuck.

I got up and found my clothes on the floor. I put them back on, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. The bed was nothing but a mattress on the floor, covered in very expensive sheets. I picked up my cell and my car keys. I didn’t even know if my car was outside. I drove last night but there’s no way I could have driven if I was that drunk. Either way, I had to piss like a racehorse and needed to find the bathroom. Do I want to see what’s behind Door #1, or Door #2? I opened the door on the right and walked into the bathroom. It was freakishly clean and empty except for a toothbrush, toothpaste, and toilet paper. At least there was body wash and a poofy thing in the shower. I took a really good look at the nasty, disgusting, shameful reflection of myself – then I remembered the note. Coffee. Good.

            The second door led to one big room with an open kitchen on one end. Again, there were windows all over the living area. Nothing but boxes everywhere, but there were some interesting things on the counter. My purse was on the counter. There was a coffee maker full of hot coffee with four coffee mugs and a barstool. I poured some coffee and peeked in the fridge. There was the sour milk, half a bottle of Dasani, a few Heinekens (eww), and a tub of chocolate cake frosting. I hate black coffee but it looked like that was all I was gonna get.

            There was nothing in the apartment at all to make it look personalized. The boxes made it look like someone was in a transition. There a plain blatantly-Ikea sofa and loveseat combo in, yep, white, but that was the only furniture. The more I realized how generic the room was, the more frightened I became. Maybe if I just focused on my coffee…but I couldn’t. My eye was twitching and the hangover was beginning to set in.

I have to get out of here. I have to get home and…and what? Where do I start? Where do I begin? There’s no way I can lie to Ryan about what happened – especially if I don’t know how much he knows. I have to get home first and then I can evaluate things. Oh, this is going to hurt…He was right; I should have just stopped drinking. He knows it interacts with my medication but I just wouldn’t listen. Why? WHY wouldn’t I listen?!

The dry heaving began, a combination of emotional panic, being hungover (nope, I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk), and the nasty-ass black coffee. I heard a rattle in the front door behind me and it squeaked open. I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t bear to see what I’d done – or, should I say, WHO I’d done.

“Hey, Cheryl! You’re up!”

Oh, shit. It was a female voice. I turned around. It was Elizabeth.

This is about to be a very, very, very bad day.

“Are you okay? Heh. You sure did drink a lot last night. I bet you’re really hung over! I brought some donuts. You want anything to eat, or are you queasy?” Elizabeth’s cheeriness made me feel even worse. I thought I was going to puke.

“Do I even want to know what happened?” I managed to choke out something that sounded a little bit like my voice.

“Oh, Ryan got called in, so Chris took him home to get his car. Ryan didn’t want to take your car so you’d have a way home,” she answered.

“So Ryan was here with me?”

“Of course. I just moved in and we were all pretty buzzed so you all just came here instead of risking the long drive home uptown. We let you and Ryan have the bed,” she chuckled. “It was closer to the bathroom and we figured you’d need it! Heh.”

I almost fainted. But I began thinking about it and I guess that would be why there were no calls from Ryan.

“Well, I have to go back to my old place to pick up some more boxes. Your car’s parked across the street whenever you feel well enough to leave. No rush. Ryan said he was going to your place on his way to work to feed the cats. See ya!” And with that, she went back out the door.

Liz's prompt to me was "Where do I start, where do I begin?" It reminded me of the lyrics from the Chemical Brothers song, "Where Do I Begin," which is where the coffee came in. I'm not sure I tackled this without the ending being disappointing or ridiculous, but I couldn't come up with anything I thought was short enough! LOL! Hope you enjoyed it.

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Heat Advisory - Indie Ink Challenge

I've joined forces with many talented people and decided to play along in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. Heather challenged me with "Heat Advisory," and Kiki Harshman was challenged with "what was the most amazing elementary school field trip you ever took?"

Two things: First, I haven't written creatively in quite some time. Please be kind. I just need to get back in the swing. Secondly, serious props to Wendryn for hooking me up. As a newbie, it was very helpful! Thanks, Wendryn!

Heat Advisory

           It had been exactly five months since I’d last talked to my Grandma Esther when she died and fell down the stairs of her turn-of-the-century home in Trinity, Texas. It took a neighbor a little over a week before he went over to her house to find out why she hadn’t taken in her trash can. I wasn’t notified until three days later.

             She was the only real family I had left, I cried to my girlfriend. Why couldn’t she just have let me love her? Marissa would just nod in that understanding way, and let me cry it all out. I knew why she couldn’t just let me love her. There were so many things between us: pride, anger, blame, guilt, and, of course, the generation gap. Then she died and none of it mattered. No one had won and, in fact, I had lost in a big way because I was all alone.

           

1987, Trinity

            I rode my bike around Grandma Esther’s block over and over. Her home, built in 1888, was situated on an entire city block. The lot was dotted with ancient oak trees, trunks as big around as our breakfast table and shade as plentiful as the scent of jasmine in the air. It was summer, so my mother, father, and I were on our annual vacation to visit Grandma Esther. The other half of the summer would be spent at my aunts’ house in Oklahoma, but I was living in the moment, enjoying the humid, sticky Trinity summer.

            The house was huge – two stories with an attic loft thing – but she had only three window unit air conditioners. One was in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom, and one at the end of the hallway leading to the other bedrooms. There were fans all over the house but it was always too hot. I preferred to sleep on the screened-in porch on the back of the house. The crickets were loud but the cicadas were the best. While others complained, I loved to fall asleep to the din of their vibrations, the sensation totally different than anything I experienced at home in Lafayette.

            I hated the adult conversations that seemed to take hours as my parents sat in the bright, white kitchen. The piles and piles of antiquities in the basement were interesting but the rats kept me from venturing past the last step downstairs. The attic was just way too hot even though it would have made a great playhouse for me, but Grandma Esther had screwed the windows shut after my mother almost tumbled out one of them as a kid. I did a lot of exploring over the summers but there was a lot of time spent just riding my bike around her block, sometimes asking for permission to go a little further away. I was only 11 but I felt as if I had all the freedom in the world as long as I had the wind in my face. Without it, the sweltering humidity was stifling and dangerous.

            Our last day in Trinity, right before we were to leave for Ardmore, there was a heat advisory for the area. The temperature was going to be 106 with the heat index and the city had set up ‘cooling centers’ for the old, the young, and the impoverished, or anyone else who was unfortunate enough to have no air conditioning. Head advisories were nothing new to Trinity. Every summer we had to endure one during our visit. Grandma Esther promised to keep herself hydrated. I remember looking out the back of our car and seeing her standing on her driveway, tall glass of pink lemonade in her hand, waving as we drove off down the street.

            That was the last time I actually saw her under normal circumstances. Things got busy with my parents’ work and they just couldn’t take that much time off anymore. Split summer vacations turned into trading off destinations, which changed into every-other-year vacations. I missed Grandma Esther, but not her oven of a home.

Baton Rouge, 1997

            I sat on the curb at the corner, waiting and waiting, but they hadn’t shown up yet. I was shaking even though it was probably ninety degrees and 95% humidity. I was sick, strung out, broken down and beaten. My parents were coming to save me. They were my last-ditch effort at rebuilding my life. My friends had turned their backs on me when I came close to overdosing – again. If I died in the house, then they would all get busted too and they didn’t want to take the chance, so I was out. I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want to be one of those homeless teens with a first name only, disowned by their families. I wanted everything to be fixed again. I called my parents collect, spilled my guts, and they promised to come get me – right that very instant – so for me to just wait right where I was. I agreed to hold out for the hour and a half it would take, so I popped a squat and waited.

            Four hours later, when they still weren’t there, I knew they’d changed their minds. I pictured it happening: Mom argued that they should leave me there, Dad argued that they couldn’t abandon me, Mom would remind Dad that they were supposed to be going on vacation the next day, Dad would tell her they could put it off for one more day, Mom would go through the laundry list of my transgressions, and Dad would eventually give in because, hell, my mother was simply a raging bitch. So I called collect again, ready to say last goodbyes, but nobody answered. I called every hour for the next twelve as I aimlessly wandered around the town, dehydrated and sweaty.

            At ten the next morning, I called a childhood friend that lived near my parents’ house. Jennifer told me to call back in an hour and she’d have some news or she’d send some money by Western Union. When I called her back, she said nobody was home and that my dad’s car was gone. They always took my dad’s car if they went anywhere. She’d been calling their cell phones, but it was going to voice mail. Jennifer wired me money and told me to get on a Greyhound and come to her house.

Lafayette, 1997

             The funeral was a blur. Barely 17 and I was an orphan. They hadn’t even made it out of the city. I was told they ran a red light and the car was t-boned by a beer truck. The fact that my father was still in AA made the whole situation funny to someone who was on the outside looking in. The truth still remains that my father won the argument and they died because he wanted to save me. My Grandma Esther was well aware of that fact too, and she didn’t let me forget it for not one minute during the funeral arrangements or the funeral itself. She told me I was never again allowed back in her home. We weren’t a big family. Everyone had either died or had remained childless. I was alone in every way and out on the streets by myself – forced out, this time.

            Jennifer’s family took mercy on me and let me stay with them. Eventually I found love and moved in with Marissa. She helped me find my center and find some stability both financially and emotionally. She convinced me to not give up on my Grandma. So I kept calling when I felt strong enough to deal with the guilt trip and the cursing. We had one decent conversation, right up to the point where I told her about Marissa. She hung up on me after muttering something about going to hell and a disgrace on the family name. I just didn’t think I needed to lie about my relationships but I suppose she wasn’t expecting to find out the truth. 

Trinity, 2009

            I kept picturing her tumbling down the stairs, bumping stair after stair headfirst, on the way down to the landing before the basement that frightened me as a child. I never did ask what had happened exactly and Marissa had asked them not to offer an explanation. None of the details mattered. The one thing they did tell me was the cause of death: heat stroke.

            Grandma Esther was a pigheaded, stubborn, angry woman. She ignored the heat advisory – again – and it killed her. She probably had refused to believe that a woman of her age needed to be more mindful of her health and its limitations. I wish it hadn’t happened but sometimes you just have to accept the truth, adapt to your new reality, and move forward.

            As for me and Marissa, we’re moving to Colorado. I’ve heard they have nice weather.

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They Come in Threes

My grandfather was in a car wreck a couple of months ago. He was backing out of his parking space, floored it, ruined the side of the car next to him, took out the covered parking canopy, backed into an Impala at full speed, totaling both the car and his Plymouth van. Initially he said he was okay.

Three days later, he called my mother at work and asked her to take him to the ER. Hours upon hours later, it was determined that he had two crushed vertebrae. The other news: he had bone cancer in those two vertebrae and it probably wouldn't have been discovered had he not had a wreck. He needed time to recover from the surgery repairing vertebrae and then they'd evaluate cancer treatment.

Only a month shy of 92 years old, my grandfather put on the bravest face I've ever seen and vowed to fight the cancer until he was free. "I've done this before. I know what to expect, and I can't just give up!" he exclaimed. But his prostate cancer was treated back in the mid-90s, and he was a tad younger then.

Somewhere along the way, he decided to buy a 3-year old Nitro from CarMax. He said he couldn't drive yet because he was on too many painkillers, but fully expected to be driving himself to and from cancer treatment. I was able to con him out of his keys under the guise that I was going to take it to work the last week of school and I just kinda kept them. He never said anything.

The cancer evaluation was downplayed by my grandfather. I believe he was scared, maybe a bit in denial, but also didn't want to worry me. It's not like I wasn't going to find out, you know? Anyway, it turns out that in addition to the bone cancer in his spine, they found a spot of it on a rib. They found some other type of cancer on his liver and on a lung. He was going to be going through chemo and, although I'm pretty sure he didn't want to, he faced it head on. I would be driving him to all his appointments. In fact, that's the only way I found out the truth about the extensive cancer discoveries - I sweet-talked the nurses into telling me the truth.

He was scheduled to start treatment on a Friday. That Sunday, he went to a birthday party in the party room at his apartment complex. He was standing in a doorway, talking to the food services manager and the chaplain about his recent diagnosis. He said he started to feel a little lightheaded. When he stepped back a few steps to lean on the doorjamb, he missed and leaned on the door instead. The door was not open all the way. It continued to open another 9" or so, and my grandfather fell straight back to the floor, landing on the back of his head.

Then he got up, walked over to the clinic so they could bandage up his scraped arm, went back to the party to deliver the birthday card, and went up to his apartment. Several hours later, he called the front desk and asked them to call him an ambulance.

By the time the ambulance got there, he was already unconscious and they changed their route from the local hospital to the Level I trauma center in the Med Center. He underwent emergency brain surgery to reduce the swelling of his brain and to control the excessive bleeding. They removed a sizable portion of his skull.

He quickly became responsive to commands and voices, although he was still unable to speak due to sedation. He acquired a lung infection but beat it within a few days. He was stabilized, spend Father's Day in the hospital, and after a second successful surgery that stopped the bleeding completely, we began investigating long-term acute care rehab facilities. We'd toured one and picked on. They visited him, evaluated him, and they approved him for admittance. They predicted that his skull fragment would be replaced in less than 3 months.

He was to be transferred to the LTAC, June 24th, the day after his 92nd birthday. At 8:45am on his birthday, the hospital called my father and asked him to come to the hospital, that things were starting to go badly. My father called me at 9:30 and asked me to come pick him up from work so we could go together. By the time I arrived, my father was standing in the parking lot looking horribly. My grandfather had already passed.

After looking through his paperwork while I was left alone in the room, his time of death was recorded at 9:11am. That means that my father already knew my granddad was dead before he called me the first time. I guess he just didn't want me driving all upset. I don't know. I was pissed at first but, you know, it really doesn't matter in the end - my granddad is still dead.

I'd like to believe that letting go and dying was his doing. He knew what long road was ahead at the LTAC facility; my grandmother went through the same thing until she kept declining and went into hospice. He knew what was ahead with the cancer. I'm going to believe that he just said to himself, "You know, I'm 92 today, I've lived an amazing life with family who loves me, and I'm going to spare us all the struggles I'd be facing," and he just shut himself down. He was so in control of himself that he could even guide the events in his dreams. I've never known anyone who could do that!

We had a memorial service at his apartment complex (it was a retirement community - they were all his friends), and I picked up his ashes last week. My dad was supposed to come get them from me and he never has. His apartment has been entirely cleaned out and has already been rented out to a new resident. We are in the process of planning the burial service in our hometown for sometime in the future, but I'm not sure how much has been done.

Last Friday, my good friend and race team member passed away from a pulmonary embolism. He'd gone through bladder cancer treatment 6 months ago - it was removed through surgery and one round of radiation - and I recently got an email saying he was 100% cancer-free. And then he was working on his race car in his garage and, apparently, just dropped dead. So that's what I'm doing this weekend; helping his wife inventory all the car stuff so we can put it up for sale after the will's been taken care of, and attending the funeral.

Last night, a man who was very near and dear to many of my friends and my boyfriend passed away. I'm still not sure of all the details, but he was a huge help to my mechanic buddy: if he was running late, this guy would come open the shop for him. He did all our car inspections. He'd lend a helping hand here and there. He'd always had health problems, apparently, so his passing may have something to do with that, but I don't know. Arrangements are pending.

Yesterday I was at my shrink's office and I hadn't found out about Jim yet. I told him, "You know, I'm always worried about this stuff - bad things happen in 3s. Who's going to be Number Three!? I don't mean to be superstitious but, man, be careful driving home..." I checked my texts when I left his office and got into the car, and that's where I got the news about Jim.

There's more to talk about: The Boy, A Guy Named Bob, The F350, but I just don't have time now. My granddad's death has taken a huge toll on me mentally, which is affecting me physically as well. Most of everything else just doesn't matter right now and I know it will cause me strife later...it's just hard. I'm an only child, my father's an only child, and my mother's parents are both dead. I feel like I'm alone now. My granddad was my only true cheerleader. When everyone else turned their backs on me, he was always there. He thought I hung the moon and he showed that through his actions and his words every chance he got. He helped me through faith and through financial assistance. He sent me newspaper clippings and bible verses and inspirational passages and notes of encouragement - anything he thought might help me get through a tough time (which was, honestly, every day).

Anyway, that's it. I may be able to write more later. Summer's close to over and you know I'll be going batshit crazy when school starts again. :-(

See y'all soon...

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A Plug

I have no vested interest in saying this at all, but you should read this blog. If it had more literature-based posts, it would be my life at work...

http://shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com/

 

Why I Didn't Fuck Lee Ving

I was a gorgeous, slim, svelte 85-pound 19-year old who could drink just about anyone under the table and had no fear whatsoever when it came to taking various illegal substances. I was all about the local music scene and I loved revisiting my punk roots as often as I could by watching bands play. I was working in a bar and begged my boss like crazy to let me off work early so I could go to the divey-est of dive bars to see two of my favorite bands play. One was a local band where almost all the members were friends of mine and they were playing with Fear. Fear has always been one of my most favorite bands of all time - mostly because of Lee Ving.

 

image by Guy Webster

*sighs* Even now, viewing his image sends my heart all a-flutter. Yes, he's considerably older than me but, fuck...he's Lee Ving. So when my friend Chris told me his band would be playing with Fear and I was invited to hang out after the show with them backstage, I knew precisely what that meant and I told Chris I was all in. So I begged, pleaded, almost cried, and worked a ridiculously stupid deal with my boss so he'd let me go early. And as soon as 9:00 rolled around, I ran the fuck out of there as fast as my truck would take me.

Before the show, Chris called me over to the edge of the stage as they were setting up. "So, you're gonna stay after, right? Lee really wants to meet you..."

"Of course I'm staying. And then go wherever."

"Cool. This is gonna be a great show!"

"Yep. Good luck, and come find me after your teardown."

And then I went to the bar. And then I went to the corner and did a couple bumps of coke. And then I smoked a few cigarettes and went back to the bar.

Admittedly, Lee looked a tad bit older than I'd remembered him last but, fuck...he's Lee Ving. Despite my two-year relationship with a guy who turned out to be a total fucking loser who was almost twice my age anyway, I was fully prepared to engage in whatever deviant, hedonistic activities Lee was into. I was so excited that I almost couldn't focus on the band playing in anticipation of it just being over. I seriously could not contain myself.

Both bands were amazing. The stage presence was great and I heard all the songs I wanted to hear. The crowd was rowdy and aggressive and the spirits were high. It was good. After Fear was done, Chris came out to tell me that they were going to clean up, get some drinks and food back there, and he'd come back out and get me when they were ready. "Lee said he thinks you're really pretty and he can't wait to get you backstage." For real? ME? Fucking sweet. I hope he rips my panties off... All of a sudden I felt a calm wash over me. I was SO ready. I remember calling my friend on my huge-ass Nokia brick cell phone to tell her what was going on and that was pretty much the last thing I remember in a normal sense.

That's when I hit the floor and began seizing.

Now, I knew I had some undiagnosed seizure disorder and yes, it did have a tendency to strike at ALL the wrong times. My doctor said it could be brought on by a very fast drop in blood pressure but, due to my numerous head injuries from the past, they just couldn't be sure. I could usually feel them coming on but I think the atmosphere of the club distracted me from the warning signs.

At first people thought I was OD'ing. For a few moments, so did I. It's not like I hadn't been shoving coke up my nose and Crown and Coke down my throat all night. People started laughing and kicking me and pouring their beer on me. The buzzing in my ears kept getting louder and louder and drowned out the crowd's jeers. I tried to explain what was happening, but my jaws were clenched tight and I had no control over myself.

The paramedics showed up pretty quickly, because I was still unable to respond or stand on my own. I was shivering so badly that the bartender had poked a hole in a garbage bag to put over my head. They tried to make me get in the ambulance but I refused. They made me call my boyfriend and he came to pick me up.

All of this time, Chris knew there was some kind of huge incident going on, but didn't know it was me. And so, obviously, Lee's penis and I didn't get a chance to get acquainted.

Either way, it's a sad story. I've never been a groupie in the sexual leech scenester sense. There have been bands that I've followed from the beginning and become friends with members, and supported them all the way. I've never slept with a band member of any fame just because of who they were. This...that would have been the exception to that rule. He's not the hottest man anymore but, then again, I don't look like that bombshell I used to be, either. No, I wouldn't fuck Lee Ving at this stage of the game, anyway. Things are different now.

I always wondered that if I HAD been able to go through with it, if I'd asked him for his phone number after all of it, if he would have said, "I don't care about you...fuck you." I'm guessing he probably wouldn't - too cliche - but I could still imagine the words coming out of his mouth.

image from Vans Warped Tour 2010

Surfacing, Only To Recede Back Into the Depths

Ashley...oh, how my mind kept wandering on about this girl. I had, basically, all day after writing that post to do nothing else but obsess; Troy was working on that car and I was stuck up at the shop with little else to do. So I kept digging.

I thought back to all my training, especially when I was a repo agent. If you could go through their trash - the paper stuff, not the actual garbage, you could learn more about them and their habits and get leads. So I dragged all of her stuff into the office, laid it all out on the desk, and started thinking.

I looked at maps of the schools she went to and cross-referenced those with property records from the area of people with the same surnames, including the aunt's last name I found on the card. I found a local woman with the aunt's name, so I searched for her. She owned a company with a website, so I just shot her an email through the site. I figured that was the most unobtrusive, least odd way.

But then I started thinking about the photo album and how she'd listed everybody's name under the photos. I remembered seeing something about her "California family," so I went back to the album and started looking at pictures.

There wasn't a city written anywhere in the album. California's huge, and the surnames were fairly common. I kept looking. And then I hit gold: a picture of an "Uncle Jeff" who happened to be wearing a company shirt.

I Googled the company name and there was a link for "our team." Clicking on that, I saw the man I was looking for in name and photo. When I checked the White Pages for his full name and city, two numbers came up. One was the shop number and the other was his home. I checked the property records to make sure it was a residence and then I called the number. Nervous, I waited as the phone rang about 10 times. An answering machine picked up. What an odd message to leave: "My name is Stillie and I live in ___. I'm trying to get in touch with the family of Ashley Paige because I found some things that belong to her. They're personal items like pictures and stuff from grammar school and thought she might want them. You can give me a call back at..."

For hours all I could do was wait impatiently. And then, a phone call.

I had gotten in touch with the correct family, and it was her aunt that called me. We had a pretty long conversation, actually, about who Ashley was, her troubled background, her 'gypsy' lifestyle, and her influence on her cousin (that woman's daughter). She said she didn't know where Ashley was, but she was sure she was okay. She said she'd call Ashley's favorite aunt - the one whose name was on the card - because they were pretty close and she'd for sure know where Ashley was. One of them would call me back. She couldn't believe I would go to so much trouble for a bag of water-damaged pictures. I told her it was because I couldn't imagine living my life without mine.

My biggest fear in this endeavor was calling family - making real contact - only to find out that she was missing or had been murdered or something. Of course, the family could either be grateful and want the items, or mad that I dredged up all the hurt but I was seriously afraid that might be the case. When I found out it wasn't, I was quite relieved.

Several hours later, I got a phone call from an in-state number. It was Ashley. "Hi. I'm Ashley. I was instructed to call you?" She sounded a little put-out at first.

I told her who I was, where I was from, and why I was calling her. I told her all the items I had, and what all was contained in the bags. Her voice perked up and she seemed pretty happy. I was all proud of myself for doing what I thought was the right thing by finding her. She asked me how I got them and I told her, although I was a little bit of a liar when she asked, "Did you say this came out of an old car you bought? Where, and what kind was it?" (we bought the car with no title as a salvage vehicle and, honestly, who knows if it was on the up-and-up. i didn't want to be blatant about a possibly stolen car.)

I told her, and then there was silence. I could feel the tension in the space between our phones. In a frosty, flat voice she said, "You can throw it all away. I thank you for going to so much trouble but I don't want any of it. Throw it out."

I started to say something about it was okay, it was no problem, and that if it were mine, I'd want it back, but the line had already gone dead. She'd just hung up on me.

Just out of curiosity, I used a friend's out-of-state cell phone to call her number back today. The phone she used to call me from was a convenience store's indoor line.

My mind can't stop going over all the possible scenarios about why a girl would run all the way across the country from her hometown, make stops midway, and then end up back to the place she originally ran to, and was perfectly willing to erase every last bit of her existence. I make up all these stories about her: about her past, her adventures, her traumas, and her travels. I keep seeing her face - that last picture in her file folders that wasn't totally bubbled and melted where she was smiling, perfect hair, natural makeup, hope still glimmering in her eyes of the future to come after high school - and try to imagine how it went all wrong. I picture her in my head, strung-out, sallow and pale, hair all chopped and dyed a color unbecoming for someone of her fair complexion. I imagine her being in unsanitary living conditions, with abusive men, her morals and values slipping into a pocket of her mind so far in the past she's not even sure she ever even had them, just so she can survive. The torture she puts herself through is the only way to stop the madness in her head - temporarily - but it's better than being home and it's better than being dead and it reminds her so much of being in her real home that it's a comfort but not the same and, in many ways, safer.

And out of this small experience, a work of fiction is born. Loosely based on a true story, this fabricated one is the only way I can let this go. I'm bothered by it more than I should be, so I have to purge it.

I am done poring through her belongings, piecing together an adolescent life that seemed picture-perfect and, probably, that's exactly what it was: only in the pictures. The smiles in those photographs were a mere moment in time captured forever. People rarely take photos during their tumultuous times. I can't see all the bad stuff that went on behind the scenes so, although the certificates and awards and physical proof of academic achievement exist, I can never guess about what was really going on besides that. I can only imagine what happened to her job at Lowe's, whose welcome packet was tucked in amongst all the papers. Neither can I guess what happened to her car, an older Honda whose long-expired insurance card was found in a file folder too. It doesn't matter now. It's all going to go into a 55-gallon drum at the storage lot where we dropped the car, and it's going to get burned along with trash we've pulled out of other cars.

I've decided to save one of the wallet-sized school photos, edges yellowed from water and sun, scratches exposing the orange and white emulsion under the image, just to use as inspiration as I write my story. Maybe I'll even PhotoShop it if I decide to one-off self-publish it and use it as cover art.

Just as quickly as Ashley came up to the surface of the sea of millions of faces, she began sinking back down, swallowed up by the population where everyone looks alike and nobody has a name; ghosts, if you will. Ashley has disappeared, again.

Ashley Paige, Where Are You?

Troy and I are forever picking up junker cars to keep our project and race cars supplied with plenty of parts. Yesterday we drove 3 hours away to pick up one of these cars for $200. It took the seller forever to finally get to his shop to meet us, but we'd already started trying to load the car.

While we were waiting, we looked around the interior and checked it out all the way around. The car was full of possessions very clearly belonging to a girl. Like, keepsake kind of stuff. I asked the guy in the shop next door to our seller's what was up with all of that.

He said the car came from a customer who had every intention of fixing the front end (the suspension and front wheels were missing). He dropped the car off at the mechanic's and a few months later, told him he couldn't afford to fix the car. He came by and got his stuff out of the car, but left all the girl's stuff. He said, "Oh, I broke up with her. I'll call her and have her come by and get it," and left it sitting on the roof of the car in grocery bags.

Nobody put the stuff inside the car until a few days later. Basically, her things have been sitting inside this car with stray cats curled up on it; the hatch had been left open for 2 years. There's water damage to almost everything.

It's sad to see what was left behind: report cards from elementary school, high school orchestra performance programs, pictures and more pictures and more pictures, a photo album, an Al-Anon Day-at-a-Time book, cards and letters from family. I felt like I needed to find her so she could take this stuff back.

I used to be a skiptracer. My job was to find people who didn't want to be found, and repo their cars. I was damned good at it. I had access to paid databases most of us can't use because they're not worth it unless you're a business. I found people all day long and it was a rush.

I know this girl's name, I know what elementary school she went to, which high school she attended, all the years she was there, and I even know what she *looks* like...and she's just disappeared.

Using all the information I know, I cannot find a trace of her anywhere online or anywhere else. Using the family's names from cards and letters (which had no envelopes so i don't even know where they were mailed from)...nothing. No Facebook page, no MySpace, no Twitter. No blogs, no personal information about her online anywhere. Did she go back home to Georgia? Did she stay in this state? Was she ever even in this state, because we have no idea where the car came from before it was dropped off at the shop. Did she go somewhere else? Was she troubled and ran into some problems and just fell off the map?

I feel as if this is a personal mission I need to fulfill; to get this stuff back to this girl. She's young, too...elementary school in 2004. No information in her stuff from junior high, so I don't know about that.

There's a slight concern with feeling like a stalker, but at least I have a reason to track her down.

Well, I'm going to keep poking around. Maybe the schools can help me figure out a narrower map to look for family.

Is this obsessing over something that should just be tossed out?

Starting Over Again

I am about to start over again. I'm learning more and more about my own disorder - whatever the fuck that is - by talking to a friend's wife who is in Special Ed with teens and I'm learning just how fragile our body chemistry really is and that it can change with very little manipulation, yet causing gigantic problems for people who are unbalanced to begin with.

I've been on Lamictal, Klonopin, Campral, and Ambien for a few years now. "They" can't really tell me what's wrong with me. I've been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Depression (which is called something else now, I've been told), Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, OCD, and whatever else seems to be the flavor of the year. I've taken just about every kind of mood stabilizer and anti-depressant known to man - or at least whichever was available at that time. I've taken cocktails of pills every morning and a few more throughout the day for years and have become very tired of it. But, it seems to keep me from going crazier, so I take them.

I've never really wanted kids, so I had been looking at permanent birth control. After being on the Pill for 2 1/2 decades, my medical doctor feared that the hormones in the Pill were screwing with my Lamictal levels. When I began talking tubal ligation, he suggested I just try a copper IUD first. A $40 office visit co-pay and 4 hours of the worst nausea-inducing cramps I've ever had later, I was 99.9% protected from pregnancy. Hormone free!

And therein lies the problem.

Now my meds aren't working right. Of course, they weren't really working right before, because of the Pill/Lamictal conflict, but now they're *really* not working right. I'm a freaking mess. Yes, I'm under a lot of stress. Yes, I'm totally unhappy in my career, which shadows the rest of my life, but still. What this means for me is that I am going BACK TO SQUARE ONE. Starting all over with a new shrink (if i can even find one), telling my whole story from 1st grade on ALL OVER AGAIN. All my pains, hangups, traumas, baggage, theories...And all of that to try and convince that doctor to NOT diagnose me in only one 45-minute visit, even if that IS what the insurance company requires.

I can't go through all that bullshit again, but I can't go on like this anymore, either.

The IUD is an issue in itself, because I'm short inside. I don't care what my gyno said or did, I can feel it sometimes when I bend over. I can't always get tampons in all the way because it hits the IUD. Troy hits it and it hurts really badly. Sometimes it makes me bleed. The cramps are bad when I'm on my period and the bleeding is just scary. I thought this would be the answer, but I don't enjoy sex nearly as much as I did before.

So Troy decided his solution would be to get a vasectomy. His appointment is at 9 in the morning. I was fine until I found out he was going to go through with it and now I'm freaking the fuck out.

What if we change our minds? I mean, he's 37, I'm 35...I'm not about to try to have a baby past 40, so it's not like there isn't time to change minds. I suggested sperm storage and he blew that off pretty quickly. He said he's perfectly fine with this decision and I need to be okay with it. He's right. We're not even engaged. They're not my testicles. But...it's so final now. A vasectomy reversal is expensive.

I need to make peace with the fact that, staying with Troy, I will never have children. Which is what I've always wanted, but now I'm freaking out. It's the finality of it, I guess. So I'll deal. Seems like all the wrong people are fertile. I know we would be such good parents and, if I do say so myself, our kids would be smashingly attractive. But I can't do it. I'm too selfish and my temper is too bad and it all comes down to my mental issues...I'd snap and it would be baaaaad.

So here I go, on another quest to find yet another doctor that will a) have an opening for me, b) willing to delay a diagnosis until they can actually figure out what's truly wrong with me, c) be the go-to person...rather than someone who says they'll do the meds but I need to see someone for therapy, or the other way around, and d) someone I actually like and feel like I can talk to regularly.

Until then, I'm reading a book by THE Borderline Personality expert, Marsha Linehan, and one book about Bipolar disorder and Marya Hornbacher's autobio about her Bipolar issues. One of two things will happen: I'll trigger and go off the deep end, or I'll gain some insight into what's going on with me and it might help while I'm waiting for a doctor to see me. My insurance is awesome...it usually takes about 3 weeks to get an appointment.

So, that's it for now. I have to decide how I want to do dinner at Troy's while I'm still here and need a grocery store stop on the way. And, as usual, we'll be eating at, like, 10pm and then he's going to get his nuts cut in the morning at the exact same time my worst class period is in my room. That also means I'm going to have to force him into sex regardless of how tired he is tonight because they're saying it could take up to a month before he'll feel like doing it again. OMG, however shall I live?!

I'm out of here for now.

Here's Grease in Your Eye

I may have spoken too soon about getting Troy to focus on his business. He's currently pursuing an office job with the company, which would have him based about 2 miles the other side of my house, and about 20 from his. It would also be a work-your-way-up kind of deal, so he'd probably still have to go back to roustabouting it for a few hitches before moving up to a higher position. I can't see how being a roughneck is any better but, hey...whatever. Sometimes I think my life would be better with him gone, if I could just restrain myself from calling and sending him texts. Of course, now that's irrelevant, because they moved his rig out into the Gulf now, so none of that wireless shit would work, anyway. It's selfish, but I'm hoping he'll end up resigning from the rig - which he's done - and won't get hired for the corporate position. I know he'd be good at it, but I have so much more respect for him when he's working on his own business and developing strategies and making it work.

In an attempt to show him that I care about him too, I've delved more and more into the cooking thing. This is NOT me. I don't know what the fuck he's done to me, but it's weird. I WANT to cook for him and I usually make a big production out of it. It makes me happy to conduct experiments and see if they turn out, and I like to hear good things about it from him. I grilled salmon two different ways, twice, and it turned out better than anything we'd ever had - even his.

Well, tonight I hit a serious winner. I cooked chicken Parmesan. And it was amazing. I couldn't believe it! The downside, of course, was that I still really couldn't tell you what I'm doing. I put the garlic and the basil into the heated olive oil - just like the directions said - and it popped and spit all over the place. In fact, a splatter of hot oil flew directly into my right eye. It was really bad for a little while but, by the time dinner was ready, it seemed to have quit being quite so painful. Now it's just tender. It's sensitive to light but I'm hoping after a good night's rest (like i'll get one of those anytime before school's out...), it will feel better.

Really, there's nothing much else to say. I got my fifth replacement LG phone a couple of days ago and it's been working flawlessly, amazingly enough. For now. Give it two more weeks.

I've been watching my caloric intake like crazy. I actually started running on my treadmill. I'm on a 1200 - 1500 calorie/day diet and I managed to run 1/75 miles today. I feel thinner already.

Almost Speechless

I know I haven't been around. It seems like only one person has noticed, anyway. The only thing I can say is that I have about 15 drafts written, none of which I published. This has been such a miserable, tumultuous time in my life; I can't really put into words everything that sucks so badly right now.

I am currently pursuing a complaint with our local police department due to ongoing road rage incidents with a sergeant that works up the street from my job. We are, unfortunately, driving to work at the same time almost daily. He's been aggressive with his vehicle, words, and gestures and I'm not the only one - but I AM the only one willing to come forward. So that sucks, because I'm pretty sure nothing's going to change.

Things are fine with Troy. He quit his rig job and has been taking my advice about growing his business. He's finally letting me help and I think that, with some gentle prodding, we can get it into the thriving company it deserves to be.

We aren't going to be able to race this huge race over Easter weekend as we'd planned. There are many reasons - none of which are good. But that's how it is, I guess, and we'll just have to set our sights on moving forward and getting on with the next one.

I'm looking for a new house because I'm about to be foreclosed on. My grandfather is willing to step up and buy a house for me, which is the most generous and undeserved thing that could happen to me. After years of fighting with Wells Fargo and NationStar, jumping through all of their hoops, it looks like they finally won. They offered me a final modification offer, so I got it all signed, notarized, and sent back to them by the due date, and now they're trying to say they can't accept it because of THEIR internal error with an "audit" and "tracking." No attorney will help and I just don't know what to do. The whole thing is just too much to take. Because of my family situation, I have to move out of here before trying to short-sell the house. Long story best untold.

Work is still a pain in my ass. They've come off me a bit, but they're still trying to make my life a living hell and make it uncomfortable enough for me to not want to come back. Trust me - I don't WANT to go back - but I can't seem to find any leads for anything else. So, as long as I'm extended a contract again, which, by the looks of state law they'll have to, I'll be back in the same situation next year.

I actually need to go even now. I'm planning a car show with my car club and we have an organizational meeting halfway across town. At rush hour. Nice, huh?

I'll be back. I promise.

White Flag

I very clearly can't stick to the 30 Days of Truth. I wanted to. I lack the motivation or the narcissism or the adherence to the topics presented as opposed to topics I choose. I don't know. I suck.

But fear not. I'm here to suck about something else. I give up. I give up on trying to get Troy to talk to me about us, about anything of depth, and of his company. I give up trying to be open and direct, telling him exactly what it is I need from him so there is no misinterpretation or expectations of mind-reading. I give up being available for him all the time when he can't do the same for me (i don't care if it's a job constraint or not - it's still a valid reason). I give up being so emotionally attached to a man who says "thank you" when I say "I love you."

Dude, if you don't know after 10 months whether or not you love me, the answer is "you don't." And, also, Dude, if you do love me and your foolish pride is preventing you from saying it, then you get the same 'fuck you' for being a goddamned idiot. If I haven't proven to you already that I'm not going to hurt you, cheat on you, leave you, or lie to you and that's what's keeping you from saying it, then I'm done wasting my time when you so clearly have trust issues that my undying devotion hasn't managed to break down.

If you can't or won't do little things to make me feel appreciated - like I've talked to you about more than once - then it's only because you don't want to, not because you've "forgotten" or it's just "not in your nature." No. Fuck that. Men remember what women need if they care enough to remember it. There are no flowers, there are no unprompted texts, there are no emails.

Yes, honey, I am well aware of all the things you do for me that no other man has or would do. And I've shown excessive appreciation for those things, up to and including sexual favors of your choice. Oh, by the way, what I said last time...it still stands: no more sucky-sucky because you have not and won't do the same for me.

The hardest part of this is that I love you more than I know how to express. Except for your refusal to open up and make me feel appreciated and your lack of freakiness in the bedroom, you're everything I've ever wanted. Leaving you will be the hardest thing I've ever done and, trust me, I don't want to have to do it.

(God help me for this...) Ke$ha said it best when she said, "We are who we are." You're not going to spontaneously become emotive just because it's what I need from you, and I'm not just going to magically become happy with our relationship all the time when you don't give me what I need.

I try to be everything you need from me. I don't see the same. Because of that, I'm throwing up my white flag. I give up. I'm done. I surrender. This has been a long, involved battle that I can never win. So, I'm finished.

Now...when do I tell YOU that?