I'm worried about a friend of mine. We've been friends for 15 years, and he periodically disappears and reappears and goes to rehab and gets okay and then descends into madness again. I'm pretty pissed, actually. I'm tired of losing people I love. It's funny, the people who come in and out of your life, who maybe at the time don't seem that significant, but who do have a pretty big impact.
I think addiction is selfish. There, I said it. My father was an alcoholic, and while he never laid one single hand on me in anger, it stole a part of my relationship with him. As close as we were and as much as we shared, I can't imagine what our complete relationship might've been, had that not been a part of him. I have had other issues with family addiction, which are not currently my story to tell, but they steal parts of me. The addicted person has no concept of their effect on other people, and I know this is a part of addiction, but that weakness makes me so angry, that I have a hard time coming to grips with it.
I've grappled with my own issues; I'll be the first to admit that I am nowhere near perfect. Alcohol has caused problems for me in the past, and I recognized it enough to metaphorically kick my own ass and pull myself out of it. I would never want to cause pain or suffering to anyone I love, and that is the thing that keeps me most grounded. I think that I don't and will probably never understand true addiction because I can't fathom picturing those who I love most so worried about me that it makes them sick or truly alters their lives.
It's funny the things that seemed commonplace or "okay" 10 years ago are most assuredly not okay now, when you have families and spouses and mortgages and responsibilities to consider. I have and do love some people that have deep roots in addiction and self-destruction, and it's literally like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. You don't want to turn your back and think you could've done something differently, but in truth, there's nothing you, singularly, could do to change a course of events.
For over 10 years, I've harbored a guilt that an ex-boyfriend I had reconnected with killed himself because I didn't answer a call the weekend that he shot himself. I thought it was cool that we were friends, but we needed to understand distance and what that meant, and when I didn't answer his call and was told 2 days later that he killed himself, I lived with, and partially still live with, the nagging thought that it's my fault, that if I had picked up the phone, I could've changed something or said something. If guilt were a talent, I could rock it at Miss America..srsly, I have a gift generally bestowed to the Jewish.
My point is, no one can make anyone do anything or choose a path or decide their fate. I am so worried about you, J.C., and I want to literally kick you in your ass, but you have to decide, in the words of the immortal Morgan Freeman (well, Stephen King, really) "Get busy living or get busy dying." For real. People with the talent that you possess are bound for greatness, you just have to find that opportunity, and I swear if you come out of this, I will cry with joy and punch you in the throat. I feel the Yosemite Sam anger rising....
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Not in a state of yo
I'm anxious. I've been this way for about a month now. I can't pinpoint what's causing it. I have a few ideas, but until I mull them over, I think I'll keep them to myself for a bit. Smitty says I share too much information anyway. That may be true, but as a writer, I genuinely feel I don't need to hide anything about myself. Yes, I walk into doors and fall into holes and wore two bras to work one day...that's the beauty of me...
I just saw a commercial for a Senior Citizen dating website. In theory, that's nice, although creepy. In reality, it brings to mind that my grandmother mentioned to my sister recently that my mother should "find somebody." It's been less than a year since my father died. While I don't begrudge my mother having another relationship, I think maybe more than a year should pass since your husband of 48 years' death before you start dating. And also, I would like to say for the record, this is not something for which I'm ready. If this happens soon, I will actually need therapy and will have to stop joking about the fake need for it.
Disorganized people can have children, right? I've been thinking about the whole "little person" (baby, not midget) thing seriously lately, and I worry. On the one hand, we always have milk and canned goods, and we have guns to fight against zombies and baby kidnappers, but on the other hand, I have sand in my car, and I don't know from where, there is a pile of at least 15 pairs of shoes on the floor in front of my dresser, and I think Jimmy Hoffa is in my closet.
Children need structure and order, but they also need milk (which we have) and maybe they need beets and oysters in a tin, which we also have ... for some reason. And they need creativity and imagination, which I have, in droves, and acceptance and love and unconditional support, but also a kick in their asses, which Smitty and I can both provide. I think we'll be okay...I just worry...these random things are the things that keep my neck in knots and cause insomnia and weird dreams and thoughts.
I think that Smitty and I balance each other out well enough to have ONE (only one) well-adjusted child. If you had told me 10 years ago I would marry a gun nut with more than a touch of OCD who lives for football season, I would've called shenanigans. But, I imagine if you had told him that he would marry a Noxubee County yellow-dog Democrat with no coordination who frequently runs out of gas and sings a soundtrack that ranges from Frank Sinatra to Carrie Underwood to Concrete Blonde to Sheri Lewis, and sings 80% of the words wrong, he would've guffawed and called his own shenanigans...but it works...oh, how it works. I internally give thanks every day for him.
I'm very excited to be on a reading dervish again. When my ADHD kicks in, I don't want to read, but I think recently, I need inspiration and a bit of escape..and I refuse to play any weird, role-playing games. I feel good things are afoot for Team Smittily. We'll see how it unfolds.
I just saw a commercial for a Senior Citizen dating website. In theory, that's nice, although creepy. In reality, it brings to mind that my grandmother mentioned to my sister recently that my mother should "find somebody." It's been less than a year since my father died. While I don't begrudge my mother having another relationship, I think maybe more than a year should pass since your husband of 48 years' death before you start dating. And also, I would like to say for the record, this is not something for which I'm ready. If this happens soon, I will actually need therapy and will have to stop joking about the fake need for it.
Disorganized people can have children, right? I've been thinking about the whole "little person" (baby, not midget) thing seriously lately, and I worry. On the one hand, we always have milk and canned goods, and we have guns to fight against zombies and baby kidnappers, but on the other hand, I have sand in my car, and I don't know from where, there is a pile of at least 15 pairs of shoes on the floor in front of my dresser, and I think Jimmy Hoffa is in my closet.
Children need structure and order, but they also need milk (which we have) and maybe they need beets and oysters in a tin, which we also have ... for some reason. And they need creativity and imagination, which I have, in droves, and acceptance and love and unconditional support, but also a kick in their asses, which Smitty and I can both provide. I think we'll be okay...I just worry...these random things are the things that keep my neck in knots and cause insomnia and weird dreams and thoughts.
I think that Smitty and I balance each other out well enough to have ONE (only one) well-adjusted child. If you had told me 10 years ago I would marry a gun nut with more than a touch of OCD who lives for football season, I would've called shenanigans. But, I imagine if you had told him that he would marry a Noxubee County yellow-dog Democrat with no coordination who frequently runs out of gas and sings a soundtrack that ranges from Frank Sinatra to Carrie Underwood to Concrete Blonde to Sheri Lewis, and sings 80% of the words wrong, he would've guffawed and called his own shenanigans...but it works...oh, how it works. I internally give thanks every day for him.
I'm very excited to be on a reading dervish again. When my ADHD kicks in, I don't want to read, but I think recently, I need inspiration and a bit of escape..and I refuse to play any weird, role-playing games. I feel good things are afoot for Team Smittily. We'll see how it unfolds.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
With the lights off, it's less dangerous, here we are now, entertain us
I'm having a day where I just want to scream and shoot a loud gun at some cans or a target with Sarah Palin's face. For over two weeks, I am seemingly incapable of unclenching. I lost a job I applied for within my company, and I'm okay with that on the face of it, but I'm reaching an odd point where I feel if I have to hear one more sob story or blatant lie in the course of a work day, I'm going to strip off my clothes and start acting like a monkey.
It is approaching the 1-year anniversary of my father's death, and it really hasn't gotten much easier to accept that he's not available for me to call and talk about the Oscars or what Norton is doing or what he thought about the super computer kicking ass at Jeopardy. This has not been a great year for me since last April. I keep going through stages where I think I'm okay and then I'm sooo not okay. I don't want to talk about my feelings all the time, though, I really don't, so Smitty has (thank GOD) identified and accepted my pattern of denial, denial, denial, then teary breakdown and catharsis...I couldn't be more grateful to have that tall drink of water as my husband than if I were Charlie Sheen and he was a big bag of cocaine.
On a completely different note, Smitty is gone until Saturday, and I'm concerned. What if a snake crawls in the house, or I start a fire, or hit my head on a cabinet and become concussed? See, this is not cool. I lived by myself for almost 10 years and was relatively self-sufficient, although I did have a family of rats living behind my stove in one apartment and had "Fight Club" in the garage of a house I rented in college, although I had roommates...I'm just saying, clearly, I can function by myself, but when I get used to having Smitty around to rub the head I bang on the freezer and use the scary Japanese knife that cuts the onions the best, I feel unsure.
Seriously, I just miss the hell out of him. He is my best friend...go vomit if you like, and I like having him around. However, we do, in fact, need time apart. He needs to do family stuff and outdoor man stuff like fishing and talking about bears and Nazis, and I need my time to play games and sing karaoke and perhaps attend an 80s movie showing. It's the glue, people....
I need a creative outlet other than this blog...desperately. I'm thinking of trolling for local writer's conferences and collecting money on the side of the road for the registration fee. I have got to feed this crazy brain with something other than fluff and piffle. How fun are those words? Let me know if you have any leads...
I leave you with this:
-- "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" Dr. Seuss
It is approaching the 1-year anniversary of my father's death, and it really hasn't gotten much easier to accept that he's not available for me to call and talk about the Oscars or what Norton is doing or what he thought about the super computer kicking ass at Jeopardy. This has not been a great year for me since last April. I keep going through stages where I think I'm okay and then I'm sooo not okay. I don't want to talk about my feelings all the time, though, I really don't, so Smitty has (thank GOD) identified and accepted my pattern of denial, denial, denial, then teary breakdown and catharsis...I couldn't be more grateful to have that tall drink of water as my husband than if I were Charlie Sheen and he was a big bag of cocaine.
On a completely different note, Smitty is gone until Saturday, and I'm concerned. What if a snake crawls in the house, or I start a fire, or hit my head on a cabinet and become concussed? See, this is not cool. I lived by myself for almost 10 years and was relatively self-sufficient, although I did have a family of rats living behind my stove in one apartment and had "Fight Club" in the garage of a house I rented in college, although I had roommates...I'm just saying, clearly, I can function by myself, but when I get used to having Smitty around to rub the head I bang on the freezer and use the scary Japanese knife that cuts the onions the best, I feel unsure.
Seriously, I just miss the hell out of him. He is my best friend...go vomit if you like, and I like having him around. However, we do, in fact, need time apart. He needs to do family stuff and outdoor man stuff like fishing and talking about bears and Nazis, and I need my time to play games and sing karaoke and perhaps attend an 80s movie showing. It's the glue, people....
I need a creative outlet other than this blog...desperately. I'm thinking of trolling for local writer's conferences and collecting money on the side of the road for the registration fee. I have got to feed this crazy brain with something other than fluff and piffle. How fun are those words? Let me know if you have any leads...
I leave you with this:
"You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left."
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left."
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Westboro Baptist Church and when God hated Emily
Sorry I've been AWOL the last few weeks. For the 4 of you that keep up with my blog, I'm sure you've been devastated. Sometimes, as a writer and a human being, I don't feel I have anything interesting to say. If I got paid to blog, I'm sure I could scrape out some bon mots in a hurry, but as it were, life and stress and headaches like Sumo wrestlers resting on my head intervened, and I went silent.
I've been following with amused detachment the cuckoo-kachoo Westboro Baptist Church in the news recently. This is the group of people based in Kansas who have decided to picket dead soldiers' funerals, because the war and/or the soldiers have something to do with homosexuality or the general loss of godliness. I'm not clear on the details, because these people are certifiable. I have, in fact, tangled with them before.
Picture it: Columbus, Mississippi, early-2002. A young, winsome girl is a plucky copy editor at a local daily newspaper. Alright, I was a cranky copy editor at a newspaper that paid me just above the poverty line...oh, and the Dorothy Hamill haircut-having boss I had treated me like something that she scraped off her shoe. Among my many genuinely important duties, I had to periodically check the fax machine. Heaven forbid, an important Rotary meeting or mayoral appearance fell through the cracks. One particular day, I pulled a press release off the fax machine, and in the boldest, largest font, it read, " Matthew Shephard burning in hell since 1999," with a link listed "www.godhatesfags.org."
I was absolutely horrified, and I forget why we were even receiving the fax. It may have been the year they picketed the University of Southern Mississippi for something inane, but my liberal sensibilities were shaken. Who were these people? Who gave them the right to invoke God's name in the name of hate? So, I went to their horrid website, saw more of the same, and immediately fired off an e-mail to them, something to the effect of "I don't know to what God you're praying, but my God doesn't foster hate and judgment and would never lend his name to a group as horrible as yours. You should be ashamed of yourselves." And then, as I always did, signed Emily Gaither, Copy Editor, Commercial Dispatch. Not because I was speaking for the paper, but because I wanted them to know why I knew who they were, and a title lends a certain strength, I guess.
Maybe about 12 hours later, we got a fax that said "God hates Emily and the Commercial Dispatch," with a press release detailing how they were planning to visit our city, picket the newspaper and also several local churches...why, I have no idea. Let me explain another thing, the managing editor and two of our reporters were gay. However, Emily was taking up the indignant cause of the rainbow at this particular point. Turns out, the managing editor was in agreement with me until she related this latest development to the executive editor/OWNER of the newspaper.
In short: He e-mailed or contacted these people, and what I like to imagine is that he told them I was a renegade, a rebel, a liberal with no connections, and I did not speak for the newspaper. I have to believe he must've also told them that he supported their wacked-out views, or they would've come anyway, but, whatever...Also, I was suspended from work for a day because I had nearly brought the crazies to Main Street, and at the time I was A. Extremely grateful for not losing my job and B. Extremely grateful I wouldn't have to explain to several news stations how these people had come to be in Mississippi.
In retrospect, had I had the boss that hired me, he would've welcomed the controversy, and I might've ended up on the national news, who knows, but I find it ridiculously amusing that the conservative nation as a whole is outraged by these people, who began, as far as I can tell, out of hate for a dead, gay teenager who never harmed anyone, yet endured the most awful, brutal hate crime since segregation days. They wouldn't have identified with that, which is bad enough, but when it comes to the troops, that's when we start to care. Personally, I like to believe that everyone's death is tragic, and one doesn't weigh more than the other.
Also, Westboro Baptist Church is batshit crazy. They're all related, they're all attorneys, and they know everything imaginable about the First Amendment. Smart, insane people...like the Unabomber...gives me the chills.
I've been following with amused detachment the cuckoo-kachoo Westboro Baptist Church in the news recently. This is the group of people based in Kansas who have decided to picket dead soldiers' funerals, because the war and/or the soldiers have something to do with homosexuality or the general loss of godliness. I'm not clear on the details, because these people are certifiable. I have, in fact, tangled with them before.
Picture it: Columbus, Mississippi, early-2002. A young, winsome girl is a plucky copy editor at a local daily newspaper. Alright, I was a cranky copy editor at a newspaper that paid me just above the poverty line...oh, and the Dorothy Hamill haircut-having boss I had treated me like something that she scraped off her shoe. Among my many genuinely important duties, I had to periodically check the fax machine. Heaven forbid, an important Rotary meeting or mayoral appearance fell through the cracks. One particular day, I pulled a press release off the fax machine, and in the boldest, largest font, it read, " Matthew Shephard burning in hell since 1999," with a link listed "www.godhatesfags.org."
I was absolutely horrified, and I forget why we were even receiving the fax. It may have been the year they picketed the University of Southern Mississippi for something inane, but my liberal sensibilities were shaken. Who were these people? Who gave them the right to invoke God's name in the name of hate? So, I went to their horrid website, saw more of the same, and immediately fired off an e-mail to them, something to the effect of "I don't know to what God you're praying, but my God doesn't foster hate and judgment and would never lend his name to a group as horrible as yours. You should be ashamed of yourselves." And then, as I always did, signed Emily Gaither, Copy Editor, Commercial Dispatch. Not because I was speaking for the paper, but because I wanted them to know why I knew who they were, and a title lends a certain strength, I guess.
Maybe about 12 hours later, we got a fax that said "God hates Emily and the Commercial Dispatch," with a press release detailing how they were planning to visit our city, picket the newspaper and also several local churches...why, I have no idea. Let me explain another thing, the managing editor and two of our reporters were gay. However, Emily was taking up the indignant cause of the rainbow at this particular point. Turns out, the managing editor was in agreement with me until she related this latest development to the executive editor/OWNER of the newspaper.
In short: He e-mailed or contacted these people, and what I like to imagine is that he told them I was a renegade, a rebel, a liberal with no connections, and I did not speak for the newspaper. I have to believe he must've also told them that he supported their wacked-out views, or they would've come anyway, but, whatever...Also, I was suspended from work for a day because I had nearly brought the crazies to Main Street, and at the time I was A. Extremely grateful for not losing my job and B. Extremely grateful I wouldn't have to explain to several news stations how these people had come to be in Mississippi.
In retrospect, had I had the boss that hired me, he would've welcomed the controversy, and I might've ended up on the national news, who knows, but I find it ridiculously amusing that the conservative nation as a whole is outraged by these people, who began, as far as I can tell, out of hate for a dead, gay teenager who never harmed anyone, yet endured the most awful, brutal hate crime since segregation days. They wouldn't have identified with that, which is bad enough, but when it comes to the troops, that's when we start to care. Personally, I like to believe that everyone's death is tragic, and one doesn't weigh more than the other.
Also, Westboro Baptist Church is batshit crazy. They're all related, they're all attorneys, and they know everything imaginable about the First Amendment. Smart, insane people...like the Unabomber...gives me the chills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)