Alone in the dark

Your saliva hits my chin before my tears start. Above me, sweating, your face is still; in shadow. Darkness pooling behind your eyes.

My fingertips against the stubbled hair on your cheek.
Wet and smooth; rough like sandpaper and soft as silk.

My fingers come away wet. Is this blood or is this sweat?
Between my breasts and across my belly. Damp, between my legs.
Blood or sweat or tears or brains.

I look a question up to you, and you frown as the top of your scalp slides off your head and lands on the pillow beside me with a small, wet splash.

And you say, "Sorry."

Judging Betty

I have just got around to watching Mad Men, and I have to say - I really like it. I like Don Draper and all his tight-lipped mystery. I like that he has the suburbanite lifestyle with the kids and the house and the pretty blonde wife, yet he pursues other women. Darker, emotionally complex women who have their own lives and their own interests; independent women who are their own bosses and don't sit at the table waiting for him to arrive at the end of the day.

I really don't like the character of his wife. I think she is meant to be a character for whom we are supposed to feel sympathy; it seems as though we are supposed to like her and feel angry that she is taken advantage of. Her feelings are dismissed, she is accused (wrongly) of lewd behaviour, and she is generally ignored and mistreated. But really, I just hate her.

She is lonely, and sad, and extremely insecure. Certain not the personality faults of the century, but she expresses it by being snide and judgmental towards others. She is passive aggressive. I look at her character and I see a doormat.

Is that what others see? Do you look at a woman who concedes to her husband, raises his children, keeps his house, and entertains his friends and feel sorry for her because her husband is such an ass? Or do you see her and hate her?

I like to think that if I were a twenty-something woman in the 60s that I would sooner be at a dirty little bar in the Village, smoking clove cigarettes and listening to bad poetry than be married to a man who left me alone with his children to keep company with the trollops in the Village.

Really, I just wish I had January Jones' hair.

Desolation and consolation

I came home from work early today, not feeling well. I turned on the television, which I almost never do (except for those times when I do) and caught an old episode of Joan of Arcadia. Do you remember that show?

I watched it when it was on new, and I really liked it. There was some stuff I didn't like so much. Like how when Joan did what God told her to do and good things happened. I got the message, but I didn't like it.

Something I really did like was her mother's struggle with the question of faith, and her dad's discomfort with religious indoctrination. The episode I caught today was toward the end of the show, I think, and Joan's mom went to a church and spoke with the priest about faith and disbelief and all the rest.

Later, when she was telling her husband about it, she described faith (or the crisis thereof) as consolation and desolation. Consolation was when things were going well, when a person felt serene and happy, right down to the bottom of their wriggly little toes. Consoled, right?

Desolation was the opposite of all of that. When faith leaves us and we're empty; when tragedy happens and we rail and shake our fists heavenward. When we flail around, useless and scared and sad, and blame "god" for making such an ass-hat world for us to live in. Then we're desolate, barren of faith and void of optimism.

These two opposing ideas made me think of the little angel and demon, the ones who sit on our shoulders and tell us what to do. The demon whispers of fun, naughty things and the angel admonishes us, begging us to be good and filled up with virtue.

I have never had that angel and demon, perched on my shoulders and whispering opposing instructions. But I've had consolation and desolation. Both go bone deep, and they take turns burning me from the inside out.

Girl implodes brain conjuring clever titles

I was watching a TV show this evening, an episode in which one of the main supporting characters dies. As the main character of the show was taken over by grief and trauma, and while the other supporting characters were helpless and trying hard not to be, I recalled so vividly what I felt like after Colin died.

The all-consuming importance of having the right clothes on, of choosing the words to a death announcement so carefully... that thing we do where we focus on the most ridiculous, mundane details as though they are suddenly so very important.

My heart was pounding as the main character faced the question of how to carry on with life after a death. My heart pounded just the way it did when I faced that same question: what next?

I wanted to cry feeling that old anxiety, that breath-stealing fear.

Why would I choose to remember that fear? Of all the things I felt back then, why did I pick the fear to recall?

And I thought about a conversation I had with a friend recently, about carrying trauma around and how it take a lot of emotional effort to keep our traumas so fresh in our minds.

I watched the characters on television flail helplessly around not knowing how to express their grief and I sat sweating, holding my breath for fear I would fly apart, feeling my heart pound in my chest, and I let it go. I saw it for the choice it was, and I chose to let it go.

And then I focused on the dialogue, 'cause Joss Whedon is just damn funny.

Raveled

I am at a loss about what to do in this moment. It is barely a real day yet, just after 6AM. My cats are still sleeping, The Husband is at work, and my apartment is oddly quiet.

It is raining. It comes down loudly on the tin carports in the parking lot. It sounds like handfuls of nails dropped on a shed roof by an angry god. I usually enjoy a steaming mug of coffee and a book while listening to this sound, but today I can't decide.

There is so much I want to do today, so many things that I have planned, and I can't decide where to start. It seems so simple to just pick one. You'd laugh if you could hear the thoughts in my head, the arguments I have with myself about why I don't just go do something on my list.

I should have been a scientist. Then I would have a lab in my house I could go to and work on experiments and draw conclusions and make legitimate lists.

Un-Sunday

I had plans today. Fun plans, plans to which I had looked forward for weeks. Roller-blading in the park with Eula today, maybe lunch and a drink or two. Definitely laughing.

But I cancelled. No roller-blading. No lunch. Certainly no laughing.

I woke up at 7am feeling like I was in someone elses' skin. I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling for two hours trying to convince myself that I just needed more sleep or some coffee or less activity in my brain.

Sleep and coffee didn't help and the only ways I know of to shut off my brain are either too permanent or the sort of thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

So I cancelled my plans and went back to sleep.

I feel bad, but I'm really terrible company today.

Eating leads to heart burn

A week ago I ruined a box of macaroni and cheese. I grew up making mac-n-cheese for myself. Standing at the stove, I'd stir the noodles constantly while reading a book. I would test the noodles, sucking them into my mouth off a wooden spoon, chewing them fast so they didn't burn.

I never timed the noodles. I don't know what the instructions on the box say.

Last Sunday, I timed the noodles. I used the timer on my iPhone, cause it's still brand new and shiny and it is far sexier to use that timer than the old boring one that is stuck to the stove.

I set the timer for ten minutes and walked away. Probably playing with my phone like a child with a new toy; I didn't stir. I didn't even set foot back into the kitchen until the timer went off, the horrible buzzing alarm that I'd chosen as an alert clanging in my ears.

I had ruined the mac-n-cheese. Soft, soggy noodles made me think of over-cooked bits of brain. I ate it, because I'm like that, but every bite was like chewing up squishy cheese-flavoured maggots.

Today I wanted a sandwich. Or fresh, hot pizza. Or home-made chili. I have none of these things, but I have more mac-n-cheese.

I stood at the stove, reading Carlucci's Edge and stirring my noodles like a good girl. I put the stopwatch on my phone on, so I could determine exactly how long to cook my noodles.

It turns out, I like them at right about three and a half minutes.

I ate my food too fast, and now I have something like heartburn.

Bad words

I don't know what my words are doing. I sit before a blank page, willing words onto it.

But they are all stopped up inside me. How do you say it? Blogstipation.

Half the time I can't stop them. They bounce around in my head, like unruly brats hungry for dinner. They wail lustily at me, eyes scrunched up, tugging at my shirt-sleeves.

Begging for attention.

Other times... they're more like sullen teenagers hiding in their rooms with headphones on. Refusing to come join the rest of the family. Moping and rude, ignoring chores and shirking responsibilities.

Ungrateful words. I'm grounding you. No TV for a month!

Leaking crazy

Other people's words light fires in my soul. I wish I had my own sometimes, words that would flow out of me, like a giggling stream. Or a stream of giggling.

I think poetical thoughts in my head, clever phrases dressed up like a princess. But they don't make it outside my brain.

They get trapped there, stuck in my head like something too large to fit down a drain. They swirl and flirt, dancing in their pretty pink dresses in the dirty water of my mind.

Never going down. Never finishing up. I can't shut them up, and I can't wash them away.

Dirty, unwashed thoughts inside my dirty, unwashed brain.

A new sort of Sunday

The Husband started a new schedule at work recently, working weekends for the next six months. Today was his first Sunday at the office. I was looking forward to the time to myself, the quiet solitude. I had many big plans for today which included yoga, maybe a run (yah, right) or weight training in my gym-ling, a haircut, some knitting, and grocery shopping. I traded the workout and haircut for laundry and WoW and spent most of the day a small state of confusion.

Even though I was looking forward to the solitude it was a little more difficult to get accustomed to than I anticipated. It reminded me of what Ajahn Brahm says about letting go of expectations. He tells me to let go of circumstances for the sake of the circumstance, and experience what is right in front of me in this moment instead of focusing on what is missing, or what may have existed here in the past. Or, even worse, focusing on what might be here in the future. I spend enough time focusing on what will happen in the future...

I missed The Husband today because I enjoy spending time with him but I was also happy to have the entire apartment to myself for a day. I felt almost guilty enjoying myself today, because I don't not want to be around him. But I did enjoy filling up the space here with only my sounds.

It's an odd dichotomy and makes me feel weird inside. Like everything else inside me, I'm not entirely sure what to do with that.

Next weekend, more yoga. I could have used the grounding today. At least I got some laundry done and now there's food in the house.