This Troublesome Mind

Let me fly... man I need a release from this troublesome mind...

I'm still in a lot of denial. What else am I supposed to do? I just can't accept it until I see a report, a tissue sample, a paper that says it in hard, cold, hand-sweating, heart-pounding, knock-the-wind-out-of-you black ink. Until then. Until then...

I don't want to die. I whisper the word forming it in my mouth, slowly getting the feel of it on my tongue and in the back of my throat. It comes out as small as I can make it.

It's so funny. It's not because I think this life is so valuable... it's because I have this love in my bones and it's just fading from me minute by minute. It makes it hard to laugh, it makes it hard to plan or dream. And it makes it hard to say things like I'll love you the rest of my life. Fucking cancer. It seeps joy out of every joyful moment.

And I try and I try and I try. To take every moment and hold onto it. I take a walk and smell cut grass and listen to Damien Rice and feel the wind... but inside I think about my little boy growing up without me. I think about the way he plays with my hair, throws his arms around me and whispers "Mamma, I love you." Inside I think about this man I love and how I can't leave him with this pain. I just can't. I promised to be there and help carry all his burdens and ease every trouble I could. So I'd be breaking a promise... and I can't, I just can't break this one. Not when I just found the things I want to live for.

And I know, blah blah blah positive bullshit... but you know what? Sometimes it fucking HURTS. And I'm positive. I'm still holding onto it being a mistake. I'm still confident that if it is real that I have amazing people around me and I'll be ok. But it doesn't mean that sometimes I have to sit and think about what might happen. That it is a possibility. And it's BUUUUUUULLSHIT. And that's just how I feel today.

I can't believe I'm posting this...

Ok... so a lot of people have been asking for updates... so I'll start at the beginning and let you know what I know...

About 5 weeks ago I noticed a lump in my left breast with little to no pain and was mildly concerned about it, but my age made me pretty confident that there was nothing majorly wrong...

The first time I visited the ER they were pretty sure it was either a cyst or a tumor and even then I figured if it was a tumor it would be benign. Alot of women in their early 20's get benign tumors called fibroids in their breasts. Approximately 2 weeks later, the day before Thanksgiving, I noticed that overnight my lump began to be extreemly painful and there was red from my armpit to my nipple. The nipple had begun to retract (pull in, like an innie belly button) and had a bruised look to it. Also the skin was dimpling, almost like the surface of an orange peel.

I went to the ER again and they treated me for an infection, which seemed to help the redness, but the lump stayed. I took the medicine for about 2 weeks and within days of being done with it the redness had come back. I went back to the ER and they sent me to an Urgent Care Clinic where that doctor told me the clinical diagnosis was Inflamatory Breast Cancer, a rare and very aggressive cancer.

At this point I'm wading through red tape and trying to get into the system from every angle imaginable.

There is currently no biopsy or PET scan to confirm that this is cancer, so, call me crazy, I'm choosing to hold onto the hope that the doctor who made the diagnosis was WRONG. And I would gladly forgive him if he was...

The reality is though, that I have been tired and in pain for no reason for weeks, I have had 3 periods in the course of 6 weeks (yeah...), occasional nose bleeds and a significant amount of weight loss, and hair loss. And upon palpation of my lymph nodes the doctor noted that they are swollen.

So I am prepared to hear that this doctor is correct. And we're currently acting with the thought that the worst case scenario is our reality.

Most of the time I am ok, although this is still so fresh that I find myself bursting into tears unexpectedly. I have had so so so many people offer help, support, prayer, time, an ear, money, but most of all love! Thank you so much guys. I'll keep you posted.

:)
"...everything will be alright, everything will be alright..."

No. No. No.

Don't stand there and say that word. It comes so casually from your mouth. You pass the burden of it on to me, its meaning a crushing weight. Nose bleeds. Lumps. The funny dimples in my skin. Aches.

Nothing.

This is nothing.

Instead you tell me it's everything. My entire life held in a 3inx4inx4in mass, firm, non-mobile... thus sayeth the report. My current god. Aggressive, you say. Aggressive,they say.

The music stops. I hear a buzzing in my head and smell a funny smell... like gunpowder or sulphur. This must be what it feels like when... but there is no when... this is how it feels. I breathe. I breathe. Oh, how I breathe. Gasping... in, out. Hot. Is it hot in here suddenly?

Was it the alcohol? The cigarettes? Fried food at 2 am, red meat...

or

Not enough faith, not enough devotion, not enough belief...

or

Anger. Bitterness.

Too much of anything I've ever indulged in?

I have people being strong for me. But I don't need that. I have people who tell me they just can't be strong for me. But I don't need them to be. Right now... right now I need a taste of normal. Today. Today this is what I need.

I still fight this diagnosis. I still fight a poor prognosis. I still want to listen to music, and dye my hair purple, and imagine I'll be in love with this wonderful man forever, and see my boy grow up, and have friends who are old fucks like me, and bury my parents in their old old age. What's wrong with that.

Fuck Cancer.

Expressionism and how

It's that moment when all the pieces we randomly threw in the air begin to fall and make something beautiful. Marcel Duchamp couldn't do this better. Only this is life. This is my life and your life and the lives of all the people we worship for loving us as we are. We are the canvas of hope. Of future. Of all the tomorrows we thirst for. There is nothing better than living today and being ok with whatever tomorrow brings.

Fronts and cold.

The wind is blowing up something cold and delicious tonight. Standing and facing it makes me feel alive. I want it in a mason jar to drink until I'm full. This is out of reach. Kind of like the deepest deep. Insignificant because it's so vast. Becoming something unimaginable. The music of leaves running on the pavement. Holy moments, a sacred breathing body. The growth of that which can only be good. Hope surging.

Watching this play out before my eyes.

Sometimes...

Nothing comes out right sometimes.

That's why we keep on trying.

Rainbow highs, and your smiles. That was the weekend for me. I am left with emptiness that aches. I could swallow the ocean and still be dry with this thirst. This is good. I know that this is good. In meager drops I am fed the feast of a lifetime.

This was not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say things about Christmas, and how I am confused about it. I have spent the past couple of years trying to come to terms with how I felt about religion and god, and I realize that I don't know anything. I wanted to say something about my son, and how beautiful he is. I wanted to say that he gets embarrassed when I kiss him in public. I wanted to say that I want another chance at being a mom, but that I don't, all at the same time. I wanted to say something along those lines.

But it wouldn't come out right. I think sometimes that's just how it is.

My Beautiful Boobs

Have I ever appreciated my boobs as much as I have in the last week? With the exception of the 9 months I spent being pregnant (and the corresponding WOW I HAVE BOOBS NOW!!!), and the additional year I devoted to being my son's personal dairy farm, I would have to say no. And even then. No. Not until this week have I ever thought about how beautiful my boobs are...

Why am I talking about my boobs?

Well the fact of the matter is there is something growing in them that shouldn't be there. A cyst. I hope a cyst. Possibly... probably... a tumor. And when you go in for an emergency exam because you're worried and they start throwing the word cancer around like it's a volleyball it begins to work on you. No matter how much you tell yourself, it's not me, I don't DON'T have cancer, still the thought works its way in. A worm that eats your brain alive at night when you lie in bed alone.

Only 2% of women under 35 are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. That's great. I love that number. I want to see more statistics like that please. But still the nagging thought that works on me is that 2% means it does happen. What if...

No no no no no no.

If I tell everyone else not to be worried about it. If I brush it off. If I can laugh at the fact that I'll end up with lumpy boobs... if I can do that then it will all be ok. When the time comes to worry then I'll worry.

Still. These are mine. They are a symbol, across the planet, of feminine beauty. They are mine. But they are wrong now. I can feel and see they are wrong. Oddly, even with a bra and shirt on I feel less beautiful just knowing that underneath they are no longer perfect. If I took that shirt off, you'd know.

Pride. Is this a misplaced pride in something I never created. Is this suddenly caring about something only because there is potential for it to be taken away. The child who doesn't care about the toy until someone else comes along and wants it. Did I take them for granted all this time? Their essential perfection. The proportion of beautiful curves. The pale soft skin that makes them so different from every other part of my anatomy.

This is mine. And I'm young. I want them to stay like this forever. I look at my grandmother and wonder were hers once like this? Will mine be like that someday? I know the answer. Hush. Don't treat me like a child. I know the answer.

I know. I know. I know. That I will be ok. I am ok with whatever happens. I am certain it is nothing of major concern. The doctor will wave his magic wand and remove the thing and there will only be a small scar. No one will ever know. A decade will pass before this will be a real concern. But they schedule tests. They poke and prod. They say hmmm and point to something on the scan and the intern nods. They talk excitedly in the hall. They say unusual. They consult the scan with other doctors. I sit and see them from around the corner pointing to me, heads together, talking low. They say nothing.

I try not to cry while I tell him in a flippant tone about the whole thing. And then close my eyes and admit I am vulnerable and worried. "You can't mess up beauty," he says. Has he always seen the most valuable things in me? And how did I go for so much of my life not seeing them in me. In others? My heart is slippery and up in my throat, flopping like a dying fish. Trashing. Attempting to oxygenate this revolting body. I love him more for that moment than for possibly anything else. And there are plenty of reasons to love. My beating heart makes me happy. I believe him. I believe him. You can't mess up beauty.

Oliphaunt am I

A while back I was knitting an elephant for Beau... wait, I should backtrack... I had a ton of yarn left over from my knit alphabet I did for Type 3. I had a ton of yarn in small amounts of colors. Not really enough to make anything in particular, but still a lot of yarn. And I had about half of a small grey skein, and randomly decided to knit Beau an elephant toy, stuffed animal type thing. Anyway, it turned out very cute, but that's not the point of the story.

As I was knitting this elephant at some point I was texting Joe and told him I was knitting an elephant and he, I suppose, had this idea that I was knitting a LIFE SIZED elephant. He was very excited until I told him, alas, it was only a hand-size toy elephant.

But.

I still have all this yarn I don't know what to do with.

And half-finished projects that I've lost the patterns for, or can't remember whatever personal pattern it was that I was doing, so I bind them off because I need the needles. And I'm left with a half-project.

Well. Nothing is wasted, right? So I think I'm going to make an elephant guys. And I'm fairly certain it will take me ages to finish. So the plan is to finish off all the scraps I have now, and then start buying the discount yarn. It's going to be a patchwork elephant. And it's going to be as big as I can possibly make it. And it's going to be knit. And it's going to take me forever. I'm tingly with excitement.

Participate... (part 2)

So if you would like more background information on this post, then read Participate (part 1) directly below this post... much like The Hobbit, it's a nice prequel that gives you an inside look, but nowhere near absolutely necessary, and might make you fall asleep.

:)

OK. So I've been trying to analyze this experience. I think the saddest part for me is how quickly it faded and that I had to leave so early when I wanted to stay all night...

It's hard. It's hard. I've been trying for 2 days now to blog about this. What about it is so hard? I think it is the effort of trying to separate the experience from my experience. So... this is my experience.

Cookies. Cookies. Cookies. I walked in and smelled cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. My mouth watered even though I knew I wouldn't have any. Someone, someone handed me a schedule-ish type of thing that had the artists, their definitions of Performance Art, a map of Julia's house... something else I can't remember.

I saw people and found I was being drawn into conversations, and I didn't want that. I didn't want to socialize. I wanted to experience what was there for me. What beautiful thing I could make of it, and what beautiful things were being offered up. All art is revealing something about the artist. A pride, an insecurity, a hope, or a fear. I wanted to examine and feel for myself these beautiful things being laid on the tier to burn brightly for just one night. Just this night. This particular circumstance.

Videos. Home videos in Julia's room. I wandered in and the lights were off, and I was alone. There were voices coming from the attic where the audio installation was going, and a red light was the only light. This steady hum played background music and I filled myself full of these home videos.

It's Julia. She's turning four. She's playing. Playing. Other tiny four year olds are laughing. All little girls in dresses. Our little girls only wear dresses to church now. But these darlings... all dressed in fluffy things with bows and ribbons. Musical chairs. And the song was one I knew from my childhood. Some church song. The angle was odd so I found that if I sat on the floor and watched it through the mirror I got a better angle. I crouched down, drew my knees into my chest, and let myself exist only in that moment.

Musical chairs. And laughter. And I laughed with them. Shrieks of delight, high and piercing, and it hits a chord inside me and reverberates out into my own joy. It becomes my joy. I am four with them and looking for the last chair.

Then we are opening presents. Big pink presents. Julia is surrounded by tiny people who want to help and she says we can. En masse we attack the present. A skirt, one says. No, a dress, another says. It can be either, chimes a third. We laugh. I am laughing and I don't know where it comes from but I also start to cry. This is personal. Impersonally my personal torment. This love and joy that I can't have. This gets personal quickly. I want to withdraw, but instead I let the branding iron closer and closer. I let my own pain interact. I am making this what I want it to be. What I need it to be right now, for me. For me.

And I looked. I was staring in the mirror at this happy birthday. But I was staring at myself. And I saw that it was good.

I walked downstairs. The man had set up his life in the blue box. I was mesmerized. He was watching tv. He was reading. He was writing. It was Asian television. Extreme Home Makeover, Japan Edition, or something along those lines. He had a suitcase, a backpack, magazines, books. He existed within this tiny world, oblivious of us. I walked over so I could see his face. See him laughing, frowning, shocked, bored. I watched his face. He rubbed his eyes. Was he tired? I wanted to intrude into his little world and hold his face in my hands and ask him if he was tired. I wanted to hug him for being alone.

I made it mine. Once. Once. I was alone, and I lived in a little hollow world of my own. Watching him, even if it was art, even if it was a message, it made me ache. NONONO. We aren't meant to be alone. We are meant to interact. I wanted to.

We played a dice game. A game I didn't understand. Dice. Roll. Who is higher? You win, oops, now she wins, pass them, you win. Then Julia and Patrick are the winners. And three safety pins determines our President. Maybe there was something deeper to this, that I couldn't grasp. Maybe I had saturated myself too quickly.

The girl baking cookies is wearing an apron and has a vacuum. She is heading towards Julia's room. I laugh at her, Julia's, dismay. I would feel the same way. Part of the art is the destruction. Art is meant to strip away what we think we know, it is meant to make us uncomfortable. And then we settle in and get comfortable, as Julia will in a week or so... but then we delve deeper and make it uncomfortable again. That is art. To never be settled.

And then Julia sets up spin the bottle. There is laughter. LAUGHTER. It is pouring out of us. Our faces hurt. It's not about a kiss. No one really kisses the way you would kiss a lover. Instead two people come face to face and press their faces together. Flat lips. No kisses, really. It's more about barriers. How many of these people have touched each other at all the entire evening? And now, they are blushing. It's not as though one looks at the stranger and asks for a kiss. It is a random spin of the bottle, and wa-laa... old married man, embarrassed to discover he is coerced into pecking the lips of a blushing girl. But it's not about the kissing. You can look into everyone's eyes and see tears running down the faces.

I am reminded of Julia's comment about the phone booth stuffing... that, who cares if it is cliche, have you ever done it? I wish there had been a survey asking who had actually played spin the bottle. I think I was examining why this was so joyful, and part of it has to be adults, grown adults, adults who can have sex, adults with lovers... grown-ups, blushing at the aspect of kissing a stranger.

One of the most wonderful things I heard was as I was leaving. Thank you for kissing me, someone said. Why you're welcome, was the response.

I was sad I couldn't sit through the second game, which I heard was even better, even more rowdy. It's just amazing.

Instead I sat outside with the guy cycling a stationary bike to light the outside. He was sweating. I wanted to help him. I offered him water... or to wipe his sweat. I offered to help him take his jacket off so he wouldn't be so hot. He said he didn't need anything, he was almost done. I felt bad to leave him alone lighting the porch when no one was there. I felt obligated to sit there with him. Even if I said nothing to him, just to sit and use the light he was making for us. For me. I thought of god, honestly. I wondered, if he's really there, is this what he is doing... lighting a light when no one cares to look anymore... it was too much to think on for one night. But I think I understand the motivation behind it. I think I understand my take on it. It was beautiful and painful.

This is amazing. The whole night was amazing. I hurt from laughing so hard, and I had a deep emotional experience that I am still trying to understand. I cried. I felt joy. I felt giddy. I felt empathy, I felt alone, and I wanted to keep others from feeling alone. I don't know how something can be more successful, honestly. I wish more people had come, or maybe, I wish I knew there were more people who were touched deeply... Maybe, as always, I want to know that I'm not alone in this. But I don't think I am. I don't think I am.

Participate... (part 1)

I was sad that I missed the art festival this weekend, so I was glad when "Julia's Parent's Are Out of Town" was at 4411 Leeland, and I decided to go...

Wait, we have to go back a bit to understand this...

So in an effort to delve into the beautiful mind of Boyfriend, I ask a lot of questions, or make him tell me secrets, or random things he is thinking about. One of the questions this time was "if you could change anything in your life, what would you change?" And he gave the answer I would have given, but then qualified it in a way I never would have. "Nothing, you never know what little thing affected something else"

So this idea began to worm it's way through my brain. This idea. Nothing is wasted. All matter in the universe is consistent. This small moment, this was not a wasted moment. No relationship is wasted. No human exchange is wasted. Nothing. It all matters, it is all part of what makes you who you are. The Buddhist philosophy that you never enter the same river twice... you are never the same because this leaf fell in front of YOU today and you saw it or you ignored it. This rain fell on you, but that rain didn't. And it changes you. It makes a chemical change, the decomposition of matter, it releases endorphins and causes change, or it doesn't and that lack of change is just as significant in making you who you are.

Ok. So we have a basis here. A philosophy we can grab onto. So I took all these things in my house we didn't want. And I used them. I gave them new life. Thank you for being in my house and thank you for your decay and the particles you release and the way that changes my body. Makes my house smell like my house. Thank you for being effectual. Crepe paper from a party we never used and it got crushed so it can't ever be perfect and it can't ever be used for a party. Thank you, yes, I'll give you life again. A piece of gatorboard I never used because I got pneumonia and dropped out of school. Yes. Embroidery thread from sewing projects I never finished. Yes. Blue bags for recycling, and we forget to recycle... the blue bags become trash. Irony. No, I won't let that happen, shh I'll recycle you in a new way.

So I took them. And then the idea of perfection came into play. It can't be perfect. I hate that it can't be perfect. It can never be perfect. But does that make it any less valid? No. It's valid and significant, maybe because of it's imperfections. It will be exactly what it will be. My hair falls on it, my fingers smudge it, but it's not a waste. My dog is dying. Her hair is everywhere. It is working it's way under the fragments I'm sewing together. Good. It's part of it.

So this has been my world for the past week. And Julia's Parent's Were Out Of Town, as we all know, so this idea worked deeper, under the layers, delving deeper, a worm in my brain. David and Julia, for who knows what reason parted ways and my brain laughed and whispered, nothing is wasted. So I made him come with me, and then I left him alone as I went and delved into the art being created by our bodies in that house...

He was my participation, he was my piece. It was nothing being wasted... it was recycling. It was using the participation art for my own means. It was saying fuck you, everything I do is beautiful. And watch, I'll put this experience to use so I can experience it and David can experience it and Julia can experience it. And if it's bad, it's bad. And if it's good , it's good. And the time isn't wasted, and everything can be a new thing.

And it was beautiful. And it was good. Not because something good came of it, I don't know if something good came of it... and maybe in the end it will mean nothing, but it will. It will. Because for one night, even one night, they were in the house together, and David breathed in the air Julia breathed out. And Julia breathed the air I was breathing, and I breathed the air that all those other people breathed and we shared this thing. this life, this night, and we will always be different and nothing was wasted.

Risk

Leaving home was an earth shattering event.

I walked through big terminals where he could not go. I watched all the people coming through the gates. Cold stone floors. Escalators going up forever. Delays and cancellations. A small red blanket I paid $12 for. The cold air was too much to fight when I was already fighting tears. Small cups of water handed out to the waiting masses. This should not be.

I wanted every minute again. I wanted time to pause for us.

These few days without him have been marked by a pain in my chest. A physical pain. Nothing tastes right either. I look in the fridge for the food we made together only to realize I'm looking here, not there. I wake up with words on my lips for him, questions, comments, wanting to tell him about the dream I was having. But he's not there. My brain seems to refuse this. Its fighting for this to not be real.

Shh. It's real.

That's what is so beautiful. This ache is incomparable. In fact I wouldn't trust this without the ache. Without the pain to verify I would always question. But now I know I have fallen into one of the rare and beautiful things that still exist in life. To love and be loved. The highly sought commodity is mine for a moment, and then I fly away to fast and pray to gods I do not trust that this be always always just this. Simple and unfettered. This always be just this.

And he reaches across the distance and holds me closer than I've ever been held with just his words and his voice. And I say, "Tell them it's real, tell them it's really real," and it's a song he doesn't know, but that doesn't matter I think of leaning my head back into his laughing kisses and how my hands know to make him happy is to make me happy. And the circle we are weaving around each other, the one that might drown us, we build it stronger, it takes a life of its own and it condems us to this love that just might conquer all, if we take this risk.

I think we will take the risk.

Most amazing...

I love the human experience.

Today he told me "you are the most amazing thing in my life"... More amazing than the sun shivering down beneath the horizon; red and purple? More amazing than the moon floating up, a luminous balloon so large you can reach out and touch it? More amazing than the bright green peeking out of that beautiful brown earth? If I asked him he would say yes.

I love this rushing torrent. I love the needing. I need him. Some days more than others. Some days I can walk and talk and sing and breathe and it's ok... but some days it's such a hunger I have never never known. I am hungry for his touches and his kisses and the way he makes me beg for attention. I am true feminism. I want to please him. I can do anything I want. I can have sex with any man I chose. I am free free free, and I want to fetter myself to him... I want to subjugate myself to him... because it pleases him, and what pleases him pleases me.

I am true feminism. I can have anything I want. I am smart, and funny, and sexy... but above all things I am his and this is what I revel in. That fact is to my mind as velvet to my skin. The most amazing thing...

how they met (part 1)

I am now asking couples, when I can remember to, how they met... here are a couple How They Met's for you

Firstly the one I love to say the most...

• How Robyn met Ryan...
  Robyn was hanging out with a friend who worked at a coffee shop in Deer Park called "Deer Perk" (anyone remember The Perk?) when Ryan came into the shop and showed off for a while... when he decided to leave he jumped into his car and Robyn decided to go with him. His passenger side door didn't work so Robyn jumped through the window of his car and he drove off... and that's how Robyn met Ryan.

Next up some cute (?) kids I met tonight...

• How Rachael met Kody
  They met at Taco Bell! She was visiting her friend's church and afterward they went to Taco Bell. She was shy and her friend who went to church with Kody introduced the two of them. I guess they hit it off because they came to dinner with us tonight. And that's how Rachael met Kody.

I want to have some more How They Met's up here... trust that I will be interviewing you at some point to figure this out!!!

Like it was yesterday...

This passage of time... we are rolling the days into autumn... autumn, which always rolls off the tongue much more beautifully than fall... but think of fall, the imagery of it. I like them both I think.

I like that I am a living thing and this gift of smell taste touch feel see is mine to share with so many other beings. I like that the dogs get squirmy and excited when cool fronts blow in, the same way I do. I like the raising of noses to the smell of chocolate cookies.

Julia lives near the bread factory, or rather, it was a bread factory when I was growing up, though now I don't know if it is still the Mrs. Barids factory or not... but early in the morning driving by we would roll the windows down, or maybe, since our cars never worked properly, and they still don't to this day, maybe the windows were already down... and the smell would come curling in. Huge delicious wafts that made you want bread. Made you worship bread. Even if you were not really much of a bread person, like me. It didn't matter. At that moment you needed nothing more in life than bread... at that moment you could understand the Hebrew children thanking god for the manna, the bread, dropping from the sky! What a gift! BREAD! Please god, drop some warm soft bread today for me! You wanted to sleep in a bed made of hot delicious bread rolls...

I remember that so vividly.

That is an amazing thing. I wonder how many other people have similar memories of that bread factory? Of waking up in the morning to smell pure heaven. I wonder. It's something I share with thousands of people probably and I don't even know who they are. It's like having family I've never known... this single thread connecting us... six degrees to the bread factory...

You can't handle this...

The kiddos are jamming out to The Beatles. I can't describe how cute it is when my four year old runs around singing "we all lived in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...." Loud and out of tune the way all good singing should be done.

The plants are GROWING!

We decorated for Halloween today. It was my first Halloween decorating experience in a house... actually it's my first Halloween decorating experience EVER. We didn't do it growing up since, as good protestants, we couldn't celebrate SATAN'S BIRTHDAY!!!11 OMG NOES!!!!... but now my parents have converted to Orthodoxy and I am relatively nothing but an agnostic heathen as far as they are concerned, I simply announced last week I was decking the house out for Halloween and that was that. When I was married we didn't make a big deal about it because, well, we were busy serving the lord and couldn't wasted time on frivolities such as handing out candy.

So my parents house is now decked in orange and black with ghosts and skulls and pumpkins. And I enjoyed it. I think Halloween is my favorite time of year... September starts the most wonderful time of year... It's my man-child's birthday, then Halloween/Weenie's birthday, then my birthday, Thanksgiving, then Christmas... pretty good string of happy events.

On a side note, I juiced a PUMPKIN and despite Boyfriend's nay saying it wasn't that bad... it wasn't greeeat, but it really wasn't that bad. I also roasted the seeds and they were DELICIOUS. I'm serious. I like pumpkin seeds from the store, but these were phenomenal. Pretty much the tastiest thing I'd had all week. Do yourself a favor and go buy a small pumpkin... any old pumpkin will do actually... take the seeds and put them in a bowl, pour a tablespoon or so of olive oil, add some salt then roast them in a toaster oven or regular over for about 45 minutes until about half of them are a warm brown color... then take them out... they will be phenomenal. :)

Also might I suggest a tasty MANGO instead of something full of sugar, milk, cream, fat and other things your body doesn't need. Fruit is a better desert than anything in the world.

On plants and love...

The plants are growing. It is amazing how their small green hands reach up without anyone ever telling them to do so. The oleander, which I had not wasted any hope on, is like a new plant. You would never know this chaotic green living thing, with disorganized leaves sprouting from every imaginable piece of bark, you'd never know it was the dead pile of sticks I reluctantly re-potted last week... doubting it would grow. And now a cacophony of green, so brilliant. I love it...

It reminds me of love...

You are so withered, so tired of trying. You're pretty sure you'll give up on the whole concept all together; as far as you can tell the idea of it seems pretty useless... then someone comes along and you resist hoping because you know what it has done to you before... to hope and then have that hope crushed... but pale and beautiful this thing pushes on. Surging until it is wildly out of your control... growing growing, spreading out its limbs and consuming you, and now it's vibrant and pulsing. You become simply the host body to this organic entity now inhabiting the dry husk you carried around. No! Now you are really alive.

This is love. This is planting and growing and nature.

We can't help it. And I love that it happens without ever being told to happen. I tried once to really make myself love someone and it ended in disaster, as most forced things do. No, you really really can't help what you feel or who you love, and most of the time we can't say why we love either. And hope comes burgeoning in even when you stomp it down.

I want to read love letters. I want to read love letters, please. I want to understand the humanity that is in all of us... that every person feels this burning passion... I want letters from 90 year old men written to their sweethearts when they were young. I want naughty letters of passion to lovers and mistresses. I want sweet simple letters. I want the confused letters of someone who doesn't know they love this person, or thinks they still do. I have been looking for these for some time now. I want to read them all because I want to see what we share in common.

It is amazing to me that you do not have to be rich, or live some fairy tale life to be the proud owner of the world's most highly sought commodity. It is amazing to me that driving down the road I can glance at every car I see and wonder to myself, what is their story? And every couple has some story of how they met and their first kiss and the first time they made love. Every person can tell about the love that stopped the sun. And it is theirs. We all feel our love OUR LOVE is the most amazing thing, the most intimate and earth-shaking love... I want to hear a thousand stories that all declare the same thing...

All these things that I have done...

This week I quit smoking with my amazing boyfriend. The last cigarette I had was Sunday night after having things come crashing down, as things are wont to do. I am past the physical addiction part, and except for biting my lip a lot, I think I'm doing ok on that front. The sad thing is, I WANT them. Want want want.

But I've come this realization lately about being responsible with my body. It's the only one I've got after all. Having a high incidence of cancer in my family, the probability is that one of us kids will have it someday. I know there is nothing I can do to stop cancer, but I can make better decisions about the things I put in my body.

So cigarette smoke, with all its cadmium and carbon monoxide, and who knows what else, that's not a responsible thing to do with my body. It's out.

Also this week I have begun tapering down the processed foods I put into my body as I prepare for a 2 week "raw food" detox. I am 2 days in without eating a processed food but I know I'll eat some this weekend when Boyfriend is in town. That's ok. The real detox begins Monday morning, with the only meats being either eggs or fish, and the rest of my diet consisting of whole grains and rice and fresh/steamed/juiced veggies and fruits. I'm excited about this.

I am leaning towards vegetarianism... more on that later I suppose.

Another thing this week was the planting. My son, who is by far the most beautiful person I know, has been wanting to plant something for a while now. So this weekend we went to the store and I let him choose what type of seeds he wanted, explaining the different kinds and what would grow if we planted it. He picked flowers. Bachelor's Buttons. They are already growing, and tonight I will take him one of the pots so he can have some growing at his dad's house as well as here.

Also I wrote and wrote and wrote and got some of the hurt out. And we laughed. I laughed with my mom, and my brother, and my dad, and my boyfriend, and my best friend, and my son, and friends who called, and I think I even laughed with a stranger this week. It is good for you.

I also made a book for Boyfriend as a reward. He found a cigarette in his car and threw it away instead of smoking it. So I made him a book. When I get a chance I'll take pictures and post them on here. It's really adorable, and I feel like I'm doing something closer to what I was made to do than when I sit and process payments all day. We were made to love and be loved after all.