Sigh....

Unfortunately, I've got to stop blogging for awhile again.  I've got so many things going on in my life that I have been neglecting the blog.  So I'm just going to stop blogging for awhile--- but like Arnold Schwarznegger said in "Terminator".....

I'll be back.

Things I Wish I Could Say to Blaine But I Know I Never Will....

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FOLD YOUR OWN DAMN UNDERWEAR!!!!!
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Shoulda Woulda Coulda.....

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Warning.....I'm in my melancholy mood.  And I'm listening to my melancholy playlist #2 on my iPod, which means it's really bad.

And yes, for once I have put a picture of myself on the blog.  (For some reason I can't get it un-yellow.  It's not an old picture--- I think the flash just didn't go off.)

Okay, here it is.

Have you ever looked back into your past and recalled one pivotal decision you made that affected your life forever---for the worst?  Have you ever wished you could just go back.....to just one moment in time.....and made a different decision?  Have you ever yearned for the chance to undo everything and get a "do-over"?

I've been having those yearnings lately.  I am so sad.  I don't know if this is a bipolar thing or else a mid-life crisis.

When I was in my 20's I lived in Washington, D.C.   I was just playing around, hadn't gone to nursing to school yet.  After skipping two grades in school, I had gone on and gotten my undergraduate degree from California Polytechnic State University and had moved to D.C. since my parents happened to be living there instead of overseas for once.  I didn't know what to do with myself.  My parents were against nursing school (I don't think they thought I was mature enough) and so, since I could type 120 words a minute, I went to work at a famous law firm a few blocks from the White House called Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn.

It was fun from the start.  I met the two best friends I've ever had in my whole entire life, Lynne and Patty.  For several years we had our adventures in D.C., running all over the place with boyfriends coming and going.  We were all three good for each other.  Patty was the irreverent funny one---she could crack you up in a New York minute.  Lynn  was the good-head-on-her-shoulders one.  She would bring Patty and me down to earth when we got a little too crazy.  And yes, I was the crazy one---but so far still an entertaining nut.  I wasn't having too many bipolar problems in those days, thank God.  Or if I did, I'd recover sooner.

And my boyfriend, Emry, was the love of my life.  I moved in with him after I got tired of living with a boring lawyer.  He was a paralegal.  And he joined our threesome as a buddy and so did all his male friends.  We had the most wonderful social group in our entire lives.

And then it all changed.

Emry and I moved to Pittsburgh.  He proceeded to get his Master's Degree in Business at Carnegie Mellon University (and totalled my beautiful red Camaro.)  I entered a diploma nursing school, the adventures of which I wrote about in my old blog, in four parts spread out between other blog posts.  (Here's the first one---warning....it has a slow and boring beginning.)

And I didn't return to D.C.  I moved to Texas with my parents, who were retiring due to my father's state of dying from alcoholism-related complications.  (I won't actually tell you who my parents worked for but let's just say it was an agency that you're not allowed to admit that you work for it.)  Anyway, I watched my father die an awful death.  I told the doctor not to tell him he was terminal but the asshole doctor told him anyway.  I screamed loud and long at that doctor, telling him that I hoped that when he was old and was about to die that he'd have a doctor who'd take away his hope like he'd taken my father's.  And thus, that's how it came to be that my father's last words to me before his death were:  "You have disappointed me".  Think I can forget that?  Nope.  I will hear it for the rest of my life.

(I wish I would have retorted:  "What else is new?" )

My mother returned to work for the government (uh...the same agency), and living overseas, after my father's tragic death---don't ask me to talk about that any more---and that's when she went to be the assistant of a family friend, the ultra famous Ryan Crocker and we all almost lost our lives in Damascus, Syria, when anti-American forces stormed our Embassy---which I am to understand that the rebel forces have recently blown to bits along with the rest of Damascus and half of Syria.

And Lynn went to school to be a paralegal.  And Patty rose up through the ranks in the law firm and ended up taking a paralegal job at another law firm in D.C.  Lynn finished paralegal school and went to work for a law firm across the street from Patty---but they are no longer close.

Emry worked various jobs all over the country but has now settled in D.C. once more--- in a job he hates after a bitter divorce.

And me.  I began my odyssey of madness and a nursing career in Texas.  I won't bore you with the particulars but I will tell you that, surprise surprise, I was the best of the best nurses----whodathunkit----but my personal life was a flat out disaster.  And my bipolar disease gradually got worse and worse for me.  I finally had to quit working after a 22 year career as an RN.

And now Patty and Emry and Lynn and I talk only via text messages or emails.  And all of us agree that we should never have left each other.  We were so good together in those days.  We were good checks and balances for each other.

And how did we turn out?  I think I would have been much more mentally stable had I stayed with that support group.  Although Emry is in D.C., he is in a job that he feels is unsatisfying due to bad decisions after he and I parted ways and he left DC for a bunch of years.  Lynn is a busy paralegal and still has a kid living at home.  Patty is lonely---her marriage broke up and she has two grown up children who don't live with her.  She has not found love again.

And I am on disability for mental illness.  Lovely.  What a stigma.

Oh God...God please?......Put me back in time so I can make a different decision, please?  I would do better, I promise.  I should have returned to D.C. after nursing school and picked back up with Lynn and Patty. 

Oh......shoulda woulda coulda.......

And oh yeah.....I finished my red Jelly Beanz socks.  

Sigh......

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Speaking of Ballerina Movies....

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Lermontov: Why do you want to dance?

Vicky: Why do you want to live?

Lermontov: Well, I don't know exactly why, but... I must.

Vicky: That's my answer too.

 

("The Red Shoes" film)

Um....

I must still be subconsciously thinking I'm a ballerina....

Because I just noticed that the socks I'm currently knitting for myself are so dang red that they remind me of the 1948 movie "The Red Shoes" (link here).  God, that sock is so blazingly red that it practically blinds me--and it just about blew out the camera lens...

Okay, here's my solemn promise:

I will not talk about ballet again till Christmas, when my favorite ballet is being performed.  (And if only I could get Blaine to take me to see it one Christmas---but he absolutely refuses to go to a rather formal event like a ballet at The Kansas City Ballet.....)

Durn his hide.....
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My Secret Wish for Superbowl Sunday (Or Maybe Not Such a Secret Wish...)

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I am so mad at Lu-Lu that I could drop-kick her over the nearest Superbowl goal post!!!!!

I don't care how innocent she looks.  That little hellion found and destroyed my best and most beloved hair barrette.   I loved that barrette---I stroked it often and took care of it tenderly.

And that little shit totally trashed it.

Its remnants are shown here, tattered and torn, after I found it lying forlornly on the dining room floor like yesterday's trash.  In its glory it was a nearly 6" long bundle of beautiful black feathers with that little white feather at the top to set off the black ones.  You could clip it to nearly anywhere in your hair.

It was a thing of loveliness.  And to see it torn asunder breaks my heart.  I always wore red lipstick with it to set it off.  And I would wear it in a fashion that would cause it to frame that side of my face,  on which I had applied smoky black eye shadow in a rather dramatic fashion.  Whenever I wore it I think I was subconsciously going for the "Black Swan" movie look....  

Yes, yes, okay, okay---don't laugh, but I will admit here that I've always loved ballerina movies and.... well... so I did kinda want to look.... kind of like a swan ballerina in "Swan Lake" or Nina in "The Black Swan" ....

I mean, I have never had such a beautiful barrette before.  This one always caught peoples' eyes, and girls would always ask me where I bought it and would never believe me when I told them that I truly can't remember---probably in the bohemian side of town in some hide-a-way boutique.

In middle school, if I were ever in the "Truth or Dare" game, I would always take "Truth" and tell everybody that I secretly imagined myself a ballerina in "Swan Lake".  Of course I would always be heavily ridiculed for such a lofty admission.  

(Before that, whenever in "Truth or Dare", I always said that I had a crush on my Chemistry teacher---which was a safe "Truth" in that every adolescent female in that school had a crush on the Chemistry teacher---so the ridicule was a lot less evil in nature.)

Where was I?

Oh yes, my beautiful feather barrette that Lu-Lu destroyed.  And yes, I do definitely know that she was the culprit because she had a black feather remnant on her mouth this morning.

So, folks, today let's imagine something.  All of us....together.  Please imagine with me the first touchdown in the Superbowl.....

And when that first extra point is attempted, imagine that it's Lu-Lu, instead of a football, getting her just desserts.  (And she's about the size of a football, anyway.)

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Bo's Cat Cam, 2/2/2013: Peaches says "Notice how I have perfected my "I didn't do it" face"...

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The thing with Peaches is that she thinks she's so beautiful that she owns this place.  Therefore, if you scold her for any of her delinquencies, she looks bored and confident, as if there's no way in hell that she could have done whatever sin she has committed---nor does she give a damn:

This look appears on her face when:

-  She has bitten my strand of  yarn in half;

-  She has knocked over the cats' water bowl, causing me to nearly kill myself when I walk into the kitchen and step in the puddle of water--- and slip onto my ass;

-  She has knocked every single one of Blaine's pens or cigarette lighters under the couch or love seat;

-  She has walked across the TV stand, thus hitting a button which cuts off the beam of light between the TV and the long, sound speaker--- which turns off the sound---causing Blain and me to scratch our heads in confusion, wondering what in the hell happened to the TV's sound;

-  She has rumpled up every single throw rug in the house, causing me to practically trip to my death on the raised parts of the rugs.  (This greatly amuses her because when this happens I spill my cup of coffee or plate holding my grilled cheese sandwich)  (I really think she wants to kill or maim me, between the spilling of the water bowl and then the rumpling of the throw rugs...);

--  She has shoved poor Leonard out of the way to eat his food after she eats hers (which I think explains her fatness);

Oh, I could go on and on.  She is the stubbornest kitten I've ever had and she can outlast me on whatever scolding or consequence I place before her.  I have even tried taking away a couple of chew toys but she doesn't care---because we've got about eleventeen more of them all over the place.

(Is "stubbornest" a word?);

(Is "eleventeen" a word?);

I have found cat toys in my bed (which explains my discomfort at night when I'm tossing and turning), toys in the bathroom, toys upstairs, toys downstairs, and toys on the stairs (which I think is yet another way she wants me to slip and fall to my death.)   I have even taken away her favorite toy--a little goldfish--but she doesn't care.  She'll then show renewed interest in the little mousie toys or birdie toys.

(Is "mousie" a word?)

Anyways, no matter how much I scold her, I hear crickets.

So what's a cat owner to do?

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