*click

I had relatively easy teenage years. Probably because I had built up walls and was oblivious to a lot that may have been going on. Like social rules about not talking with anyone unpopular or in a different grade. Looking back, my innocence to such silly things made me cool. Or as one person who taunted me before wrote in my yearbook, I dared to be different.

In my twenties, I was an observer. Looking at others and wondering why I was different. What was inside me that was so lacking that I had never even had so much as a kiss for my entire life. I wasn't looking inwards but causing myself a lot of pain. So it was that at twenty-five, I felt old. These may have been my awkward growing pain years.

And now lately I carry a camera around and actually look at the world. I'm at a place where I love myself and my differences and don't really care how I compare to others. I see a lot of beauty in the people I care about. I wish that they would trust that when I make a move to take their photo, it's because they are looking pretty and not move because my point-and-shoot is slow and if they move it will turn out blurry and I'll have missed the opportunity. Or shall I just leave the camera at home and keep pointing and shouting how pretty you look here and there, then and now? Would you believe me? Or would you need photo proof?

I write this and laugh. Knowing fully how I don't like having my own photo taken.

Thomas The Killer

feel like i just had a shot of caffeine
Thomas came in the window with a very loud meow
i quickly realized he had something in his mouth
he jumped up on the bed
but i shooed him off it
he went into donkey-mode and became hard to move around
he dropped the bird
dead
and i shooed him away
after patting his head to make him spit out the feathers
scooped it up into an empty coffee cup, put the lid on
vacuumed up the feathers
and put the cup into a bag of garbage and took it outside

and this morning he was so cute
lying on my back with his paw on my head
the one with impeccable sense of time
being probably 5 minutes before the alarm...
well, he did dig his claws into my scalp a little
hmmm

oh snap

It's not how well you are loved
but how well you love.

While forgetting for a moment where this notion might have originated or why, I wonder if all adoptees find this phrase jarring. It makes me pause and reflect how I have been focussed on being loved. When I love, I see how beautiful I am and love myself not through their eyes but my own. Yet I certainly have wished many times I were a more loving person. Perhaps I've tried in my own way and it comes out confusing to others. How I openly admire.

I'm feeling dejected at the moment. Apathetic. Like I could just flop, face down on the bed and never get up. Except I couldn't breathe and would want to move my head. And then there would be Thomas and I'd want to snuggle with him. The body does go on. It gets hungry. It needs release of waste. It gets tired. It feels tempted to pet the soft, fluffy, warm cat.

Although things went fairly well seeing my ex's parents for the first time since the break up, I feel the loss of them more now or the knowing of the loss has become real. I find it interesting that they blamed F for the break up of their daughter's first relationship. And that I suspected F of causing our break up. Is there any fire behind the smoke of denial?

I also find it interesting that I feel the closest to tears while walking about. Perhaps because I am vulnerable to attack in public. People criticizing me. Not sure why they think they have the right. Guess it makes them feel better about themselves to put me down. And I do understand why I would be a target, having no current will to fight. So all I can do is put my big black hood up and hope that I look like a scary Demon-worshipper.

Where wit, all?

Drake, the tech, is a talker on the phone.
In person, he will talk and I don't have much more to say than, "Okay."
And then we just look at each other. He expectantly. Me, just waiting to get back to work.
As a tech, he can charge $30 an hour for 1 minute of "work" and I'm a little annoyed that he charged the company 2 hours for calls to me and one of our suppliers. And that he recently referred to my computer as the "main" computer and that his invoices are still addressed to the woman I've replaced.
I wonder if these little annoyances add up and make me even more angry than I would otherwise be at his comment over the phone today.
"Did he pull a dick trick and disappear?" he asked.
Pause.
"He left, yes." I answer.
I wish I had the wherewithal to respond to comments that upset me.
If only I had answered, "Oh you mean as in a castration?"
Or simply ask him to mind his manners or something like that.

boys will be boys
if a woman complains about them
she's being a bitch, is she on the rag?

At a job interview, I was asked how I would be with a lot of "boys will be boys" occurrences, not from co-workers but from customers.
I wish I had asked exactly what he meant and for some examples.
And then suggested to him that maybe he wouldn't have a job vacancy if he personally said it was okay to stand up to whatever crap he was asking me to accept.


all this hypocrisy and sexist crap and violence against women and and and...
this is why I suspect there are more women who write about murder than men.

Co-workers

D and the other staff guy, R had lunch together somewhere
and went out for beer after work. Imagining that D would treat, I felt a little whiny about not being invited along.
D eats out/at home every day and most nights has a beer after work before picking his son up. He also keeps beer in the fridge at work and it disappears.
I got a call just before 4:30 about binding equipment for the home. $170-ish was the lowest priced one. She wanted lower.

I wonder if he would have taken C, the casual labour guy along too and treated him as well. Except C was in the hospital all day for some reason. He had a friend of his, M, pick up his cheque and said he'd see me on Monday.

M, I'd wager, smokes an equal amount as C does. A quick look at M, dressed in a nice red sweater and out-of-date black leather jacket (or back in style 80s Michael Jackson jacket with shoulder pads), neat haircut and I can tell he's from the same place as C. Probably an addict in recovery. M is handsome, and if his speech were smoother, could probably con the elderly out of some coin with his blue eyes and nice smile.
R is also a smoker but is stinkier than C or M. Maybe his girlfriend doesn't do his laundry regularly as he suggested.

L had popped in earlier. She succeeded in getting a 7 FT lighted Christmas tree from Canadian Tire that was on sale. I called her later as she had accidentally paid a bill dated December 26, 2008. She's recovering from a cold. Is it just me, or do people sound sexier when they have colds?
Yesterday, she told me her husband has been extra sucky ever since her sister-in-law (30) broke up with L's brother (4oish). Right before a large number of guests arrived, she told him, "I don't know who I am. I was afraid to tell you sooner." L doesn't want her husband to go overboard. To him, she would ask, "Who are you?" if he persisted in being extra-caring and in constant contact.
Thus the phrase, "Who just says it's over?" came up. But they talked and it is over.
Y and I haven't talked but it feels like it's over.
Time passes and I forget the things I wanted to talk with her about. The things that were important to me that I wanted to make clear.
It feels like she will never want to talk. After all, she and her singular ex aren't friends to this day and Y broke up with her for similar reasons.
Last night, somewhere between 3AM and 6AM, someone gently rang my buzzer. I wondered if it was Y. Perhaps that's why I dreamed of her and within my dream wondered if it was a mistake for our relationship to be over.

"Who just says it's over?" was a line that also appeared, I believe, in Synecdoche, New York.

I went through the Accounts Payable files today. Looking for something needed. Pulled out all the empty file folders and put them beside the duplicate file folders. Slowly organizing and improving upon the work those past receptionists/office managers have done before me. Removing extra, unneeded staples to save space in the folders. Seriously three staples for 2 sheets of paper?! I use a metal letter opener to remove the staples with a stabbing motion. Works nicely.

Recurring Themes

Had another dream last night of Kate and her kids and being in their house in secret.
This time the kids were older. Her youngest daughter, Molly was a teenaged lesbian. Her son, Seamus also a homosexual. Not sure about the middle child, Megan. Ken's old green wool sweater lay outside as if on display on a piece of modern art.
Seamus helped me hide. Everyone got scared when Ken arrived home.
I hid on the porch. Black hood covering my face. But I could still see out.
He drew near and I thought, he knows I'm here, I should just take control of the situation.
So I leapt up and screamed and ran away.
As I ran I saw there were army vehicles in the driveway. Gifts from Ken to his son, hoping to make him manly.
I ran up the hill. A cab pulled up. There was already another woman inside. The driver flashed a ten dollar bill and a five, communicating the fare. I agreed and climbed in. Then there were four of us women and I started to rile them all up that we shouldn't have to pay so much.

15
It's been over 12 years now since the end. Will something happen in three years?

A normal day at work. Trying to get work done. Interrupted. Blurting out the truth which was already known. Blurting out more. Such a Sagittarian.

After work, I went for a Hermanns and dinner at the Irish Pub. Female servers were dressed in red and black kilts.
The Butcher Shop man had no clients so lounged in a white chair by the window.
A Japanese woman walks along the sidewalk, reading a letter, smiling. Beautiful.
I get in the lineup at the theatre. Behind a butch and a femme. I wonder if she really is butch or she's going FTM.
Inside, I decide to get a drink and line up again. A cashier calls me over. Two others who were behind me get helped while he is still counting change. I leave and buy a drink from someone else.
The movie is brilliant. I feel like it's exactly what I would hope to accomplish if I ever wrote so there's no point in even trying or I'd just be thought to copying Kaufman.
I get home and there's a notice from the landlord. Two actually. One in the mailbox, one under the door. On the 28th, between 2:30 and 4:30 he will be entering suites for a "Routine Building/Suite Inspection"
Nothing routine about it as this is the first time it's happened.
Angry again at the landlord for this. And once again, the work that I've been doing to clean up and organize gets put on hold as I have to stop and hide it all. Which for me and my system of having it all out so I deal with it, is a step backwards.
I check facebook and there's a message from Kim and once again she ends by saying,
"Take care."
I now hate this phrase as she keeps saying it and each time it sounds like goodbye.
Or Take Care of yourself because I'm no longer doing it.
And I know this is unreasonable and probably means I've gone slightly whacky post-break-up.

last night's dream of exes

At the airport, they follow behind as we walk to the car.
Lorie asks, "Do you want to meet here again?"
to no one in particular, but she means me.
Kim responds, "Okay."
Turning back, I see Kate with two of her kids.
I take a long look at the kids and then back at the woman.
It's not her. But suddenly I'm hitched up on the back of a vehicle
being towed along, heels dragging on the road. Just to make a statement.
As if the lookalike will let the real Kate know how much she hurt me.