mormans, muslims and mayans! oh my!

well, the creaking was a false alarm and a week of insomnia was finally followed by an amazing night of rest last night.  i think it could have something to do with sleeping in my bedroom.  sleeping in a bed is a necessary luxury at my age.  i'm coming to terms with that fact.  going from a queen to a double is acceptable, as it was done for the right reasons.  when we leave this home behind my top priority will be purchasing a king.  that's also acceptable.  my top priorities here are a fire pan for the yard and a new blender.  it's all about evolution.  what hasn't been acceptable is sleeping in a room that still has scores of boxes to go through.  as always, it's the last domain to be addressed.  it was however, the most boss room in the house after i finished decorating the old house.

there has been lots of progress this week and spirits are as high as they've been since the first few days of the year.  put up shelves in the bathroom, took stuff to the basement, hung curtains in the den, took more stuff to the basement.  definitely need to have a yard sale this spring.  the biggest lift of the week was after about six months of reading and discussion and a month or so of interviews and waiting for testing, joshua has finally begun testing for autism spectrum disorder, formerly called asperger's syndrome.  it has been a struggle the last year to not understand my child and then to accept that i could have not recognized something that i thought i knew something about, existing in my own child.  none of the symptoms i could have recognized appeared as points of concern, but as points of interest.  there had been no unbearable challenges until i started to force structure into our schooling the last year and a half.  everything that i should have recognized as a symptom just seemed like a welcome, weird phenomenon of his development.  it wasn't until the last year that i realized some of his patterns should have been outgrown by now.  it has been a period of heightened awareness these last six months, working to acknowledge how consumed i have been in unearthing my own mental imbalances and idiosyncracies since joshua's birth almost nine years ago that i feel like i overlooked the extent of some of his.  it has been quite a journey and i am so thankful that i am present and emotionally stable to support joshua's transition into becoming a fully realized young man.  he has blossomed in the process of self-awareness and coming to understand his own complex matrix of existence.  we have another day of testing tomorrow and hopefully by next week will have a course of action planned to educate ourselves and get help with some of the more challenging issues.  we won't be able to participate in full time therapy or workshops at olsen huff until summer but are thankful for all the great folks at the grandiss center.  joshua loves dr. jill.

today he said "mom, what hoops did you have to jump through today?" i thought this was pretty funny.  "none really.  today was all about rest.  not every day demands hoops."  "but some days have a lot of them."  there was a bit of silence as i absorbed his grown up tone and demeanor.  then he added, "i think that should be the title of your autobiography - How I Became a Cirkus Phreak.  'k' and a 'ph', of course."  i told him it could easily be the title of his autobiography as well.  that's my boy.  planning ahead.  thinking big.  spelling things wrong with profound intention.  today he aced a spelling test that included the words censorship, democracy and revolution.  when i asked him yesterday if he would like to call his grandmother he said, "if she's not speaking to you, i don't need to speak to her.  until she and brother can accept us like we are and choose to spend time with us, it's just you and me i guess."  heartbreaking, but incredibly mature and insightful.  i told him we should pray for them and have faith that they could learn to accept us and appreciate us as we continue to learn and grow.  so we prayed for our whole family - even the ones he doesn't know - it was nice.  today both his grandmother and his brother called.  ian is coming over tomorrow.  i like to call it the power of positivity.  aka:  the fruit of forgiveness.  aka:  fostering the faith.  aka:  hailing the hope.  aka:  living the love.  sorry, i'm been so burned out on the "aka" lately i just had to get that out of my system.  you know, take it over the top so to speak.

another great joshua tale:  today he says we should make a book about idioms called "over the big top" and we can teach an idiom on every page that we would use on tour, like "let's get this show on the road" when we're packing up the buses and then "it's all downhill from here" once we're set up and the performers are getting dressed up to perform and then "break a leg" when the show's about to begin.  he's awesome.  the idiom book is definitely on the calendar for next week.  right now i'm just hoping his martin luther king jr. research paper gets finished by this weekend.  today he did a two page journal entry on why homeschooling is important to him because he wasn't motivated to work on his writing assignment for the week.  tomorrow i expect him to dive in.  one of the things he wrote in the paper was "not doing my schoolwork teaches me karma because there's always consequences."  that made me laugh.

karma works.  it works to teach you, to re.mind the movement of the matrix.  it works on your mind, body and soul and is delivered by your spirit.  karma rocks.  bad karma rocks the foundation when established illusions need to be rebuilt.  good karma rocks like the radio hit that saved your life in 7th grade.  it rocks the free world into leading the way and the oppressors into submission.  it rocks like the first time your orange crush touched the small of your back or the last time you made love to led zeppelin.  karma rings and reigns and rules, like wedding bells and love and royalty.  it swims like the love child of aquaman and curious george, seeking treasure in the deep, singing booty in your sleep....  just another dream team, raising dragons on a green submarine.  the times they are a changin' while the lines are rearrangin'....

which brings me to the mormans, muslims and mayans.  oh my.  i left facebook recently and realized my joking around about facebook being my source for news and what's happening in my community and the world is actually true.  with the free cable, i have a little cnn action that's questionable but appreciated and a lot of overprocessed drivel.  that said, i have such a low tolerance for commercials that the fascination of the television has already worn off.  thank god.  i also let netflix go when homeless, so that's that.  boob tube not required.  i have been listening to the river (my record player is broken and the cd's must be in the boxes left filling my closet) which is fairly informative.  they play npr news in the morning and the commercials are atleast mostly local.  all of that graciously acknowledged, i was reminded by an old, dear friend this week that apparently in all the hub.bub of 1999 my response in cocktail conversations was that nothing eventful or devastating was going to happen in the next few years other than we should be celebrating the turn of the century, but that when 2012 arrived i was going to bunker down and be very, very quiet.  i don't even remember that, but it doesn't surprise me that i felt that way.  i don't even remember being that aware of the mayan calendar until sound tribe sector 9 arrived in my world, but i guess i had some minimal knowledge from visiting mayan ruins and studying several ancient civilizations in the summer of 1992.  she told me this in response to me saying i was taking 2012 off from facebook that maybe i'd come back in 2013.  i doubt i'll stay off that long.  it's tempting to go back, but it's not worth the hassle of censoring myself for my mother.  until i can get her to understand that if she cannot accept me for the outspoken, foul mouthed bitch that i occasionally am and understand that i will never censor myself around sexual issues, as i believe sexual matters should be as open and normal as other bodily functions of survival, she really has to not be friends with me on facebook or go to my page, as i refuse to make it private.  i went private for a couple weeks the first time i had to defriend her (this summer) and it felt like it went against everything i believe in regarding transparency and censorship.  it also defeated any sense of using social networking as a marketing tool - which is basically what it is.  so whether it be for the sanity of my mother, or to create more time to contemplate mayan prophecy, i will maintain a safe distance from facebook and possibly explore the possibilities of my twitter and linked.in accounts.  mainly i will continue to appreciate the phone calls i've been getting from people seeking facetime, since i'm currently not facehookin'.  yay facetime.  i miss yer face.

so, as it often is in the land of oz, habits are trending and one reclusive move begets another.  with the onslaught of political pawns dancing around on puppet strings offering nine months of comedic overkill when what we really need are more revolutionaries, i'd rather be growing a baby.  that said, the reality that i could be seven months pregnant right now is mind boggling.  the idea of facing a third child with no paternal support is devastating and reminds me why i am thankful to be the woman i am.  independent and free, although slightly overwhelmed.  i find myself pulling the proverbial covers over my eyes and wishing for a bear to come fill my cave with anything but religion, capitalist illusion or illusory policy reform.  as excited as i was about this political season the last few years, the last few months have done nothing but pull the curtain back on the whole sham.  the emerald city is crumbling.  seeking hairy, jim carey with eyes that mesmerize and thighs that fantasize to watch the fireworks through my picture window.  an obsession for the music industry, music history and music trivia preferred.  the ability to make love with sound also a plus.  no mormans, no muslims and no mayans need apply.  that said - being spiritually minded is mandatory.  a freemason could own my world.  you can't make sexual magick without the gods.  god sized hole.  goddess approved.

crack

what a word.  i crack myself up.  you're a tough nut to crack.  crackalicious.   i'm just thankful that i've been sitting here looking at a blank screen (other than the original post title "can you smell that smell?") pondering the twists and turns of what a mental break actually sounds like in the annals of one's mind, distracted by my recent ability to smell odd metallic smells (or is this some new sentient phenomenon of other worldly proportions?  or perhaps some well known sign of some fatal disease....) - i have been listening to the widening crack in my brain for what seems like a good length of time, when suddenly the drug just popped in.  i used to couldn't hear the word in any context without images of waking up in lee's bed to his absence and a foreign smell and looking over that nappy couch at his desperate, crouched, six feet, folded like a mutant origami crane on a cold, hard floor.  flooded with confusion and heart wrenching pain, i put my cape on and leapt across the room into a future of twisted memories in that dark, unfinished, green room.

"are you?"  i hear his words ringing from another night, a few months later.  "am i what?"  "crazy.  is it you or her?"  i don't even remember what i said.  did i call her out as the crazy one?  my mother who had locked me away in an institution full of tales.  and horns.  bring on the horns maestro!  i could certainly hear a full brass band as they put a straight jacket on the woman with the blood running down her cheeks.  perhaps i should write about that.  i keep telling myself to write the future.  but then i know they'd come after me.  muah ha ha ha ha....  the fabulosity of live theater, or even the potential video blog, is you would have heard that muah ha ha ha ha in the dead pan villasonican delivery of a tired and jaded woman.  a woman who realizes in retrospect the answer to lee's question is obviously, both of us.  the apple, sadly, can only fall so far from the tree.  thank god for the evolution of legs.  after endless tangents, i wonder why i resist that advice and occasional urge to vid.blog - to add more perspective and reveal more intent through tone and to occasionally sing or play - or atleast to care if i've got on a decent shirt.  i know the sounds of my voice are the essence of my gift, but as a i struggle to let go of mounds of books, i cling to the written word.  hoping people still read.  hoping i will find myself somewhere on the page, knowing i'm off in the sound.  why am i still looking?  i no longer wish to play the seeker.  it's a black hole sort of conundrum.  co.nun.drum.te.dum.dum.dum.

she hears winnie the pooh bear humming along in the distance, only slightly more audible than the creaking of the crack in her brain.  she wonders if he can hear it.  if they are one in the same, insane.  they all sit patiently now as she looks around in there.  her father sits rigid in a straight back chair, feet planted wide with his elbows on his knees, hands held together with his fingers interweaved.  (yes i know it's interwoven but you see how much i care - enough to make up words, it seems only fair.)  her mother paces in the distance, alternately wringing her hands and running them through her hair.  him, playing guitar under a willow tree.  (that blanket is so inviting and obviously made for me.)  men and women pushed to the perimeter, busy with their own scripts.  with the occasional dialogue, she feels like a burden instead of a gift.  everyone's nose to the grind.  noone's got time for a lift.  which is fine, she's got a ride - she just really wanted to play.   she has no real experience with others though, so they slowly fade away.  eventually she grows numb.  her son is under a thumb.

i am frozen, desperate to reach out to him.  their evil prophecies have come true.  their selfish indignation because they couldn't reach anyone else to blame.  "you will push him away" say THEY.  they who wrote letters to help the predator drag him away.  they who claim to be more than they are.  they who love from afar.  they who cry in the night and put change in a jar.  they who have seen just how ugly you are.  atleast they think they have, but little do they know, they only know what they know which isn't all of the show.  so much more in tow before she let go.  they can't see the truth for their own righteous glow.  so, on with the show.  off we go.

on with the show uncle bill!  it's for you!!  and old uncle wilbur, hell, it's for you too.  uncle william was huge next to sweet uncle bud.  uncle frank made everything fit like a glove.  uncle dwight, uncle henry, dear uncle al.  so many uncle's just confuse a young gal.  uncle gene, uncle roger, roger me this - what other cool tricks does it do besides piss?  and what about you, dear uncle chris?  do you think that you might have been wrong to dismiss my words and my truth and the breadth of my pain - to leave what was left of my theft in the rain.  more curbside trash, that's what i'll grow up to be - for all of the judgement passed upon me.  i'll let you all sculpt me with anger and fear and we'll see what turns out at the end of the year.

but WAIT.  STOP.  no, seriously - let's cut before then.  i thought perhaps last year could just be the end.  this year, no more drama, just find a real friend.  if i let you have one more year with your way, i'm not sure i can take it - i might just waste away.  by the end of the year i'll have scabs on my ears from all of the ringing and clawing, i fear.  and scabs on my cheeks that sting when there's tears.  and scabs on my legs from the man in the night that comes when i sleep and can't wake to bite.  the teeth marks i hide, i pretend they're not there - chewing my knuckles is too much to bear.

i'm begging you.  wait.  stop the drama mama.  i'm calmly requesting a re-write.

for the last year he just kept saying it was too far, if we just lived in west asheville he could see us alot more often.  we live less than a mile apart and had visitation this weekend.  we're supposed to have visitation every wednesday.  i'm flexible.  we can have dinner any night of the week.  we would love to have him over for dinner every night of the week.  granted, we would like to have had the money to buy groceries in the last few weeks, too, so i understand why he doesn't come here to eat.  there's no food.  but his brother's love overflows.  joshua's love is like the niagara falls of adoration and affection.  granted, his beautiful brain isn't as flexible as a teenager might like.  and neither is mine.  i'm still so incredibly devastated by the loss of my son.  legally and literally.  i've attempted to let him go - knowing i lived on my own at his age.  knowing he's already much more responsible than i am.  certainly more aware of the world and it's workings than i was at his age or several years older.  even after he was born, i struggled through so much confusion.  even on this morning, i find myself a bit confused.  (she hears winnie the pooh humming calmly in the distance.) 

i remember hating her and not understanding why.  i know now that my brain was attempting to process how i had left home and decorated a fabulous apartment i didn't have to pay for, had all the booze i wanted, all the men i wanted, all the power i could fit on my plate.  i was amazed and refused to admit, overwhelmed, by my ability to overachieve.  i painted, i wrote, i directed, i adapted.  i made spirograph art out of social circles and hosted an endless string of debaucherous liasons.  i attended underwear parties and wore stilletos to breakfast.  i constantly craved more.  i was a hot mess and a drama queen of varying degrees, depending on the concoction of cocktails and cock previously devoured.  i was a vampire.  i was a bitch.  i hated her because she gave me life.  now.... now, i just resent the conditions of her affection and attention.  enough to be silenced?  oddly enough, resentment festers, like a bubbling chemistry experiment, and becomes explosive when you least expect it.  people who attempt to silence the truth of others often forget that.

i miss my son, but i'm tired of pining away.  i'm tired of feeling like something is missing.  there will always be missing pieces.  because every time i think the puzzle is complete, the numbers fall away.  i am complete.  i love who i am now.  i find my life to be excruciatingly boring, but that's my fault - i've grown boring to the measure of being bored.  the only sure fire fix for that is to get moving.  to write.  to paint.  to create more.  to unplug from the drama of others.  family, friends or television - it's all the wrong outlet if it includes drama.  more comedy.  more game shows.  make some action and adventure if that's you're thing.  i'll take the family channel, sans the after school special aspect (remember the no drama rule).  we'll take a song&dance variety line-up, heavy on the tweener education and pop culture trivia.  and can mama get a side of porn please?

i hear the birds singing outside my windows and i wish them warmth.  i can almost feel you by my side.