2009 - Could Have Been Worse...

if there had been zombies. Work sucked, Geek & I split for good, work sucked some more, then my cat died. There you have it - the Year of your Lord, MMIX.

There's a full moon tonight, the second of the month - a Blue Moon, on New Year's Eve. It's an opportunity you may not see again. Take it. Do something you wouldn't otherwise do.

As you pass through the doorway from 2009 to 2010 may Janus smile on you from both sides.

I scare myself sometimes...

I was moving my desk into the Ex-Geek's office today and came across one of my poetry journals from about 2 years ago. I didn't remember writing most of them, so I started reading them before moving on to the next stack of crap to be sorted through. Most were my normal melancholy drivel. Then I get to one particularly cynical depressing bit of wordplay & I actually said out loud: "That is just AWFUL." It was. I think I may have just driven myself into a dark spiral. All the more reason for a brand new fluffy kitty cat - therapy. By the way, my long time, black, fluffy, cycloptic, feline companion, One Eyed Jack, died a little more than a week ago.

Happy Hollowdays one and all!

Untitled Awful Poem

She holds Hope
like a child's face
wanting it to stay
small, bright, & her's alone.
Yet, Hope grows into Dream,
it's gangly arms & legs
stretched - reaching.
Dream, enamored of Risk,
leaves Her to her garden,
her cats &
her dirty dishes.

southern martyr 2007

Cabin of my Mind

There are nights
when thoughts roll like marbles
on the hardwood floor
inside my head.

southern martyr
12-11-09

Flipsides...

If roots went as deep
as branches high -
trees would never fall.

If love went as far
as hate goes wide -
I'd never have to call.

southern martyr 11-24-09

Here's an Oldie but Goodie that has been rolling around on the hard wood floor inside my head:

Within the Lover turned Enemy
dwells Man's fiercest Hate

To be the Lover hated
Life's cruelest twist of Fate

southern martyr circa 1992

No worries though, I do my best writing when I've got something under my skin. I'll enjoy it while it lasts and save up a little misery for some sunny day that's needs inspiration. Happy Hollowdays one and all!

May not be good, but at least it's something...

Working a lot, dancing a lot, yoga a lot, boyfriend a lot, writing a little.

A Cold November Rain

Guns N Roses did not ruin it for me

It still feels like the first drops of water to ever fall from the sky

cold clear crystalline

I press myself against the house
The gutter keeps the unswerving drops
from striking me

Yet still they call out as they fall

And those caught on my bare skin
answer with sharp excited cries of their own.

southern martyr 11-17-09

And here's a little something twitter length:

the mountains slept all day today with blankets tucked firmly beneath their chins

southern martyr 11-18-09

well hell... it's poetry?

Okay, so I said I was going to be a little better about writing. However, I can't seem to find two minutes to sit down and frame my thoughts into any sort of order. That's where poetry has always come in for me. It lets me jot down something (real or imagined) in the moment. Without any conscious effort. Sometimes that means my poetry isn't that great... But it exists, great or slapdash or just plain bad, it's there - a moment or a thought pressed between the pages of my life so that I can go back and remember it later. Here's two that I dashed off during the last few weeks and haven't done anything with. I think that because of how busy my work life has been lately I'm slipping into almost a faux haiku style. At the moment that is how I hear things in my head - short clipped and almost sing song. Maybe I'm going slightly mad...

Untitled

You make me nervous.
I think you lie sometimes,
because sometimes I do too.
And yet, your lies are so much better than mine.

southern martyr 10-09


It Just Ain't Right...

Wrong day wrong week
wrong month wrong year

Wrong man wrong love
wrong hope wrong fear

southern martyr 10-09

Well folks, that's all I got today. At least it's something...

Limbo...

I know I haven't been posting in a really long time. That's because I've been lost. That's not always a bad thing. There have been a few times in my relatively short life when I was scared at being lost & alone. However, most times, I find it exhilarating. This has been one of my longer, rougher, stumbles through the woods, but I saw things I never would have noticed otherwise.

I spent several months (years?) walking along, putting one foot in front of the other. It was a rather enjoyable stroll. Then, this spring, I looked up for the first time in a very long time to see where I was... and realized I was lost. It's funny how everything is perfectly okay right up until the moment your mind registers that you don't know where you are. One minute you're ambling along between points A & B, and the next you're "lost" and disoriented and slightly panicked.

My favorite thing about being lost? The fact that it is the best opportunity you will ever have to change your mind about where you want to go and which path (if any) you want to take to get there. I changed course and decided to plunge into the underbrush and see where I popped out.

And here I am.

Not sure where "here" is exactly. I think I'm someplace on the road between Heartbreak and Salvation. I've decided to leave the road again and just strike out through woods til I find a deer trail or an old logging road and see where it leads. I'm going to try and do more writing and try keep this online journal updated a little more often - whenever I take a break from my little adventure.

a long night in a dark wood

It is 1:30am.
I have restored the InterWebs.
Again.
It wasn't gremlins this time.
It was dragons.
I may never fully recover.
Neither will the groundhog.

Woe Unto Me!

Oh InterWebs! Why hast thou forsaken me?! Do I not worship at your altar daily? Do I not type my fingers to the bones? Yet, in the hour of my greatest need, you abandon me. With a thunderous laugh and flashing a quick cruel and blinding smile, you smote my Router where he stood. What is it that you require of me? I have no Geek to offer in sacrifice. I am but a lowly User. I know no incantations, wield no enchanted teeny tiny screwdriver. Alas, I am not 133t.

Epiphany

Did battle with the router demons once again. Dragon slain, gremlins banished, peace and the Interwebs restored to my wooded kingdom once again.

While perched atop a ladder in the middle of the woods with my itty bitty pink laptop balanced on one hand while ants crawled down my other arm from the router's power cord, I had a rare moment of clarity. I realized something that I've always known, yet seem to forget every time my heart is broken: I don't NEED anybody.

Yeah, I'm a Daddy's girl, and it was nice when Dad drove by on the four-wheeler and asked if I needed any help buying a new router. But I was able to tell him in all honesty that it didn't matter. I do use the internet to do work from home sometimes, but I could always wander down to my old house or even just drag a chair out under the tree in the middle of the woods where the router is and plug into the ethernet cable.

I've always been like that. Wood burning stove as the only source of heat? No problem! Wringer washer? Who cares! No television? I have books! I've always been independent. I've always been a bit weird. I've always been a bit of a hermit. Those things don't change and neither does the fact that it's nice to have someone around who can and will help you, but in the end if you can't do it yourself then you'd better not really NEED it or else you'll find yourself without it one day. Whether that something happens to be love, or running water, or the Interwebs, I've always been able to cope before and I haven't changed one bit.

Needs and wants are two different things altogether. I want the Interwebs so I went out and figured it out myself. If I want love I'll figure that out for myself too. Yeah, I miss what I had with The Geek, but if it's gone I can live without it...

Hot tea & a Cold heart

Been okay lately, right up until yesterday. Went out for a couple of glasses of wine with an old friend on Friday night. Awake until 2am. Thought I was actually kinda moving on. Then BAM! weird things start happening way too early in the morning for me to do anything but deal with everything through gut reaction. Geek has a bit of a problem which requires me to talk to him again, toss in a little bit of guilt on my side about the wine & the friend from the night before... That's when things start to get confusing for me. I know it's done & gone, but when we talk it sounds & feels just like it always has. Comfortable, familiar... Geek thinks that's the problem, that we somehow slipped past love and into comfortable and then got stuck. I'm not sure that was the case for me. The whole reason that I opened up to him in the first place was because I was completely and instantaneously comfortable around him - like we'd been best friends forever. Anyway... that's why it all slides sideways for me when he & I talk like that.

I cried a little yesterday. I felt sorry for myself a little yesterday. I talked about it with my friends and it put some things in perspective again. I guess it's just one of those things that will get easier and easier with time. I still care about Geek. I can't quite close that door... yet. However, I also realized yesterday that I had let go of him little bit by little bit over the past few years. Not sure what any of this means to the future and I'm not sure it really matters right now.

So, this morning I'm drinking hot tea and trying to thaw my frozen heart. Today is a different day and tonight will be a different night...

Melancholy Muse

Having you, was like drinking spring water from my hand.
Natural, pure, bittersweet,
and all too quickly slipping between my fingers.
Now, I sit with parted lips pressed to palm,
savoring the cold numbness,
and wondering if I've drunk my fill.

~ Southern Martyr 6/11/09

As I said before, my muse has found me once again. I don't know if I'll keep posting the little quick things I write, but for now it helps put things in perspective and believe it or not it actually makes it all much much easier. If I can channel a little grey funk into a poem or even just a meaningless string of words on paper, then somehow it's gone from my mind afterwards. I guess it's my way of passing it all on to the dragon who never sleeps...

A moment of painful honesty... with myself.

This morning I took a long hot bath.
Rummaging through almost empty bottles
while water slipped down my sleepy face,
I realized I was out of shampoo.
That I would have to use his.
That today would be another struggle.

~Southern Martyr 6/11/09

Been a Long Time Comin'

I've been neglecting this blog for ages now. I've also been neglecting the people I love and myself. So, it's no small wonder when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Work has consumed me for the past 2 years. I still feel a huge personal obligation to myself to follow through on what I've worked so long and hard to do. However, I now fully realize the toll it has taken on the rest of my life. I still can't just up and throw it all away, but I can take a deep breath and step back and get a little perspective... even if it's forced perspective.

Thus begins the first day of the rest of my life. Which actually occurred about a week ago, but I've been so busy that I'm just now getting around to acknowledging it. My Geek moved out. I miss him & I'm not going to close any doors, but in leaving the door open I can't keep anybody else from wandering inside either.

I am going to start up bellydance classes again as soon as the new class schedule starts up in July. Right now I am going to yoga classes once a week. The dog is slightly traumatized by the whole situation, so I've been taking him out for REALLY long walks in the evenings. (If I don't take him outside & walk him till he begs to go back inside, then he has trouble sleeping and insists on laying awake on the floor beside my bed moping and farting all night long.) When I'm stressed out I don't eat very much, so between the stress, the yoga, and walking the traumatized dog, I'm losing weight and feeling better than I have in a long time.

I've also started really writing again. My muse abandoned me long ago. It seems he only lingers with me while my emotions are in chaos. He has returned with a passion, now that I am heartbroken and confused. He visits me while I am wandering through the woods in the late afternoon and I lure him back home to my desk with the promise of hot tea and a tale of woe. After tea and a discussion of life's struggles, he often lounges among the books stacked untidily in the corner and encourages me as my fingers stumble across the keyboard. Finally, after a glass of wine and a heart wrenching haiku, I will topple into bed beside my black cat and my muse will gently kiss my eyelids and allow me sleep.

Work is still hard. There are personal and personality conflicts that I would rather not put to the page. Suffice it to say, I've dealt with this kind of thing before and I do have a plan B if all else fails. I'll survive work a lot easier than the unknowns of my personal life. I'm just keeping my head down and my foot out of my mouth. There is a light at the end of this tunnel, even if it seems a long distance to travel.

My Daddy told me recently that "Every day above ground is worth it's pain." I think that just might be one of my new favorite qoutes. There's another qoute that always creeps into my mind when the rug is pulled out from under me: "When a dog runs at you, whistle for him." ~Henry David Thoreau.

I'm hoping that I can keep the creative juices flowing and maybe get my life together while I'm at it. I think that one way to do that is to keep writing - anything, anytime, anywhere. It's what I did all the other times my life seemed to crumble around me. I'm going to try and post something, anything, on this blog at least once a week. That's my starting point. Maybe, if I can manage that, then I might possibly start posting a little bit of my writing. I don't know. No matter what comes, I have decided that I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where I end up. And I think that if I write a little bit, dance a little bit, and keep my friends close to my heart, then I'll at least enjoy the journey.

I realize that this post is a long & rambling explanation of something that no one besides myself cares about, but that's how I deal with things. I write them down. I bind them to the page and they don't seem so overwhelming anymore. They become nothing more than flowers pressed between the pages in an old book, until one day I find them again and can't remember why I put them there in the first place. Also, sometimes I just like shouting into the void...

a strange thing happened on the way to...

I was driving. Minding my own business, when I was delighted to see something that just struck me as peculiar (Pardon the finger shadows - I was driving 70 miles an hour at the time):






Yup, that's a basketball goal in the back of a truck. But that wasn't necessarily the part that made me watch in wonder... What caught my eye was that the net part was flying out behind it like a wind sock! I have seen basketball goals lying down on the ground and I have seen basketball goals folded back into the rafters of gymnasiums, but I have never seen a basketball goal lying down with the net still so neatly round as if waiting for that perfect jump shot. It was fascinating - at least to me. Plus, I kept wondering if I pulled in front of it and tossed something out the window if it would be at all possible to score 2 points...

a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese?

It is 3:14am. I do not usually blog when I am unable to sleep, however I have found being awake in the wee small hours of this particular morning, all alone, to be a little more than my sanity can apparently bear. I am recording this stream of consciousness to prove to myself that this is indeed NOT one of those horrifying "dream within a bout of insomnia within a dream."

I awaken an hour and a half ago - startled bolt upright in bed by the realization that I had been singing the chorus to Rihanna's "Umbrella" over & over again in my sleep. I was then startled while getting myself a drink of water by the realization that Rihanna's song "Umbrella" is simply one giant chorus. I was further startled while scrounging around looking for some Tums by hearing myself very clearly and distinctly announce to an empty house "Ou est un Pamplemousse. Je suis le Pamplemousse!" It has been nigh on 17 years since my last French class, but I know without a doubt that that translates to "In the east a grapefruit. I AM the Grapefruit!"

I'm pouring myself some SoCo, turning on my iPod, and praying sanity finds me before dawn.

Last night - A Dream Study

I was getting married

in a pink dress

which was being decorated

with pink FROSTING roses

when someone brushed my hair

and made me cry

a midget swore to kill me on my honeymoon

yet was willing to give me a sporting chance

Barbie gave a pep talk to convince him

to go through with his threat

it apparently didn't matter to her

that my family raised fish

Open Letter from the Dog

Dear Poseidon,
It has now rained for three and a half months. Please make it stop. Please. The grass is always wet. The dirt is wet. These things make my feet wet. Wet feet make it hard for me to pee. Do you know what else makes it hard to pee? Raindrops. They're distracting. They are usually cold. They are always wet. I like to pee. I have to pee outside (I still don't know why - there was a tree in house for about twenty minutes, but they wouldn't let me pee on it. Not that I tried. I wouldn't do that.) I don't like the rain. My owner likes the rain, but then again she also likes cats. Can you do something about the cats? I guess I should probably talk to Anubis or maybe the Sphinx... The rain. Please to stop the rain. You can have my favorite floss bone.

Wags & Licks,
The Dog