January 2006

that's better

Dan's mother insists she'd smell it if even one beer were cracked in her house and that she'd know instantly by Dan's face even the next day. She says he's not drinking. Gonna be a rough winter for me.... On the upside I'm 5# lighter, maybe even 10# if you count the vagaries of the female body. I was as high as 180# and am at this point only 170# but haven't had breakfast. So 5# net weight loss I guess. That's good for this time of year.

gee that's depressing

I think Dan's drinking again. Not binging, just having one, the usual startup. By late february therefore he'll be getting wasted again. I can hear it in his voice, a sort of carelessness. Last night he told me about how recently he's been DUI'd and how in the last decade alone the govt. had him on piss tests and a breathalyzer device on his car! He never has reallly quit drinking and the way he told me about it, the anger he expressed towards the govt. restrictions, told me what he wants me to hear,nobody and nothing is ever going to make him quit. It was like he planted a flag in the territory and insisted on his claim. However it was done in the usual passive aggressive way that you really can't call a person on it. All I can do is nothing and cancel my plans and dreams. That's it. Nothing can happen.

silly poem

The world is a small place unless you are a flea. I'm a very small thing so it looks big to me. If I were a comet, a galaxy or star, the distance between me and you would not be very far But I am but a monkey in a littlewooden house, the world looks just as big to me as my ass is to a mouse!

a letter to mom

How can I ever forgive you? I can't ever have what the world says all children deserve. You can send all the money and presents in the world and it won't give me a new childhood. When things weren't alright and I turned to mymother I was told not to be so silly. That I had nothing to be upset about and was probably to blame for the problem anyway. If I wanted to be a strong adult I had to solve things on my own and you were busy anyway. When you hugged me I knew, even as a tiny little girl, that it was about proving you were loving, which if you had been would not have been necessary, rather than about actually loving me! You didn't even LIKE me! Oh and it's not like I didn't try. I was so understanding of how difficult it is to be a parent. I would reassure you that I knew you were doing your best even though I didn't think so. I would wear things that you liked even though I hated your taste. I did all those chores just to get a faint praise from you, to please you, to earn somehow the love that should have been mine by right. I got nothing, not even the right to spending money while you drove your new corvette and partied with your fancy friends and Dad piloted his fancy sailing yacht across the lake. It's not like we didn't have things but I was supposed to be grateful for the bread on the table and the dance lessons you paid for and the school extras.
You know i never minded being grateful and doing chores, I recognized the value of those things. I just wanted you to approve of the person I was instead of trying to make me into someone and I didn't even like the person you wanted me to be. I was 24 before I finally let go of that, realizing I was hopeless and flawed and would never ever be able to be the person you wanted me to be. Why couldn't I just be a scared sad child who needed to be told it was alright and that you'd be there for me? Why couldn't you ever take my side when the world told me I wasn't good enough? Why couldn't you ever tell me I was right and it was ok? And now you still want me to reassure you. Why didn't you ever reassure me?
When I got my heart broken, you told me I wasn't trying hard enough and was loving too quickly and all manner of reasons I was to blame for my tears. Did you never have your heart broken? Were you a celibate, as pure as a nun, till the day my father stole your heart? had nobody ever seduced you and left you bewhildered at why this incredible boy suddenly had more important things to do? Did you never want to love someon so badly you loved them to please them even though they really couldn't fill your heart and one day you just had to break theirs?
Where was your history?
I heard about how you suffered during the war. I heard about your miserable parents and home life. But I never heard about your hopes and dreams and failures and successes. Never anything to make you human. You were just the heroine in your own drama play and I was the pretty little girl who proved you could be a mother and a full woman even while pursuing your career and avarice.
Do not ask now for me to love you. The best I can do is treat you with courtesy and respect and let affection out when I'm feeling kind and easy going. I can't let go when I keep seeing images of motherhood as it's presumed to be and I weep for what I missed. How then do I let that go and turn to you with affection? You haven't even changed.
You're still a poser trying to prove you are better than the rest and control the people around you. Everything has to be your way, you are Ms. Supreme Bitch. Well I live across the country from you and that is the only way I can stand you. I hate you for not loving me.
Do you even like the woman I've become? I don't think you know me well enough to know that. I know of course you'll instantly offer the correct response and I would never hear your true thoughts but I don't think I play a big enough role in your thoughts for there to be any. You don't understand me, you cover my image with assumptions, you don't care enough to find out who I am.
Well let me tell you. I am a strong woman, you managed to do that. I am an honest woman, in spite of your lying ways. I am a direct woman, you don't appreciate that so I rein it in around you. I am a passionate woman, unlike you it's real and deep and I generally let it out when I'm alone now because people think it's for show and I have learned to hold back my expression till it's mine and not a theatre play. Again, nothing like you. I am hard working, I did learn that from you. I am shy, but bold, because I have no faith that the world will like me. Is that your fault? I don't know.
Partly, because you could have taught me that I'm loveable so I'd believe it even if the world didn't see it, but the world also punished me for being misfitted, so you can't be blamed entirely. I am bold because I know I'll get in trouble for weakness, again, you taught me that. For good or ill it's hard to say. I am affectionate, although I don't show that to you. I am generous, but you never saw that in me, instead forcing me to give up things i love and have too little to be able to share freely. I share freely though, when I have extra. I don't actually have that much extra and I also have a mentality of permanent poverty, thanks to your selfishness in ensuring I never had a drop more than I needed.
I overeat sweets, making up for my childhood when sweets were a special thing grownups got that kids had to beg for and might get on rare occasion if they managed to act like cute little porcelain dolls for a whole afternoon. So now they're something I can have whenever I want and I resent even my own internal attempts to restrict them. I'm smart, you knew that. But did you also know I'm brutally realistic? You taught me to think I was crazy and lived in a fantasy world because I kept pointing out the lies you told and of course you didn't lie, so I was hallucinating!
I'm angry, it leaks out easily, I carry this rage and it makes me strong and tough, but it also weighs me down. I would like to let it go but I strongly think that it will live as long as you do. I think I'll dump it on your grave one day with the little marble tombstone marked "mother" that I found in a field near an old cemetary after they did a renovation on the headstones. I'm saving it for you, Mother. I am going to throw it into the earth above your grave one day. Well, you will probably thwart that with cremation but I guess I will find keepsakes from you and bury them under it and spit on it and stamp on it and piss on it and scream at it. I wil not guide you to the door, Mother, so you better find another guide because I will turn my back on your spirit. I'd guide a pedophile and a mass murderer to the light and give themforgiveness but I do not know if I could do this with you. I might, because I am a big person and I do let go and I do give of my compassion even while I hate someone. Do you know that about me? Do you know that I can give comfort to my enemy if they are in need? That didn't come from you, I learned that in spite of you.
I hate the parts of me that reflect you, my laugh, my face in certain angles, and anytime anyone tells me I look like you. I wish you'd loved me as a little girl. I was so damn cute and sweet. I was a laughing baby, you said so yourself. I was a cheerful and helpful child, you delighted in my giggles and smiles and I really didn't get into trouble as much as the average kid. As a teen I never got in trouble. You never caught me drunk or stoned or theiving or pregnant. I never brought home nasty boys or missed curfew or wrecked the house when you went away. I cooked the suppers and cleaned the house and kept the yard nice and looked after the pets and washed and folded your clothes. What was I doing wrong that you didn't love me? Why didn't you forgive me for being a child? you really had no business having children. To lose who I am, which this world really doesn't need anyway, would have been worth not living my life. I just pray the second half will be better.
The man I'm marrying has a loving mother. She really actually loves him. For most of his life he's given her grief with drinking and fighting and treating her like crap.
Rejecting her and telling her to keep out of his business. But she keeps providing whatever he'll accept. Food on plates he can eat in his room. A room when he's grown up with no strings attached. Lunch in a bag when he's off to work. Standing back and shutting her mouth when he so clearly is being a complete ass and destroying himself. She just keeps loving him. She never criticized the women he chose even though she could see how wrong his choices were. If he'd asked, I'm sure she'd have told him, but he never respected her opinion. I used to ask your advice and opinion. I usually came away feeling smaller and worthless.
A child should come away from mother feeling strong and large and important and ready to show the world what she can do. Funny enough, if you landed her one day asking for a room and elder care I'd open the door. I'd let you in, you bitch. Even though I was kicked out of the house the summer after grade 12 to sink or swim. You didn't kick me out formally, you just made my life there so hellish and so filled with failure that I looked forward to homelessness and left with nothing but what I could hike carrying. I was not even wicked enough to steal valuables from you to help myself out.
Remember that allowance of $5 a week that you promised me for all the work I did at home? Work that allowed you to continue your career and earn tons of money on which you are still living the life of Riley? One day I finally asked for it. You sent me $200. I am not really good at math but I"m quite sure that 6 years x 52 weeks x $5 adds up to more than that. Even if you counted the occasional time when you gave me the pittance as 20% of it. In fact it's more like $1,500 and if we took a third off that you still should have been sending me a thousand dollars. Still a pittance for having been such a hard working and well behaved teen. You left me alone at home for entire 2 wk vacations and came home to a flawless home with polished furniture, clean windows and blooming gardens! I never stole your car or wore your clothes or jewellery. I never took more than spare change from your purse (so I could buy a pop at school like other kids).
Well I could go on all day but I am running down and at this point I just go into details. I can't share this letter with you, Mom, because I don't need the hysterics, you would only hear "uhoh, I look bad, better make it look like the daughter's fault" and besides what could you possibly do now? Nothing, it's too late. We just have to keep to our truce of a ceasefire while I find other places and ways to vent my feelings. One day, some day, I'll run out of steam and stop caring that I didn't have what other children had and that'll be ok. Still, when I see the TV telling me what mother is all about, it's a hard thing to just let go. Maybe it's a myth and mothers are hardly ever that? I don't know actually.

update on essay

I sat down and composed it but used voice dictation software. I was moving at such speed that the software mangled much of it badly and I"m having trouble editing it and remembering what I said. It's taking a while to get it cleaned up. When I do I'll be posting it on my website, not in the blog.

Philosophy in the community

I am RAGING! Oh I am furious. I attended this month's philosopy outreach lecture. Sadly I missed the lecture proper but the topic was Creationism vs Evolution and I guess they were discussing the relative merits. Sure enough as it would the topic came around to where the matter came from in the first place and if there's a god, where is he from and what is he. Also, what went bang?
Well that just happens to be my favorite topic of any topics and I have a lot of ideas and dearly crave to discuss them. Yet the lecturer, a professor in philosophy had the fucking gall to complain it's TOO DEEP for him!!!!! Well what the fuck are were HERE for? You just want to hash over what other deep thinkers have written down in centuries past and compare them against each other? Doesn't anyone THINK anymore? Is it all about how well you parrot what thinkers said about their thoughts? Clearly it is. Any attempt on my part or even that of others to ask these heavy questions was dismissed as too complicated.
What about non-christian approaches to the topic? Again too complicated. WHAT??? If you don't want to get complicated go bake some fucking bread or sweep a floor ya damn moron! After about 15 mins of this nonsense I pulled out my PDA and started playing freecell, if only to restrain my boundless enthusiasm for the topic since people clearly were put out by my desire to participate fully. Sadly that didn't work because I could not stop my ears.
Over and over I heard questions to which I HAVE ANSWERS!!! Ok, maybe I'm wrong, but couldn't we at least discuss them? Oh wait, no, I'm not rich and successful and admired, ergo I cannot possibly be anything other than a nut case if I think I can understand what the Great Doctor Lecturer can't understand or these grey haired folks around me don't know. No, I'm clearly a nutjob.
How can smart people be so STUPID? I'm seriously rethinking my intention to attend these lectures. It is not a stepping stone to discourse but a basic outline of the current debates so that the public may know that there are people having these debates, nothing more. I wanted to stick around till the end at least to ask how to put forth my theories. If I wrote them up would anyone read them? How would I get them submitted to anyone to read them? Am I required to earn N of credits in university philosophy to have any right to be read and heard? Where anyway can I find people who can listen to my ideas and argue with me relevantly? I couldn't stand it though. I couldn't shut up and I couldn't shut my ears and I finally just quit trying to politely wait out the question period and I left.
By the time I got outside I was bursting with tears and fury. I felt as though I'd been dismissed, shut up, and disrespected. I felt the disappointment of expectations unmet. I felt crushed to find that what are supposedly the upper echelons of our philosophical scientists were telling ME that the origin of God is too deep to discuss. I wanted to tell them, YES you CAN know these things, Yes, someone does!
The guy beside me even brought up that question, is it possible to know all there is to know, can a human comprehend that? I said why not? I pointed out that what we were discussing was beyond mystery to a retarded man and that einstein's theories left us in the dust so why can't a someone out there know what we cannot grasp just because we can't imagine it being knowable? Then someone said "when would it be knowable? Thousands of years in the future?" As though this idea that a brain can encompass the vastness of All is so incredible that only millenia of evolution makes it possible. Again, I must be nuts because I DO know. I can see it. I have seen it. I have blurred areas in the details but I do know what God is, where it all comes from, where it's all going, what its all here for and who we are.
Nobody ever ever ever wants to listen. Do you think I will somehow force you to believe it with me? I may be passionate in my effort to impart the concepts to you but I do not think you absolutely must believe it. I do not need to prove it. I just want you to KNOW it. Because if it's as true as I believe it to be then the theory deserves airing. Time and again I am dismissed.
I am dismissed with "nobody can know that" or "that's too deep for me" or "I am not smart enough" or "you are not smart enough" or "you are being arrogant and presumptuous" and other myriad things that imply people think I want to plunked on a gold throne and worshipped as a prophet! I just want to share my understanding. When I tell people God itself has told me then the game is truly over. Now I really am being presumptuous. Even if we were to accept the idea that a person who is not exalted and honoured could dialog with God it is outrageous to presume he'd speak wit a woman, let alone one of zero status. god would deliver his knowlege to some great scientist or world leader (who are all too busy to listen).
Well folks, God happily divulges these answers to anyone who will listen bu the voice is as quiet as baby birds cheeping in the nest and you must listen very carefully to hear them and you must listen with an open mind and do not deny the ideas you hear or request that they prove themselves concretely. God is. Jehovah doesn't mean "I am" but "to be." it simply means "is." God Is. Nothing more or less than that. Why does that twist up your brain? What part of that doesn't come through for you? Do you ask the mainframe to describe it's circuits? Do you ask the internet to tell you where it is?
Next post I will attempt a brief outline of the answers I claim to have. Even brief, it will be long. Maybe somewhere out there I will find someone who wants to seriously discuss these ideas and examine their internal logic and compare them to current ideas, experiences, theories and facts. Maybe someday I can collect them in detail in a book and actually get that book out there where it will be discussed. I've done more time thinking about this than doing anything else. Must be worth something? I AM a genius after all, even if I can't think my way through the complications of social heirarchy.