All I Can Say Is WOW!

Tonight was amazing. Amazing. It was so incredible that I am almost crying tears of joy as I type.

I went to my first size-positive event ever, and like I mentioned earlier, if I was overlooked there like I always have been in every other area of my life and every other place I've been to, I would have had nothing left to hide behind. But that didn't happen.

When I turned into the driveway, I almost threw up. Nerves. I was shaking. I couldn't handle walking into the dance right away, not like that. So I went to the bathroom first. I had a very nice conversation with a woman who was afraid her bra was going to be uncomfortable. She was obviously the kind of person who has no problem sharing with others. Then I sucked it up and went into the ballroom where the dance was. It was rather empty- there were several tables with chairs around, but most of them had more empty chairs than full ones. I stood up against the wall for a few minutes, pretty much trying not to pass out. Then I gritted my teeth and gathered up all my courage and asked a woman if I could sit at her table. This shouldn't have been a big deal, I know, but I can NOT start a conversation with a stranger. Events like this bring me right back to high school, even elementary school, when I lived in constant fear that I would have no one to sit with at lunch time. I usually didn't have anyone, either, which was kind of okay, because I was almost more afraid someone WOULD sit with me, and then I'd have to figure out how to talk to them. But I did it. I'm not kidding when I say this dance changed my life.

No sooner did I sit down than the woman I had spoken with in the bathroom came in and sat down- she was the other person sitting at the table. It ended up being a very good thing--maybe fate brought us together--because she was not at all shy. She was actually quite loud and had no problem saying anything to anyone. She drew attention to us.

I got checked out. I mean, checked OUT. It was the very first time that has happened to me in my entire life, or at least the first time I noticed while it was happening. It was a good feeling. It was also scary. You know, that old thing about the need to figure out what to SAY to someone if they actually talked to me. I thought at first that maybe I was imagining it, but then the loud lady next to me asked me if I knew the guy, and I said no. She said he obviously wanted to know me. The lady and I talked for a while. She found out it was my first time at an event like that and told everyone she could see, which was wonderful because it completely ensured that I didn't have to start a single conversation. She did it for me, so all I had to do with anyone else was answer questions until I felt comfortable enough with them to talk of my own accord.

And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned. It was the guy that had checked me out. He was just as unshy as the woman next to me. He told me he was checking me out and he hoped I'd forgive him if he stared. When a guy says something like that to you, you think two things. Or at least I do. You think, that was a really cheesy pick up line. Then you think, but he used a pick up line on me! A guy who's willing to do that can stare as much as he wants to! He walked away for a while and then came back. Somehow, I really don't know how, I found the courage to ask him to sit down. He did. We talked a little. It became pretty obvious that he wasn't really my type, which shocked me. Really shocked me. You know the whole "beggars can't be choosers" thing? Well, I normally don't worry at all about whether a guy is my type. All I've ever thought about was whether I was HIS type, because most of the time I wasn't.

He asked me to dance. I almost declined. That's my general MO: I sit by myself and worry that something won't happen, and then when it does happen, I've worried about it so much that I can't do it anyway. I am not much of a risk taker, even though I want to be. Besides which, like I said, he wasn't my type. (By which I mean he was drunk, smelled like cigarette smoke, and had beady eyes, which I can never make myself trust.) But then I figured that if I didn't force myself to do things I was afraid of, this whole weekend was going to be a waste. So, I said yes. I stood up and I made my way to the dance floor and I danced. And it was wonderful. I almost always feel free when I get to dance, and at an event where I wasn't the fat and clumsy-looking one out of the crowd, it was even more freeing.

No sooner did we sit back down than another guy came and asked me to dance. A slow song, this time. I danced with him, too. And it was incredible. The first time in my life I had ever been asked to dance, and it happened two songs in a row, by two different guys! Unfortunately, I think I scared that guy off. After we danced, he asked me if I wanted a drink. The first guy had just bought me one, though, and I didn't figure I needed two drinks at once, so I said no thanks, not right then, but maybe later. He disappeared and I never heard from him again. You can't blame me, though. I've never had anyone buy me a drink in my life; I'm sort of lacking in etiquette for this type of occasion. Next time, I don't care if I have a hundred drinks in front of me, I'll take another one!

A couple more guys asked me to dance, and I accepted every single offer. It was the most incredible feeling. I have spent my entire life sitting at the table at weddings and dances watching other peoples' purses and coats when they get asked to dance. I have spent my whole life trying not to cry when everyone is dancing but me. I have spent every countless nights in bars and ballrooms struggling to hide my tears, forced to realize once again that I will never be the chosen one. But tonight, I was one of the chosen ones. It felt so good. It felt like I was a real woman for the first time in my entire life. I felt like I was worth something.

See--and this is where this issue gets sensitive and hard to talk about, but I'm going to anyway--there have been men who were interested in me before. But they were interested in me because of how I looked. In other words, they were looking for a fat chick, and I was one. None chose me for any other reason besides that. I was never any prettier than anyone else, or wittier, or more fun. I was just an available fat chick. But tonight, I was in a room full of fat chicks. And I got noticed! For the first time, I can feel like someone liked me for me! I'm crying again.

And the best part is, I met someone I really liked. His name is Michael. I noticed him before he ever noticed me, and then suddenly, he pulled me away from another guy who I didn't reallly want to be dancing with anyway. It was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. I don't know if I'll ever see him again--maybe I screwed something up when we said good-bye, or maybe he was just looking for someone to spend the night with, or maybe he'll just move on to someone better. But maybe I will see him again. Maybe. I even found the courage to tell him that if he asks me to dance again tomorrow, I will dance with him. That is the most encouragement I've ever been able to force myself to give a guy. Normally I am far too afraid of rejection. We spent the last part of the night outside, talking, and we actually have things in common, which again, isn't something that's ever mattered before because there was no one who cared if they had anything in common with me. We both worked on the Obama campaign. We both obviously like to dance. We both seem like creative souls. It is the first time that I have ever been attracted to someone both physically and personality-wise who seemed to return the feelings. The first time. The first time. The first time.

The first time for so many things tonight. I am going to sleep tonight wondering what tomorrow will bring, and for once, I am wondering with hope. The tears that I cry tonight are not tears of loneliness, of longing, of worthlessness. They are tears of joy.

My Very First Time!

It's not what you think, chances are.

I am referring to my very first time going to a size-positive event. Which hasn't happened yet, by the way, but it will be happening very soon. In just a couple of hours, as a matter of fact.

I am happy because I am away from daily life, which has been no treat lately.

I am excited because, for the first time in my life, I will not be automatically overlooked in a social situation because of my weight.

I am frightened because if I am still overlooked, I can't blame it on my weight.

I am nervous because I don't do well alone, and I am alone.

But most of all I am excited.

My stomach is alternately doing flip flops of excitement and swirling with fear, my heart randomly starts beating at a high rate of speed every half hour or so, and I am fighting the sickness that has closed down schools because I don't want to miss anything. I am jumpy and jittery and very calm all at once, contradictory as that seems. I have been trying to get in the shower and get dressed for the last 2 hours but every time I try I think of something else I should do. I think it's fear.

I can do this, I can do this, I can DO this! I can be the sophisticated woman I've always wanted to be, because I will be among people who are willing to believe I CAN be. I can talk to strangers without fear. I can be among people who don't think my appearance is disgusting, who don't assume I am lazy or dirty or think only of food, without crying in joy. I can be a "normal" person for the first time in my life. I can.

I hope.

Confession: I Am A Terrible Blogger

And my cat just spit all over me. That is completely beside the point, but it annoyed me, so I thought I'd share, maybe attract a little sympathy.

But really, I am a terrible blogger. I love the idea of blogging, and it helps me get out all the things I have to say that no one wants to listen to. It's like a journal that could potentially respond to me, and even better, it's online, which feeds my Internet addiction and makes me considerably more likely to "journal" than if I were writing in an actual, physical journal. So, why don't I do it more often?

Just about every day, I am filled with things I would say if only there was someone to listen. And at least every other day, I think to myself, "You should blog about ____." And yet, it is weeks, sometimes months, between my posts. And I don't know why.

I could say I don't have the time, but that isn't completely true. I have lots of time. Maybe I'm just not that motivated. I always have good intentions, and when I am blogging, I enjoy it, so there's no negative reinforcers or anything, at least in my own analysis. But I never DO it. It's frustrating!

All I can do, I guess, is what I do every time I suddenly realize I have stopped blogging: try to start again. I am not good at very many things. One of the few things I COULD be good at, if I could just DO it, is blogging. And so blog I must.

(Actually, I just really like the word blog- it's a fun word. Maybe I don't even like to do it, just want to be able to tell people that I blog, have blogged, have been blogging, that I have a blog blog blog blog blog. It's possible.)

I am a terrible blogger. But maybe this time I will succeed! Wish my luck.

This Weekend Was Fabulous

For the most part. I had my ups and downs, of course, but it was good.

I went to the Waterfront Festival in Menominee, an annual event for the city and for my family. Friday evening, I intended to go with a friend, but my dad decided to come with us rather than going by himself. I love my dad, I do. But sometimes it's nice to have some time away from him, since we live together and all. So that cramped my style somewhat, but I got over it.

The band was full of energy, the night was just cool enough to not be too warm, and the crowd was, well, crowded. It was incredible and I felt as though I had conquered my sadness. Then the man in front of my rested his hand on the waist of the woman who was with him. The tears came.

I don't know what it is about public displays of affection, but they always make me cry. They make me want, so badly, to have someone who I am allowed to touch. That is the absolute worst thing about being me: I am not allowed to touch anyone. Just the thought of being able to casually rest my hand on someone's shoulder, place my palm on someone's back, run my hand over someone's hair, brings tears to my eyes because I cannot imagine it ever happening to me. I don't even care if anyone ever loves me, really, although it would be nice. I just want someone to let me love him. Is that too much to ask, even for someone who looks like me? Really?

Sylvia Plath and the Monthly Tide

Catchy tag line, hey?

I sort of had a meltdown over the past few days. This isn't totally new to me- happens fairly often, actually. There are a lot of things in my life that I don't feel like I have a whole lot of control over, which often leaves me without much motivation to control what I can . And my slight depression over it all is much exacerbated once a month. It's a hormonal thing that seems to affect me to the extreme. Some months are worse than others, and every so often, like during this past week, it all turns me into a pretty-close-to-suicidal mess that can't see how my life can possibly ever be worth living. It is frustrating, so frustrating that it makes my head come close to exploding, because even in the depths of despair when I am trying to think of painless, foolproof ways to end my life, my rational mind is still there somewhere underneath it all. I know that everyone in the world doesn't hate me, I know that there are ways for me to take control of my destiny, and I know that somehow, somewhere, sometime, I will be able to achieve the greatest of my desires: love. I even know that my own darkest thoughts are what keep me from getting where I want to go. But there is a much, much louder voice that roars at me that I am worthless, that everyone else is better than me and smarter than me and more beautiful than me, that all I do is drain everyone around me of their joy. This voice tells me that no matter how hard I try to change, I will always be as dirty and disorganized as my house is, that I will always be underemployed, and that no one with any intelligence at all will ever see any good in me. It isn't a voice-voice. Not actual words spoken, like the voice of god inside my head. (I'm not THAT crazy- I don't think.) They are more like ideas, thoughts, concepts that I cannot forget, escape from, or argue with. It happens every month. Most months, if I fight hard enough, I can overcome the blackness and stop it from settling in. I have a few days where every little thing makes me want to punch someone in the face and then run away and cry about it, but I can control myself until the urges go away.

But then there are months like this month. I knew it was time for my hormonally-driven insanity to attack me. Even in the midst of it all, I could rationalize it. But the aching, hysterical insane sadness drowned out my rational voice. And it was worse than usual, much, much worse. I think I have an idea why, though. Because I know the exact moment that it started.

I have been reading Sylvia Plath for a while, and her writing, like her life, is rather heavy. I read it slowly, in little pieces at a time, because that's all I can handle. And I've been reading The Bell Jar, which tells the tale of Sylvia's insanity, in a fictional format.

I was at the park Friday with several of my friends. We had gotten supper and were eating it near the yacht harbor, where we could enjoy the pseudo-summer weather and gaze out over the boats tied there. And I was emotional and a little depressed, but mostly just irritated by everything from the calls of the seagulls to the way the picnic table felt under my elbows to the fact that I accidentally got the wrong kind of potato chips. Irritated to the point of hearing blood rushing in my head and feeling my heartbeat gradually gain speed and strength until it felt like I might fly off of the picnic table bench in rage. I finished eating, and everyone else was feeding the rest of the nasty potato chips to a duck. I know that when I am in a mood like that, I have to stay busy. If my mind isn't fully occupied at all times, the depression sets in and I cry and cry and cry, right in front of everyone, no matter where I am. I try to hide it by claiming allergies or letting my hair hide in front of my face, and no one ever says anything to me, and so I can pretend that I have succeeded in hiding what I know is a touch of insanity. And watching a duck eating potato chips does not fully occupy my mind. It takes a lot to do that. I have watched TV, chatted online, listened to music, and texted people on my phone all at the same time and still not felt fully occupied. (It isn't easy to do all those things at the same time that you are solving a sudoku puzzle, by the way. Trust me.)

So, already teary-eyed for absolutely no reason, and irrationally angry because I was teary-eyed for absolutely no reason, I went to my car and got The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's novel that I was reading. I sat back down at the table and glared at everyone's backs for a second, incredibly angry at them for having fun doing something so stupid as feeding a duck while I just wanted to cry until I was out of tears, and then I opened up to the page of the book that I had left off on. (And this desire to cry developed en route to get my book- it sprung up out of nowhere, the way it always does.)

The part of the book I began reading was the saddest, most intense part of the book- where Esther, the main character, is in the depth of her insanity and undergoing a terribly painful shock treatment. It is incredibly authentically written, probably because it is basically autobiographical. The sentences begin to not make much sense and the thoughts are choppy and hard to follow, but they fill you with intense pain and empathy. And when I am reading a good, intense, well-written book, I get totally lost in the character, just as I do when I am writing. So I missed out on the fact that everyone was leaving the park until someone tapped me on the shoulder on the way past. I looked up, startled, and was horribly upset that I was not Esther Greenwood, and even more upset that I had to stop reading. I stood up and followed everyone, but immediately, before I had even reached the car, the tears came. I was sure that the fact that no one had said anything to me before they started walking to their cars was proof that they really didn't want me to be among them, that they liked each other far more than they liked me, that they hoped I would stay there where I was, reading, until the day I died, and not ever speak to them again. My rational mind told me that they probably HAD said something, but I hadn't heard them because I was so far gone into my book, but the other, hormonal part of my mind argued that even if they had told me we were leaving, and even if I had just not heard them, that I should know fully well that they all hated me anyway. And that was the part of my mind that was louder, clearer, more powerful, and so I believed it.

That's when it all started. For the rest of the night, I chatted online, telling a few different people how terrible my life was because my friends didn't want anything to do with me, that they were all horrible people who wanted me to die, obviously, because I was sitting among them crying openly and none of them would even talk to me. I tried to distract myself in a thousand ways, but none of them worked. I cried and cried and cried because the reality that I would never have a decent job because I look too fat and slobby for anyone to hire me, and reality that I would never find love because anyone intelligent and insightful enough to "get" me would never be able to see past my horrendous and hideous body to love me, hit me all at once. Of course, there was that small, shy, and quiet part of my mind that told me everyone was ignoring me because they simply didn't know what to DO with me, and that I would probably react the same way. It also told me that I don't always look slobby and dirty, and that someday, I may well find someone both intelligent and accepting to love as I am, but I didn't listen. The mean, ogre-ish part of my mind slapped the better, brighter part in the face and told it to shut up.

When it was time to leave, I tried to plan for the next day so that if I wasn't up to doing the things I needed to do for other people, they would still get done. I would have given anything to not go home, but everyone else was going and I didn't have anyplace else to go, and I couldn't ask anyone to stay with me because I had convinced myself that they all hated me, and so I had to plan ahead in case I found the courage to end my pain by morning. The same sentence kept repeating itself, the way that the lyrics of a song do when they're stuck in your head: "You have no future, so there's no point in surviving the present. You have no future, so there's no point surviving the present."

I spent the entire night crying, screaming into my pillow, following the terrible thoughts around and around and around in my head, rocking back and forth, trying to find a way to end it all that would not cause me any pain. I knew, in the few tiny pieces of time in which I could find my way to rational thought, that it was all hormonal and that better times would come and that I had a million reasons not to end my life, but it was hard to find those thoughts and they slid away quickly when I did. Luckily, even the irrational part of my mind was able to focus on my fear that if I hurt myself physically, the physical pain might be even greater than the mental pain I was experiencing, so while I generated ideas and pondered Google searches, I never let myself formulate a solid plan. And eventually, I fell asleep. In the morning, I was better. Not 100% better, or even 50% better, but better enough to stop crying for fifteen minutes and even a half an hour at a time. Better enough to know that I had promised people I would be at a party and that I should go there, out of respect to them and in order to salvage myself. So, I dried my tears, and, puffy-eyed and blotchy-faced, I stopped at the store to buy myself some liquid courage and pushed myself into the midst of the party.

I decided to let myself try a little experiment. I had never had enough alcohol in me to be drunk- never any more than a drink in a night, actually. And since suicide- in my sane moments, now that the storm is over, the very word makes me shiver in horror- was on my mind, I decided that drinking away my sorrows was a better alternative than that, anyway. I thought out my decision carefully, because I know a lot of people who have struggled and do struggle with alcoholism, and I'm smart enough to know it isn't the best idea to get drunk for the first time during a depressive episode. But I knew that I was along friends who wouldn't let me do anything terribly stupid, and I knew that I had enough self control to stop drinking if I anything I didn't like started happening to me.

I drank enough to get tipsy. I wasn't ever what I would consider drunk, even though I've never been drunk, so I can't really say, but I had to think a little harder than normal to walk through the grass in the dark and say a sentence that made sense, and I giggled a lot. And I'm glad I did it, because once I started giggling, I knew for sure that life was going on. And I also learned that alcohol doesn't really do it for me. Yeah, I got giggly and had fun and the pain started to lessen, but that was because drinking gave me an excuse to giggle, and a way to slip slowly and discreetly back into normal life while testing the waters, seeing if I could still smile and laugh and talk to people, and if they were going to react to my drastic change from sad, self-pitying, sullen stranger back into Me. They didn't react, really, other than seeming happy that I was okay again, and I could still laugh and smile and talk. And I learned that drinking didn't CAUSE me to come back into myself, it just gave me an excuse to LET myself. In the future, I will cling to the knowledge that a slight smile, a quiet burst of laughter, is all it takes to enter myself again and rid myself of the dark spirits that sometimes take over. I don't need alcohol to do that (I was never really drunk, after all, or even numbed- just a little less focused on myself) and I don't need permission to do that, or even an invitation from someone else. My friends and family are all there, waiting for that moment in which the light lets itself back in, even if I convince myself that they are not.

I realized all of this tonight when I finished reading The Bell Jar. Because the book ended on a happy note, and I wondered if things would have been different if I had finished the book on Friday, in the park, instead of stopping in the midst of Esther Greenwood's insanity. I really don't know. The drink-induced laughter, the onset of my monthly cleansing, and the end of the book all came in quick succession, and so I don't really know if any one of those things, or all of them, or something else altogether, brought me out of the darkness and back into life. But I have a feeling that Sylvia Plath and the onset of the Monthly Tide should probably not be combined in my life again.

I Just Can't Handle

listening to women cry when they've been broken up with.

Because I would give up everything, even life itself, to have the OPPORTUNITY to be broken up with. That will never happen, though, because there is no man who will spend even an hour with me, much less date me.

When I watch movies on Lifetime, which invariably feature a woman who is somehow being abused by a man, I am jealous of them. I am embarrassed, ashamed, to be jealous of them, but I can't help it. Because I have never found a man who cares enough to even enter into a relationship with me, much less be abusive to me.

I miss out on so much. I'm watching More To Love, a sort of plus-sized version of The Bachelor on Fox. It is a terrible show. First of all, I am a little prejudiced, because I was 50 pounds too heavy and 5 inches too short to try out for the show in the first place. Secondly, most of the girls think they are absolutely wonderful people. And finally, they can all talk and laugh with the other girls. I know that I am not a wonderful person. I am good at one thing and one thing only: writing. And I'm not even that good at writing, otherwise I would be able to make a living at it. And I cannot talk and laugh with other women, because they have things to talk about that I do not share and they are not interested in the things I have to talk about. And they do not like me- they pity me because no man will ever love me and they hate me because I am ugly and they are afraid I will drive men away from them and make them lose opportunities. It is a good show because it plants the idea that maybe fat women have a teeny tiny bit of value, too, but it is terrible because, like everything else in life, it excludes me. There is no hope for me.

I Can't Handle Life Tonight

If only I wasn't afraid it would hurt worse than life does right now, I would have ended it all.

All that lies ahead of me is pain. I will never be loved and I will never be allowed to love. I will never be touched by another human being. I will not be able to take care of my father any better than I was able to take care of my mother and he will die to and another human life will have ended because of some innate inability to know the right thing to do to stop it.

My closest friends are sitting all around me and they are all so self absorbed that they have no idea that all I want is to die so I never have to feel pain again. Either that, or they don't care, and I find this prospect much more likely, as I have been crying for the past 6 hours and everyone around me is acting as if I do not exist.

Maybe I don't. If I didn't exist, it would explain why I can't stop the pain. Because if I am not real, then my pain is not real, and if my pain is not real, there is nothing to make it go away.

Soon, everyone around me will move on with their lives. They will find partners, they will settle down and have families, they will have jobs and responsibilities and lives that do not include me. And I, by virtue by my ugliness and my worthlessness and my inability to please anyone to the point that they want me to be a continuuing part of my life, I will be alone.

All I want is a little bit of love. Acknowledgement. I want someone to tell me that they understand that I am hurting and to help me try to stop. And none of those things are things I can have. Because I don't deserve to have anyone to touch me, love me, care for me. Why? What have I done that is so terrible? I've always tried my best to give my all to others, to be a good person. All I want is love.

July Makes Me Wistful

Not July itself, exactly, but what comes after July, because it is in July that back-to-school ads come out, that college plans are finalized, that Wal-Mart is filled with dormitory decor in all the trendiest shapes and shades. July is summer, full of beachy days and languid nights, but it leads directly into August, heavy with anticipation of autumn, a time for winding down. Because after August, September settles in. September, despite all the talk of rebirth and hope that comes with spring, is the real month of beginnings.

I want something new on my horizon. In my memory, I spent the first five years of my life waiting--I constantly heard things like, "Just wait 'til you're in school. You'll get to read tons and tons of books and learn so many new things!" whenever I fell in love with a new story and, "This is Mrs. Salmi--she'll be your kindergarten teacher, and the two of you will have so much fun!" as I stood impatiently in line at the old Red Owl grocery store. School was constantly dangled in front of me, THE thing to wait for, THE thing to strive for, THE thing to crave. And I did crave it.

Starting the year that I turned five, every year come July I searched every store in town for the perfect pair of school shoes, the greatest first-day-of-school outfit, and even better, the best supply of fresh, empty, papery-smelling notebooks and brand new, woodsy-scented unsharpened pencils. All of my new school things were religiously hidden away in my mother's closet until the day before school began, but I searched those packages out the way most children search out hidden Christmas gifts. Every day, I held their contents in my hands, touching them, smelling them, gazing upon their beauty. They promised me hope: this was the year I would become a child prodigy, this was the year I would be the most popular girl in school, this was the year that I would achieve all my dreams.

The sense of anticipation was amplified as I approached my first day of middle school, my first day of high school, my first day at Bay College, and my first day at Northern Michigan University, which was also my first day living not in the safety of my parents' home but in my own abode. The dawn of every day of every July whispered softly to me: "Something new is coming! Something new is coming!"

After I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I began substitute teaching--something to prepare for, something to look forward to, something new. And then I started a tutoring business. And I started taking my writing more seriously--striving to win contests, publish stories, complete books. Always, there was something new. But eventually, somewhere along the way, all of that became old hat.

So as the special advertising sections of the newspapers pile up in my recycle bin and parents begin to stock up on stiff jeans and bright, cartoony lunchboxes, as teens apply for after school jobs and start filling out shiny new planners with newly bought ink pens, as recent high school grads begin leaving their parents' homes and settling into cinder block dormitories like the one I used to inhabit, I am sad.

I want something new to plan for, something new to fill my time, my hopes, my dreams. Something new to aspire to. I want July to, once again, lead me into a new beginning.

Yesterday Was Summer

It had the taste of summer, the feel of summer, the very essence of the season in every pore of its existence.  I awoke to a sky so blue it set my heart on fire and set my soul free.  The clouds were the kind of puffy, fluffy white clouds that summer can give birth to.  They were innocent and beautiful.  The weather was the kind of warm that cradles you in its motherly arms rather than the kind of warm that makes skin stick to skin and people dislike each other for no reason at all.  I woke up late and was lazy in a carefree summer day sort of way.  I went to lunch with friends and had greasy burgers and crispy fries and icy, bubbly soda, things you can get all year round but that somehow taste better in an air conditioned restaurant on a hot summer day.  I went to the beach, rolled in the waves, blistered the soles of my feet on the fiery sand.  I went to dollar stores and discount stores and dug through shelves of plastic heaven in search of blow-up floating chairs and water guns and slingshots and my lost childhood, and I found them all.  At dusk, I ventured back across the night-chilled sand, out of breath from inflating a baby blue, six dollar lounge chair.  I slipped into the warmth of the lake water and felt the cooling wind caressing my sunburned skin as I climbed into my lounge chair and floated into blissful oblivion, bathing in the pale moonlight under the stars of a northern Michigan night.  Yes.  Yesterday was summer.

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Liberation

is washing your dishes for the first time in over a year, as you listen to favorite songs and tears of joy stream from your eyes.

Liberation is sorting through piles of papers and clothes and garbage and just things that have been piling up for months and months until it feels as though they might suffocate you, and throwing garbage bag after garbage bag outside until there is room to breathe again.

Liberation is spending the night alone in your house, with no sounds and no lights to keep you from sleep, having space to dream again.

Liberation is sorting things into categories until it feels like you have a handle on life again, creating empty flat surfaces so that your eye has something to land on that is neat and orderly.

Liberation is being the world's least organized person who just happens to crave a little order now and again, and being able to achieve that goal.

Liberation is independence, the ability to feel like a grown up again, on the eve of your 31st birthday.

Liberation is me, liberation is time, liberation is today.

Liberation.

Last Weekend

was exactly what I needed.

Before I left, I could barely wake up by noon. The wet and murky fog of general sadness that had settled around my soul for no real reason kept me from enjoying all but the best of moments. I could smile and I could pretend, but there was no feeling of freedom within me to lift me through the hard days. Every day, I cried.

Things are different now. I know it won't last. Eventually, the things I want and cannot find my way to will begin to weigh me down again. But for now, I am enjoying the light-hearted breeze that is dancing around my shoulders.

I know exactly what changed me. It wasn't the 7 hour drive all by myself, which made me feel like an adult again, although the time away from my father, who tries to control all aspects of my life, did remind me that no matter what my father thinks, I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions, and good ones, at that. It is a good thing to remember, because without the ability to make life's decisions, I cannot feel as though I have any control at all over my life.

It wasn't the nights away from the confines of my home, humid and warm and olfactorily offensive. This definitely helped bring about the change, since I got to spend almost three full days surrounded by clean air and fresh air (You wouldn't think I'd find that by going from the U.P. to Chicago, would you?), but it wasn't a primary cause of my new-found sense of self.

The change wasn't caused by the time I spent Saturday dodging raindrops as I dashed from the car into a slew of thrift shops, searching through another man's junk to find my treasure. It wasn't sliding into the cool water of the hotel's swimming pool and drifting away into my own mind. It wasn't curling into the warm and thrusting water of the tiniest hot tub I have ever seen. It wasn't settling into a couch at 1 a.m. with a couple of mudslides to watch really bad movies from the very early 1980s.

And it wasn't spending Sunday in the sun of the Maxwell Street flea market, with my skin turning pink and my mind turning over and over and over again to take in the people, the culture, the glorious tables buried in old jewelry, cheap shampoo, four-for-ten-dolares bras and panties, every odd and end you could think of and a million others you can't. It wasn't the Mexican tacos with pico de gallo or the fruity sugar waters in summery flavors like watermelon and pineapple or the tortillas hecho por mano. It wasn't listening to the four-year-old boy who urgently explained to his mother that, "She wouldn't like it- she's a tomboy and she doesn't like girly things!" or the elderly woman who told her granddaughter that she would buy her everything Maxwell Street had if it would make her happy, but felicidad comes from friendship and not from ownership.

Those things all helped. Each and every one of them pulled my thoughts up and out of the rut they've been resting in and helped me build a new path to send my thoughts traveling along. But it wasn't any of them that really made the difference.

It was a man who made the difference. Not a man who is in love with me, or a man who ever will be in love with me, but a man who is a very good friend. A man who was waiting for me when I finished my 7 hour trip, who trusts that the decisions I make are the right ones for me. A man who directed me to every thrift store we could find when our flea market plans fell through because of rain, who sat by the side of the pool and waited for me while I slipped into the coolness and then the violent swirling hot tub. A man who let me curl into his arms while we settled into the couch to watch half a night's worth of wonderfully terrible old movies, who stroked my hair as I sipped on the chocolaty smoothness of a few mudslides. A man who took me to the Maxwell Street flea market and ordered my lunch for me because I was afraid to speak Spanish to a native speaker, even though I know a little of the language and love it almost as much as I do English. A man who discovered my love of the written word and bought me book after book after book because the discovery pleased him so much.

A man who held me as I slept, who didn't shy away from the rolling swells of flesh that cover my body and steal away the beauty that others could see if only I was thin. A man who laced his fingers through mine as we drifted off to sleep, who kissed me tenderly, urgently, sweetly, violently, all in turn.

A man who is willing to accept me as I am, but a man who will never be any more than a once-in-a-while lover and a long distance friend. It was his choice to play this role in my life, but it was a choice that works for me, because I don't think any other kind of relationship would work for us. We were not meant to fall in love, only to satisfy each other from time to time, and to let each of us believe that maybe life can be a little different than it is.

It is in his arms that I can pretend that love exists for me, somewhere in the world. It is in his arms that I believe I can find it. He does not hold my heart any more than I hold his, but his loving caresses rub a soothing salve on the tattered and torn edges of my battered soul. In his arms, I dream of a time when the arms around me will belong to another man, one who loves me, one who I love with everything I have. I can live with that, though, I think, as long as I have Chicago arms to hold me, Chicago hands to touch me, Chicago lips to kiss me and make me feel beautiful.

That's what caused the change. For forty-eight hours, I could pretend that I was beautiful, charming, attractive, vivacious, strong, deserving of affection. For forty-eight hours, I could be anyone. I could be the person I dream of being rather than the person who I am.

I have a window of opportunity, now. There is a series of days ahead, maybe even weeks, in which I will feel a little stronger than I did. In that time, I will believe that I can achieve the things I dream of. I must work quickly, now, deliberately, selfishly, untiringly. If I can make just one dream come true before this wash of confidence slips away, there is a chance that I can pull myself from the depths of sadness that envelope me and make a better life for myself. This is the journey I am embarking upon.

A journey that started with a simple weekend trip to the heart of Chicago. A journey that I fear, but a journey that will once again refresh my soul. Un viaje de esperanza.

It's Raining Out Today

and gray. I was hoping for sunshine. I have so many things to do and so little motivation. I don't know what's happened to me. I used to be the most motivated person you could ever hope to meet. I was a straight A student, involved in everything, always on the go. Not anymore.

I barely manage to drag myself out of bed. I barely look forward to writing. The only thing that gets me out of my house is the way that it smells. I don't spend any time at home doing the things I should do because I simply can't stand to be there.

I need to clean my room so that I have a place to relax again, a place to find myself. But it just isn't that easy. As soon as I am awake, I want to leave my house. The smell, the disorganization, the piles and piles and piles of stuff all feel like they are suffocating me, and the fact that I don't have any place to be 100% alone and at ease doesn't help either. Most of the time, when I'm out and about, with friends, I'm okay. I have my ups and downs, my days filled with tears that I try desperately to hide, but for the most part I am stable. But when I am at home, the only thing I want is to die, to just be done with everything and not have to know how much it hurts to be alive.

I can fight it. I know I can. I am stronger than that. Someday, there will be someone who will put his or her arms around me and I will feel like I can let go and relax and come back into myself. Someday, there will be a way for me to feel solid. Until then, I will keep on keeping on because I'm afraid not to. I can't end it all because I am afraid to hurt, And as much as it hurts to live, I'm afraid the process of stopping would be even more painful.

Other than the rain, today has been a good day so far. I did not cry until I wrote what I've written. I spent time with good friends. I went to Culver's on their first day open in Escanaba and I had a wonderful lunch. And in a little while, I get to go tutor my favorite student. I should go work out later. That will work all the aches and kinks out of my muscles and let me feel strong. I can do this. Maybe tomorrow I will have some time to get my life in order. That's what keeps me going:

Maybe tomorrow...

Yay!

It does work.  But I see that I need to delete my contact info before I hit send, because that just looks stupid.  I don't think I can do anything about the stupid ad.

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Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

Testing

I am simply trying to determine if it will really work to send a post to my blog via e-mail, because it most certainly did not work to text one.  :)

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Emily Suzanne Smiltneck

 

Cell: (906) 553-2467

emilysuzanne20@hotmail.com

 

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Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. See how.

I Have A Gazillion Things To Do Today

But I'm not doing any of them. I have a little extra energy, for the first time in a very long time, and I should use it to:

• clean my bedroom
• clean my bathroom, quickly, before my father wakes up
• clean out my car
• clean up my yard
• do laundry

I am not doing any of these things. Why? My father would say it's because I'm lazy. My grandmother would probably say that it's because my mother was not a very good mother and didn't teach me to do these things. My friends would say it's just me being me. Only I know the real reason.

It's because I'm dreamy today. My thoughts are soaring among the clouds and for once, they are not sad thoughts, depressing thoughts. They are wistful, but they are hopeful. That's what the energy has done for me. And I don't want to do anything to chase those thoughts away, because if I do, then the ones that replace them might be the old, black, depressing, painful thoughts. And so I lie here dreaming.

I think, though, that as difficult as it is, I have to rejoin the real world. I can't spend all day lying on my bed with the window open and my eyes closed and my nose buried in a pillow so I can pretend that my house is clean and my life is together and that I deserve to have time for wistful, hopeful thoughts.

I must go.

I Am Listening To Music

Every song makes me think. I don't want to think, really. Because most of the things I am thinking about are making me sad.

I listened to "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" and the last verse made me think of Troy. I don't think about him in a romantic way anymore- I never really did. But every time I see him, drive past his house, notice his car, hear someone talk about him, I get sad. It cuts me like a knife. It isn't him I miss; it's the closeness I had with someone, the fact that someone was happy to see me every day, the fact that someone was at least willing to pretend that he loved me. I wish I could go back, or find that again. Find it again, only better.

Then "Like A Rock" came on. That one made me think of the old Chevy ads, first. But that was my go-to thought. After that one passed, the rest hit me. I used to be a rock, too. When my mom was sick, when my mom was dying, I was a rock. I was her rock. Inside, I cried. All the time, every day, constantly. But I only let the tears come out when I was alone at night, because when I cried it made my mother angry. She wanted me to be strong when she could not. And now, my father is not able to take care of himself and I find myself once again in the same position. I am feeling worn out, pained, and unappreciated, unloved. I feel like I give and I give and I give and I never get to take because there is no one who is willing to give me anything. I want to take just a little bit. Not because I am selfish and greedy but because I need to feel like I am worth something to someone. All I am worth is what I have to give, but I don't feel like I have much more to give, and that will leave me worthless. I want to matter to the world. There are a hundred people who will tell me that I matter to them, but the fact is that if I were to depart from this earth, they would not notice for a few days, and then they would notice and maybe be sad, but after a few more days, their lives would go on just fine. I do not matter, no matter how much I try to be a rock. And I am tired of being a rock. If someone so much as offers to get me a glass of water while he or she is getting one for him or herself, I cry because it feels so good to have someone give. Hard as I try, I am failing at being a rock. I live, I breathe, I cry, I hurt. And I am cracked by the snow and cold of winter. Like a rock.

Finally, a song that brings happy thoughts. "Subterranean Homesick Blues"... go figure. But it is a song that recalls in my mind long weekends in the woods, camping with my parents. Specifically makes me think of rainy Sundays tearing down campsites- roll up damp tent and sleeping bags and throw everything in the van to sort out at home when the sun comes out again. Crawl into the back of the van, on the big bed, in a pile of blankets and pillows, with a good book that I've read a thousand times before, so often that it has become an old friend that soothes my blackest moods. I can feel the radio pulsing through me via the speakers in the back doors of the van, and I can hear the tingtingting of rain on the roof, and I am cold and wet but slowly warming in my hidden little haven while my dad finishes packing up the campsite and my mom does cross stitch in the front seat. The music I can feel is old and full of meaning, because here at Boney Falls, we can pick up the oldies station in Marquette, and I love that music. I am not one of the cool kids. I don't know all the hip new songs. But these old songs flow in my veins because they shaped who my parents are and therefore who I am, too. Bliss.

Spice Girls. Scary, Posh, other adjectives. "Wannabe" came out when I was in middle school or high school. It's a chick song: power of friendship versus love/attraction. I always loved the upbeat, positive feel of this song, and the way it made friends more important than men. I mostly liked that message because while I managed to have a few good friends, there were no boys in my life. I dreamed of boys actually wanting to befriend me, date me, and I dreamed of having the confidence to let them know they had to treat me well. Instead, they just didn't treat me at all. Still don't, as a matter of fact. The lyrics make me sad, because I cannot be that bright and bold and confident. But the music. The music makes me dance.

That's the magic of music. Whether it makes me happy or it makes me sad, it always makes me dance.

Life Is Just As

foggy and depressing as the weather.

For instance, my couch is destroyed. My dad has been sleeping on it for over a year and a half now. The boards are all broken. It smells like pee. And underneath it, there are pounds of peanut shells that my dad has dropped there, along with enough of god-knows-what else to completely fill the space between the floor and the broken boards of my couch. It makes me want to cry.

My bathroom is also destroyed. The sink is brown and orange and nasty-dirty because my father doesn't know how, apparently, to clean up after himself. He also doesn't know that he routinely misses the toilet and pees all over the floor. About 6 months ago, I gave up cleaning it, because most of the time I am only halfway through when he comes to use the bathroom again and I have to start all over.

He has no consideration for other people's feelings. In his mind, all of this is okay because he supports me financially. It's all about money to him. He doesn't understand that sometimes quality of life is at least equal to, if not more important than, money. And my quality of life is almost non-existent.

I love my dad. I really do. If he would just go away for a week so I could clean, and then try to clean up after himself afterwards, I could live with it. Maybe move into a bedroom instead of my living room so I could have friends over. I only want simple things in life.

What I want, more than anything, is to present my father with the following plan.

1. You go spend a week away. I will spend that week cleaning my house.

2. I move all the things out my office and put my couch and TV in my office. This is your space. You may do with it as you like, but I get to close the door at my discretion. That way, you can pile junk up all around you and pee all over everything as much as you want to, and I am still allowed to have a life.

3. You will keep a bedpan with a wall on the front of it in your bedroom so that you can pee in it before you go to the bathroom. Then you will not leak pee all over my carpeting and will be less likely to miss the toilet and pee on the floor in the bathroom.

4. After you have use the bathroom, or walked through my house when you needed to use the bathroom, you will check the floor to see if it is wet. If so, you will clean it with my Swiffer Wet Jet. That'll probably work on the carpet, too. At least if it's wet with cleaner solution, it will smell better than if it's wet with pee, and the handle is long enough that you can use it without bending over.

5. You will wash and put away any dishes that you use, as will I.

6. You will put things neatly in cupboards and not stack them up until they are toppling over, and you will put EVERYTHING in cupboards rather than leaving it out on countertops.

7. You will keep all of your things in your room. Always. The rest of my house is my house.

8. If I should bring friends home with me, you are welcome to join us when invited, but if you are not invited, you will not ask me any questions or join in any conversations. I am a grown woman, and you don't need to know what I plan to do if I have male friends over.

If I were to lay down these rules, and my father were to abide by them, I might be able to start getting my life together. Until then, I will cry like the clouds and hide in the fog.

Thirty-One

Sylvia Plath is not death. Nor is she suicide. She, a living person, a breathing person, a loving, writing, creating person, died. We all do it. And not everything else we ever do is directly related to our impending death, however that may death may come. Even if it comes through suicide.

And along the same vein, my recent obsession with her work, her writing, her life does not make me suicidal. I admire her writing ability, her ability to get published. I am envious of her. Of her writing.

I am like Sylvia in a thousand tiny ways. Her father died of complications on diabetes, as did my mother. She was an outsider, probably mostly needlessly. She was lonely when surrounded by people, even people who loved her. She was a commendable student. She wrote. She made her As like miniature twos.

She also moved to London, was published in Seventeen magazine by the time she was eighteen, married a handsome, creative man, bore two children, and died, of her own volition, at the age of thirty.

I am nearly thirty-one.

I have not been published--not for real. I've never had the courage to live alone in a strange place. I've not married any man, handsome or otherwise, have not born children, and most likely will never have the opportunity to do either. And I am nearly thirty-one.

All the pain that Sylvia lived, I, too, have lived. I have seen the death of a parent too soon. I have been rejected by men, by magazines, by the world at large. I have cried and cried and cried until my body dried, my throat bled, I closed my eyes and slept a restless sleep. But I've never known her highs.

Maybe that's why I'm still alive. Maybe my failure to succeed has saved me. I haven't lived that juxtaposition of utter failure and total bliss, not the way she did. Valleys are deeper when you approach them from mountains. Maybe it's just that I never had a doctor prescribe me any antidepressants that delivered me into suicidal tendencies. Or perhaps I am intrinsically stronger than she.

The only thing that really worries me is that Sylvia idolized Virginia Woolf, another suicidee, the way that I am coming to idolize Sylvia. And it bothers me that even such a grandiose personality as Sylvia Plath spoke mostly of everyday things when she was sinking into depressions, like failed dates and the inability to make simple decisions. It bothers me that her suicide directly followed a separation from her husband, illness in herself and her children, heat and electricity that did not work right in her apartment, a long cold winter. It seems like someone who has turned into such a suicidal legacy should have died for a nobler cause than the things that frustrate women all across the world every day. It scares me, because I can't soothe myself in the notion that she had a greater reason to die than I might.

But I am almost thirty-one.

I Have Been Reading Sylvia Plath

The journals of. And the poetry of. So far. Soon to include the essays and short stories of, and The Bell Jar of. And what this has done for me, especially the journals, is reinvigorate my inclination to journal.

So once again, I will embark on a journey of journaling, and maybe I will actually succeed this time!

I Barely Even EAT Twinkies!

Really. I mean, I did eat them on occasion, as a child, when my mom packed them in my school lunches, and I've had a random Twinkie here or there since, but I have definitely eaten less than one hundred Twinkies in my lifetime. Maybe even as few as fifty.

So what happened the other day is beyond my understanding. I parked across the street from my friend Kathi's house when I showed up for our twice-weekly American Idol date, got out of my car, and started walking across the street. Completely innocently. I paused to let a car pass. And then, it happened. A faceless voice came out of the backseat.

"Lay off the Twinkies, Bitch!"

Now I realize that he didn't really think I eat too many Twinkies. He just tried, and failed, to come up with a creative way to call me fat. And I don't mind being called fat, really. I mean, it's true. I am fat. I choose not to think of that as a bad thing. Still don't like it much when someone screams about it out the window of a car, though, especially when they yell at me for eating Twinkies.

Now, if he had told me to lay off the pizza, maybe, or the french fries, or the general tso's chicken, or even the clubhouse sandwiches, it wouldn't have bothered me. I do eat those things, a lot. But why would he have assumed I eat Twinkies? What is it about fat people that makes thin people assume they all eat Twinkies? I just don't get it.

I'm so upset, I think I might go get myself some Twinkies. And if I can find that guy, I know exactly where I'm gonna put 'em.

Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

The sun is shining. It's nearing 50 degrees. I'm wearing (probably prematurely) flip flops. I have a reason to smile again. Ahhh.

I love spring because it gives me hope. I get a shot of confidence, a boost of energy, a feeling of lightness surrounding me. But spring makes me sad, too.

All around me, people are in love. Spring does that. And it's the one part of spring I don't get to participate in. Love hits me in the face everywhere I look and somehow avoids me at the same time.

On the sidewalk, there are teenagers walking past with their arms wrapped around each other's waists. Couples sit down at a table in a restaurant, then lean over and kiss. Old people rub each other's shoulders and kiss each other's heads. Boys and girls chase each other around playgrounds, playing tag, just for the rush that comes with touching one another. And I watch from the sidelines, alone, the tears in my eyes glinting in the spring sun.

Rationally, I know that it shouldn't matter. I have good friends, and I have a good time with them. There are people who are attracted to me, I know. They're not people I get to spend time with in person, mostly, and the few that I do get to spend time with live too far away and are otherwise unavailable to me to be a part of my daily life, but they're there. But there is just no one in my life that I can touch, hold, rub, caress.

My craving for the sensation of skin on my skin, physical affection, is absolutely the only thing that makes me wish I was a thin, traditionally beautiful woman. Other than that, I am happy with who I am. I am fairly healthy, pretty energetic, and other than a bit of depression from time to time, overall a happy person. My only problem is that the general public is not as accepting of me as I am. The only reason I wish I was any different than I am.

But while this bright, bright sunshiny day makes me sad, it gives me hope, too. Maybe someday, I'll earn the right to be loved. Maybe. Springtime is ripe with maybe.

Who Says Policemen Are Honorable?

It all started last Wednesday. I got pulled over on my way home from tutoring Daniel. I may or may not have been speeding (I won't admit to anything incriminating unless I'm sure I was partaking), but not horribly so, because I was WAY too close to the State Police post to do anything wrong.

So when I saw the trooper's car slow down, and then turn around, I experienced a moment of panic, and, I'll admit, some indignation as well. The speed limit is 25 and I was going maybe 30, 32 at most, and I was within sight of the 35 mph speed limit sign. I kept driving, very carefully, rather than pulling over right away, because I wasn't positive he was intending to pull me over. Then his lights went on. I pulled over. He got out and approached.

I got the usual: "Hello, ma'am. Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Um, no?" I said, fairly calmly, I think, especially considering the fact that I was in a minor panic. I'm a "good kid." Always have been. So when I am accused of doing something wrong, I get scared. Even more so if I'm not aware of exactly what I did. My voice may have squeaked a little.

"You're not wearing your seatbelt."

Okay, so it wasn't speeding. But I looked down to find that I was distinctly wearing my seatbelt, albeit not properly. See, the damn thing doesn't fit. I'm bigger 'n the average bear, and the part the shoulder strap clicks into is broken on my car, so while the seatbelt works, that part spends most of its time slid down and buried in the seat, which ensures that the seatbelt has to stretch even farther. Besides which, I'm short, so the shoulder part hits me right across the neck and chokes me even with seatbelts that fit fine. So what I do is slide the shoulder part across my back, leaving just the lap part functioning, and click it into place. But I WAS wearing it!

"I am wearing it," I told him, indicating the securely fastened clasp.

"That's not what I saw," he said. "I could see both straps next to each other, telling me that you weren't wearing it."

"They're that way now, and I am wearing it," I told him quietly. "I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I was wearing it."

"Don't lie to me."

"I-I'm not lying. See? I'm really sorry, I don't mean to show disrespect."

"Then don't lie to me."

"But-I'm-I was wearing it. I'm not going to argue with you." Shit. Wrong thing to say. What I meant was "I'm not going to argue with you because I can't see what you saw, nor can I prove what you saw, so I will bow down to your authority." What it sounded like was, "Obviously I'm right, so I'm not going to argue with you." You know, the way a parent tells a child that he or she is not going to get dragged into an argument.

"I mean, I can't prove what you saw. So there's no point in arguing, and I will just pretend whatever you say is the truth. But I promise you, I was wearing it," I told him.

"When was the last time you were pulled over?"

"Um--I guess it was about a year ago. I had just gotten this car and there was a burned out headlight that I got pulled over for a few times. I never got a ticket, though."

"And have you ever had a ticket before?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"I don't know, maybe three years ago."

"What for?"

And now in a very quiet voice: "Not wearing my seatbelt." I cleared my throat. "But I really wasn't wearing it that time!"

"Have you ever been arrested?"

"No. Never."

"Are you sure? If I look it up, that's what I'll find?"

"Yes!"

"You've never been arrested for possession of drugs?"

"God, no!"

"Do you have any drugs in the car now?"

"No, of course not."

"And you've never been arrested."

"That is correct."

"All right, then. Let me see your drivers' license, registration, and proof of insurance."

So I leaned over and got out my registration. I already had my license ready. But the proof of insurance? Shit.

"Here. I--um--I don't have my proof of insurance. I mean, I have insurance, and I have the proof, it's just at home because it came in the mail a couple days ago. It just takes effect today. So the one I have here is expired." I cringed and awaited my fate.

"You have to have insurance, you know."

"Yes, I know. I do. I just don't have the proof of insurance with me."

He went back to his car. I sat paralyzed with fear for several minutes. He finally came back.

"Okay, miss. Here." He handed me my things back, along with a ticket. "I wrote up a warning for the insurance. Bring your proof to the court house within ten days and show it to them and that will be dismissed. As for the ticket, I wrote you up for improperly wearing your seatbelt. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It'll cost less--maybe 25 bucks. And it won't go on your insurance. Let me see." He looked at a pad of paper. "I can't find it on here--but I think it's like 25 bucks." he repeated. "Get that taken care of." And he was gone.

I slowly and carefully drove away. I wasn't happy, but it went better than it could have, right? Okay, fast forward to today, just over a week later.

I gathered up my proof of insurance, made sure I had some cash on me, and went down the fines office at the court house to take care of it. I showed the girl behind the window my ticket, she dug out the original, and asked to see my proof of insurance. I showed it to her, she made a copy of it, and everything was okay. Then, the ticket. "$65," she told me.

"Are you sure? The officer said it would be less because he just wrote me up for wearing my seatbelt improperly."

"He did what? That's not--we don't have a $25 fine for anything. Um--let me check." She typed something on her keyboard, looked at her computer screen, and looked back at me. "I don't know what he was talking about. The code he used just came up as not wearing your seatbelt. There is no other code. There's no such thing as improperly weaaring your seatbelt. $65."

"Oh. He--he lie--that's not what he said."

"I'm sorry. That's all I can do is charge you for that. Do you want to accept?"

Near tears, I couldn't think of anything else to do. If I did not accept, that would mean a court date, and who knows how that would go. Could just be bad, with me looking like I was desperately lying, how word against mine. So, I signed it and made a payment of $25, the rest to be paid next week. I left in tears. Tears of anger.

Now I just have to decide what I'm going to do. Pay it off and let it go? Get the officer's name and file a complaint? And I'm one of the good kids! Ugh. I don't have the energy for this.

On The Road To Somewhere Good

We slept until noon, then quietly showered and packed, in a very subdued sort of way. It had been a long few days, at that point, and even though we'd slept for a good eight or nine hours, we were a bit groggy, still.

Chris finished packing up the car while I went to check out just before 2 o'clock. I told the girl what room I was in and she looked at her computer and told me I owed her three hundred and some dollars. This was a surprise to me. A good one, because I was expecting to owe five hundred and some. I just smiled dumbly and handed her my credit card. When I got outside and looked at the bill, I saw that they had charged me $109 for each night. Funny, because on my reservation reminder, it distinctly said that the room cost $109 for the first night and $209 for each of the other two. Of course, it also distinctly said that I was supposed to have a room with two beds, and when we had gotten there, they tried to stick us in a room with one bed. I'm assuming when the girl changed my room, she somehow changed the price, too. Whatever. Worked for me.

And then we were on our way. An hour later, we made our first stop. Frederick, Maryland: Home of Schifferstadt. (Or something like that.) Our friend Jilly is the director of a really cool museum that is actually a house that was built in 17-something. She took us all through the place, showed us everything, told us all about it. We were thinking about having lunch with her, but she was getting back from a late lunch just as we got there, and we were anxious to be on our way, so we didn't to wait around for dinnertime. Good thing we didn't, too. She gave us directions to a restaurant she figured we should try for lunch, but it was on a road that hadn't been in existence whenever my GPS was last programmed, so we drove past where the GPS said it was supposed to be about a hundred times before we decided a tire place wasn't going to magically turn into a pizza place any time soon and went to a Waffle House, home of worse-than-frozen waffles but also home of quick and fairly cheap food. We filled up on gas afterwards, purchased several inauguration day newspapers and a couple of flasks of water, and were on our way. After we drove through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and part of Illinois, we finally made it to the Fairfield Inn in St. Charles, begged and pleaded for late checkout, and drifted into slumber, at about 3 am. It was another very, very, very, very (etc.) long day.

We got up in time to take a dip in the pool, I took another collection of pictures of Chris, and we checked out, then headed to an outlet mall to pass the time until 5, when we could eat at Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse. It was the second time I'd been there-ever since the first time, I'd been anxious to show it off to someone, 'cause it's a super cool place. I had the best prime rib EVER and enjoyed the scenery and the gift shop.

And then, finally, we were on our way home for good. Five more hours of half-awake driving and I was stumbling around in Chris's driveway to move my junk from Chris's car to mine and the I was driving home and at long, long last, I was home and sinking into my own bed. It felt soooooooooooooooooooo good. I slept. A lot. And when I woke up, it was definitely a brighter day.

Barack Obama was our president, I was no longer sleep-deprived, and, not to sound like a campaign cliche, there was an aura of hope in the world. It was a long journey--the campaign and our trip to Washington both--but we survived and were better, stronger, somehow more alive. Life is good.

It's Been A While

since I could hold my head up high...

Okay, not really. It's actually been a while since I logged in to Blogger. But once I typed my title, the lyrics of that damn song stuck themselves firmly in my head. I don't even like the song that much.

I will just pick up where I left off, though, at the Michigan Inaugural Ball the night of President Obama's inauguration. (Although, before I continue, I will pause to say I am very proud of what he's been up to, and therefore very proud of myself for working so hard to get him where he is. Not that it was all my doing, of course, but I did what I could!)

So anyway, like I was saying, we made our way from the Museum to some unknown-to-us busy street where we could see, every so often, a taxi making its way by. I was, as usual, walking several feet behind Chris and struggling to keep up. Next to us, there was another fairly fit and healthy man walking ahead of another woman with a figure similar to my own who seemed to be in the same situation. As we were nearing a corner, two cabs saw us and skidded to a halt. The woman headed toward one. The man headed toward the other. I thought about racing the woman to the cab she was headed for, but she was roughly half the distance I was away from it, and although I was pretty sure I was younger and somewhat more agile than she was, I wasn't sure it was enough to make up for the distance. No problem, though, because Chris artfully dodged in front of the man and ducked under him to stick his head into the other taxi. I hobble-ran over to him and bent down so I could hear what was going on.

"Hey, can you take us to Baltimore?" Chris asked the driver. Chris and I climbed into the backseat without bothering to wait for an answer.

"Uh, yah, Mon," the driver said, but he didn't sound too certain. He did not begin to drive. We waited. Finally, he shrugged. "It going to cost you," he told us. "Maybe one hundred dollar." Chris looked at me. I looked out the window. There was no way I was going to get back out into the cold, and there was no way I was going to walk any farther, and our only other option was to hang out on the street all night anyway.

"Yeah, that's fine," I told the cabbie. Fine might not have been the best word, but it was the best one I could think of. And we were off.

I'm petty sure he wasn't really watching the road, because he was on his cell phone calling every other cabbie in the company, in Washington, maybe in the world, to tell them to head down toward the museums. And then he asked us which way we were going.

"Do I go east/west/north/south/whatever on 1234567890?" he asked us. That's not really what he said, of course--he just asked about one particular direction on one particular highway. He may as well have been speaking whatever his native language was, though, because we didn't have a clue. It's not like we were seasoned DC residents or something. We just nodded in agreement because we figured, confused as he seemed, he probably had a better idea than we did, and whatever Interstate he mentioned sounded familiar and I was pretty sure it actually did run through Baltimore. It took us almost an hour to get there, even though several of the bridges in and out of Washington that had been closed for security reasons earlier in the day were open by then. Traffic was slightly insane, and it was, after all, a good fifty miles.

The cabbie, also, was slightly insane. As he chatted on his phone in barely discernible English, he came within inches of sideswiping at least 47 cars. I really didn't care. It was 2 am and I'd been up since 4 am, and I ached from hiding out in Union Station all day, and I was cold, and I just wanted to be asleep or not aware that I wasn't asleep, so dead along the highway somewhere would have worked for me, too. But that didn't happen, and in retrospect, that's probably a good thing.

Finally, after we had reassured the driver 79 times that we were parked in a parking garage near where the Orioles play, which HE figured out based on what we told him, giving us the impression that he knew where he was taking us, we could see Baltimore in the distance. And the cabbie had questions.

"What lane you want me drive in?"

Um... not a good question, since it was almost 24 hours since we'd slept and we didn't have a clue in the first place.

"Whatever one you want to," Chris told him. "Uh, middle is good?" So that's where we drove. The cabbie asked us a million questions and we kept our eyes peeled for familiar sights. Finally, we saw a hotel that looked like the one we'd seen when we parked, and as we drew nearer, we could see the parking garage Chris's car was in. "HERE!" Chris yelled. "TURN HERE! Right! Right lane! Turn!" And the cabbie barely avoided a thirteen-car pile up as he slid into the right lane and onto the ramp. A few turns twists and we were stopped in front of the parking garage. I threw a handful of money--a hundred and ten dollar handful of money--at him and disembarked.

"Hey!" he yelled.

"What?" Chris asked, as he, himself, disembarked.

"She gypped me!"

Chris looked at me. I looked back, indignantly.

"I gave him a hundred and ten bucks," I said. "If that's not enough..."

"She gave ya a hundred and ten bucks."

The cabbie recounted. He nodded in agreement, so Chris slammed the door and the cabbie drove away in a cloud of dust. Or maybe there was no dust and the fogginess was just in my sleep-deprived eyes. We staggered into the garage, stumbled into the elevator, guessed at what floor we were on, stabbed at the elevator buttons, and were pleasantly surprised to see Chris's car in front of us when the doors slid open. A few minutes later, we were on our way back to the hotel and a mere 23 hours after we had woken up, we collapsed into our beds and slept. We had arranged for late checkout, so we didn't have to get up until noon. Ahhhhh.

There Is No More Appropriate Place

to hold an inaugural ball on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration than the Museum of American History. Well, there may be a few more appropriate places, but not too many. Wow. That's all I can say. I, a word person from the word go, can barely describe it.

For someone like me, the whole thing was much more like a movie I was watching, or a movie set I somehow wandered onto, than reality. But it was definitely real.

We walked through the door into a dark room with incredibly well-dressed people everywhere and three separate coat checks to the left. Chris headed for coat check immediately to rid himself of his sweatshirt and his long-sleeved t-shirt--they weren't the classiest things he could have been wearing--and immediately disappeared. I have no idea where he went. I, myself, disappeared in the women's bathroom to make myself look somewhat presentable, which took some skill. First of all, I had to find the thing. I figured if I followed the wall for long enough, I was bound to find a bathroom, and sure enough, it only took me five minutes or so to run into one. Then I had to get inside. That was easier said than done. I don't feel so bad, though, because there was another woman trying to get in who thought the door must be locked. It didn't look like a door. It was a big metal wall, probably fifteen feet high, with a handle set into it. I pushed. I pulled. She pushed. She pulled. To no avail. I backed up, confused. She wandered away to find another rest room. Then a woman finally came out of the bathroom and I saw that the doors did not push or pull at all. Instead, they slid. And here I thought I was good with high-tech gadgets.

I slipped into a stall and began the process of shedding layers. I took the long john shirt out from under my dress and tucked it into a plastic bag I had stashed in my purse. I thought about removing the socks from under my pantyhose, too, but that would have taken way too much effort and I'm not sure I would have gotten my pantyhose back on, since they were pretty much shredded from the knees up by that point. I tucked my scarf and gloves into my plastic bag as well, then slid my dress back on over my head and rearranged the neckline in the back, which was a weird floppy thing that I had nothing but trouble with. I did my best to tuck my socks down into my sexy, dusty, dirty black tennis shoes and straightened my pantyhose as much as possible without having them disintegrate in my hands. As I was walking out of the stall, my dad called. I don't generally answer my phone when I'm in the bathroom, but when my dad calls, I answer. You never know.

He was calling to tell me that the Obamas were attending the Neighborhood Ball, and that it was free, and that I should go there because Beyonce was singing. Since I had barely made it to the Michigan Ball at that point, and I was in possession of a $200 ticket for that one, I didn't necessarily consider his suggestion. I told him I had just gotten to the Museum and I was doing my best to make myself presentable, since I had been outside and in Union Station all day with no way to change. We got off the phone. The girl next to me said, "I know exactly what you mean. I got to go back to my hotel room and everything, and I still don't look presentable."

Let me describe to you what she looked like. She was about 5'5", maybe, and probably 125 pounds. Her shiny, chocolate-colored hair was arranged neatly into a bun at the back of her head, her lips were stained a delicate shade of pink, here eyes were discreetly mascaraed, and her finger nails were shiny and red. She was wearing a little black dress that ended probably six inches above her knees and still managed to look classy rather than skanky. She had on black nylons and black high heels that showcased her model-like legs perfectly. Compared to 300+ pound, 5'1" me, with my wrinkled red dress over a scraggly-looking gray one, my dirty sneakers, my runny pantyhose, my wind-blown hair, and my makeup-less face, she definitely looked presentable. Hell, next to Angelina Jolie at the Oscars, she would have looked presentable. Let's just say our conversation didn't do much to make me feel as if I fit in.

I finally made my way out of the bathroom and presented my plastic bag at coat check.

"This is it?" the man asked me. "No coat?"

"This is it," I told him. See, I had worn so many layers because I didn't have a coat that was both functional enough and classy enough to wear to both the inauguration and the ball, hence all the layers. I was wearing a black sweater over my dresses, and it was quite warm in the building, probably because everyone else was wearing sleeveless ball gowns, but I couldn't take off my sweater because then the sleeves of the gray dress would show from under the sleeves of the red dress and I would be back to looking homeless. So, the bag of under layers was all I had to check. The man looked at me oddly, but he checked my bag. I swung my purse over my shoulder and set off to find Chris.

I finally found him standing in the crowd. We went through the line where they were taking tickets and we were finally in. Everything was beautiful. Absolutely breath-taking. The museum was all stairs and escalators and sleek gray surfaces and marble floors. The people were all sophisticated and dressed in rich shades of black and gray and red, and they were of all colors and sizes and backgrounds. I didn't know where to look first. We rounded a corner and found a buffet table, a bar, and an empty pub table with no chairs around it. We each filled a plate and made a bee-line for the table. It had been a while since we'd eaten. Once we were settled at the table, we started looking through the program booklets we'd been given. I, in fact, studied mine carefully, because Chris took off to go the bathroom and it was easier to be occupied with something than it was to watch everyone watching me, all alone and homeless-looking.

It was then that I discovered that the ball was not simply being held in a ballroom or some such thing. It was filling the whole museum. All three floors. Each floor was overflowing with people, buffets, bars, and music. One floor had a high school honors band playing. Another had a swing band. The first floor, in an atrium that was the height of the building, was home to a rock band that was playing to a crowd of hundreds who were dancing, shoulder to shoulder, on an enormous dance floor. And all the museum displays were open to us.

We spent the rest of the night talking to people (and finding out exactly who had gotten in to the Inauguration (our friends Miles and Marcella among them) and who hadn't (Jesse Jackson and Michigan State Senator Mike Prusi- and us, of course). We looked at many of the displays. We cringed because our feet hurt like hell and we couldn't keep up with Chris as he ran manically from one room to the next. Okay, that was just me. We ate more--braised beef over grits with Michigan cherry sauce, fish, chicken in cherry sauce, lots of things. We had drinks--I had orange juice because the first thing Chris ordered was a Jack and Coke that was about 95% Jack and I got drunk just smelling it. We just looked at everything in wonder. And took lots of pictures, of the ball and of each other.

I had been worrying all night about how we were going to leave the ball. Or rather, how we were going to get back to our hotel in Baltimore. It was colder than we had anticipated, much too cold to hang out outside all night, and they wouldn't let us into Union Station without train tickets. I checked online to see if there were Amtrak tickets left, because our cabbie had assured us that Amtrak ran all night, but to no avail. Everything was sold out. I had also saved the number of the cab company in my phone, because the cabbie had assured us as well that they could take us back to Baltimore. Also to no avail. The operator I talked to said that they were based in Arlington and would not go into Washington any more than night because so many streets were still blocked off. She gave me the name of another cab company. I looked them up online on my phone. Their website would not load for the longest time, ,and when it did, there was no phone number. I looked it up on Google. Nothing. I tried to use their online cab request form, but that didn't work either. I finally used the Internet White Pages and found a phone number. I asked Chris to call. He gave me a snotty look. I went outside where it was quiet and did it myself.

Except that I did nothing. No one answered. I tried several times. Chris eventually, to his credit, did come looking for me. He tried using the online request form. He tried calling. Nothing doing. And finally, finally, he said that since it was 11:30 already and the Ball ended at midnight, maybe we should go start looking for a cab on the street, before everyone else did. I was so grateful that I almost kissed him. I was in excruciating pain from standing on my feet and sitting on a cement floor all day, with leftover blisters from the day before covering the bottoms of my feet. So, we went inside, took a few more pictures, and tried to get through coat check without incident. I say tried because there was GayNaziCoatCheckAttendantMan micromanaging the people in line. Chris was well aware, since he had run into the man once before in an attempt to get outside and use his phone, but it was all new to me.

Coat check was not all that complicated. There were three sections: red, white, and blue. You gave them your stuff and you got a tag. Color-coded, even: red, white, or blue. So when you went to pick up your coat or whatever, you got in a line: red, white, or blue. Not at all complicated. Except that GayNaziCoatCheckAttendantMan was making everyone get in one line, then letting one person of each color through at a time. He would ask what color your tag was, point in the direction of the appropriate coat check, and scream out a color. If you tried to walk through and get into your line without his direction, he freaked. Screamed. Yelled. Wrung his hands.

"That's WHITE!" he'd scream, and stop you by placing his hand dead center on your chest. "I said BLUE!!!!!!!!!" Because it was SO complicated; we very obviously couldn't match colors and get in line by ourselves. Finally, we managed to get our stuff, and we each collected a poster from the event and a souvenir ticket. And we escaped.

We walked a couple of blocks to where we could see traffic moving freely. Better chance of getting a cab that way. Better, but not good. And that, my friends, I will leave for the rest of the story.

We Managed To Stand Up

without knocking too many people over, which was no small feat. And then we managed to fight our way out of Union Station, another feat of enormous proportions. We stopped along the way to inquire about the best place in which to hail a cab, since the entrance that was labeled "taxis" was being guarded by snipers and no one was allowed to use it. We asked two or three people, all of whom gave us the same non-answer: "Good luck!"

So, we just went outside and hoped for the best. Luckily, the door we were forced to exit through was across the street from what looked like a hotel. Since it was on the corner of an intersection of two streets that were both actually open, we figured it might be a good place to start. Besides that, the doorman from the hotel was hailing cabs for hotel guests, so we thought it might be a good idea to observe an expert at work. We watched him hail two or three cabs and then, certain that we knew what we were doing, we became his competition.

A cab stopped. Chris hunched his shoulders down and reached for the door. The doorman ducked under his arm and secured the cab for three of his guests. Chris, looking disappointed, straightened his shoulders and looked across the street, where we watched an empty cab slide through the intersection. Roughly the same thing happened three or four more times.

I am going to interrupt myself for just a second to point out that I had suggested to Chris that we leave Union Station a half hour before we did, in case we had trouble getting a cab. I earned an eye roll for that suggestion, and a complete dismissal. So, we left when Chris wanted to leave.

Okay, back to working the corner. Not like that- hailing cabs, I mean. Although, the other might have been easier. After the doorman we had learned from stole 5 or 6 cabs from us, cabs that we stopped, we decided to cross the street. After all, we had wistfully watched several cabs slip through the intersection unnoticed, over there. Once we were there, of course, they all disappeared. Word must have gotten out that there was no one over there looking for a cab. We went back to our original corner, hoping that the doorman would be less "on guard." No such luck. Then, I had a brilliant idea. We had crossed the street to reach the cabs that were going in the opposite direction. But what if we crossed the other street, so that the cabs got to us a half a block before they got to the doorman? I was halfway across the street before I managed to explain to Chris, over my shoulder, what I was doing. And we were barely there long enough to wonder if we could just figure out how to get to the museum and walk before Chris waved his hand and a cab stopped. A cab with a driver who was perfectly willing to take us to the Museum of American History.

And that was the beginning of a whole new adventure. We actually got a cab driver who spoke English, which I had heard was rare. He was a very nice guy, though.

The first thing we did was stop on the corner by the hotel and it was with great pleasure that Chris and I listened as the cabbie told the doorman that he had just picked up passengers. The doorman still managed to convince him to pick up one more, though, a very regal African woman. African, in this case, is not a PC way to say black, and I did not forget to attach the word "American" to it. She was African- the cab driver figured Kenyan. She spoke less English than the cabbie did. She was on her way to the African ball, and the cabbie knew exactly where it was. Since our ball was only a mile or two away, he assured us that he would deliver us first. Except, as it turned out, that could very well have been an empty promise. Not an intentional one, but empty all the same. Because every single road we tried to take was closed. See, the Inaugural Parade had apparently been going on for four or so hours and was still going. The streets were not re-opened. We would drive for a few blocks and then suddenly come upon a gaggle of police cars accompanied by men and women in reflective vests who were waiting to point us in exactly the direction we did not want to take. The cabbie stopped and told a police officer where he was trying to go and that he was "completely out of ideas." The officer said it was just hard for everyone to get around, but he made a suggestion, the cabbie took it, and we were off again. During this whole ordeal, the African woman was grumbling in a progressively louder voice- in her native language, of course. And she made about a million phone calls, during which she was fairly obviously complaining about the cabbie. Finally, she asked him if he was going to take her to her ball. He told her he was trying, and she should try to relax, and she harrumphed. At that point, he looked ahead, told us we were just a few blocks from our ball, and was immediately greeted with the sight of four police cars, sirens wailing and lights flashing, that blocked the road in front of us and forced us to do a u-turn.

"Presidential motorcade," the cabbie muttered. "I don't know what went wrong. When Clinton was elected, his people knew what they were doing. Hardly any time at all and he had the people off of the streets and into the balls." This cracked Chris and I up, immature members of society that we are. But it wasn't our fault. Brilliant politician that he is, no one can argue that fact the Clinton was definitely good at getting people into the balls, most notably his own. The cabbie then continued to add to our mirth by screeching to a halt just past an intersection, waving at another cab driver, and jumping out of the cab. We were mildly confused until he sprinted to the passenger side of the car, opened the front door, and took the African woman's elbow. "Come with me," he said. "This cab will take you to your ball." He slammed her door and helped her into the other cab-- both cabs were pretty much just parked in the middle of the street-- and then he returned to us. He looked over his shoulder at us and said, in explanation, "She was getting crabby."

He informed us that our museum was just a couple blocks over and we should be there soon. He drove toward it and was forced to stop, yet again, by road blocks. He took another corner and drove in another direction. And again. Finally, he pulled over and stopped.

"That's it over there. Just two blocks down, I think." He pointed. "You'll have to walk. I can't get any closer." So, I handed him 20 bucks (for what was supposed to be a ride of just over a mile, by the way, that took us more than 25 minutes in the end) and got out. I promptly dropped my gloves, so I turned to grab them and knocked my head into Chris's head, which was moving at a high velocity as he jumped out of the cab. It hurt. A lot. But we were almost there!

We hurriedly walked the two blocks in the indicated direction and were left completely confused because nothing looked like a museum. Well Chris walked. I sort of stumbled. I had mountainous blisters on my feet from the day before and was aching all over from all the standing and such, and so what I was doing might be described more accurately as hobbling. I hobbled down the sidewalk a good 50 feet behind Chris, the man who told me before we left that if I couldn't keep up, he could just walk slower. Right.

Discouraged, we asked someone on the sidewalk where the Smithsonian Museum of American History might be found. They pointed another block down and said it was one of three buildings we could see. We continued. And, surprise of surprises, the first building we got to was the one we wanted. We walked another three quarters of a block to get to the only lit up door we could see. When we arrived, we were promptly informed by a security officer that we needed to enter on the opposite side of the block-long building. Of course. So, off we went. We ran into someone we knew from working on the campaign on our way around, and his date, so that was nice for Chris. It gave him someone to talk to while he ran ahead of me and I huffed and puffed and hobbled and wobbled behind him, half running myself but still not moving fast enough to keep up. We finally got around the building and found a giant set of stairs that led us into the building. At last, we were there. And once we got inside, it was all worth it.

Stay tuned.