Rocks.

So every now and then a completely earth-shattering notion seeps into my consciousness: Our lives revolve around rocks. One rock, in particular: gold.

Does anyone else think it’s completely mind-boggling that damn near every stress incurred in human life pertains to the perpetual need to hoard rocks? That some thousands of years ago, someone determined that a shiny yellow rock was currency? And that now, those many thousands of years later, the entire makings of the world’s ins and outs can be narrowed down to one element on the periodic table??! a ROCK?!???!!

I truly can’t wrap my brain around it. Rocks are why we get up in the morning and go to jobs we hate. Rocks are the primary stressor in the human psyche. Too often, rocks determine our happiness or lack thereof. ROCKS.

It’s just absurd. When the world as we know it teetered on the verge of collapse last year, it really hit home with me that this economy, this show that we put on, the plumage we flaunt like so many work-worn peacocks, is a complete farce. If an alien race was to look in at humanity, what would it see? Smoke and mirrors. The world turns for the people on it not as a spectacle of celestial amazement, but as another damn day to earn a few more rocks.

When did this happen?

When did life as we know it turn from a gift to a chore?

And how, exactly, did the world’s economy blossom into the Emerald City of Oz?

When the stimulus was passed and the United States borrowed 700-something billion dollars from China, where did that money come from? How can the Federal Reserve simply print more money? Don’t we need rocks to back it up? No? Sooo… I guess that means the rocks that we DO have, tucked away a few miles from my Kentucky home, are somehow worth less?

And, really, what IS the price of gold? Who decides this? And why does it have a price to begin with? It’s a DAMNED ROCK!!!

This shit makes my head spin. I’d be perfectly happy with a farm and a cow, building a cabin from logs and mud, growing my own crops and living off the land. Who’s with me?

I don’t need yer steenking rocks!!!

Madness!

Sometimes only Futurama quotes can truly capture the madness that circulates in my brain. It’s late (well, not really late, but that word is redefined the further one proceeds into her 30s). I’m nowhere near tired. My brain is twitching from all the anti-skin mayhem drugs it’s been fed. The kitteh sleeps beside me, content to taunt me with all her cute. I blew the dust off this thing because I realized that my creative outlets have dried up. I haven’t played my piano in well over a year, there’s nothing to sing about, and my waistline is doing a convincing job of keeping the oven mitts at bay. So yes, writing it is.

So this is Southern California. Every now and then it hits me that the vast majority of my loved one are thousands of miles away. I think the drugs are doing a pretty good job of making that notion abstract. I’ve been thinking about kicking the headpill haze for a while. Seems like the buffer provided by SSRIs are more of an oilstreak across the glasses of my emotions. Feigned ignorance may be bliss, but if one can’t even appreciate bliss, what’s the good in it? Garden State. Yes. I’ve been way too happy with white walls.

The crudely animated space lobster on the TV makes far more sense to me than Fareed Zakariah. Is that wrong? I’m in my early thirties and married and all that. Shouldn’t I be concerned with worldly goings-on? Nah. I’ll leave the politics to my non-citizen husband. There’s an alcoholic robot to appease me.

So yeah, nothing profound today. Just reminding myself what it’s like to write. I’m sure the inanities of life will inspire me soon enough. Until then, it’s your resident whackaloon, signing off.

And now for something completely different.

Well, not really.  It’s completely related to all that shite I wrote last month, but I’m not ready to tackle it yet.  Or better yet, I don’t know if I’m allowed to discuss it publicly yet.

Yes, that was complete, unadulterated snark.  Deal with it. 

This post is a devotion to all the things I love about my Mocha Man, because I never, ever want to take him for granted.

I love his laugh, and the way his eyes twinkle.

I love his skin: the color, the softness, the warmth.

I love his twisted sense of humor.

I love his sense of adventure.

I love that he’ll eat ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING.  Especially absolutely anything that I cook.

I love that he cherishes the value of a good crap.

I love that he bought an orange couch.

I love that he adores red wine, the spicy, tannic, dry as sand kind.

I love that he trusts me completely.

I love that he loves my cats.

I love the way he lights up when I enter a room.

I love way he GETS me.

I love the way he smells.

I love the fullness of his lips.

I love his Sunday afternoon stubble.

I love the way he sees beauty in absolutely anything at all.

I love that he can express his love for me so openly.

I love his fearlessness.

I love his sense of integrity, and his insistence upon truth.

I love his sense of style.

I love his strength.

I love that he finds me beautiful no matter how fucked up my hair is when I wake up.

I love his goodness, and his respectfulness.

I love him, everything about him.

I am a very lucky woman.

The Wreckers

There’s a CD I turn to when I need my home, and my family, and the people I love.  There’s one CD that truly plows into my heart and reminds me where I come from.  It’s on now, as it has been for the better part of two weeks.  A few years ago, Michelle Branch formed a country duo with her backup singer, Jessica Harp: The Wreckers took over the country music scene as one of the most promising acts in years.  They released one album, Stand Still, Look Pretty, before they disbanded some 18 months ago. Some of you may scoff at this seemingly odd choice, especially those of you who know my musical background, and I dare say that you’d be right to assume I’d gone absolutely batty.  But seriously, this disc is excellent.  These two women have nearly identical voices, which make for some spine-chilling harmonies.  Paired with damn good, tell-it-like-it-is songwriting and a phenomenal band, it’s simply infectious.

I fall back to this disc when I can’t say what I want to say, which has been precisely my position for the past few weeks.  I know what’s getting to me, I know exactly what brought it on, but due to a completely undeserved promise of loyalty, I can’t discuss it.  So I put this disc on, I sing at the absolute top of my lungs (which is somewhere near Mount Fuji, I’m guessing) and I shell pistachios for the biscotti I’m making for my Mocha Man.  I remember the long, windy drives through the mountains of Eastern Kentucky with my best friend when we played this disc on repeat and gave The Wreckers a run for their vocal money.  I remember sitting in my sister’s bathroom when I lived with her for a few months, watching her put on her makeup and singing along to this disc with her.  I remember driving back and forth to Louisville, nursing a broken heart and letting my rage seep out with the song “Cigarettes” on repeat.

So here I am again, with The Wreckers on repeat, wondering when I’ll quit being pissed about all this.

Not anytime soon, I’m guessing, since I’ve almost drained the juice in my ipod.

Deep breath.

I’ve been struggling lately with an all-too-familiar set of circumstances.  Years of therapy and pharmaceuticals (and yeah, I guess personal growth is in there, too) convinced me that I am above trite, simplistic emotions like bitterness and jealousy.  I am a WOMAN, a strong, intelligent, confident, ass-kicking woman.  My worth is not determined by what others think of me or their choices regarding my place in their lives.  I love myself regardless of my life’s circumstances.

But a recent turn of events has me picking up the mirror again, that same mirror I discarded a few years ago.  This mirror reflects self-loathing, weakness, rage, jealousy, envy, and yes, bitterness.  I can’t begin to wrap my brain around this turmoil and why it’s suddenly come out of remission.  I’m at a loss.  I do my best to go on about my days and love myself and the life I’ve made in this beautiful place, but all I want right now is my Mom, and my sister, and my best friend, and her back porch with the view of those Kentucky mountains I love so much.

I went down to the beach with my Mocha Man a few nights ago after work.  I needed some majesty.  I needed to feel the embrace of something far bigger than myself.  We sat on a tattered bedsheet from my childhood, sipping beer from a travel coffee mug and eating fresh green grapes.  He held me as we lay there, watching the waves emerge and crash from the midnight.  A band of fog rolled in and obscured us from the peering eyes of the world, and I felt better.

But now it’s Tuesday morning, and I’m headed out to job number 2.

Deep breath.

Slightly dank with sweaty undertones

The title of this entry, ladies and gents, describes the bouquet of a freshly-corked bottle of the Southern California DMV on a Hot, Late Summer Day.  That’s right, after spending most of the effin’ afternoon taking tests, rifling through forms, mooing to myself in line after line, and having to start the process all over again because I forgot about the dreaded Smog Check, I am officially a resident of California.  They want me to mail my Kentucky plate back to the DMV in Frankfort; fat fucking chance, losers!  That puppy is getting nailed up in our Beach Shanty.  Maybe on the ten square feet of stair landing I so lovingly call The Veranda.  I opted against the KNTUCKY vanity plate my heart so desired; the extra time in line was not worth letting everyone behind me know that I actually KNOW how to drive in bad weather.

So when I wasn’t breathing in the stank of 30 different ethnicities while repeatedly peeling my thighs from  the plastic DMV chairs, my day was spent interviewing at Job #2, heretofore known as Sweatshop Goodies on the Cheap.  Maybe I’ll think of a better name, but maybe my employment there won’t be long enough to justify pestering my brain with witty fodder.  I think it will work out fine; I’m now head of the furniture department and backup head of the wine department.  Fitting enough, yeah?  And hopefully it will give me the financial boost I need to keep from being shat on by the Great Pigeon of Credit Card Hell.  Means I’ll see less of my Mocha Man, and I’m definitely sad about that.  But hey, if we wanna keep the Beach Shanty long enough for you bastards to come visit, you do what must be done.

And now, it’s naptime before I trudge on in to Job #1.  I’ve been promising to break out the oven mitts, but sleep calls.

Back to the Shit Slinging

Well, I guess it’s actually pasta slinging, but so long as my income is determined by the generosity of total strangers, in my mind, it will always be shit.  Chunky, stinky, runny shit.  Brown, greenish-brown, sometimes even red.

(Where’s that damned eek emoticon when I need it?)

So yes, ’twas my first day earning money in the Golden State, and I must say that it went well.  Nice clientele, appropriate tips, no weasely comments on my tiny morsel of an accent.  I give it two days before one of my tables calls me out on the “y’all” thing.  Hey, I may be from the South, but at least I have sense enough not to wear fur-lined boots in 80-degree weather.

So, what to yap about in my first REAL blog entry?  Nothing really stood out today, other than the ever-encroaching sense of financial demise from this shitstain of an economy we’re kicking.  I applied for a second job this afternoon.  Seriously, the more I think about it, and the more my Mocha Man explains things in layman’s terms, the more I want to pack up and move to Belize or Micronesia or something.  Hell, damn near everybody speaks English in Hong Kong…  Anybody with me?   We can take over an island entirely populated by Pygmies and dub it the People’s Republic of Grits-n-Tits.

Dear God, y’all.

Holy Monkeystink, it’s been a long time!!!  I think there might have been a Democrat in the Oval Office the last time I dust off this thang!!!

Srsly, though, forgive my silence.  My life has turned upside down and all around and done the effin’ Hokey Pokey over the past few months.  I moved over 2,000 miles away to the Land of Perpetual Sunshine and Ugg Boots.  I’m completely in love with the most amazing guy in this hemisphere (and the other one, too).  I’m looking at going to grad school, I’m a morning person now, I enjoy cleaning the house and being all wifey…

Don’t ask me, I don’t know how it happened.  Anyway, the point is that I’m alive, I’m writing, and I’ve got a whole helluva lot to say.  So strap in, strap on, and get out yer Maalox, cuz it’s ON, muddafriggahs.

The Bitch is Back.

This one’s for the guys…

Hey, hey, hey, zip your pants back up. I’m not that drunk yet.

Really, guys, I need your help. Well, more your input than your help. See, I’m one of those silly Romantic idealists who believes in the sanctity of marriage, and absolute monogamy, and prolonged celibacy between relationships, and all that sappy crap. My 31-year-old noggin’ still has dreams spinning around inside that show me getting married one day, to the most amazing guy who is as completely into me as I am into him, and pooping out a few kiddos, and sharing a gallon of bourbon-spiked prune juice as we motor on toward ancientdom.

Well, it DID have those dreams. Until recently.

(And let me interrupt myself to say that this is not one of those bullshit my-self-esteem’s-in-the-gutter-so-I’ll-whine-to-some-strangers-about-how-lonely-I-am posts. This is a serious ethical question I’m about to present. So, STFU and listen. )

My best friend and I were having a discussion the other day about heterosexual relationships, as we often do. The topic at hand was monogamy, and whether or not it was truly realistic to expect it of men. My initial reaction, of course, was, “DAMN STRAIGHT it is! If the guy I’m with feels the need to go poking around some other girl’s stinkhole, then obviously he has no idea what a gold mine he has in me and he can get his skanky ass right on out the door!” (Well, okay, maybe I didn’t use the word “stinkhole.”) But the more she spoke, the more I came to see that she might be right. Men, by nature, are wired to spread the seed, to fertilize vast and remote pastures, to, well, have unlimited spins at the “Wheel of Poon.” On a less biological and genetic diversity-driven level, most men would prefer to have multiple sexual partners as opposed to mating for life. On the conscious level, some would say that most men think with their other head. When posed with the question, “If it could be guaranteed that your significant other would never find out, would you be unfaithful?” the resounding answer is, “yes.” So, how realistic is it, my best friend pondered, to expect monogamy from men?

My inner Republican shrank away from this question, stunned and disheartened by the truth in what Mo had presented. But, but… most men get married, right?

Oh, and then there’s that.

I began to ask myself why it is that men propose marriage to the women they love? What do they want to get of the deal that’s worth stifling their internal need for “strange?” How realistic are they being with themselves when they promise to be faithful and true to one woman for the rest of their lives?

I know LOTS of men who have been unfaithful. I know plenty who make it a habit. Today I even heard one complain to his girlfriend that his fiancee was pissing him off with all the inane details of their wedding plans.

WTeverlovinF, y’all?

Don’t get me wrong, I know lots of women cheat, too. But when it comes down to it, most women genuinely WANT to spend the rest of their lives with one man. But, guys? Be honest. What drives you to pop the question? Is it pressure, or do you really, truly want that one woman, and only that one woman, to be with you till your time on this earth is done? When you say, “till death do us part,” do you MEAN it? And if so, what in God’s name would EVER make you think that it’s okay to go back on those words?

I’m starting to lose faith in the concept of marriage. I’m starting to think that not many men really, truly want to make a lifelong commitment to ANYONE, when the other option has so much biological pull. Let me hear from you, guys. I know lots of you are in amazing, beautiful marriages; you make me proud, guys. But I also know that many, many, many other guys aren’t so commitment minded.

So, let’s hear it. If it’s too personal, post anonymously. Your secrets are safe with me.

And of course, ladies, I want to hear from you, too.

I’ve been writing

No, really writing. Not just spouting about random shit like I do in here, but really writing. Creating characters based on situations or circumstances I witness. I’ve been, *gulp*, writing FICTION.

So, my question for y’all is this: do I post it in here, with no ifs, ands, or buts, assuming that you’ll get the introduction of a new genre and roll with it, or do I start a fiction blog like some other friends of mine have?

Which would you rather?

‘Cause I have no opinion.