Life in the Nuthouse

Yah…I know…I haven’t blogged in a few days. I’m well aware of this; in fact, I’ve been kicking my own ass for months because I just haven’t had the motivation to write. I’ve actually got four things in mind that I could write about tonight. There’s that very public post I’ve been itching to write for what seems like forever about the things one doesn’t want to know, but should know about one Bradley M Blair, There’s that tribute post I need to buckle down and write about Ted, and what little I knew about his life. (Yah, I was pissed at him, but that old dork was like a big brother to me for a long time.) There’s the usual…”what kind of sheer unexciting shit I’ve been up to,” and there’s the one about the rather disturbing dreams I’ve been having. I’m in a rather angry mood, so I should write about post A. But…I don’t want to. Ted’s post is going to take some brain power that I just don’t have at the moment. I work in a call center for a hotline. I just got off work. My brain says…”are you fucking nuts?” It’s been about two months since I’ve written a “what have I been up to” post, and I know that’s going to be a novel. So I’m going to write about the dreams I’ve been having.
Some say dreams are premonitions. Others say they’re a way to process the happenings of the day. Some say they’re a way to figure out what’s going on in the subconscious mind. Even others say dreams are mere messages from spirits, or the universe, or God/goddess. I say…it’s a little bit of all four. I know dreams are supposed to be strange, and…well…out there, but dude, what the hell?
The first dream was about two weeks ago. My dad was alive, and he’d come to visit me for some reason. He had someone with him, a woman, but I can’t say if it was a relation, or a significant other. Anyway, he wanted me to move to Colorado with him so we could pull our financial resources together, and I could start a new life. At the same time, my friend Julie was calling me and telling me that our job was slowly and painfully going to hell in a hand basket. So, I took my dad’s offer to move to Colorado with him. That was the weird part. James and I were still together, but I don’t know what would have become of that if, in the dream, I’d actually have done it. I lived in Colorado off and on back in the late nineties and the first part of 2000. I loved Denver, but I thought Longmont left a lot to be desired. Some would say I belong in Boulder, because of the eclectic mix of people that live there, but I never did move there.
The next dream was about my friend, Emma and her friend Taren. We were sitting outside at someone’s house, and it was a summer day. I remember people swimming in an above ground pool, and me being upset, because I didn’t bring a swim suit. Emma and I were sitting in chairs talking when Taren comes over, and announces that she found a house where we all could live, but the landlord won’t accept guide dogs. I correct her by saying I don’t have a guide dog anymore. Emma says “but you’re going to be getting another one.’ Then I started arguing with myself, in the dream, about whether or not I wanted to get another dog. Then, Taren starts looking in the paper for houses for us three, and another person– I don’t remember who it was–to live.
Then, a couple nights ago, I dreamed I’d gone on a mini road trip to Long Island. No, not to stock Billy Joel, Honest. I was staying in a hotel, and hanging out with a group of friends. Someone brought Kerry, my last guide dog, to me, and said I could keep her for the time I was there. One of the first things I noticed, however, was that she appeared to be in some discomfort. I thought she had to park, but on closer inspection, I noticed she had a horrible ear infection that spread to the side of her head outside the ear. It was brown and red and bloody, and just disgusting. I remember wanting to find a vet, but not knowing how to even start looking. I didn’t even know how to communicate to the people I was with that I needed a vet. I knew, for some reason, that there was a good vet near by, who dealt with a lot of guide dogs, but I just couldn’t communicate what I needed.
Last night’s dream, most of the details escape me. All I know is that I’m about to move out of here, into an old house with a bunch of other people. I think I know these people well, and I’m excited about the prospect of living with them. The bedroom I’m about to move into, I have dreamed of before. My bed is by the window, and there’s a fan either near by or in the window. I remember not having a lot of stuff to move accept for my bed, computer, and maybe a few little things. I remember wondering if my bed would even be big enough to fit by the window.
So…Universe, What the hell are you trying to tell me? Like that robot in Short Circuit says, “Need More Input.”

I posted this, because I felt that it deserved it’s own entry. Last weekend, my friend Meka participated in a state karioke competition, and…drumroll please…she won second place. This is very good news, because she gets to go to Albuquerque–my old stompint ground–on August 7th and 8th to participate in the regionals. So if anyone is interested in watching her awesome performances, they’re right here for your listening pleasure.

She and her friend are trying to raise funds so she can attend the regionals in august. If you are interested in assisting her, please email Cindy at
cindy.vw@msn.com

A couple months ago, I posted about having gone to a beltane ceremony with Emma, and discovering that there was still something from my childhood that was a little more sensative than I’d thought. They wanted us to think of our very first childhood friend, and come up with some good memories about them. So I did some flipping back through my brains very large album of memories, and it struck me. My best friend, Leah. I hadn’t thought about her much in recent years. Everytime I did, I would have this strong urge to find her, and yet I would be too scared to find her for fear she either wouldn’t want to talk to me, or just wouldn’t remember me. But I started talking that day about her, and who she was, and then I started crying. I don’t know where it came from other than the fact that it was a strong sadness I’d been holding in and had been running, or avoiding it for years. So I’ll start from the beginning.
I met Leah in 1983 when we started first grade. I remember how fun she was. I also remember the enitial “are you a boy or a girl?” questions. She struck me as a bit of a tom boy, but then again, I kind of was too. We connected right away. We were always together on the playground laughing about whatever, singing songs, making fun of our fello class mates, just gooffing around. A couple months into the school year, I invited her to spend the night with me. We had planned for me to go to her house for the day, spend it with her family, then she was to come back to my house for the night and spend the next day together with me, and the abominable Kathy and Leonard.
The day with her family went without a hitch. She had both parents, a younger sister, an older sister…white a bit older…and a brother that was a couple years older than us. I’ll always remember one particular conversation. We were getting ready to have lunch. Her mom and her older sister were preparing the food, and the mom asked Leah what kind of sandwich she wanted. She responded with, “Any kind.” Yah, she was pretty laid back. Then, her sister, who was cutting vegetables at the time said Ouch, because she cut her finger. Then, her mom burned herself while cooking, and she said “ouch” right after that. And at six years old, both Leah and I thought that was the most hilarious thing we’d ever heard. Yah, I have a twisted sense of humor, because I love to hear people say ‘ouch.” Anyway, so for the rest of our friendship, that whole “any kind, ouch, ouch,” thing was kind of our little…you know…best friend thing. She laughed at me for the next few years, because later that afternoon, I was pretending to read a book, and made up several whole new endings to the cinderella story.
So we went back to my house that night, and everything seemed ok until I got into trouble the next morning. I don’t remember what my mortal sin was that morning, but…I got spanked by Kathy for no reason. It was something small, and she, like she always did, made a mountain out of a small hill. Then, there were comments made about how Kathy and Leonard were going to sell me. They were always good at saying shit like that in front of friends, or other little girls my age. After the spanking, though, Leah came in and surprised me by hugging me. I was pulling my pants up, balling my eyes out, and she just calmly, not saying anything walked over and put her arms around me. It’s a gesture that to this day, I’ll never forget. I thought these things were normal. Kids got spanked. Kids got beaten. I never thought it was such a bad thing. Apparently, Kathy, the whole time Leah was there was saying little things that would put me down, just because I had a friend there.
Well, the day went, we ended up going somewhere. I forgot where, and we dropped Leah off at home late that night. Apparently, Leah told her mom everything, including the comment that Kathy and Leonard wanted to sell me. Her parents turned Kathy in, and that was when I got the “I don’t want you playing with Leah, she’s bad news” lecture. They’d tell me that Leonard’s friends knew Leah and her family, and they were bad news. I wasn’t even allowed to say her name in the house.
A few months later…spring of 1984…I think, I was invited to another little girl’s birthday party. Almost all the girls in my class were there, including Leah. Kathy came to get me after the party was over. She was visitting with Meredith’s mother, and I needed to use the bathroom really bad. Leah was the first one who volunteered to show me where the bathroom was. So…we came in the house together, I went to the bathroom, and we left. We got home, and they browbeated me about whi I was playing with Leah when I was told not to. I got another spanking. Yep, just because I allowed someone to show me where the bloody bathroom was.
For two years after all that, Leah would try and try to play with me, and I pushed her away. Not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid. Kathy and Leonard used to tlel me know he’d drive by the school every day, and if he saw me doing various things on the playground, I was in trouble. So I was afraid he’d see me having fun with Leah, like normal children who are best friends do. So we argued, Leah and I, about why I wouldn’t or couldn’t play with her.
OK, so fast foreword to fourth grade. I finally got taken out of Kathy and Leonard’s house. That’s a hwole other entry, so I won’t go into it here, but suffice it to say the school had had enough of seeing the marks, watching me get depressed, having me miss school so much they they finally put their foot down. I left in January of 1987, and that was probably the most liberating experience I ever had. For about five months, I had a “normal” childhood. I played outside with friends. I didn’t have to worry about coming home and having the shit beat out of me, I could have my friends over for sleep overs, and…I even got to start playing with Leah again. My second foster mother encouraged it. Leah was almost always over at there house with me, and I even got to know her family very well also. She let me talk when I was sad, or when I was afraid. She saw what I’d gone through for years, and was there when I felt comfortable enough to talk about it. I apologized to her for all the times I snubbed her on the playground. She understood that I did it out of fear. After fourth grade let out, we knew I was going to have to leave. Dad had decided I was to live with him and the good Cathy in Illinois. So Leah and I spent as much time together as we could. We argued a bit, because I think my foster dad was trying to put the moves on her, and I didn’t think it was appropriate. Everybody thought I was crazy for being upset about it. I think we were both upset about the fact that we wouldn’t see each other anymore.
On the last day, her sister, who was aspiring to be a swim teacher was over for our weekly lesson, and just funning around, I pushed Leah in the pool. She got mad, and called me an idiot. I think I appologized to her later, or at least I’d like to think I did, because I still feel bad about it.
So I left. We said our goodbyes. Her littlest sister cried, because she and I got close too, and it was my first time detaching myself from people I’d known and loved for years. We wrote latters, the good Cathy would let me call her once in a while, but it jsut wasn’t the same as us hanging out, acting crazy, teasing each other, whatever. When I was in sixth grade…I believe it was in april or may Mom let me call her, and I’d gotten so angry that every other word was a cuss word. She was so shocked and more than a little disappointed in me, but I was just so mad…about everything…and was bitter. That was the last time we talked.
Just for random curiosity a few years ago, I went on one of the yellow pages sites and I think I found her little sister’s address and telephone number, but when it came to sending her a letter, I chickened out. I just didn’t know what to say. So you can imagine that thinking about Leah stirs up a lot of old feelings, and I’m just very sad. I wonder if we wcould have remained good friends if I hadn’t been so angry, or if I hadn’t moved away. I just don’t know. I’d like to think that maybe with facebook being what it is that she’ll find me, but I just don’t know. I guess if we don’t see each other in this life, there’s always the next. I do believe that souls follow each other into next lives, so We’ll see.

Dear universe and to any god or goddess that is listening,

I’m not sure how close to the full moon we are, but I feel I need to make an appeal to whoever is listening. So summer is…well…pretty much here. OK, so it doesn’t officially start until June 21st, but work with me here, dammit! I’m watching the weather get nice, people are out doing things, I guess I’m really feelin the summer spirit here. I was home and bored today, and looked at the strictly plutonic section of our local craig’s list, and I was surprised to se so many others looking for exactly the same thing. It makes me want to go swimming, go on boat rides, go to water parks, go walking, get hit by random water balloons or squert guns, ECT. Now, doing sed things is really boring when done alone, you know. What I’m asking for is a group of people with whom to do some or all these things with. It doesn’t have to be just one person all of the time, because I am well aware that people can’t have fun every weekend, but I’m just asking for a few people to come in my life who are interested in doing random and fun summer-type things on the weekends instead of sitting at home. It doesn’t even have to be every weekend, but I’m just looking to have fun this summer and enjoy good times with good company. Please don’t make me have to do an add on craig’s list, because…that could sometimes be, um…scary. Oh, and to any deities that deal with money? a little extra of that wouldn’t hurt either.
Lots of love and faithfulness,
One loan subject who has too much energy bottled up.

On Sunday night, I decided to say hi to someone I hadn’t talked to in a couple months, because she happened to be on MSN. She’s the girlfriend of a guy I’ve known for about sixteen or seventeen years or so, who has been in and out of my life, therefore we haven’t really gotten all that close as of late. I joined an email list last year, that they both happen to be on, and was introduced to her. She and I chat every once in a while on MSN, but it’s not like we’re best friends or anything.
Anyway, this particular night, I happened to be talking about taking the boards and then about my plans for the future. I happened to mention that I wanted to first, find someone to work for here, save mone, then eventually once James gets more settled with a permanent job, move up there. Her responce went something like this: “You’re going to go through all that hard work, then go to Canada?” Of course, I said yes, and do massage once I get to Canada. Then, she had to ask if James was working. I told her that he was having a hell of a time finding work so far, and that was why I’m not in a harry hurry to just randomly jump ship. Then, she started in about how there are no blindness programs or organizations in Canada. I informed her that James was not looking for a blindness related job, he’s looking for a tech job. Then she told em that there were no job services at all in Canada, and that if you aren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you’re treated pretty patheticly in her book. Apparently, she is of the mindset that one has to hook up with a blindness organization to do *anything* James and I are both perfectly capable of writing resumes, sending them to potential employers, and going to interviews. We don’t need some organization breathing down our backs, just because our eyes don’t work. Besides, half the organizations I’ve seen don’t even go out into the community and educate companies about adaptive technology, or blindness skills anyway. They learn from the individual person in interviews, and if they do get hired, they learn by watching them work.
This person thinks she’s trying to discourage me, because she is a canadian citizen who moved to the states, while her boyfriend, who she’s living with, works out of the home, and might lose the job he has. She and her boyfriend have told me, “Don’t think with your emotions.” When she’s the one who moved down there to be with him. Can we say hipocracy, boys and girls?
So yes, I’m going to stay with my plan, if I pass, and I still don’t know if I did, work for someone or keep the job I have now, save money, wait for James to find gainful employment, then make my move. Yes, I’m going to have to take editional tests once I get there to be licensed there, but they also might have me take editional classes, and oh, gee! I might learn something new> That would be horrible. As far as girlie, well, if she has a grudge about blindness services, or lack there of, in Canada, it’s a personal problem. But don’t sit there and tell me what to do and browbeat me because I have my own plans.

Anyone that knows me knows at least two things about me. 1, I’m a self diagnosed and self proclaimed food whore, and 2, I am always willing to think outside the box and try new things. For years I’ve heard various things about sushi. Either it was nasty, because it was raw fish and could get you sick, or it was the most awesome thing next to sex. So my friend, Heather and I got to texting one day during my lunch about where we all could go out to eat that night while James was still here. I told her I wanted to try sushi, sense people were either totally grossed out by it, or totally enamoured by it. There was never any in between. James wasn’t too keen on the idea, as his sense of adventure seemed to have gone off to some plannet in the neighboring universe. So Heather and I decided that we’d wait until he was gone, and we ended up doing steak that particular night.
So last week, I asked when we were getting together again, and she said that she had some friends coming in from out of town, and they were planning on doing sushi. So I was all over that one. First off, I had to get past the fact that this particular restaurant refered to something spicey as “spank me.” Then, I had to decide what I wanted. I never was much of a fish eater, safe for salmon, tuna, and maybe cat fish if I was in the mood for it. I love my seafood, however. I had never tried squid, or eel, so I knew it was going to be hard to figure out. So I finally decided on the smoked salmon roll, the crunchy tuna roll, and the killer shrimp roll with that wasabi on it. Wasabi is a lot like horse raddish, and I absolutely love horse raddish, so I figured I’d be at home. When the rolls are brought out, you get chop sticks, which I have never had any experience with, and our plate is nothing more than a block of wood with these leggie things on the bottom. All the rolls everybody ordered came on one big ji-normous block of wood, that they placed in the middle of the table. The rolls were cut up into eight pieces, so Heather had to get mine for me, so I wouldn’t go grabbing everybody else’s. As a result of this, I got to try a piece of somebody’s squid roll, and somebody’s “spank me” eel roll. So you can safely say I got spanked. And what’s more, when you order drinks, they give you a little plate full of ginger leaves. I wanted to try some straight ginger, so I grabbed what I thought was a small piece, and ended up getting the jolt of my life. Note to self, Only eat one leaf of ginger.
All in all, it turned out to be an awesome meal, and an experience I’m sure I’ll be trying again. I was so stuffed after all that that I didn’t have room for desert. I would have loved to have found out what they had for deserts. I heard something about fried ice cream. Maybe I’ll get that next time. As for the rolls, I might do the eel next time, because it tasted awesome. I also might see with the crab and lobster ones taste like.

Last week was a long one for me. Even though I’d finished with all the papers, quizzes and exams, and homework, I still had to run all over the place inbetween my fulltime job and class. So I was most definitely ready for the weekend. I felt bad, because I was so tired with all the running around, that I barely had any energy to spend time with James when I got home. I felt like he came across the border for a month to visit me, and I was neglecting him.
Thursday night was my graduation. It was a good day, because not only was I celebrating having made it through a very long and challenging fifteen month program, but I would finally have weekends to myself, evenings to myself, I could actually have that thing called a social life again, and I’d actually be able to sleep for more than a few hours.
I had to go over to the school right after work for their little closure ceremony, which included a little bonding circle, which I didn’t feel bonded to anyway, making a dream catcher with our circle out of string, and cutting the pieces so each of us could take our piece home, learning about the allumni association, and walking in between two lines of fellow classmates with our eyes closed so they can touch us and whisper things they probably didn’t mean. Then, we had to do our class picture, and take more pictures if we felt compelled to.
The ceremony was nice. We were presented with our deplomas, we had recognition for those who exceled in the class, Mike, our most spunky of the droup, gave a speach and read a rather interesting poem, and two of our hands-on instructors gave their own speaches. There was only one picture, and that was taken after the ceremony by my friend, Heather. I will be posting it at the end of this entry.
The night ended with Heather taking us both out for a drink. We ended up talking about different things, and I discovered that she and I had a lot in common. I’m hoping this could be a good friendship. Only time will tell, I guess.
Friday was just a quiet night here at home. We just hung around here, and I enjoyed the fact that this would be my first weekend of not having to worry about anything school related.
Saturday I did my usual routine of grocery shopping, and then, Kim and Julie came over for a little get-together to celebrate in our own way. Of course alcohol was consumed, and I was already three sheets to the wind by the time they left. We hung around here acting crazy until I couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Yesterday, we slept in until sometime after two, then I got up and made breakfast. I can’t remember when the last time was I was able to do that. Then, I was unproductive for the rest of the day, finally mitivating myself to do laundry last night.
I know it sounds boring, but I wrote this to prove a point, besides the fact that I’m incoherent at 7:00 in the morning. This was my first weekend in a long time when I didn’t have to worry about studying for a test, doing homework, or working on a research paper. Of course, I have to study for the bords in January, but I’ll worry about that after new years. But for now, my birthday is coming up on Tuesday, Christmas is coming up, and I’m going back with James for new years. I’m just going to enjoy that. So without further explanation, I’m going to post the picture, and then call this an entry.