So… that was randomly fitting. Not amused that it showed up today, though.
Yesterday, I was talking to a coworker about a coworker that left. Former coworker once told me that I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was.
I never told him that the scar between my eyebrows is from a cigarette. I was five or six when my mother chose to use my forehead as an ashtray.
But. Yeah.
Just because I don’t talk about all those “that which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger” moments, doesn’t mean I don’t have them.
Back to the scar through, because that was the trigger.
Current coworker said that he’d be willing to go back and fix his mistakes. I said I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.
When he asked why, I didn’t really have an answer.
I just wouldn’t.
All the shit I went through - the chance to fix things - to have my father live longer - all of it… nope. Wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
(Which makes me question my mental health, but that’s nothing new.)
There’s no way I’d trade my scars for better ones
Yeah.
I had this dream last night about my mother. I NEVER dream about her. When I dream about family it’s always my father… and it’s always the nightmare of finding him dead in his apartment.
I can’t even remember all the details, but it was upsetting.
LIKE SUPER UPSETTING.
I am obviously not as tough as I think I am if that dream rocked my world… and not in a good way.
Other than the dad-mares, I’e never woken up crying before.
I was back to being young me, pre-divorce, pre-death…
I’ve been lost and I’ve been sinking / Broken, coming back together / I’ve been stalling, slipping, falling…
Fuck, dude. You have no idea.
She fucking broke me and I relieved some of her greatest hits (yup, I went there) last night.
It took moving out and her dying before I could finally start to heal.
I’ve been lost and I’ve been broken / Finally coming back together
I’ve never been suicidal, but I’ve gone to dark, dangerous, places. She sent me there. Often.
I don’t wanna be afraid of my thoughts / I don’t wanna be scared of my shadow
It’s taken a lot of work to put her behind me… but, of course, I’m not free of her. I doubt I’ll ever be.
The part that I always come back to, the part that I can’t shake, is who my mother was before she became a monster.
She graduated from UConn with a degree in something like Home Ec - child development or some such nonsense.
She was a social worker.
A perfect PTA mom.
Everybody looks for love where it’s not // Everybody wants to know they matter
I don’t think I was ever truly loved.
I don’t think I ever mattered.
The pull of the bottle was stronger than the pull of her only child.
Sooooooooooo…
I’m already in this stupid bad headspace because of the fucking dream and my iPhone decides to play this during my commute.
I better dream of fucking puppies and unicorns tonight.
I may write multiple shitty drafts, but I’ve never written anything this bad.
Soooooooo. A lot has happened in two months.
The one I find most amusing is that I posted my 10 favourite R.E.M. songs on Facebook and somebody caught the fact that both Good Advices and Wendell Gee were on the list.
Somebody’s been paying attention. If you don’t know what the significance is… well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. (Says “Wendell” who blogs at “goodadvices”.com and has an email address of “wendellgee1985”.)
The second one is that we fired and hired a CPA firm on Friday and then hired a new AR person this morning.
I AM SO EXCITED.
I know I’m an asshole, but I am so glad to be letting go of my AR person. I’ve have a problem with her since I started there. Her emails are typically written in redneck and are terribly embarrassing to read. As her boss, it’s HORRIFYING to come across these in my inbox. She’s such a bad reflection on me and my department… and I’ve let my feelings known. She’s also incapable of following instructions and refuses to take responsibility for anything. My number one rule is Own. Your. Shit. and she refuses. So… we’re bringing someone on board who will.
- - - - - - - - - - -
There’s so much I do - and don’t - want to talk about that I can’t even find a place to begin or a way to separate the two.
The major thing is: Mitch McConnell is a fucking asshole. But that’s really neither here nor there… it’s not like we didn’t know it.
I don’t know. I’m alive. I’m still working weekends. I’ve gotten better at running more frequently. I’m studying for two major exams. I’m focusing on Ukrainian.
Fun Fact: New Britain, CT is pronounced NOOOOO BRI ’ IN! (Yup.)
Oh, the stories I could tell about the… interesting evenings spent at the Sting nightclub in Noooooooooooo Bri ’ in. Pansy Division, H20, the Bosstones, the Lemonheads, Green Day, Spring Heeled Jack, and BiG MiSTAKE (I think. SHJ/BM could have been Toad’s Place). I don’t know how many shows I saw there, but I know it was a shit ton. It was a cool little club; the Casino at Hampton Beach reminds me of it.
Because work has been too crazy, I haven’t been doing much of anything fun.
BUT.
I did decide to listen a little more actively to my favourite Ukrainian bands. So now I’ll try to write down what I hear and then google translate it to see if I’m right.
Occasionally, things go a wee bit sideways.
Picture it: It’s 7:30 AM, my favourite song comes on and I’ve just pulled into my office’s parking lot. I park in my spot and listen to the music / read the Cyrillic version of the lyrics and try to guess what I’m hearing.
ME: What the fuck? Is he singing about a banana? I mean, the girl’s alone and what girl doesn’t like to be alone with a “banana”... (*snicker*)
LYRICS TRANSLATE: Ha ha! I bet you’re even more confused now: I’m looking back, someone satisfies own tiredness by bananas,
LYRICS TRANSLATE: OH! I have another English translation: I’m looking back, someone with bananas reduces strain
GOOGLE TRANSLATE: You always accuse me of being drunk. Go fuck yourself… with a banana: I look back, someone is banishing fatigue with bananas.
ME: Well, fuck. Google Translate was right. That’s what? One out of elebenty gatrillion lyrics?
ME: Oh, wait. I don’t understand this line at all. Not a damn word.
GOOGLE TRANSLATE: My time to shine, bitches! *clears throat* *cracks knuckles*: AND YOU DON’T EVEN BLOW YOUR MUSTACHE, YOU ARRANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!
ME: Go home, Google Translate. You’re drunk.
GOOGLE TRANSLATE: Fuck you. I am not drunk.
LYRICS TRANSLATE: *whispers* And you don’t give a damn, you’re arranging your affairs
GOOGLE TRANSLATE: Fuck both of you. I’m going home.
And here’s the song that brought me so much amusement the other day…. enjoy!
Одна
День як день, ніч як ніч.
Ніч як ніч, день як день.
Нарешті, знову ти повертаєшся додому. Дивлюсь назад, хтось бананами гамує втому, (mmmm… banana)
Хтось щось читає, хтось в метро втикає,
Лиш вона одна біля вікна тебе чекає.
І бачить – ти ходиш поруч тими ж дворами,
Через перехід праворуч, потім біля брами.
Можливо ти зупинишся, поглянеш – третій поверх зліва.
Така дурниця, а вона була б щаслива.
Ні, думаєш, як все дістало, життя замало,
І доля всі надії, сподівання розігнала.
Куди ідеш, що буде далі – питання,
Над якими зараз думати, повір, не варто.
Приспів:
Вона одна, вона одна, сидітиме біля вікна до темна.
Гукатиме тебе й мене, а час мине...
Вона одна, вона одна, є-ее.
Гукатиме тебе й мене, а час мине...
День як день, змінилося все давно.
День у день життя – кольорове кіно.
Ніч як ніч, як сяйво запалених свіч.
День як день, а ніч як ніч.
Вона чекала тільки на тебе, чуєш? А ти і в вус не дуєш, ти побут свій лаштуєш.(yes, blow that mustache)
Кохаєш свою машину і маєш стиль.
Отримав все, що хотів, доклав зусиль.
Чому ж тоді сумно – її немає поруч,
Як там: брама, другий будинок, потім праворуч?
Сходами летиш, третій поверх зліва,
Невже відчинить, невже буде щаслива?
Невже досягнув ти бажаної мети?
Все нормально: шампанське, квіти.
Ще хвилину стоїш, дзвоник лунає.
Ну хто там? – нікого немає.
Приспів
День як день, липень, листопад, квітень,
За вікном кожен з нас її мішень.
Ніч як ніч, в темряві вогонь світить.
Ніч як ніч, да, день як день.
Мрії прозорі в долонях, чоловічі забобони,
Довести, що ти найкращий, щурячі перегони.
Сіре місто, зранку тісто, ввечорі погони,
Поїзд далі не їде, звільніть, будь ласка, вагони.
В тому річ, що блакитними очима,
Ніч за плечима, дивиться дівчина.
Знає, що настане день, прийде весна,
Зрозумієш, що чекала вона одна.
Можливо буде день, да, прийде весна,
Ти зрозумієш, що чекала вона одна.
Скоро буде день, ага, прийде весна,
Зрозумієш, що чекала...
it’s hard to write an AU when everything in canon is basically an AU
A couple of weeks ago, the Indigo Girls performed Rites of Passage in it’s entirely.
OMMFG
That album.
That motherfucking album.
R.E.M. might be the soundtrack of my life, but that album?
That album was my life for several years.
It was so weird to sit and listen to it performed live.
All those memories.
Fuck, man, the 1992 version of me was so fucking young. So fucking raw. So fucking hurt and angry.
And there’s not enough room in this world for my pain.
Signals cross, and love gets lost…
Forget about your ego.
Forget about your pride.
And you will never have to compromise
I left my anger in a river running Highway 5.
New Hampshire, Vermont, bordered by college farms, hubcaps, and falling rocks.
Voices in the woods and the mountaintops.
I’m not ready for the dead to show it’s face…
It’s so weird - that’s the year my mother died, that year was nothing but shitty experience after shitty experience - but this fucking album.
It’s still one of my favourites.
Which is odd considering my relationship with Bowie is much the same as my relationship with this album in it’s own kind of way.
It’s time for Battle of the Fandoms IV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(The battlecasts are the best part, tbh. Where else can you get quality commentary and awesome Facebook translations?)
This time I’m on Run Magic Run. (Reads completely different with the commas, doesn’t it? English is amazing.) It’s a Labyrinth themed team. My other choice was Hamilton (Talk Less, Run More), but at the last minute decided to give up my place on the team to someone else.
I think I’ve talked about my love-hate relationship with Bowie before, but here, around the the 28th anniversary of my mother’s death and the accompanying reminder of the restraining order from my aunt, it might be time for a retelling…
If any of her family is reading this, well, I can promise you that you don’t know the whole truth about your sainted godmother or mother. I could bitch about my aunt all day, but I only want to talk about Bowie. (And maybe his enormous goblin.)
Where do I start?
My aunt was always there for me when I was growing up. Her house was an oasis, a place of safety in the maelstrom that was life with my mother. It was, honestly, my favourite place to be.
She had three kids, a boy and two girls. The boy, forever in my heart as Inky, is also forever four years old. In a weird quirk of life, I am 7 years older than the middle child and 14 years older than the youngest. Middle child and I, I thought, always got along pretty well. In some ways, she was more like a younger sister than a cousin.
But I digress.
Home. Safety. There for me. All things that were important when I was growing up. All things I was desperately in need of, despite my father’s best efforts to provide them at our house.
There was always music at her house. ALWAYS.
I grew up with Bowie, the Stones, Mott the Hoople, Led Zeppelin, all the great classic rock. Then, hair metal joined the never ending rotation and I developed a love for Poison, Def Leppard, and strangely, Adam Ant. (I might be one of the few people in the world who knew all the lyrics to his albums.)
But Bowie and Mick Jagger… those were her men. They were almost always on repeat when the radio wasn’t on.
As much as I loved the Stones, it was Bowie that I really connected with.
Maybe it was his shifting personas. Maybe it was the two coloured eyes (which aren’t actually two different colours, by the way). Whatever it was, when I was at home, I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Let me remind you, back in the 80s and 90s it wasn’t nearly as easy as it is now. I had to save my allowance, get a ride to a record store, find something I didn’t already own. Now, if I’m craving a particular song, I drop two bucks, get points on my credit card, and move on with my life.
My parents were officially divorced, I think on March 13th, and then my mother died on March 18th. My aunt got something like 90 percent of the estate… none of which my mother rightfully had any claim to since she never worked. (That comment the other day about leaving nothing in death is an actual line in her will and I read it in a fucking book someone gave me. Fuck public records.That book was supposed to bring me peace after my father died and I ended up ripping it in pieces and setting it on fire. I also hired a lawyer to send a strongly worded letter, but that’s another story.)
My father had to take my aunt to court for a share of the estate - CT state law said that as a minor I was due a portion - and I got $2K. Nothing compared to the thousands she walked away with. I found out later that she also managed to get the other 10% from the other person named in the will…
And then there was the restraining order.
Have you ever been served?
It is a fucking amazing experience.
I highly recommend it.
As her story goes, she was being overwhelmed with the amount of mail my father was sending to her and she asked her attorney to ask my dad if he would send that stuff directly to the lawyer handling the estate. The lawyer “misunderstood” and well… the rest is history.
She also forgot my birthday that year.
I always made the excuse that it was because my mother’s wake was on the 20th and her funeral the 21st, but FUCK, WOMAN. It would have taken two seconds to wish me a happy birthday. (Then again, five years after my uncle’s death, the grave stone still wasn’t engraved with his information. FIVE YEARS.)
Then there was the time when she blamed Youngest Cousin for playing with the answering machine and deleting all the messages I would leave.
In the end, I don’t know who walked away from who first, but the relationship between us was over.
I mourned it for a long time and I broke up with Bowie. It was too painful to listen to him.
Even today, twenty-ish years later, it’s rare that I listen to his music. I generally do when I’m sad and need to cry. All the pain and confusion of 1992 - today, really, comes pouring out. There are few things that can create a spontaneous crying fit, but I always reach for Bowie at those times.
I rarely play Bowie when I’m happy.
I never forgive and I never forget. Not sure if that’s learned behaviour (thanks, mom!) or just hardwired in my DNA, but I don’t.
Especially when someone fucks me over.
So… what does this have to do with Racery? Why would I pick a movie that heavily features Bowie (and his enormous goblin)?
Because, simply, running when I hate the fucking world is the quickest way to calm me down and make sure that I don’t go manic. Anger is my default mode during mania - and being pissed is normally the way to trigger a visit to that other side of the equation. Mania makes me do and say things I should regret, but since I have no filter even when I’m stable, I normally just shrug it off. Whatever I wouldn’t say to your face (because manners), I’ll happily do when I’m manic.
Rage running. It’s a thing.
With all my IRL races cancelled or postponed, I’ve been slacking. This might be the thing I need to get motivated again.
Thank you, aunt.
I know you come for the scathing commentary on my life and openness about the bipolar, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t include the long awaited commentary on Bowie’s massive goblin.
