A Story

(pardon the fuzziness of a lot of these images i am still trying to learn to use my camera)

No!!!!!! No no no no no. Not again.

I CAN NOT believe this. I went to bed last night trying to ignore the fact that my jaw was aching on the right side of my face--opposite the ear that's been sick for a week now. By 1am I was tossing and turning with my right ear throbbing so that it made me weak and sick in my stomach. Now, here I am with the fog settled back over me, dull and achy and an ear ache full throttle in my right ear as the left one is finally, finally starting to heal. This is over a week now I am so drained and exhausted I can not tell you. So what are you doing on blogger, dear? It pains me to lay down, laugh, speak or eat. I have no tv.

I feel like I am losing mind.

Everything IS Amazing

Ohhh my god did this picture make me laugh out loud. I found it on a link to "yoga" on the writer Susanna Breslin's impecably challenging The Reverse Cowgirl blog--is she sensational or id or truth we hate to see or humbled brilliance wrapped up in ego's disguise--oh right that's the same thing...Ahhh whatever whatever she's got me hooked and this picture, this morning, made me laugh out loud and think of my pal Amy. When she used to live under me some 7 or 8 years ago we made a regular deal out of calling one another AssHead as a means of reminder: You're taking your self too seriously again, my friend. Wrapped as you are around your own chord....

Amy and Me in Ocean City being cheesy bc that's what we do best,

(besides being assheads)

Anyhow later today--after much sleep-age, (I finally took a sick day and didn't move really, at all, from sleep position until perusing facebook about an hour ago) I found this video, compliments of my ol homies Drew and Serio, both from highschool days. Seriously, do yourself a favor and go to youtube and watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus
It's the comic Louis CK on Conan and the title is "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy". It too made me laugh out loud because it reminded me of a philosophy I learned about through the writer/sage/astrologist Rob Brezny, called Pronoia.

From wikipedia:
Pronoia Philosophy
"The simplest definition of Pronoia may be to say that it is the opposite of paranoia. A person suffering from paranoia suspects that persons or entities (e.g. governments) conspire against them. A person enjoying pronoia feels that the world around them conspires to do them good."

And from Rob Brezny, on how Pronoia works:
"Bear in mind that you are a great wizard. You can use your powers to practice white magic on yourself instead of the other kind. The most basic way to do that is to concentrate on naming, savoring, and feeling gratitude for the blessings you do have—your love for your kid, the pleasures of eating the food you like, the sight of the sky at dusk, the entertaining drama of your unique fate. Don't ignore the bad stuff, but make a point of celebrating the beautiful stuff with all the exuberant devotion you can muster." Check him out, the link I included takes you to another excerpt from his book that is so worth reading.

So, Wow. Thanks Universe, for the reminder....as for me, back I go to choosing amazing...

(!!)

Late night rants: love and security and fear and other fuzzy stuff

It's 2:37 am. I've been up since midnight, after going to bed at 9pm with my ear so full of pressure that the bingbing-ing pain of it actually made me nauseous and sort of teary, whiny. So now I am up with no hearing, or much less feeling, in my left face, several Trisquits down my gullet and two hours worth of drymyspaceeyes. I have an 8:30 am meeting which means I'm gonna need to be "getting up" here soon, anyway in about three and a half hours or so.

Obvious sign your a dumb-ass, number 1: I took one of these IQ tests that pop-up in the margins on facebook and myspace. So I'm going along all smooth like throwing myself props like oh yea girl you got this and patting me on the back and what not, ahhh this is so easy I always knew how smart I really was yadayada. Then I get to the part that's like submit the test--which of course takes you to a page where you have to fill out all your info etc and give an email address--for which I keep one specific to any sort of Internet based billpay page/page that is likely to send me lotso spam--so, still I think nothing of it! Until next thing I am at a page with literally 25 "free" offers for things like GPS navigators and Sam's Club shopping cards, of which you are required to sign up for at least one. At this point I finally hear the dumbass bubble POP and realize that the basic test of your IQ is just how far you're willing to click in to this ridiculous maze of propaganda....uhhh duh

So, my cousin Erin's post from yesterday over at Infinite and Endless has really got me thinking. Or, more precise, she hit on a theme that has, over the past several months, had me thinking. I saw He's Just Not That Into You over the weekend. I know, I know, just what I thought: typical fluffy chicflick, right? Well, yes, to an extent. But! I was actually impressed with several of the fairly realistic tensions they were able to portray in the story lines. It ended up being so the movie really hit a chord with me. Case in point: Jen Anniston's character comes to this realization that after 7 years her man, with whom she clearly has a nice, healthy thing going, has no intention of marrying her. So she leaves. A bit later we see her trying on a bridesmaid gown for her sister's wedding. The conversation turns to being single. And then the sad puppy faces, the sour looks, the pity! Begins. All the oh don't worries you'll find someone. And she, clearly, is frustrated. Now, without giving away the ending of her little vignette (the movie has like 6 or 7, or maybe more? little co-stories going that all are some way or another inner-related among the various six degrees of character associations) I have to say how vindicated I felt seeing her vocalize this distress. She even, or so you at first think, goes through this (ok, yes, rather pro-femi to the anti-male degree) pretty nihilist reaction to the dud husbands surrounding her via her sister and girlfriends at every corner. I for one fully and totally related to this breakdown, or maybe breakthrough, of identity crisis she was undergoing.

Seriously. I can't tell you the number of times in the past four months that I have just wanted to cry out to all sorts of casual and also quite intimate relations IT'S OK!! I'M OK WITHOUT A MAN!! I APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN BUT DID IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU THAT THE PURSUIT OF LOVE IS NOT MY FINAL MOTIVATION OR EVEN MY HOPED FOR DESTINATION!?!? IN FACT, AT THIS POINT, IT'S NOT EVEN A MOTIVATION, AT ALL!?!?!?

So many friends and loved ones have either blatantly and/or indirectly expressed this concern and also, and of course I realize it's out of love and care, so many times there is pity, and even flat unhidden looks of downright fear for me when people hear that no, I have not worked things out with Brandon yet. It's got me so that for months now I am wandering around in this fairly numbed state of incredulity. All I can think sometimes is are there any people out there, anywhere, who do not define security and/or self-contentment by the condition of having a warm body by their side?

Yes of course I think those scary nighttime thoughts like oh dear I'm almost 32 and no kids yet...oh god what if I never get married now etc etc. I can't seem to help them it's almost like they are programmed in. But mostly I think things like wow I am so glad I dont have kids because I really, truly dont want them right now. And also how come more people dont try being single in their 30s, when they really, finally, are getting a chance to know who they are? What they like and dont like, what they want and dont...And also this thought, which I shared with Brandon about a week ago: I am aware lately how all of my life has been shaped by my saying yes to whatever is placed in front of me on my path. Yes to school, yes to jobs, yes to relationships, yes to Chestertown, yes to sobriety, yes yes yes. And none of it has been bad, but with the exception of travelling at 19, 20 and 27, I've taken very little time to actually pause and distinguish, and then choose, what I want. And so during these quiet little months of self-imposed alone time at Chop that is what I am doing. Learning to distinguish what I want, so I, who puts my heart and bones, my soul and full breath in to whatever is in front of me, can make choices as to those things that are going to receive all that energy.

It's hard sometimes, being alone here. Teena's in Thailand right now and I am sick with a gnarly earache and yucky cold. And I am certain there is a ghost, or ghosts, in this 1800's house. And lots of times I am so, so lonely. Which is different from being alone. I am very social, this is something I take for granted about myself and so, at times, forget. But I am learning my own rhythms, unique to me. When I need quiet time, fresh air, sleep, to write, to dream. I've learned to cry, a lot. This sounds melancholy maybe, but god there is nothing like a good sob to cleanse your insides out. I've learned, yet again, that to sit with fear is the opposite of submitting to it.

But I still remain puzzled by the insistence of so much of the outside world to want to see a person paired up. Lately I've even been questioning the veracity of romantic love at all. (Oh god here I go I'm really gonna say it.) I mean at the end of the day, is it anymore than just chemical reactions--hormonal--coupled with a quality of comfortability that comes in having a companion on which to rely? It all seems rather common to me.

Which brings me to my final fear, alone in the dark. What the hell's with me, that common will never ever be enough?

On Tribe, and Remembering

So my cousin Erin posted this really great piece last night over at Infinite and Endless. She is a dream. Here is a story:

It was end of June and I was eight-years-old an age still young enough to not really know time. Therefor June equaled one thing and that was Summertime which equaled one thing and that was Infinity. Long days of playing with the neighborhood kids and the hot melty tar of the driveway burning our feet.

Or, the beach. The beach the beach the beach, hot sand on my tender feet and the cold at night in my parents room under the window air-unit that made my sunburned aloe-face feel so smooth and cool. Satiation: when all is right with the world. How salt and sand for me have so much to do with this. We lived in the summer in a house crowded on the floors at night by the blow-up mattresses of all my aunts and uncles. My Pop, "The Colonel", was still alive then and these were the very ends of days that I did not know then were instructing me. Filling my life with my own inner quest for understanding of who I am. And how, for some very few of us, when we live the definition of something ambiguous as identity the knowledge of the details of this at once fulfill us, and challenge us. It's like the more I gain awareness of my outline the more I consistently find that the very next step, for a person like me, is to expand it. So I'm 8, it's summertime 1985. My grandparent's house at the shore is overloaded with family and we are loud, throat-pitched people and game-players and story-tellers every one. The nights are full with poker and smoke and though I am close at 8 to too old I still want to sit on dad or Uncle Kevin's lap if I'm allowed when it's late enough that they talk that funny low sidetalk out of their mouths and I get to laugh like I get it with my eyes on the ice melting in their glasses. In the daytime I have Barbies which I'm also near grown out of by now and also this glorious little baby cousin Esther she is fatcheeked and nubby with a scrunchy diaper and laughs when I retrieve her pacifier for her only to throw it across the room again and again. And also, there is electric in the air that reminds me of ice cream: the babies. The babies are coming, the babies are here.

Esther was first, in September, which made her near a year that June. And then Jackie, oh Jackie. My Grandmother's high-pitch panic sound when they brought her through the front door of the beach house in the car-seat Uncle Bill carried with both hands. That beam of his, definitive deliciousness of a face light-up specific to Uncle Bill: the light and flash around his broad teeth and Irish eyes. It was a surprise to Gram that they were even coming with the new baby so young, and like everything new Grammy took it loud and wrong at first. When I looked to the adults to understand what was wrong: in a hush from woman to woman, the secret. Jackie's only two weeks old. As if this should have explained everything. To this day this is the way of the McMullen. The unspoken drama that enwrapped certain things, the look in an eye over glasses or the intone of the fold of the words. The subtle emotional infliction that went with the late nights, the crowded kitchen mornings full of food, natural as all other parts of who we were: the seriousness of Life, edged as it could be with tragedy. That whole old-world post-immigrant thing, protective of the what-could-come and the unseen. That pigshit way some of us have that rebelled in the face of such unspokens. Existent today only in sighs or flickers in the eye, or if you're like me in a flash that reads Challenge.

So Esther and Jackie have arrived, not just to the Pop and Gram's beachhouse at The Pines but to the world! And too, the excitement of the Mary's: Uncle Tim's wife, pregnant-out-to-there, so you could see her belly-button buckled out from all the pressure through her shirt. In the kitchen, on the cool linoleum Tim's Mary stood back of Uncle Paul's Mary, redhead of curls down the shoulders of Paul's Mary and those big oversized rose glasses and that smoky husk of her laugh there even then. The power of her, that energy that used to surround her--and Katie, the baby inside who would come in October, already outsized like her mom.

It was barely a week or so later that Tim's Mary went. We were home now, respectively: all the Aunts and Uncles and kids tucked away in their plastic-sided houses in their burgeoning suburbs splayed out this way and that from Grammy and Pop's South Baltimore--Church Street--home. Making it. It was July, the first week, and hot so that my legs stuck to the grey leather of dad's caddie in the little bit of time it took to open the backseat door and get my seatbelt clicked. We were on our way to Tim and Mary's house ShadyHillLane. I remember even then the magic that surrounded the very words of that place. Maybe it was the pine trees that put a softened haze over the bricks of their house and muted out the rest of the world. Whatever it was,whatever it is, their house still has a magic effect on me, one of peace, to this day. And here is what I remember, walking in and the muffled sound of adult and adult talk, then dad saying to me you can't go up right now sis you're Aunt Mary's breastfeeding. And then the softness that for Uncle Tim has always passed as his way, uncharacteristic, of pride. No, it's ok, Kel can go up.

And walking in, and seeing Erin being drawn away from Aunt Mary's swollen chest, the baby so tiny and wrapped she was barely there, and then her being offered out into the air to me. Their big high bed so tall to me then, the nights and nights of giggles and laughter my brother and I had shared with Tim and Mary tucked in those sheets. How it all seemed so different in that moment as they settled me in against the pillows: the curtains pulled so that the room was with a subtle roseyellow glow. The warmth, the pure delicate coziness of the those sheets and that bed. Getting pulled in to that, encirlced by that wonder, that fine gentle bliss of moment to moment allure: awareness of fragility, ohh, of Life and tender birth. And holding her, my little cousin, for the first time. I was eight years old, wispy blond often red-faced bossy but so easy to be embarrassed and extra sensitive, and also a wee thing, bony and small. And the baby, Erin a little-bit of a thing, so small, so small! The perfect size for me, she melded right in to my arms and against my heart and close in to my chest. This was, for the first time, what it was to be inside of something so very big that even then I realized bigness has to do with being small.

Anyway, Erin, if you don't mind a public post rather than a comment in response to your blog: I feel you, sister. This call towards Life, this inherent sense that we should be enlarging the nest. And at once this conflicting perplexed sense, uncatagorized, a nameless feeling of unquenched calling. So potent it's as if it's of our blood. Yes, how it strangely seems to come from that very same nest. So it goes my sister, my friend. So it goes!!

Amen amen amen.

Me and some of the cuz's, Nov 08, or as cuz Pat calls us: The McMafia