'Til Tuesday

Tuesday is a rancid bitch. Everyone spends their time focusing on the drudgery of Monday, and they don't notice her creeping up. She hides behind Monday and spits in your face when you least expect it. Don't believe me?

It's okay. Most people don't. Not until they've spent a couple of hundred Tuesdays with me, then it just dawns of them and I get the inevitable "oh. my.god. you were right. Tuesday has it out for you".

I'm not quite sure what I ever did to her. I was born on a Tuesday. Maybe that was it? I can't prove it off hand, but I think my mother and my grandmother were born on Tuesdays too. And I can tell you that all of my children were born on Tuesday, save the last one. That's why she's different. I walked through four gates of Hell to have her, and she was born on a Sunday night. Out of five pregnancies, the first one was born on her due date on Tuesday; the second was born five days late on a Tuesday; the third miscarried very early on a Tuesday; and the fourth, my Angie, was born too soon on a Tuesday. You could argue that the blessings of my children negate the evil Tuesday, but then you've obviously never endured 28 hours of back labor.

I also woke up on Tuesday, my 34th birthday with a new left hip.

It's not always the big things though. Sometimes Tuesday kicks my ass with simple, mundane, everyday things like needing to get gas and it's rainy and windy that day. If I am going to find a way to embarrass myself or put my foot in my mouth, it'll probably be on a Tuesday.

The thing is, I'm afraid my Tuesdays are contagious. I might invite someone to spend a couple of hundred Tuesdays to actually witness the assticity of it all with me, but then they start having Tuesdays too. Their former enemy, Monday, retreats slightly, and realizes that bitch is horning in on her turf, screwing up people's days.

Don't be afraid of Mondays, especially if you're close to me. Monday is just amateur fuckery. Things like not having your car start after the weekend is easy, and Monday coasts through it. But the scheming bitch on Tuesday really plans how to screw up the rest of your week.

Don't be afraid of Monday. Be afraid of Tuesday. She's rancid bitch.

Restrained Snark

Has it really been a couple of weeks since I've published? I have been writing, just nothing online. I'm in the midst of a project as I make my way through my (hopefully, and thus far predicted) last deployment. I'm taking up painting again, and working on a writing project on the side. But alas, I have yet to write anymore on my life story.

The unbelievable colors of sunsets call to me. I've bought more paints and canvases, and figured out how to assemble a new easel so that I can capture my favorite time of day; with the deep blues, pinks, and magnificent purples of dusk and the dark outlines of the trees and buildings. Here's to hoping those rusty art skills revive themselves, eh?

As far as my (never to be published =P) book, the writings of my life story, I haven't decided if some of it is just so unbelievable that it could pass for non-fiction and I think that keeps me from writing more of it. The working title is "And The Music Will See You Through". No, I dunno why, but it just seems to fit the story. Is the story so far fetched that Oprah will call me on it? Oh, wait...I don't care. Oprah annoys the crap out of me.

oh, yay...there's my snark. Okay. The world is right again.

Connecting to the connections

Connections. Data connections. Electrical connections. Cable connections. Human connections. Somewhere buried deep in our primal sub-cortex is the instinctual need to connect to other people, to love, to be touched, to be fed, to be needed. To survive, we ~have~ to connect.

I have this long held theory that I need to have at least one incredibly strong, thread-like, connection to one other person on the planet. Like playing telephone, and no matter where I am on the planet or where they are, we each still have the ends of that string. But they can't drop their can, or their string. It's against the rules, because then I feel like I am free falling. You know my Alice in Wonderland thing? Yeah, like that. Free falling down the rabbit hole, and all the while my mother is yelling "OFF with her head!!!"

We are all much more vulnerable than any one of us would like to admit, and with the crazy pace of technology, we are closing ourselves off more and more. Everyone struts around with teflone around them these days, refusing to need or trust anyone else. I do the same with my snarky exterior. But what do we do when we have all this inside of us and it has to go somewhere?

We send out tweets with "fml" or begging our followers to "kmn" in a humorous attempt to tell the world, "alright, I have had what I can take for this very moment, please please reach out to me". Some post status updates the length of blogs on Facebook because they need to be heard, acknowledged, loved just a little more right then. Others of us, do both of those and then write these blogs to offer a little more insight into the noise in our head to the people that care about me...erm, them. Theoretically. Of course.

We all need more than we say we do. Meredith Grey is quoted as saying "More tequila, more love. More anything. More is better". It might do us all some good to take that idea to heart. Find the people that do love you, flaws and all, and reach out to them, trust them, love them a little more. And connect, people, connect.

Round and Round

The more things change the more they stay the same. Uh, yeah kinda. Considering I am back in frickin Florida, about 10 miles from where I lived the first time and headed from Florida to Maryland this summer. Deja Vu. It's 2004 again.

The Navy, in it's infinite cost cutting strategy mindset, refuses to pay to move us to Italy, so we are heading back up the coast again. That's alright with me. I like Maryland, and I love D.C., but I have this really crazy idea that could save the Navy money. It involves getting out of a war we shouldn't have started and can't win, but that's another blog. Or maybe not. I don't think I have much more to say about that come to think of it.

But repeating moves got me to thinking about the way things move in circles sometimes. Or maybe there's some great Groundhog in the sky that has us repeat things until we get them right. So, we're headed back up to Maryland. But this time I get to go house shopping, and this means we move just one more time. This is our last move. Really? Don't lie to me. For reals? No more moving 12,000 pounds of crap across 10 states and driving through the rain with Dera-the-deranged-doggy staring crazily at me in the rear view mirror?

So, after four years of insanity, I look forward to the calm of buying a house in a small town in Maryland and retiring there. I didn't know where "home" was going to end up being. Guess I've already been there :)

Gia, Marya, & Suzanne

"The people I love keep going away from me and it hurts" -Angelina Jolie as Gia, 1998.

Does it mean I'm crazy if I can relate to Gia's loneliness and heartbreak and her willingness to numb the pain however she could? Or if I can see how Marya Hornbacher could starve herself in "Wasted" because the deprivation of food hurt less than her internal pain? Or if I can understand how Winona Ryder's Suzanne could go a little nuts and be so self destructive in "Girl, Interrupted"?

I don't think so. I think it just makes these written characters, all three of them based on real people, all the more real. We all face heartbreak and hurt. I spent two years studying psychology only to emerge with a degree and the understanding that we are all walking around profoundly screwed up in some way. As a mother, I could argue that kids don't come with directions and we simply try to live a good life as we drag them along. As a daughter, I could argue that parents never seem to get it right and 9 times out of 10, people end up walking into their adult life severely screwed up from their parent's mistakes.

In the movie "Gia", we as the audience don't see that defining moment in her life when the tape was recorded in her head. We only see as a young adult that she was terrified of being alone, and when faced with agonizing heartbreak, she numbed it however she could...sex, drugs, work. There is not a single person alive that hasn't faced the same anguish heard in her as she wails in mourning after her mentor's death. If every one of us could let loose a howl of utter and encompassing anguish at the moment our heart breaks, how much good would that do for your soul? At the very least, it would share it with anyone within earshot. Sometimes, that's all you need is to be heard.

Otherwise, one might lock their pain up so deep inside of them that it eats them alive, leaving them starving for breath, or life, or compassion as they starve themselves the way Marya did. "Wasted" is a journey through the doorway of an eating disorder, sharing the tape in her head, and the ordinary beginning of it all. Built on a foundation of dysfunction and finally seeping insidiously into her everyday existence until Marya was left with a lifetime of staring at food and listening to that god-awful tape in her head. I understand that tape. I've heard it. The one that tells you that you're not even worth the time or space it takes to eat a meal.

Suzanne learned that sometimes you have to stop playing the games and putting up the right face, and just be real. It took her over a year in the institution in "Girl, Interrupted" to realize that she had to save herself and in order to do that, she had to stop diving into the bullshit polite society demands and find real.

I can be witty and funny, and even find a way to laugh through things that might otherwise send me towards a bell tower with a rifle, but occasionally I need to be real too. For you. For me.

Funny is driving through New England with Dera the deranged doggy staring at me in the rear view mirror for two days. Not funny is having my heart broken because somehow I ended up the bad guy in a situation I didn't even know existed, and being deceived, and hurt by those I trusted.

Read these books, see these movies (yes, they're all chick movies and stuff) so you can recognize true heartbreak, true hurt. Then you can really see what's worth being laughed at.

No Air

I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't believe that I could ever trust the world less than I already did, but I do now. "The world has teeth and it can bite you with them anytime it wants" - King, my hero when it comes to writing, said it best.

I feel like I'm drowning in a room full of air. I was never taught to believe in somebody or something. I don't have trust issues because I had the rug pulled out from under me. I never had a rug. I feel like I have spent my life floating along like a scuba diver with just enough air. Riding the currents, rising towards the surface where there is light and air sometimes. Sinking into the dark, airless murk other times. But now, I feel like I have run out of air.

Trust is a fragile thing, earned through much difficulty and hard work, through time. It's also easily broken, and when it's broken, it's usually shattered into a million pieces, almost impossible to rebuild. Taking longer each time, leaving damage that gets worse every single time it's thrown to the ground.

I don't trust many people, but right now I don't feel like I can completely trust anyone. I want to. I do, but I feel like I got sucker punched in the chest yesterday. I was betrayed, lied to, dismissed, and then told I was too fragile for the truth.

Should I be outraged at that assessment of me? No. Am I fragile? Sometimes. The truth is because of my medical issues, stress and heartache physically cause me pain, so no - this was not a better option because my heart hurts right now. My heart is broken. And I hurt. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

I can't breathe. I don't have air -love and trust- to seep into me. To feed my soul. I can't breathe

Alright fine, I'll address national smoochy-woochy day....

I've heard it said that the secret to a long term marriage making it through the rough times and surviving is summed up only in the idea that neither one of you pull a suitcase down from the attic on the same day. There will be hard times, there will be days when you pretty much decided that you can't take anymore of his particular brand of asshattery, or he can't possibly be subjected to your asshattery any longer (it's not you babe, it me). But it really does condense itself down to just that basic idea: Don't Give Up On The Same Day.

After almost 12 years, some of them involving the toughest things I have ever been through,along with the typical bumps in the road....wedding day (fa la la), kids (what the hell were we thinking?!), and moving....lots of moving, I can share a little bit about my personal journey and how we've survived more than 10 Mid-February honey-bunch-sugar-plum-pumpy-umpkin exchanges and why these days I really could care less about V-Day.

Almost 12 years ago (in May, actually) I started dating someone I'd met while out dancing and we hit it off well. For the first 9 months, I'm sure we were insufferable until we moved in together. I can say that for the first several months we ....umm....didn't go out much. We spent a lot of time at his apartment, but I can tell you the first movie we went to see was "The Horse Whisperer" and the first slow song we danced to was "Love of my Life" by Sammy Kershaw and Teri Clark. And that "our song" has always been Goodnight Sweetheart by David Kersh.

We were the affectionate, in love, over the top romantic couple that made most people around us retch. But we went through a lot that is sort of earmarked for destroying people, and marriages. Especially if either one of them were young and vulnerable. Paul and I lost a little girl about 2 1/2 years into our marriage and, simply put, it flattened us each individually. But we came back...after years of hurting, we reached to each other and not away, and that proved to be just as important of a point as the not giving up on the same day thing.

So, I have to wonder sometimes about the not being over-the-top romantic tendencies I have now. Does that mean I don't love him? No, and I also believe that it's not about being in love for 40 years, it's about finding reasons to love that person and fall in love with them over and over. By nature, and experience, I have become the kind of person that internalizes everything...both good and bad (leading to my d.h. to ask me to please start writing again, apparently I am more livable when I'm writing). Do the people that express love in loud and outrageous way have something I'm missing? Or is it really okay to just love quietly?

Which bring me back to this ridiculous pink and red Hallmark holiday. Is it really designed for those that have been together less than six months and are therefore in the still nauseating stage? I think so. I don't think my d.h. needs a reason to buy me chocolates, diamonds, or flowers. In fact, I'd rather he did it for no reason at all. It's kind of like doghouse flowers...don't wait until you screw up to do something nice. Love me a little bit every day. Then I have no need for a silly heart shaped holiday.

Music = Freedom

Music is my air. This isn't news to those of you that know me, even casually, but especially if you know me well. There isn't a time in my life that I don't remember music not speaking to me. More simply put, music has always been with me, in me, and speaking for me. I was one of those kids that had my mom buy me a 45 when I was 5 instead of a toy. I had toys and dolls too, don't get me wrong, but I started collecting music in kindergarten.

The beats, the rhythm, in music offers a freedom found no where else in my world for me. I wanted to be a professional dancer and started classes by the time I was 7. I got in trouble when I was about 8 and a half for telling my dance instructor that I thought I should be in the next level jazz class because I thought I was good enough and age shouldn't matter. I didn't get in the class, but I did get in a lot of trouble for "being rude".

Gaga has a line in one of her songs stating "find your freedom in the music" and it dawned on me as I was driving around listening to "dance in the dark" on "The Fame Monster" lo(ow)dly that I indeed find freedom in music.

I then began to wonder if any of this accounts for being pissed off at the world sometimes. It's one thing to realize in your late teens that you'll never be a dancer, it's another thing entirely to have a hip replacement at 33 and see a lot more taken away from you than you were ready to give up. I was a dancer in another life, and the amazing thing is it has helped protect me post surgery in ways that amaze my doctors when it comes to addressing my limitations.

I have been told by several of my closest peeps that I am only truly free and happy on the dance floor and the joy in watching me dance is seeing that on my face and in my heart. I find my freedom in the music.

Although I have never written a song, and I can only play the guitar or the drums bad enough to get kicked out of any rehearsal, I can remix music. I can recognize beat transitions, and I can deejay better than 95% of the people I have seen or ever heard. My dream job would be to be a program director for a radio or satellite station with the freedom to really change how music get played on the airways.

There is not a time in my life that doesn't have a musical connection. Music speaks and breathes for me. It breathes life into me. Find YOUR freedom in the music.

Snarky? me? whaaat?

My new year's resolution was to be less snarky. I initially set out to be more patient and compassionate in the new year because a) I figured all that enlightenment in college had just pissed me off and b) these qualities do not come easy to me. Six weeks or so into said new year's resolution, it is pretty much gone the way of most people's new diets and workout plans. Which, by the way, neither one of those did I embark on, I know my limitations.

Is it better to be educated, enlightened, and aware of the struggles in the world today ( read: aware of other people's raging stupidity)? Is ignorance really bliss? I haven't figured out if my frustration with the common slime in the gene pool really results from a college education. Or is it really just part of getting older and grumpier? Lots of questions go through my head, and not as many answers.

I know why I am not easily a compassionate and patient person. I wasn't raised with any example of that. I have spent my whole life pushing myself, and the only example I had was being told I needed to do more and be better. Excuses, compassion, and patience were not found in my childhood.

I have lived, I have really...really lived, but with that comes the fact that sometimes I have had to be tough, and it's almost easer to toughen up than it is to soften back up after that, isn't it?

So, I keep trying to find a softer, less snarky Cris. Not an easy task, I assure you. Some days she's a little easier to spot than others, like the elusive white rabbit for Alice. And yes, I'm usually running around hollering "I'm late!!"