ahhhhhh…..

things are much better.

really, i was only pathetic for about the first half of the day he left. i took him to lunch and got to hear about the cool stuff he will be doing, the going away party his friends had for him, how excited he was about things, and how stoic he was about the whole thing and i was feeling better.

i have heard from him a few times and he is adjusting as well as can be expected. he fubar’d and forgot a few critical things like towels and soap =) he saw a moose, he’s been up at midnight and the sky was light like 7am, and he’s having a good time. he’s playing his guitar and reading books in his downtime. i am at peace with him being away from home and how awesome an experience this will be for him.

i am getting to know s better, and liking it a lot. we shared a delicious kiss the other night as i was leaving her apartment and i wanted so much more….but the timing wasn’t right. we might be there soon, but it feels good to be wanted, to be pursued, to have someone want to be with me. she’s soft, she’s caring, and it feels good. oh yeah, i already said that huh? she wants more of my time than i have to give, but if that’s my largest complaint, then life is pretty good.

i will write more later…maybe =)

that’s an update, for now =)

peace.

empty nest…

today is sadness for me on many different levels.

for the last nineteen years, there hasn’t been a single action i have taken or thought that has gone through my head where i didn’t consider my children. it’s just something that IS, when you are a parent. every meal i ate, every action i took, every penny i spent, there was always a thought there that was "should i buy something for the kids instead?", "how will this affect the kids?"….

today my son leaves on his grand adventure to alaska. i called and talked to him this morning and he told me i could cry and then he laughed at me. i would expect nothing less from him. part of this feels like me being a drama queen. of course i will still worry about him, but he is an adult now, and he’s going to be on his own in a place very far away from me. i can’t help him anymore, i can’t be there for him as his mommy, the person who knows and does everything for him. there’s part of me that says "THANK GODDESS"….but the nurturing part of me cries out at the unfairness of losing part of this role i have been in for so long.

i asked if he would call me and let me know he made it safely. he said "probably not, but if it’s important to you, i will try." yes, ass, it is important to me =)

i am being silly and melodramatic, but it’s very real now too. i am one of those people, when faced with something heinous who always hopes for a small amount of time that if i just ignore something, it will go away. the concept of this is so ironic in this case, it isn’t even funny. i have ignored it, and yes, he’s going away. heh.

things will be fine. i know they will be. it’s only the summer. he’s certainly gone away on his own before. he’s capable of taking care of himself. i have done this before. i have trained him well, mostly. he is supremely self-sufficient. he’s been on his own in many respects for a long time, but this seems so final. things will never be the same for him or for us again. even if he lives with us again when he gets home, he will come home with a new perspective and new eyes. he will see me as less than he did, because that’s what happens when your worldview expands. it isn’t until later that you appreciate your parents fully, i think. perhaps that is what is hurting me….being diminished somehow in his eyes. i don’t know…..

i also think back to all the mistakes i’ve made. i think "i should have been more involved, i should have given more of myself, i should have been closer with him in recent years, i should have…." i think of all the things i think i have done wrong, i think  i should have gotten us more counseling, i should have asked that he and d get along better. but really, none of that matters now.

gosh, i really need to stop crying. i am at work, for goodness sakes. but i can’t help it.

today, my son starts the rest of his adult life.

i am proud.
i am sad.
i am devestated.
i am.
alone.

i know that’s not how it is, but that’s how it feels, right now.

peace.

feast and famine….

so, there has been a lot happening in my life lately.

in the first place, we borrowed some money against my husband’s retirement to do some much needed home repairs. we needed to replace the fence in our backyard and this was one of the few ways we could do it. we weren’t extravagant about anything we did, but the fence is almost done and most of the money is gone. at least it went to something that will do increase our property values and make our lives better. one of the other things we did with part of the money was we bought a used motor home. it will make burning man much better for us this year and we decided to take it on a test run this weekend. we went to our burning man campmates house in concord this weekend for a get together. it was a lot of fun in spite of a flat tire on the way down. that was kind of creepy….

in other news, there are currently two women in my life that i am getting to know better. one of them live locally and is gay and the other one lives in the bay area and is on the message board i spend a lot of time on. it’s been interesting getting to know them both. i seem to like either of them better depending on which day it is =)

on one hand, the local woman is here and available. she obviously likes me, i like her. when we first met and i first told her i was married, i was concerned because she made it sound like we could be friends, perhaps with benefits, but as soon as something better came along, we’d have to just be friends. that didn’t sit real well with me, but she later asked me to be patient with her because she’s never been with a married woman before who was open with her husband but also still loves him and enjoys being with him. we met at a bar the first time and talked….then last week, she invited me over for dinner and cooked for me. she’s really growing on me and i am seeing her again tomorrow.

then there’s this girl from the message board. she’s very sweet and what i thought i always wanted. she’s educated, and her husband knows. the bad news about her is that she just figured out she was bi about a year and a half ago and she’s never been with a woman. she’s painfully shy, and she has three small children under 6. she lives four hours away and at an ideal, she will be able to see me once a month.

so, for now, i am getting to know them both. i feel bad, but they both know about each other and i am not committed to either of them. i have to be perfectly honest though and say that a part of my intrigue has to do with sex. it’s been so very long since i have been with a woman, i can’t even express. there is also some measure of comfort in the fact that the local lady knows who she is, what she wants, and how to go about getting it. i am intrigued and deeply interested. she’s been really sweet to me.

last week, before we left for concord, some asshole hit my dog with a car and didn’t even stop. we took him with us over the weekend and today took him to the vet, and he has torn ligaments in his leg. so now the poor guy has a bucket thing on his head and a cast on his foot. i feel bad for him ,he looks pretty pathetic and sad. he’s pretty wacked out on pain meds. we are hoping he will heal well. he’s supposed to take it easy for six weeks. we will see how long that lasts =) i think he will do okay. i am just glad he wasn’t hurt more seriously and i hope the asshole who hit him gets a giant karma bomb at some point.

i needed to vent about these women because i can’t really talk about it on the message board where one of them is. i just don’t want it to appear that i am rubbing anything in her face or trying purposefully to hurt her. i am looking forward to this adventure, whatever happens =)

that’s all for my update.

peace.

today…….

 well, what can i say? i think as much as i chastise other people for being very focused on "immediate gratification" i, too, am sometimes a victim of this…if someone doesn’t talk to me or answer me right away, then i automatically think the worst, think they don’t like me or aren’t interested in me anymore when in fact, they could have just been busy at the time =) this is a time to try to unlearn those patterns and be patient.

there have been tears for me the last couple of days. i continue to be frustrated by my daughter’s poor progress in school. she has a really easy schedule and still seems to be failing all her classes. i am afraid to be too hard on her discipline-wise because i am afraid she will run away again. i told her she needs to pull her head out and get passing grades in all her classes before she will be allowed to go downtown again and visit with her friends. we will see how it goes today.

she wants desperately to hang on to choir, but if she’s not getting anywhere academically, it can’t be a good environment for her and then what’s the point of being in choir if you can’t sing because you can’t leave school because your grades aren’t good enough?

one of my alternate plans for her has been for her to go to the "alternative" high school where she has smaller class size and can work at her own pace, with a teacher to help her when she needs it. this way, she could make up what she’s behind and then, for choir, she could go to the community college or take one of the choirs where i work. i wish that i knew how to make her understand how important her education is. maybe traditional high school isn’t the right environment for her. i just don’t know. i do know that i want her to be happy and successful at whatever she does. goddess, i love that girl.

with that, is the conflict i am feeling over my son leaving home. part of me is counting the hours before he leaves because he’s done some pretty inconsiderate things surrounding his dog the last few weeks that have resulted in some significant property damage for us, and part of me is sad because i know he probably won’t come home again. *sigh* this one is hard.

then, there’s this whole "feast or famine" thing i seem to be experiencing right now. you see, there are these two women. there is risk with both of them. one lives a state away and has small children, but she’s really cute and sweet and nice and funny. then there’s one that’s local, but she’s an out lesbian and i am afraid our nice, playful conversation will only last until i say "btw, you do know i am married and intend to stay that way, right?"

now what?

gee, and i thought this was going to be a short entry. hahahahaha.

it is now,
peace.

jazz festival weekend

the jazz festival was awesome, as always. it’s so funny the range of emotions that occur during this weekend…everything from "OMG i can’t believe it’s here" to "why do i do this again?!?!?!" in general, though, it’s never a dull moment, to be sure….

in essence, about 11,000 teenagers and their families and supporters descend on our campus for three days and compete in jazz performance. we have bands that are categorized by the size of their school, including middle schools and colleges (2 and 4 year) and we have vocal jazz also.

there are always some slight logistical and silly things that happen such as one year some of the kids stole one of the golf carts and ran it around campus until it ran out of battery life. that was fun. no harm was done, it was just a little scary to think of a rented golf cart going by the wayside and having to pay for it until we found it. the last few years, though, the kids have been harassing the water fowl that live around the lake that’s on our campus. this is really sad. i heard this year they were going around to all the geese nests and smashing eggs. what makes people behave that way?!?!! they are essentially killing our next generation of canadian geese and the birds get really stressed out. that makes me angry too. why?

i do site coordiantion for one of the venues, and it’s always interesting. i only have two rooms to run, one being the vocal jazz. it’s so cool to see the variety and bredth of talent that exists at all levels. i have heard middle school kids that sound like they should be on american idol and college people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bag (not generally true, i am sure it had more to do with nervousness than talent, but still, if one is going to perform, they have to be able to do it in public).

we were doing really good this year. my rooms were running on time and there hadn’t been too many problems. then, on saturday afternoon, right before the crunch time that happens at the end of the competition, a thunder storm came into the area and for whatever reason, THE POWER WENT OUT all across campus! this immediately brought a whole slew of things into our brains mostly surrounding the question "WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO NOW?!??!" it turns out things weren’t as bleak as first thought. there were some venues that were able to function with emergency power, and we quickly developed a contingency plan for if the power didn’t come back on. how can you have a festival concert with no electronically enhanced sound? thank goodness we didn’t have to comtemplate that. the power was out for just over an hour, total, which put us somewhat behind, but we managed to catch most of it back up.

after the festival was over saturday night, i got invited to go to the after-festival sort of party thing that takes place. they generally invite me, but i usually have something else i have to do or get to, so i almost always say no. this year, though, it seemed like the thing to do and i am glad that i did. the food was excellent, the food and beer was free for working the festival and it was a very cool time to just sort of take a collective sigh of relief and say "wow, we made it…another one bites the dust" is the term we like to use.

highlights from the festival:
1) explaining to a reporter why it was a delicate balance to let people in to see competition performances only between songs. if their parents really cared, they would be to the venue on time. if it was their kid, i’d be willing to bet that they would be just as pissed if their kid was doing a solo and some asshole banged the door open because they couldn’t get there on time. eh. i do this every year.

2) one of my more brilliant co-workers who was doing cash management for the festival decided to be a stud and hand his foot over the edge of the golf cart they were riding around campus. the driver, also an obvious brain surgeon, was talking on the cell phone and got to close to a pole on the passenger side, catching the first genius’ foot and twisting it completely around. the hurt-foot-guy insists it’s just a sprain and proceeds to walk on it for two days upon which he finally calls the nursing line and goes to the hospital to hear the news that he has a broken ankle. i think this one gets the darwin award of the festival =) i was calling it the dumbass award all weekend, but i like the darwin principle better =)

3) extreme, severe sadness that my favorite choir director is retiring this year and won’t be coming back. WAHHHHHH.

4) talking down a choir director that was so upset by placing second that he told us to keep his trophy and that he would never be back to our festival. encouraged him to be part of the solution…if he thinks there’s a problem, come up with a way to fix it and present it. the worst that will happen is that he will be told no, then he can at least not come back with a clear conscience. he ended up taking his trophy and saying "MAYBE we will come back next year. great guy, truly..he just got a tad frustrated.

5) dealing with volunteers who wouldn’t eat their roast beef box lunches saturday because the roast had dabbled pink blood on the bread and it "looked gross". this one just made me laugh.

6) getting to hear amazing talent and see beautiful people exercise their talents all weekend.

7) getting to hone my ranger/patience/community facilitator skills while juggling many of these things at once.

today, life is good. i am tired, but happy, reasonably well-rested, and looking to face the week with good thoughts. my h comes home tonight after a week in vegas. woo hooo.

peace. 

insecurity and conflict….

yes, it was an interesting thing.

last night my magickal group met, and it was a good class. i feel like i am learning some stuff, but then in other ways i feel like a perpetual slacker because i feel like maybe i should spend more time studying this stuff than i do. but maybe this is just the way it’s supposed to be.

i have been tired the last few days. there was some drama with my nephew that left me discouraged that someone so young could so immediately turn to violence to solve his problems. i tried to explain to him that violence will merely perpetuate more violence, but he doesn’t want to hear that. neither does our president. but the president didn’t get two stitches in his nose, a broken nose, and a broken wrist for trying to solve his problems using violence. instead, he gets to send other people to die. what a morbid and twisted thought THAT is. and so very sad and very true.

so, when i got to class last night, one of my class mates had created some "divination dice" awhile back, and i think she is trying to get them charged with all the magickal energy she can because the last two classes, in the period where we visit before we begin class, she has had them out and rather pointedly said "hey, wanna try my divination dice?" this week i took them and rolled and i bot two blanks and a geometric figure i could probably not reproduce and she said that meant i was currently experiencing indecisiveness, insecurity and coflict. how did those dice know that i am flirting with someone knew and feeling worried about whether or not she will be scared away because i am married, if her expectations of me will be too much or more than i can give, whether or not she will like me, and why she gave me her phone number, but when i tried to call her and got her voice mail, i didn’t leave my own number. these are things that make you go hmmmmm.

i have been working on breath exercises lately and it’s been a pretty interesting thing for me. i hadn’t realized how much what thoughts or feelings i am experiencing at the time really affects how much air i let my body breathe in. i wonder tangentially if this (i just types shit by mistake….freudian slip? hahahaha) affects my health on a lot of different levels and i am sure that it does. one of the things that i notice that is kind of scary for me is that when i am at my house, i have to make a concentrated effort to breathe deeply and meditatively there. i feel conflicted and suppressed there. it’s the weight of people’s expectations in that house, that surround me like the fur balls i refuse to clean up until we get some nice, warm weather so i do not polish floors that will immediately become muddy again when people and dogs and cats tromp through without regard to who might have cleaned things in the not-too-distant past.

and why is the cat having such a hard time going to the bathroom in the litter box? this is frustrating me.

i feel like i am getting my groove back to writing here. like i am done, maybe, being mad at the diarymaster for not giving me a free paid diary, even though i didn’t ask when i was feeling whimpy and pressured about money when my diary expired. i might finally be over that.

peace. 

good weekend….

my weekend was really awesome.

i feel so privileged to have been a part of the show i participated in, and to get to see the talent of the people who were in the show. i also got a special surprise this weekend…

on friday night, i was driving to the theatre, and i passed by an old friends house. he’s one of those friends i totally take for granted. i have known him since i was 12 and i always tease him and say that i knew he was gay before he knew he was gay. we met, interestingly enough, because we both ended up at the downtown library together and he was trying to start a cat club. very cute stuff, that. he is one of the few friends that i had that totally stuck by me when i got pregnant with my son, and he has been my friend always. we live less than a mile from each other, and yet, these days, our paths never seem to cross. so, as i drove past his house, he was outside, so i decided "it’s been too long since i spoke with robert, i need to call him, then." and i did. so, he gets on the phone and we make small talk for a bit, then i tell him about my show, and all is good. he is happy for me that i am dancing and life appears to be pretty good for him, also. he’s working for a bank in town, and has a new car. so, on saturday night, i got this phone call on my cell from a number i did not recognize. he then sent me a text message, and HE CAME TO MY SHOW! it was really, really awesome. he seemed to enjoy it, and i am glad i got to reconnect with my friend. i will not let this much time pass again before doing something else with him….

then, on sunday, my daughter and her friend came to the final show. they really seemed to enjoy it, and i am glad she came. when i said before that no one in my family came, i wasn’t really expecting my kids to come, but my husband, mom and sister didn’t come either, that’s what i was sort of sad about.

anyway…..stoopid work, i better go do some now. i might update again later if i can. there’s more to write about the weekend, small little vignette stories and odd moments in time, but alas, work calls…..

peace.