I had to bid farewell to the house that has been my sanctuary and refuge, place of comfort and safety for the past three nights.
The new tenants -- who are also friends and are transferring from another of the family's properties so it's all good -- move in this evening.
I've been in the house -- just me and my bedding and makings for coffee and baths, beverages and a change of clothes -- since Saturday. I did not sleep especially well due to the road noise and early light of dawn that awakened me. The thin old futon also caused tossing and turning.
Those, however, are minor inconveniences for what was offered in return: a space without abuse. A space of safety.
With futon roped and wrapped in plastic, the last vestige of my time there, I took these final moments of just me and house to step through drying patches of wetted-and-cleaned hardwood floor to return upstairs, and with Berr Symon tucked under my arm I spoke aloud my gratitude and thank you's to the house for having me as a guest.
I expressed acknowledgement of the beautiful spirit of the house and the goodness of the tenants who have lived there past and will live there presently.
Parting is such sweet sorrow -- I heard those words -- yet the house is not mine, which does not diminish my gratitude.
The hard part is not in the leaving this lighted house but in returning to the house of pain. Fortunately my stay will be short-lived; until my exit, I shall keep this good house in my vision and heart.
Again, house, thank you for having me as a guest. Your spirit is beautiful. And thank you also to the family, my employer, for allowing me to be present there. Your generosity and kindness and ultra-coolness bless me over and over and over ...
If you have arthritis and need pain killers, you can refill your prescription by email.
If you need heart medication or anti depressants you can do the same.
But by god, if you just want to fuck for fun and not get pregnant - you must be punished!! No matter how long you've been on the pill or on the same prescription, the only way you can get a refill is by going down to the family clinic and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...
It's not as bad as going to a Planned Parenthood where you could end up being there for 4 hours- but you still have to wait a long time. But worst than the waiting, you have to put up with the other people who go to these clinics.
The trashy teenagers who need to travel in packs to get their pills. The nasty couples who are all over each other who want you to know just how badly they need that bag of free condoms, and the teenage mothers who, yet again, need to bring a posse with them to wait. It's just depressing.
I actually had a woman in there last time yelling at the staff that they didn't give her enough free condoms in her bag,
"Hello!! Can you fill this bag up! I tell ya! You people really skimp on these and never give me enough. It's your fault I have 8 kids!!!!"
I swear to god.
So today, I go. I wait. I wait. I get called into a room.
I step on an ancient looking scale, fully clothed and with my shoes on.
I go sit in a room where the lady pulls up a screen on a computer and says, "So last time you were on this....OK, six more months...OK."
She takes my blood pressure and says that it's good. And then she looks at me and says,
"Your weight is over the top. You should try to lose the weight any way you can."
And then I couldn't speak. I quietly took my prescription and zombied my way out of the clinic.
MY WEIGHT IS OVER THE TOP!?!?!!
Had I been living in a world where when I thought I was a bit heavier and a bit curivier than I had ever been before when I was actually dangerously over weight and unhealthy?!
Are the UK size 12 jeans I wear actually plus sized jeans and I just didn't notice?
Perhaps it was somebody else going to the gym at least twice a week since April.
Maybe it's some other girl that's been eating fucking vegetable soup and god damn Special K snack bars every day for the past two weeks.
Maybe that girl doing push-ups each morning and sit-ups before she goes to bed is just a figment of my unhealthy, lard-filled, fatty McFat-fat imagination.
WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN?!?!?!
How unbelievably, retardedly irresponsible of her!
Do you want to know how much information she had on me?
My weight. What birth control medication I've been on. My blood pressure.
THAT IS ALL.
She didn't have my chart, she didn't know how tall I was, my BMI, what my diet was like, if I exercise at all, ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING.
She didn't know if I had an eating disorder or not!What if I was bulimic and she just flippantly said that my weight was "over the top" and that I should "lose it anyway I can".
How about binging and purging, does that sound like a good idea to you, you fucking idiot!!!!????
I'm sorry, but from what I've learned about body image and health, WEIGHT doesn't not equal HEALTH.
You DO NOT tell a young woman that she has a weight problem without knowing ANYTHING about her! Especialy if you're a fucking NURSE.
So, FUCK YOU nurse lady.
I don't have a god damn weight problem. I'm curvy. I weigh more that other girls my height because I have a different body type than they do. (OK and I like to eat pizza.)
I've been trying really hard to eat better lately. I've been trying to lose weight before I go back to California in September. I exercise. I take vitamins every single day. I drink a lot of water. And I don't drink as much as I used to, and I've really cut back on junk food.
I am healthy. So, if being curvy and healthy makes me fat, than you can kiss my fat ass, lady.
I was stopped dead in my tracks this morning when a glance into the bathroom mirror at my mini-vacation refuge returned this:
The face looking back wasn't Pete Doherty. Or the malnourishment and ravages of drug addiction. Or even the pasty complexion, even though another year in the gray Pacific Northwest weather will leave me looking like I'm from across the pond.
Looking back were the thick sunken dark circles. I'd like to attribute them to heroin addiction. Alas, that would be lying.
I've blogged on the matter previous but it can withstand iteration: I was born with these. Through my life, folks from the closest to complete strangers have commented on them, expressing concern about absence of sleep or extreme fatigue. Even when I'm perfectly rested and fine.
Once a cosmetics-counter lady pursued hotly touting concealer.
And I don't wear makeup. Was not shopping for it. I was on my way to tools and hardware.
Friends come to recognize the difference between normal dark and dark deserving of comment -- which is how it should be. Myself, I see none of it until extreme exhaustion and fatigue, bearing a burden, insomnia or efforts to remain afloat in an undertow draw the color from my skin and paint circles black.
I saw them this morning and I wanted to weep.
No good comes of lving under the thumb and control of a roommate. Unless one has a heroin addiction to soften the blows. An appealing option about now.
No good comes of being Petra Doherty. Even if it is just around the eyes.
By working the extra day Saturday, I reaped good fortune past that of staying atop large projects, extra income and escape from the living nightmare that is the house.
I begin yesterday cleaning the small house just vacated by a loving and wonderful family. The house is so filled with positive energies.
I feel safe, which I immediately recognize is a quality and feeling I've not had in the home for quite a long while.
As I continue working, a thought strikes like the proverbial thunderbolt: Why not stay here a couple nights? The new tenants aren't moving in until midweek. I could throw an old futon on the floor. Pack an overnight-plus bag. No Internet but I can get around that with the nearby cafes and taverns. Get some much-needed safety as well as respite and relief from the abuse.
I run the idea past my boss. Sure, he says, with a possible hint of puzzlement at the inquiry. I need a safe space, I offer, and leave it at that. I am so blessed to be working with this family, so cool, kind, generous, authentic and wonderfully eccentric.
I dash after work to the house from hell, finding fortunately no one home, to retrieve bedding, bath goodies, change of clothing, beverages, a jar of peanut butter, jam and stale crackers, and return to the little house with profound relief and gratitude and anticipation of sanctuary for a few days.
There are two bedrooms. I select the larger one, which has, not visible in the picture, a skylight above the futon:
Here’s the other room; that bright blob (cell-phone camera, ya know) too is a skylight:
Here’s the second floor of the 2-story house:
Off the hallway there is a bathroom whose window looks into a sweep of maple branches and leaves; it also has a clawfoot tub ... a slice of paradise!
Down some stairs to the first floor:
and into the main entry hall:
into the living room:
into the dining room:
down ultra-steep stairs into the basement where there's a washer-dryer so I can do my weekend laundry (work clothes) after all and not have to send it to LOIL:
Back up the ladder-like stairs to the kitchen; those mismatched white cabinets left by the tenants are going:
through double glass doors that open into arguably the home's best feature, outside of the positive energies, a fenced back yard:
with a babbling pond that, yes, hosts fish:
and dancing reflections:
and a Berr Symon who is sunning himself amongst the waltzing shadows of maples upon his favorite seat, rock:
and a brilliant-green canopy from two majestic maples:
Also from the bad house the makings for the all-important morning coffee ...
paper filters, spoon and java:
my favorite coffee mug (the only one I own, in fact) and a sippy cup, borrowed from the house, containing half-and-half (that’s Korean writing, btw):
Pyrex for the water I'll boil in the built-in microwave:
Shoot! I forgot the plastic filter! It resembles this one but is smaller and designed for brewing a single cup ... very handy and surprisingly hard to find anymore ...
And I ain't gonna go back to get it; in fact, I don't plan on returning to that house until I have to on Tuesday.
I’m nothing if not resourceful so I search around the emptied house and my minimal possessions and find this in a bag of trash left neatly in the basement by the former tenants:
I continue looking around. Ah! From my things, an even better idea!
Will the boiling water melt it? Will find out. If it does, I've got a backup plan, the Swiffer box.
I arrange the paper and grounds and slowly pour over the boiling water, keeping close watch. Tap here, jiggle gently here. Voila! Works like a charm ... not only for one cup but two and more tomorrow and day next.
Praises be to the humble Slurpee lid.
Why, hello there all you fabulous people.
Not much going on here other than Iain and I locking ourselves in our home office to work on launching BitchBuzz. We've left the room only to sleep, go and grab a take-away curry, and to try and take a few photos that we're going to base the new BitchBuzz logo on.
While I was all dolled up, we went ahead and a few for my VOX avatar, as I've had the same one for almost two years now.
Once I stopped laughing and having nightmarish flashbacks from The Observer Woman photo shoot, we finally managed to get a good amount of usable shots, so hopefully our new logo will be up and ready to go very soon.
I won't show you any that we're going to base the logo on just yet, but here are some of me being an asshole, grabbing my own boobs, and trying make "the sexy face".
Yes, the dress I'm wearing is my wedding dress, which is cool for various reasons. The first being that this means I can actually GET INTO IT, which is always an exicting moment.
Secondly, I'm getting multiple uses out of it. I've worn this puppy 3 times now, which makes me sort of proud that I managed to buy a wedding dress that I liked so much I actually want to wear it again.
Anyhoo...
Thank you all so much for your support. You're the best Internet friends a gal could ever ask for.
I'm blessed because I love my job. And because right now's a very busy time with large-rental turns and an office move, which means plenty of work this weekend if I desire it. And I do. In part because I'm in full-on Avoid the House In Any Way I Can mode.
I've been on this road so many times before. What differentiates the present abode from others is that there's a female (and a secondary sidekick) creating the misery. Only time I'm at the house is to sleep. I stopped cooking there a month or more ago after an acerbic 6-page letter, left on the bathroom vanity and riddled with unfounded accusations and charges, included the dictate: There's no reason to be cooking after 10 p.m.
Evidently, there is no hunger after 10 p.m. No schedule that differs from hers. No need to heat up nourishing chicken noodle soup to heal a cold at bedime. Cooking, which I looooove, came to an abrupt halt.
The demise of the roommate situation has been sharp and severe, the woman abusive and dangerous. If I wrote what's been going on these past months, your jaws would drop. And I don't want that ... to write the painful details OR your jaws to drop.
Which circles back to the entry point. My job is my place of relief, my salve, my pleasure and enjoyment. My place of interaction with human beings who are kind rather than hurtful. Caring rather than critical. Generous rather than controlling. Altruistic rather than selfish.
My job, along with assorted taverns and cafes in town, provides the safety that is absolutely lacking at the house. When I leave work each day, I never think: "I'm gonna go home and relax!" I think: "Where can I spend the next four hours until it's dark and approaching bedtime?" And I find those places.
Today, while most were itching for the start of the weekend, I turned to my my boss 30 minutes before quitting time and asked: "Can I work this weekend?"
Yes.
I'm so blessed to have a job I love. And a ready-made escape from the house from hell. I cannot wait wait wait to get the heck outta there and put a LOUD period at the end of this experience. Hell, I'd hand-carry my stuff 5 miles item by item just to be out and done.
Soon. Very soon.
I'm a fan of online interactive divination, tarot cards and the like. And one of my fav sites is this one, with five packs of healing cards by various well-known folks in the New Age field. (I recommend decks by Doreen Virtue; skip Sylvia Browne's).
So last night I popped in and selected the Messages from Your Angels deck. And ... I'm not making this up ... I got this:
Angel Celeste
"A happy move to a new home or place of employment is in the works. This movement will usher in positive new energy.
Additional Message: Yes, it is time for a move. I am working with your other angels to keep your spirit and energy high during this move.
Although it may seem as if moving requires a lot of effort, when you work with me and the other angels, it can actually be a time of great joy. I will help you to find a new location, and then I will assist you with the necessary details. I will also help your other family members to adjust to the move. Just ask!
All I request is your trust. Trust that God and the angels are capable of finding just the right place for you. If you decide on one certain place and it doesn't work out, it is because we are bringing you something that's even better. Expect miracles to occur that allow you to afford this change. Stay positive and don't buy into illusions or scarcity thinking. We will smooth the way, and we will also help you meet new people who can illuminate your path."
Wowie zowie, too right on for words!
See pink. And grab your shades.
'Specially you, Shark (whose pink-car pic inspired this).
This is parked outside an apartment complex down the street from where I camp. That building's dingy ghetto but the wheels certainly are not.
The seat covers carry on the hot-pink theme. The steering wheel's dressed in a matching outfit; unfortunately that snapshot didn't turn out (reflections).
Wonder how many cops pull over this car for some silly thing just to check out the (presumably) chick who'd drive this.
I've been keeping a juicy, titillating secret from you the past six months.
Her name is BitchBuzz, and she is going to be your new favorite website. Trust me.
BitchBuzz is written by myself and a group of passionate, feisty writers that are fed up with blogs and magazines for women that promise to be different, and end up making us feel like crap.
We're not interested in being perfect feminists: We knit, we bake, we fuck, and we blog. In short, we do whatever makes us happy and encourage other women to do the same.
We're going live on August 4th! Join the BitchBuzz group on Facebook and become our fan! Befriend us on Myspace, follow us on Twitter, and drool over our photos on Flickr. Stalk us! Love us! Read us!
We're currently looking for more writers to join the team, so please let me know if you're interested!
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