Steeling Spoons

Who We Used to Be.

2011-07-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

As a movie plays, so are our memories, as remembered, just the same
All the while with the passing of years, we have changed
Looking at you, I can see the reflection of who I used to be
And I wonder, when you pass me by, if in me that too is what you see

Sometimes when I hear our song on the radio, I fight back tears
And for what, I’m not sure, because even if I could, I would not undo the years
That brought us to where we are now, and even though I’ve yet to understand how
I am breathing without you, living without you, because sometimes I hear the sound

Of my own heart breaking all over again. For the dreams we dreamed together
Believing that we were each other’s living, breathing forever.
But despite the fights to hold on, the fights to let go, it was not meant to be
And I walked away with your heart, and you mine, for you see

Love is love despite debate, opposition, trial, heartbreak, and fate
I’ll never comprehend why something so beautiful, could fade
And so quickly, maybe we were too slow to the fight to salvage
But would the salvage have been nothing but a pile of wreckage?

As I pass you today, I am taken back to yesterday, laughing and so in love
And I wonder if it takes you there too, because you avoid my eyes, looking ready to run
But life was the sweetest we’d ever known, there was no past, no future with you
Just the present, where every precious moment was treasured, not stale and past due.

But now you just half smile and ask how I’ve been, and we make small talk.
And as we part, it still feels strange, like walking away from one’s own heart.
If ever given the chance to go back, I’d follow the same path that lead me straight to you
And even if I could foresee the end ahead, I’d love you like it was all I was meant to do.

Conversations With My Grandfather.

2010-10-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

With the edge of my boot, I kicked up a cloud of red dirt. I hadn’t yet decided whether I wanted to sit or stand. But I had a lot to say.

I paced a few steps and found a stump. Looking left and then right, I surveyed my surroundings. Sure that I was really alone, I took a seat on top of it.

The sun was beating down on my back, neutralizing the cool breeze that drew goosebumps on my skin. And I breathed deep, letting the tears I’d held at bay all day fall lazily down my face.

“You know, I thought I had everything under control back then…” I trailed off thinking about last summer. The darkest season of my life. “Life was going like I wanted. I had everything like I wanted it. I had it all figured out.” My laugh is bitter. And pathetic.

My voice carries more anger than I intended. “I wasn’t ready. I know you were… I know you were. But I wasn’t… What am I suppose to do with you now?”

With the back of my sleeve, I swipe at my running nose.

“I’ve made a lovely mess, don’t you think?” With that, fresh hot tears stream down their previously made paths.

Oh, the mess I’d made. I knew it. I knew he knew it, too. Somewhere, he knew it.

The nightmares, the panic attacks, the sudden move to Chattanooga, the divorce, the fights with dad, the inability to find a job, the inability to take what’s left of my life and redraft, revise.

If life were as easy as rearranging words on a page…

And the thought of facing death. Again. And so soon.

I look towards the empty patch of ground I’m talking to, “It’s selfish, right?” I nod my head. Because, whether he would ever tell me or not, I know it’s true.

Life is what it is. And when it’s time to let go. You let go.

In theory.

But watching her, everyday, withering slowly away. A slow fade. The smell of death in the air, suffocating my soul and making it hard to breathe.

That tired look in her eyes that mirrors that look I saw in his. The color’s different. But the weariness is the same.

I sense the landslide coming. And I’m gasping for my last few remaining breaths before it buries me.

Again.

“I never really let you go… Now, I’m suppose to be ready to do it all over again..?” It came out as a sob.

I couldn’t tell you truthfully if I was crying for myself and my life or the thought of burying my grandmother.

Or for Pawpaw.

As I sit and stare at the rock that now stands as the reminder that he once lived, I decide that I despise it. And I despise those fake flowers that make it look like someone’s pretending it’s a coffee table, which needs to be adorned.

But I stand and walk over to pick up a fallen flower. As I stick it back into the immovable rock vase, I find it funny.

An everlasting vase for flowers, real or fake, that will wither and bend and blow away with the wind.

Like an everlasting gravestone for a soul that is not tethered to it. But a soul that I still feel on Sunday afternoons, and when looking at my dad’s face, or when hearing my Nannie’s laughter.

Absent mindedly I pat his gravestone, as I slowly begin to back away.

I wipe my face as I walk back to my car, ready to be gone. But I hear his voice, “You don’t have to come here to feel me, Armandy.”

“Yeah, I know, Pawpaw. I feel you everywhere.”

Well Honey, I Met the Neighbors.

2010-10-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

I woke up super early this morning. Even with all this Benadryl I’m taking for my allergies, I’m still having trouble sleeping all the way through the night.

Ya… I’m drooling all over myself and my eyes are glazed like a Krispy Kreme but I can’t go to sleep.

…Makes plenty of sense to me.

Anyways, so what’s with the title of this bloggy? Well, I woke up around sixish something and laid in bed contemplating food.

Or really, contemplating my lack there of.

When I remember that my mother had packed a box for me of random food from her house that she wasn’t gonna use. And it was sitting in the backseat of my car.

But it’s freezing this morning, just in case any of you out there hadn’t noticed… My toes are still ice.

So I cannot will myself out from under my warm covers, even at the protesting of my (very) empty pansa.

Not until 7:30 ish anyways. I grabbed my keys and threw on my hideous Tennessee sweatshirt and my boots and head for my car.

The box wasn’t all that heavy or big. But trying to maneuver the heavy glass door to the apartment building back open, with said box in hand, was proving to be difficult.

When I finally managed to slid my boot between the small opening and kick it open, I kicked too hard. Because when the door swung back shut, it knocked me clear down the stairs.

So here we go… Me and my box of food go flying down the stairs with more than enough racket to wake the dead.

In China.

When me and my box and its strewn contents come to a stop, I begin frantically tossing food back in the box in hopes that I could dash back inside my apartment before any of my neighbors came out to see me… Sprawled out on the floor, in my pj’s and boots, with some massive crazy pillow hair.

(Cue laughter.)

When I look up, two doors are open with people peeking out. And there’s another woman looking down at me from the upper floor, over the railing.

“You want some help down there?” She asks so loud. Her voice carried all the way to the end of the hall, I’m sure.

I don’t quite know the intensity of the shade of red I turned, but I tell you what, my ears were so hot, I could feel the waves of heat as they rolled.

Mortally embarrassed to have had such a large audience to my clutziness and sense of fashion so early in the morning, I waved her off. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

With my head down, I get my box packed and back in my apartment.

So… That was fun. (Insert sarcasm.) Until I discovered we didn’t have one clean spoon in the apartment with which to eat my oatmeal.

And the only utensil I find that could remotely work was a spatula thingy majig…

And since I’m sleep deprived…

And… Possibly losing some sanity…?

Now… To find a J.O.B.

No, really. Why are you laughing?

Dun, Dun, Dun... And the Verdict Is?

2010-10-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning! Oh how I hate thee, Tuesday… Let me count the ways.

Bah.

Anyways, today is a rather important day for me. It was the day I had set for me to either have a job by, or be making plans to return to Calhoun and help the roommates find someone to take over my part of the rent.

And even having to think about returning to Calhoun makes my head hurt. It’s strange because my whole childhood, all I can remember is wanting to return there. And now all I want is to get out.

So, do I have a job? No. Am I moving back to Calhoun?

Well (slight cringe), it looks that way. But the day is not over yet! I’m keeping my (appartently useless) fingers crossed that there may still be the slightest chance that I will get a call about a job today.

And if not, well it’s adios Chattanooga for me. And hello to, well, you know who you are.

I Think I Thought I Had This...

2010-10-04T02:06:00.000-07:00

What was I thinking?

No scratch that. I don't believe I even was.

And now I'm looking at the massive amount of crow I'm about to have to eat. I'm getting heartburn just thinking about it...

"Don't you think it's time you just pack it up and come back home?" My mother asked me tonight.

Of course, I can't survive forever up here with no job. But it's painful to swallow the thought of having to turn back around and go home.

And it doesn't mean finding a job is going to be any easier in my hometown. Jobs are scarce period.

Not just here in Chatt.

But I'm digging my fingers into the cliff's edge and hanging on. I'm not ready to throw in the towel. And if it becomes necessary, I don't know that I'll have the ability.

I can hear my father now... "I told you so. I told you, you should've listen to me..."

But you know what's worse than the possiblity of moving back in with the rents?

Going back to the one place where everyone knows every skeleton in my closet. They think they know me. So they judge me.

It's like putting on a show, playing a part, reading from a script, when you live in a small town.

Becuase if you were to say the wrong something to someone who knew someone and they told that someone and it got back to another someone, you're screwed.

Living with your head constantly over your shoulder is exhausting. Better watch your step because you're always being watched.

Because in a place like that, people need something, someone, to talk about.

And those skeletons in my closet are quite amusing to some.

Ain't This Brilliant?!

2010-09-24T01:38:00.001-07:00

I have absolutely nothing to say. I have writer's block. Or I've finally run out of actual ideas. It's like my brain just died.

Shrieveled up and died, I tell you.

I mean, I've had writer's block before... Usually nothing a good run or a day or two of doing absolutely nothing but watching stupid chick flicks couldn't fix.

Oh, but not this time.

Because all I do now, when not job hunting is... Nothing. Nothing.

And I can't sleep tonight. I'm worried about my interview tomorrow. Plus, I was craving sweet tea earlier today. And I really should have had more self-control because caffine and I don't play well together.

But noooooo.

I drove to McDonald's just to get a large sweet tea. I think I drank the whole thing in two minutes. I don't live but a hop and a skip from McDonald's and it was gone when I got back home.

Yeah... So. I'm sorta wired for the night.

I dyed my roots, waxed my eyebrows, gave myself a facial, painted my nails... I mean everything I could think of to boost my confidence for tomorrow with the hopes of wearing myself out.

Or using up all the caffine in my system. But nope.

I am now sitting here on the couch, stealing the neighbors wifi... And writing my most pointless blog in a long while.

...I'm killing myself, Smalls.

Where Exactly do Mentally Unstable People Fit?

2010-09-23T01:35:00.000-07:00

Not in the military! Wooooo! I've been rejected by every branch there is.

I actually laughed when I talked to the Navy and Marine recruiters. I mean I was slapping the table laughing so hard I tell you!

As soon as they found out I'd received medical treatment for Panic Disorder, they flipped and where like, "And why exactly are you trying to join the military?!?!"

Haha!

I can't find a job anywhere in this big ol' city and now even the military has rejected me.

Over and over and over.

Now I don't believe my anxiety issues are keeping me from finding a civilian job. They have no way of pulling my medical history. And usually, I act relatively normal in public.

I've yet to have a freak-out moment during an interview and yet, still no one will hire me.

But I do have an interview on Friday. Talked to a former employee of the company and she said they're extremely picky about who they hire.

She said they call their ideal employee "Tyler." Not really someone named Tyler, but they call them the Tyler.

So maybe just maybe, I'll be a Tyler. :)

My Insanity at its Best.

2010-09-20T02:28:00.001-07:00

A chemical imbalance in the brain. A short in the wires that trigger my fight or flight response.

I hate that the doctors think they can cure it with a pill and the therapists think they can fix it with a few deep breathing techniques...

Well just got done making an attempt at the breathing techniques. And nothing.

My heart's still racing, I can't breathe, I feel like I'm going to regurgitate my dinner. And my head's spinning.

Not to mention there is no one awake to remind me this is just another panic attack. So I'm left to talk to myself. Which doesn't always work... Like now for example. I'm talking away, trying to pretend I'm sane, while probably driving myself more insane.

And I hate that people think that it's just something you can get over.

How exactly do you get over something that has the ability to choke you, make you completely numb and pass out? I'm sitting on the precipice as I write this..

And I wonder, should I go wake someone? Call someone?

Cause what if this one time I'm actually really dying? Only, that's what I think everytime..

But everytime it feels like the Grim Reeper is ready to pounce.

And I just don't get it? What turned me into this freak? What went wrong for me to develop such a strange way of coping with stress?

And now I'm rambling just to keep my mind off thoughts of suffocating to death... But I just typed that out... So I'm not doing such a hot job of distracting myself...

"...You'll Never Make It."

2010-09-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

Derick is second from the left.

Derick's sunbleached eyebrows were hardly visible next to his suntanned skin, but nonetheless I saw when they shot up when I'd spoke. He'd had his face glued to his iPhone and his thumbs had been working overtime. Probably texting one of his many girlfriends.

But now he was looking at me as though I had three eyeballs. His mouth fell open as if to say something, but as soon as it did, he snapped it back shut.

I looked him directly in the eye. "What?"

He grinned sideways and squinted his blue eyes at me. He shifted his large frame on the couch and stared at me for a few seconds. "I don't think I heard you right."

I played with the fringe of one of the pillows. "I said, I'm thinking about enlisting."

Derick's mouth fell slack again and his eyes widened just a bit. And then he looked confused all over again. He shook his clean shaven head at me. "Why?"

Derick's a friend of mine. He knows my situation with not being able to find a job. And he knows I have no desire to return to college.

But he also knows my temperment and ability better than most of my friends. And the reason I decided to talk to him about my contemplation was because he serves in the Army and has done a tour of duty in Afganastan.

My hands flew up, defensively. "Because, I'm jobless. Plus, the Army's got benefits. And it's service to my country... And it's a job."

Ba-ding!

Derick ignored his phone and awaiting text message. "Bullshit."

I think my face resembled a wrinkled Bulldog's at this point. "What kind of response is that?"

His attention was on his phone once again. "Mine."

Men. So freaking ridiculous.

"Derick, I'm honest to goodness considering enlisting. And I would appreciate some feedback."

Sighing, he flung his phone to the coffee table and laid his head back against the couch. "Don't."

"Why not?" I stared him down.

His gaze was directed toward the ceiling. "Because, Mand, you'll never make it."

"Why?"

He cut his eyes to look at me. He appraised me looking me up and down without moving his head or neck. And then met my eyes. "You are not military material."

I picked the nearest pillow and aimed it at his face. As it bounced off, he caught it. "What are you saying? I wouldn't survive?"

Derick's eyes always give him away. "No."

"But women survive the military everyday!" I narrowed my eyes at him

His smile was small. "Yeah, but Mand, they're not woman like you."

I swallowed. Time for a second opinion.

Like a Dance.

2010-09-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

I step to the right. You're going left.

With a flick of your finger, you gesture me back.

Slow and tedious, I try not to trample you. Not knowing where you're going.

You shrug your shoulders and offer me the lead.

You smile because I have no idea what I'm doing. But you play along.

A step to the left, one to the right. I slip. You catch my arm.

I laugh. And continue with my mess. You follow like it's the most natural thing ever.

One more round and I submissively give you my hand.

Your black eyes meet mine. And I'm just fine here. Lead me where you will.

You spin me so fast I'm dizzy, testing my resolve. But I'm still clinging to you.

A little closer this time.

You seem suprized that I'm still here.

I trust you, you know this. So you're cautious.

Moving slower, you slow our steps.

This isn't a miss this time.

You would have made a lovely fling.

The Days of Our Lives.

2010-09-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

With a Marbaro dangling from her lips, my grandmother says, "...Now the way to solve that problem is to have no important business... That way they have no business of yours to be concern with."

I stopped my rocking chair with my foot. "Huh?"

"Nevermind, Mandie. Just shake it off and move on. That's what your Ma's trying to say." My mother laughs and takes a drag of her Virginia Slim.

My grandmother nods her head in agreement.

I cross my arms and shove the rocking chair back into motion. "Easy for you to say, he's not your dad."

My cousin, Megan lights her a cigarette and pulls up a chair on the porch where we were all sitting.

I come from a family of smokers. On occasion I might take a drag. But for the most part I can't stand the things... At least they've always smoked outside.

But the porch is where we have some of our longest conversations and biggest arguments.

Every house I've ever lived in with my mother has always had one... And the only one that didn't, she converted the garage into her own personal smoking lounge.

"So what exactly did he say?" Megan looks at me.

She was referring to the conversation I had with my father earlier over the phone. He had called three times before I had decided to finally answer.

"He demanded to know why I deleted Marcia [my stepmother] from my Facebook." I grinned a little.

My cousin chuckled. "You did what?!"

I laugh. "I deleted her. She sent me a couple of rude messages so I just deleted her."

"How did you explain that one to your dad?"

"I just explained I had gotten some messages. And figured I'd solve the problem."

All three of them laughed.

"I just don't see why a grown woman's going to get upset about something like that after all they've done to you and then have your dad call just to ask for an explaination." My mother shook her head and put her cigarette out in the ash tray.

"Well whatever. He could tell by my tone I wasn't interested in the conversation. It didn't last long."

"If they don't care to be involved in your life, why do they care if you deleted her on Facebook?" Megan asked.

"Dad said that was the only way they knew I was alive. I told 'em they would survive."

My cousin took a drag. "Harsh. What he say to that?"

I sighed and picked at the peeling white paint on the arm of my chair. "I don't think he knew how to respond. But like I said, wasn't much said. We said bye after that."

"Why don't you talk to your Nannie about all this?" My mother lit another cigarette. She was referring to my father's mother.

I couldn't help laughing. "Why? So she can put him over her lap and spank him? He's a grown man."

My mother smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "You never know with your Nannie..."

"I hate all this drama. I just don't see the point in putting in the effort. He's made up his own mind." I flicked a chip of paint across the porch with my finger.

Megan chuckled. "...Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

My mother interjected. "No, more like the Young and the Restless."

I narrowed my eyes. "It's gonna be General Hospital if you two don't shut up."

We all cracked up.

10 Strange Things I've Learned Recently.

2010-09-13T03:27:00.000-07:00

1) It is possible to be friends with your ex-husband. And even have a civil dinner filled with talk of silly memories that only the two of you are privy to.

2) If your sister is a co-dependant, confronting her about it will result in a swift hand to the back of the head. Denial always comes first.

3) Speeding tickets for 26 miles over the speed limit aren't cheap.

4) Eight waffles for breakfast is great for a quick rush... And a really lame drowsy day.

5) Saying "um" a lot duing an interview will screw your chances for the job.

6) Falling in love with someone who doesn't let themselves fall, is more of a plummet. And there's no dragging them off the cliff's edge with you.

7) Roommates like to "borrow" your clothes... So much so, you'll have to trade wardrobes to have something clean to wear.

8) Being a "cool" nerd only works in the movies.

9) Don't EVER assume parking is free in Chattanooga. Especially if you have a Georgia tag... There's no question about it, they will ticket your as- ahem, rear end.

10) Oh, and don't pick up drunk hitch-hikers... Even if it is a sad-looking woman with no shoes on. Because she will talk your ears off about every sign in the Zodiac, spill beer in your car and all over your passengers, and get you lost... Because common sense should tell you a drunk woman can't give good directions to save her life.

My Father.

2010-09-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

My father has always been one of the most important people in my life. A rock. Someone I knew I could always turn to, could always trust with anything.

He’s honest, loyal, and forgiving.

And for the most part, my father and I have always seen eye to eye. And when we didn’t, were usually able to come to an agreement with little anger.

I respect my father and value his opinion above anyone’s on this earth.

Something I never expected to get was his cold shoulder. To have him turn on me when I would face some of my biggest trials.

But I’ve carried this burden for a while now. Unable to quite face it head-on. Wondering if maybe I had imagined the whole situation.

I don’t remember the last time I saw him… A month ago? Very strange for my father and me.

But we’re both on opposite ends. And neither one of us is willing to inch towards a compromise.

My father told me he disagreed with my move to Tennessee. And he wasn’t happy about my divorce. Or about my decision not to go back to college.

So he and my step-mother have decided to remove themselves from my life. Something I still don’t quite understand. I live only 45 minutes away from home.

It’s not like I have to buy a plane ticket to visit. Or them me.

Still, I sit here with my cell phone in my lap and contemplate calling in anger. To drive home just how much they’re hurt me. To yell and scream and be absolutely childish about the whole situation.

Because I feel stabbed by the one person I never thought would hurt me.

But I can’t hurt him. I can’t yell at him. And I can barely voice my broken heart without tears.

Yet, I have no idea what to do with him. He’s my father after all. Do I put all of my memories of him away in a shoebox and shove it under my bed? Forget about him?

Easier said than done. Because I’m stuck here where he left me, holding the broken pieces of a relationship that can’t be helped with duck tape or crazy-glue.

The Long Way To Everywhere

2010-09-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

Words aren’t flowing as usual. With ease I can make mess of a blank page… And horizontally complicate a blank screen. But not today.

Not when I need this release the most. I need my mind to stop. To let go, before I drive the inhabitant of this tired body completely insane.

But silence has never been my friend, inwardly anyways.

Tears nor anger will placate this. I don’t want the depression or the headache. I just want this gone.

Settled, resolved, undone, forgotten, burned…

I shut my eyes and cannot understand myself. A mystery behind these lids. Why do I take the long route to everywhere? To say anything?

Where’s my sense of direction or my ability to be direct? Why can I not just look you in the face and say what my brain’s been screaming at you all along?

Because I think it would shake you. Actually, I know it would. It would make you angry. You might even boil and lose control.

Would I then find peace in that? In knowing that I wrecked what little I could of your world?

You’re a vulture. I would tell you that. Picking me apart and judging what you know nothing about.

I would love for nothing more than to back you in a corner and make you squirm. Make you say to my face what you’ve been thinking this whole time.

Tell me I didn’t turn out like you expected. Tell me I screwed up. Tell me all your efforts were in vain. Tell me I’m not worth it any longer. Tell me I never was. Tell me.

Maybe then I could at least sleep with the knowing. And let go with the efforts. And make peace with the rest.

Wow. So This Made Me Seeth.

2010-09-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

I rarely blog about national or world events... Or politics. I even try to keep a simple, quiet kind of faith that speaks for itself. Not the kind people ram down others throats.

It's just not my style.

Until I read this article.

It made my blood boil. I wanted to scream. To find the guy responsible and ram his face to the pavement. Maybe I shouldn't be blogging such violent statements. But like I said, my blood's boiling.

The article can be found here.

Two of my brothers served in the army and a stepbrother who's been in the Marines for almost 20 years.

The fact that people could so carelessly toss aside the risk they are creating for our soldiers, not to mention Americans in general, is maddening and saddening at the same damn time.

Our freedoms were bought at a high price. And this radical church's freedom to burn Korans is protected by the very lives of the men and women they are about to endanger.

My Vein.

2010-09-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

I’m not the only one screaming.

She can’t run fast enough to out run the traps set for him to make his escape. Even to save him, the knife’s still at his wrist, and the poison still on his lips.

With my face pressed against the glass, I whisper words she can’t hear. “Let him go before you ruin yourself.”

But isn’t that what we all say to each other?

“Beware: Love’s a bloody war. And your soldiers are wimps.”

And I can’t even remember if I’m screaming for myself, or him. I see him. But I can’t see him.

The heart’s a mystery. The mind is only half-revealed. And liars are good at what they do.

Yet, he still has my pumping vein wrapped around his finger.

If he yanks, I’ll bleed. If he lets go, I’ll die.

He looks me in the eye and his ask the question, “Is this a risk worth taking?”

I don’t know. “Are you a risk worth taking?”

He twists my vein around his finger, tighter.

We’re about to find out.

This Familiar Stranger

2010-08-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

I know this face. By heart, I know every line, every freckle, every imperfection.

With eyes closed, I can trace the silhouette, the profile, every edge and angle.

These lips form a smile I know. Fake or genuine, I can decipher the difference, while the world is the fool.

My hands find their way to this face. Of course, I know this face. The feel of this skin is familiar under my finger tips.

But these eyes. Oh, these eyes. A million times, I’ve gazed into them… Probing, begging for answers, demanding strength, rebuking tears. But as they look back at me from this cold glass imitation, I am confused.

These emerald windows are closed. The soul they contain is just that, contained. A prisoner, locked away in a cage.

When did I become this way? A stranger to myself. A victim of my own self hate.

To kill the soul, invisible suicide. The world would be not the wiser.

And no one has to know. These eyes have nothing to tell. They are just an empty shell. A reminder of something that has been.

Desperate with panic, I grasp the cold glass in my hands. I beg myself to come bacl. Not to slip any further into the unknown.

It’s useless I know. But I want to slap that fake smile right off my face. Why must I smile, when all I want is to cry?

I feel it coming before I fully understand.

I tremble as I feel the rip, deep inside my chest. No matter how many battles I’ve won, no matter how many victories I’ve celebrated… The war is done.

I feel as my soul pulls and tears at itself until I’m left with two pieces of a whole. And I reach inside and choose the piece easiest to bear.

The one with a mask to wear.

It's Alive.

2010-08-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't die. I got some e-mails from some of you guys wondering where I had gone.

I didn't go anywhere. Well, I mean technically, I'm still on the other side of the computer, but I did move to Tennessee.

I got divorced. That I will not get into. Just, eh.

Quit both my jobs as a waitress and shampoo girl, to move to Chattanooga... Just to see what would happen.

So far, I've been up here a month, and have yet to find a job... Bills are still coming and the rent is still due.

But that's just life, right?

So anyways, I'm back. Only now I'm unsure as to what to title the direction of this blog. Though, I now have regular, dependable access to the internet. And so now my rantings and ramblings shall continue as they used to...

For better or for worse. :)

The Witch.

2010-04-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

I knew she was a witch the moment I laid eyes on her. Her eyes were mysterious and her dresses were hippy-ish.

Her hair was a hot mess. And she always smelled like herbs. And that necklace. She always wore the same long, dangly, purple rock around her neck.

She rearrange her large office every other week. And had a lot of strange looking books with strange titles. Too many candles. But not enough light.

I imagined she had a bazillion cats at home. She looked like a cat lady.

But she always smiled. And I could tell it was genuine. The kind of smile that lets you know that a person sees you. Really sees you.

I can't remember if I ever smiled back. But she always smiled.

When I cried, she cried.

I hated that my mother had dragged me into that old building and up that squeaky staircase, just to leave me with a witch for an hour...

To fix me.

Because something was horribly wrog with me. It scared everyone I knew.

My sister wouldn't talk to me, my mother couldn't look at me, my step-father scowled at me, and my father (when he called every week) tried to pretend nothing was wrong.

My teachers wanted to flunk me, just to get me out of their classes. And my best friend had no comment.

"No comment?!" I had yelled at her after I'd confessed my secret to her.

"Well, it's not like you're insane, or have some incurable disease, right? You're still the same old Mandie I knew..." She looked me in the eye. "But God can fix you, right?"

Why would God want to fix me? I had thought.

So once a week, I sat completely still on the witch's couch, answering strange questions while she jotted down notes.

I should probably explain that the witch was a licensed counselor.

"Why do you cut?" The witch would ask.

I wouldn't look her in the eye. I always kept my gaze locked on her bookshelf where she kept her weird books. "It makes me feel better."

"Why?" The witch was a prior.

I sighed. "It's like a release. You know, like when you open the lid of a soda that's been shook up?" I looked at her.

"How do you think we can fix this?" The witch's pen was poised above her notebook, ready to jot down my response.

"What if I'm un-fixable?" I looked back at her bookshelf.

"God doesn't make un-fixables."

Wow. I thought. What a strange witch.

Everyone I knew from church had told my mother that I wasn't really saved and that I had a demon.

That I was pocessed by a demon... Yeah.

My Christian friends avoided all contact with me. It was like I had leprosy.

People tried convicing my mother to send me to a juvinile mental center.

I am a former self-mutilater because I held pain deep down inside. But I'm pround to say that on April fourth I will be celebrating six years of recovery.

God doesn't make un-fixables.

A witch taught me that.

Even More Bizarre Than Fiction.

2010-03-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

I must say, my life is rarely boring. When you work directly with the public... I don't think much is.

My step-mother always has some doozy stories to tell after work. She's a judge.

And me? I am privy to my town's most intimate gossip. While women, and men, are getting their hair done, eyebrows waxed, or faces made-up, they will talk about anything.

I mean, anything.

It's ridiculous the kind of inside information I walk around with on a daily basis.

But whatever... So on to today. Today was going pretty smoothly. The salon was busy as usual. And I had been at the shampoo bowls for nearly a constant two and half hours when I got a break.

I went into the back, opened the freezer, and pulled me out an ice cream sandwich.

Yum. I think I have an addiction. Anyone know of an Ice Cream Sandwich Addiction Support group?

Anyways, back to what I was saying... After I finished, I headed back out of the breakroom and back into the salon. And I propped down in the vacant cutting chair and spun it around so I could see Keeva working on cutting one of her usual client's, *Victoria.

They were both silent for a few moments, then Victoria looked at Keeva in the reflection of the mirror. "You won't believe what happened to *Grace, you know the girl I work with..."

Without looking up from her scissors, Keeva nodded.

Victoria continued, "She has a son, Brandon, you know, with Down-Sydrome, he's seventeen. And he stays by himself on the weekdays for an hour after school until Grace gets home from work."

I see Keeva raise her eyebrows slightly, but continues snipping.

"Well, on Monday Brandon called Grace at work to tell her that he'd caught himself a Leprechaun. Apparently, his class had been talking about St. Patrick's day. Well, Grace just laughed it off and told him that she was busy and that he could show her when she got home."

At this point, Keeva flips Victoria's hair over her face. So she continues talking even though I can't see her face.

"After, she hung up with Brandon, he called his grandmother, aunt, and two cousins to tell him all about his Leprechaun. Well, they all called Grace at work and she decided something was up and left an hour early."

Up until this point, I was only half interested in this conversation. Now, I was leaning a little closer to hear, trying not to look too nosy.

"When she got home, Brandon had pushed all the funiture in his room up against his closet door. Grace said she heard something banging around inside and started worrying about what kind of animal Brandon had managed to catch."

Keeva flips Victoria's hair back, and Keeva stops cutting and leans against the chair and looked at her in the mirror.

"When Grace got all the furniture moved, she opened the closet door and..." Victoria half laughed, half balked, "She found a midget."

Keeva's mouth fell open.

And I blurted out, "What?!" Which startled Victoria, who spun around to look at me.

She just nodded. "Yep. A little person. He had come witnessing at the door and Brandon had picked him up and drug him into the closet thinking he was a Leprechaun."

Keeva tossed her scissors onto her station. "You mean to tell me that boy just kidknapped a midget?"

Victoria smiled and nodded again. "I know, crazy right? Grace said she apologized profusely to the man, but he left completely pisssed. She's worried he might press charges..."

And I think to myself... If I'd been locked in a closet, for God knows how long, by a mentally incompetant person, I would be freaking out about all the possible ways I was going to be murdered. And she thinks the guy might press charges?

Once the shock wore off, I found myself laughing so histarically, I had to excuse myself to the breakroom.

*Names have been changed to protect the ridiculous.

Fear Will Try to Kill You.

2010-03-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

It tries to kill me on a daily basis.

I can feel it before it makes a full appearance. My face goes numb, my heart starts racing, my breathing becomes erratic, my arms start losing feeling...

Oh well hello there, Fear, you snuck up on me.

Once again.

So if you've read my blog for very long, you know I have panic attacks... And I blog about the real significant ones.

Haha.

Sunday night, my husband, Freddy, and my brother Chris, and I found ourselves sitting around the house like nerds, playing the Wii.

Okay so we've been playing the Wii for like three hours straight when one of them comes up with the great idea to go finally see Avatar in 3D.

I'm all game. I had been wanting to see the movie forever and was shocked when we found a movie theater in Kennesaw still playing it in 3D.

The three of us scramble to get into the car so we can make the ten'o'clock show.
And Kennesaw is a good hour drive from where we live.

So as weird luck would have it, we make it into the crowded (apparently we weren't the only losers who hadn't seen it either) theater right as the movie was starting! We totally missed all those commercials.

So, anyone seen Avatar? It's an awfully long movie.

That's about the time that fear saw it's chance. And boy did he jump on it.

Avatar is an action packed movie... And I can handle action movies... At home.

In the movie theater? They tend to make me hyperventilate without my ever realizing that I am doing so, until I go numb.

Well to my left was Freddy. And to his left was my brother, Chris. So to my right was some guy.

When my panic began to swell into uncontrolable territory, I started gripping the armrests on both sides on me.

Had it been any other movie? I would have stepped out to regain composure. But this was Avatar... And I had waited too long and paid too much for the ticket to miss anything.

I think I heard Fear laugh. He knew he had me trapped.

Hey God?

You're big. And bad. And well, okay nevermind, not bad like bad but like baaad. You know? Can you kick his ass for me?

I was beginning to hyperventilate. My breathing was apparently so loud, that Chris, on the other side of Freddy, heard me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him lean up. He looks kind of weird with his 3D glasses on. But I can't laugh 'cause I'm so freaking scared.

My brother just looks at me, though I can't see his eyes in the dark. He whispers, "You gonna be okay?"

I swallow, probably really loud, and nod. My brother has panic attacks of his own, so he knows what it's like.

I begin to rock back and forth.

Deep breath. In and out. Crap. I'm going to suffocate!

Sound the alarm! My brain screams. My lungs have suddenly forgotten how to process oxygen! So this is it, what it's like to die...

Stupid, stupid! You're not going to die. Fight or flight is malfunctioning... That's all this is... Another panic attack.

Oh no it's not! This one's for real! I can feel it. I'm dying.

Ever tried rationalizing with an idiot?

Yeah well, that's me trying to calm myself down during a panic attack.

I was really starting to get pissed at myself. I didn't want to miss the movie, yet I couldn't concentrate like this!

Freddy slid his hand into mine and squeezed. I squeezed back. I could do this.

Another wave of panic hits. My throat starts to tighten up.

Crap! I'm choking!

I make some weird gagging noise that alarms my husband, brother, and apparently the already freaked-out guy to my right.

He leans a little further away from me. And looks at me like I'm an alien species myself...

Some people just shouldn't watch Sci-Fi movies... I swear.

I'm not quite sure now what scene finally reeled my brain back in and away from my erratic, stupid body with it's crazy signals that miss fire and... Stuff.

Whatever you wanna call it.

So, I finished watching Avatar in relative peace. But the guy to my right did not. He seemed to stay rigid in his seat for the rest of the movie, which was over an hour, nerviously glancing at me the whole time.

Poor guy.

Hey Mom Look! I'm Not So Weird After All...

2010-03-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

I have one hundred followers!? Holy cow!

I'm not trying to tute my own horn here, but I'm in shock.

When I started this blog it was with the idea to work on my writing skills and just blow off some steam. Now, that is still what I do here, I just can't believe so many got interested in it!

So anywho, this isn't a big post or nothing. Just a huge thank you and shout out to all you guys who read, comment, or follow, whatever. You rock!

So now, since I've been neglecting my little corner of the interweb, I've also been neglecting all you guys I follow and will now attempt at catching up!

Jesus Didn't Tap.

2010-03-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

I'm a fan of UFC. For anyone who is unfamiliar, it's the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I don't always know all the fancy names for the moves, but I love the show non-the-less.

My husband loves it. He could tell you the name of every fighter, what makes them better, what makes them weaker, and whether or not they are trained in Jiu-Jitsu.

I'd say he's a way bigger fan. It's inevitable, when he and my brother Chris get together, that that's going to be just about all they talk about beides cars.

Well, a while back my husband and I were watching UFC, stuffing ourselves with ice cream and popcorn.

The fight we were watching was pretty intense. Both of the fighters were good. It was hard to predict who would take the win.

One would get in a good punch and a moment later the other would get in a leg kick.

Both their faces were looking pretty rough by the end and there was blood coming from everywhere.

I was on the edge of my seat.

Without taking my eyes off the tv screen, I spooned in a mouth-full of ice cream.

And then bam!

One fighter had knocked the other to the ground. And then they began to wrestle.

"This is how he takes his wins..." My husband says of the fighter who'd just knocked the other down.

The other fighter was struggling to get his arms free. He struggled to get a punch in. His legs flailed as he struggled to work his way out of the grip of the other fighter.

But the other fighter was too strong and soon had him in some kind of headlock with a fancy name that my husband called out.

"Ooooo, he's going to tap out." My husband leans up from the couch and focuses closely on the tv screen.

I kept my eyes glued to the tv, as well. And sure enough, not ten seconds later, the fighter tapped.

Wow.

When I exhaled, I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.

The best fights are the ones you can't predict, the ones that keep you on the edge of your seat, the ones that keep you from blinking...

I sat back against the couch and watched as Joe Rogan walked onto the rink to interview the winner, by way of tap out.

He'd been asking the guy the usual question for about two minutes when I looked down at the fighter's sponser covered jersey. In the middle of the sea of logos were the words: Jesus didn't tap.

Wow. No, He didn't.

Jesus could have summonded an army of angels to save Him from His bloody death on that cross.

But He didn't.

He didn't tap.

And in the end, He won the fight. The Ultimate Champion. Over death, over the grave, over Satan.

Because He didn't surrender, He didn't chicken out, He didn't tap out.

Ever heard the Champion by Carmen? I've always thought it to be an amazing piece of work.

Check it out.

Carman the Champion - Watch the top videos of the week here

Wednesdays Are For Losers... Like Me.

2010-03-03T15:28:00.000-08:00

Well, it went a little something like this... I slept on the couch last night.

My husband was snoring so badly. I think it's because I got sick and then consequently, got him sick. But he's always snored.

Just not that bad.

Last night, I tried rolling him onto his sides... Pulling his pillow out from under his head... Yanking the covers off of him...

I'm such a great wife, right?

And nothing worked. If anything it all made him snore all that much louder.

So with my pillow in tow, I was off to the couch.

And this morning, I woke to the phone ringing. At the ungodly hour of ten'o'clock.

I don't work on Wednesdays... You would think people would realize I don't rise before noon.

But no.

And it was Dad. My brother needed a ride down to the parole office. (Yeah while I was off on my little hiatus from blogging back in November, my brother got released from prison.)

And my brother has a resrticted driver's licsense due to back child support.

Fine. So I don't have a life and drive my brother around so he can pee in cups and... Other stuff. Don't judge me.

Plus, my shoulder was KILLING me. Apparently, I'd found the ONE hard spot in the couch last night, and had tortured my shoulder.

I stetched, I did push-ups... To absolutely no avail. (And it hurt all day...)

So I get dressed and head to pick up my brother. I get there and knock on the door.

Nobody comes to the door, so I just let myself in. I walked loudly through the kitchen and into the livingroom, hoping not to scare my brother or grandmother.

(Bro's living with my grandmother for now.)

It was dark and I couldn't hear anybody moving around.

"Hello?" I hollered into the dark livingroom and down the hall.

No response.

I creep down the hall, just a little and wait. Was my brother even home? Was my grandmother?

I creeped down the hall a little further. The bedroom doors were closed. So was the office door and bathroom.

And everything was quiet.

So when my brother throws open the bathroom door, I screamed.

When I screamed, my brother screamed.

When my brother screamed, from somewhere in her bedroom, my grandmother screamed.

So starting off, my nerves were shot. And so were my brother's. Because as we were walking out the door he shoved a dip in his mouth.

Me and my brother get to the parole office and he goes inside to do whatever it is people do at parole offices...

And I decide to wait in the car and get some more sleep.

Now, I'm not an idiot. Even though I do live in a small town, the kind where everybody knows everybody and if they don't know you, they sure as hell know your parents... Haha.

One of those kind of towns.

But I lock my door non the less.

I don't know how long I've been asleep, when I wake up.

Why did I wake up? Well, you ever get that feeling like someone is watching you and you turn around and your suspensions were true.

Well, there was an old guy standing outside my car door, smoking a cigarette... And looking in my window!

I jerk my seat up into a sitting position and was ready to abandon my brother, when the old man gives me a weird facial expression, like I'm the freak, and then walks off.

Yeah.

Moving forward, brother finally returns to car where he informs me we need to pay a visit to Family and Children Services. Something to do with his child support...

So we're off to Cartersville. Which is a good 45 minute drive. So I'm all groggy and tired, trying to manover my way on the highway.

And I'm really wishing at this point that the idiots who run Family and Children Services wouldn't take fathers' driver's licsenses away for back child support, because all that means is that they are going to have to get someone else to drive them to work and to wheverever.

Ugh. The world is run by idiots. I swear!

On the way back from Family and Children Services, my brother decides to regail me with a tale from his high school days when he and buddy of his took a road trip up to Ohio.

And he tells me how they went to some arts festival around some river in Ohio. The Ohio River, I guess?

I have a retired meth-head for a brother here, People.

And he proceeds to tell me that since all the porta-Johns. Yeah, port-a-poddies? My brother called 'em porta-Johns.

Whatever.

He proceeds to tell me that since all the porta-Johns were full, he and his buddies decide to just pee into the river.

So for hours, they are walking around drinking Bud Light and peeing into the Ohio River.

And then my brother goes to relieve himself one last time before they leave, and he pees off the ledge.

Only appartenty, he didn't see the dock or whatever below him, and ended up pissing all over some chick and dude trying to get their groove on.

.....Yeah.

So, I drop brother off when sister calls, "Hey you wanna go to the gym with me?"

I'm not a gym person. I go for a run ocassionally, but that's it. "Um, not really why?"

"Oh, no reason. It's just have you looked in the mirror lately?" My sister sounds serious.

"Excuse me? Is this your way of telling me I'm getting fat?"

"Look, I don't like working out by myself. Too many guys. Plus, It's not gonna hurt you. You need to tone up."

Thank you, Sister Dear.

So I guess that's how I ended up at the gym on a treadmill, watching my sister try to lift weights.

I had completely skipped the weights and gone for the treadmill. I'm no idiot. I could maybe bench the bar.

Maybe.

Now, my sister is a totally drop dead gorgeous blonde. Even after having a baby, she's hot.

Plus, she's single and has ever dude in the place starring. What else is new?

So I jog my twenty minutes on the treadmill and walk over to her, all sweaty and gross with my newly dyed dark hair plastered to my face and neck. "You ready to go yet?"

My sister hadn't even broken a sweat. "Not yet."

I sit and wait another ten minutes while my sister lifts weights. But it looks more like she's just playing around.

Whatever.

Turns out, she was wasting time so she could run into her old tennis coach from high school.

Crush, maybe?

Eh, but she doesn't talk to me about her love life anymore, appartently I'm too opinionated about guys, while she chooses to be ignorant.

We head out of the gym to the parking lot. And I notice a good sized dent in the rear bumper. "Hey Kim, did somebody hit you?"

She looks over and then real quick-like changes the subject. "Dunno, you wanna go get something to eat?"

Uhhhhh. I know that trick. "Uh, Kim... What happened to your bumper?"

She's now cranking the car and I'm in the passenger seat, looking at her. But she doesn't look at me. "No big deal, not like my car doesn't have dings already. So, where you wanna eat?"

I cross my arms. "I don't care... Kimberly, did you hit my car?"

My sister throws up her hands and turns towards me and looks me in the eye. "Gah, you're ruthless, yeah, yeah, okay?! I hit your car! It was a complete accident. It happened the other day when you where at mom's. I forgot you were parked behind me."

Great. "Did anything happen to my car?"

She pulls the car out of the parking spot. "I didn't check."

"Nice. We're eating at Zaxby's. And you're buying." I click my seatbelt.

"I'm broke." She looks at me sheepishly.

"Dude, you hit my car? And now I'm buying? Didn't you ask me to go with you?"

"Uh, yeah." She looks at me like I'm stupid.

Yeah, so we get to Zaxby's and we decide to go through the drive-thru and just take the food with us and rent a movie.

So, I pay. And as we're driving off, I realize the guy at the window didn't give me the right change.

I was short a dollar.

And maybe on another day, I wouldn't have cared... But today, it was like he'd shorted me a twenty.

I glare at my sister. "You know what?!"

She jumped and the car swerved. "What?"

"If I wasn't such a nice person, I'd go back in there and demand my dolla back."

My sister laughs. "Your dolla back?"

What is she deaf? "Yeah, my dolla!"

My sister throws her hands up. "Can I get a holla back?!" And laughs.

"This isn't funny."

So, we rent the movie The Box. Don't watch it. It's stupid. And plus, it sent me into a panic attack.

Stupid Sci-Fi movies.

So yeah, I'm writing this while my hands are still shaking.

I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Oh wait. Excuse me.

Wrong side of the couch.

Do Something, God!?

2010-03-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hey God... Hello?

Hello?

God...?

Wait, I hear You.

No, actually You seem to be breaking up.

There must be something wrong with the connection...

Hello?

God?

I watched the Passion of the Christ a week ago. I hadn't seen in in a few years. And I sobbed for two hours. It is a powerful movie. As I watched my Savior take my beatings, take my ridicule, take my punishment, carry my cross, and bleed for me, I could hardly bare the sorrow.

I repented of sins long forgotten. I was heartbroken that I could have forgotten so easily just how much my Savior endured for me.

I'm no better at this than anyone else. I'm no saint. Just a sinner saved by grace. I fall. I sin. I screw it up.

But God is faithful. He's there to pick me up and dust me off when I repent.

But as of late, I feel like God is distant. I've always heard that when you feel like God is distant, then look around. You're the one who has moved.

Maybe I did move. Took the wrong path. Skipped off the straight and narrow. I don't know.

I've been asking God to give me the answer to my question about Protestantism vs. Catholicism. Is one right and the other wrong? Are they both right? Or by some crazy chance, are they both wrong? I have been so confused as of late.

I've been wondering, have I been looking at things the wrong way all along? Did I miss something? Is it about more faith, less legalism? Or about more legalism, less faith?

But then that doesn't seem right.

Jesus came to build the bridge. The gap between humans and God. So why the need for a Pope?

But then again, it seems that all denominations of Protestantism have taken some things too far... Like speaking in tongues... Or believing in the gift of healing to the point of not believing in doctors.

So where's the answer? On both hands you've got the same God. Same Jesus.

But a lot of doctrine thrown around, shoved down throats, and bashed agaisnt the hard-headed.

I don't think this is what Christ had in mind for His hands and feet. The world is looking at us and watching. They want to know where the difference is. Just how powerful is this God that we believe in?

Sure we wear the t-shirts and have the fish stickers on our bumpers... We can all talk the talk.

But what about the walk? What about the everyday, in and out, fight to lay down ourselves at the foot of the cross?

What about the fruit of the Spirit?

How do we show the world Jesus, when we're all too busy fighting amongst ourselves to shine the light?

And has anyone ever seen godhatesfags.com? Excuse me... But Jesus got up on that cross for those same "fags" as for you and me! What has happened to the church?

I've been told I was going to hell because I wear pants, because I wear make-up, because I don't speak in tongues, because I cut my hair, because my parents are divorced.

Thank you very much, Church. Is that what you call yourselves?

Condemning everything I do and don't do. I don't understand it. I can't comprehend it.

So I pray, "God, if I'm wrong show me. Show me! Are you gonna turn me away because of what I wear, because I can't speak in some crazy blah blah nonsensical language, or because I couldn't help the fact that my parents didn't want to stay married? Am I cursed for all eternity?"

I thought He smashed all that trivial stuff to the grave 2,000 years ago on a cross? But apparently, the majority doesn't agree with me.

I'm no biblical scholar. But I am 100 percent sure of my Savior. That, is my only anchor in this storm. I can't see my hand in front of my face.

It's that dark.

I believe abortion is wrong. More than wrong, it's murder. I practice my right to vote and try to vote in men and women who will uphold morals. Abortion seems like a black and white issue to me.

And to me, the Bible's stance on homosexuality is black and white.

But what about other things that the Bible is not so clear on?

What about something as simple as birth control? Or in ventro fertilization?

What about those?

If birth control is a sin, am I going to hell?

Is God going to condemn me for seeking medical help that saved my life, while endometriosis was trying to take over my insides?

And estrogen was trying to kill me?

What in the world do I do now?

I've got one hand on the cross and and the other outstretched, waiting.

For what, I do not know.

Will answers come?

I don't know.

Will God leave me in the dark?

I don't know.

All I know, Friends, is this: Jesus chose the cross for you. There's power and forgiveness and love there. I may not have all the answers, but I can point you to the One who does.

You've got nothing to lose.

I don't for one minute believe my God has abandoned me. Letting me learn some hard lessons? Yes.

Staying silent, so that I seek Him more fervently? Yes.

But abandoned me?

No. And that's all I've got left to hang onto.

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." -C. S. Lewis

(Note: The above picture breaks my Savior's heart, of this I am sure. I am in NO way supporting the radical baptist church.)

Why I Was Arrested... At 15.

2010-02-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Okay so this is the first time I've actually blogged by request. Everybody wants to know why I was arrested at 15.

So I've poured myself a glass of wine... And will now regail you with my tale. Well, experience... As best as I can remember. The adreneline that night had me so high, I'm suprised I remember what I do.

Okay so I was 15, a freshman in high school, and living in Woodland Park, Colorado.

I never had a good relationship with my step-father. He was a drunk. We fought constantly. He liked to boss me around like a drill sergent and tell people that I was his daughter, to which I would quickly interject that he was only my step-father and I had a real, honest to God father.

I never quite understood why he wanted to claim me as his, yet hated me so much. He even asked me to let him adopt me once... I never told my father. But my father probably would have choked my step-father.

My step-father was not the nicest guy. He stabbed me in the leg with a pen once, for talking too loud in a waiting room. He would yank me back by my hair if I ever walked away from him in the middle of a confrontation. He used to give me indian burns or pinch me or twist my arms back if I talked back. And he looked at me like I was a piece of meat and would find ways to "accidentally" touch me in inaappropriate places. So I wore baggy pants and shirts to hide my figure.

And I didn't like bringing any of my pretty girl friends home with me. Because my step-father would look them up and down like a piece of meat, so creepily that my friends would want to leave.

One of my weekly chores was to vacuum the entire house. Well, if I ever left tracks in the carpet from the vacuum cleaner, he would make me re-vacuum the entire space over again.

He was OCD. Ever seen, Sleeping with the Enemy?

Well when I first saw that movie, I knew that that creepy guy reminded me of someone. My step-father.

Anyways... I sort of had to explain my step-father to explain why I did what I did.

I was so tired of living with the man and my mother constantly taking up for him that I decided that I was going to get out.

Now if I had been rational, I would have called my father, here in Georgia and said, "Hey Dad, I want to come live with you." And my dad would have bought the next airplane ticket east.

But I had this guilt thing about my mom. I never liked the idea of leaving her all by herself with my step-father.

I wasn't sure what all he was capable of, but I didn't want my mother to be the guinea pig, if you understand.

My best friend Britt, had a very similar step-father. Except hers was more physically abusive. We both wanted out and wanted out fast.

So at exactly 2 a.m. on April the 4th of 2004, I snuck up the stairs and into the kitchen were my step-father left his keys hanging on the wall, and stole his car, a Geo Prism.

I picked up Britt. We packed our clothes, food and stolen money and hit the dusty trail. We stopped at a Wal-Mart in the Springs(Colorado Springs)to buy a map and decided to head somewhere out east.

We didn't even leave good-bye notes. I drove the car, even though I was 15 and didn't even have my learner's liscence then. So I swirved quite a bit. And because of all the adrenaline shooting through my veins, ran a couple of red lights.

We headed out of Colorado.

As the sun was rising that morning, I started crying violently behind the wheel, waking Britt up, who had been asleep in the passenger seat.

"What's wrong?" Britt sat up fast and looked at me.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve. "I can't believe what we just did to our moms."

About this time, I knew my mother would be heading downstairs to wake me for school and I could only imagine what would be going through her head when she didn't find me there.

When she didn't find me anywhere.

Well, I pulled off the interstate at the nearest exit. We had made it almost to the Kansas border.

I knew I neaded to get to a phone and call my mom and tell her I was okay. I figured I would say I was sorry and beg for forgiveness and everything would be alright.

(This was before I had a cell.)

I parked the car in a parking lot, got out and walked to the nearest office building.

When I walked inside, I was still crying. I asked a woman sitting at a desk if I could borrow her phone.

She gave me a bizaar look, but agreed and led me to a small office and waited as I dialed my moms number.

Ring. My step-father answered.

Great.

"Uh, can I talk to mom?" I was still crying.

"Amanda?! Where are you?!" He shouted through the phone.

"Uh...." I looked over at the woman. "Um, what town are we in?"

The woman now looked thouroughly shocked as she answered, "Limon." (Pronounced Lime-on.)

I repeated that to my step-father and he asked me where I was calling from and if Britt was with me.

I once again turned to the woman to ask what building we were in. But I can't remember now what it was. But I told my step-father.

"Okay, just stay where you are."

I paniced. What? I wanted to talk to my mom. To see her. "What? Why don't I just drive back home?"

"Don't you go anywhere!" My step-father hollered into the phone.

Click.

I began to sob. The woman handed me a box of tissues. I blew my nose and walked back out to the car where Britt was waiting.

"So what happened?" I was climbing back into the driver's seat when she asked.

I still had tears in my eyes. "I don't know. ________ [step-father] said not to go anywhere."

It wasn't two minutes later when two police cars pulled into the parking lot and walked over to the car.

Britt and I were both cuffed, pat down, and put into two seperate patrole cars.

I was in complete shock. I was being arrested? I just wanted to go home.

We were put into holding cells and then questioned by family and children services.

Britt and I both knew what they were after, so we simply told them that we were just goofing off. Neither of us mentioned our step-fathers.

Then, family and children services came and took us to another building, where we were locked in a room with glass walls, where people walking down the halls on either side could look in and watch us. There were two sofas in the room and a bunch of coloring books and building blocks.

I felt like a hampster, or a goldfish, or whatever. Like the people walking down the halls who looked in and starred were waiting for me to do something like walk on the walls or implode.

I laid on one of the sofas and cried. Britt sat in the middle of the floor picking off her chipped nail polish.

For twelve hours, we stayed like this.

Eventually our mothers did come bail us out of the trouble we had gotten ourselves in. My step-father loathed me more than ever and threatened to press charges. And my mother never trusted me again. I was grounded for the rest of my life as far as they were concerned.

When my mother handed me the phone later that day, she said, "You explain to your father what happened today."

My father listened and just sighed. "So you ready to come home?"

I cried. "Not yet."

"Well, next time. Just call me. It'll save you another trip to jail."

35 Things You May Not Know About Me.

2010-02-27T22:56:00.001-08:00

I have no good blog material for tonight so... I came up with a list! Yay! What would we do without random useless lists to fill that empty void of a blank virtual page?

1) I burp a lot when I'm nervous.

2) The song, "I Need You Tonight" by the Backstreet Boys makes me cry.

3) I was arrested my first and only time at 15.

4) I cut my own hair.

5) I drive a '99 Mustang.

6) When I was kid, I listened to my Step-Mom's cassette of Rick Astley until it had weird warps in the middle of songs. They got so bad you could hardly make out the lyrics. Yeah, I was that obsessed.

7) I cry when my dad says anything stern to me.

8) I have Panic Disorder. Which means I have unpredictable panic attacks that tend to scare strangers.

9) I had to have my gallbladder removed 2 days after my sixtenth birthday. I went to the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack... But no, my gallbladder had kicked the bucket.

10) I've always wanted to try out for American Idol, even though I SUCK at singing. Lol. (My 15 minutes of fame maybe?)

11) My family tree on my father's side goes back to Mary Todd Lincoln. (Yeah, Abraham Lincoln's crazy wife...)

12) I'm 1/8 Cherokee Indian, from my mother's side.

13) I can't stand turkey, chocolate milk, watermelon, bannana popsickles, or Dr Pepper.

14) I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers.

15) I share a birthday with Michaelangelo.

16) I like to drink A1 Steak Sause from the bottle.

17) I'm a great public speaker. I love it. But I suck at one-on-one conversations.

18) I don't carry a purse with me when I go shopping. I just put my wallet in my pocket. I don't like shopkeepers to think I'm shoplifting just because I carry a huge purse.

19) Taking Benadryl is like having 5 cups of coffee for me.

20) Chemistry was my best subject in high school.

21) I flunked English 1101 my first year of college. Figures...

22) I've kept my hair dyed constantly since I was in 9th grade... I have no idea what my natural hair color looks like.

23) I quit my job at Gap after a year, because I hated having to pressure customers to open up Gap credit accounts.

24) I've run into 3 celebrities in public. I met Billy D. Williams, of the old Star Wars movies, while working at Gap. I met Ron White, the comedian, at a Cracker Barrel. And I met AJ McLean, of the Backstreet Boys, at a Wal-Mart.

25) The summer after I graduated high school, I went on my first mission trip to Pedras Negras, Mexico. That trip changed my life forever.

26) I was bullied in middle school and high school by a popular jock. Later on when I was a Sophomore, he tried to apologize for the things he'd done, like egging my house and making me cry on the bus, but I blew him off. A few months later, he hung himself. I've always felt guilty about having not accepted his apology.

27) The only time I've ever received two dozen roses, was from my father.

28) I lived in Woodland Park, Colorado, two miles down the road when the "Texas Seven" were found and subdued. School was canceled that day.

29) I've lived in Maui, Hawaii in a town called Pukalani. It sucked.

30) I love eating raw bread dow.

31) I was that awkward kid in elementary school who huffed cement glue. :)

32) My mother has been married and divorced four times. My father has been married four times and divorced three.

33) I own well over 600 books.

34) I have double-jointed fingers and elbows.

35) I can tie a cherry stem in a knot with my mouth. (I will Vlog this one day and prove it.)

What in the Name of all that is Sane?

2010-02-25T18:17:00.000-08:00

I had just passed out on my dad's couch. I'd been at work all day. I was tired.

So after I raided his fridge for something to eat, I decided to crash.

I had just dozed off when my father comes crashing through the front door, coughing, and high-tailing his way to the laundry room.

What in the world?

"Dad?" I holler after him.

I can hear him coughing all the way from the other end of the house.

I push myself up into a sitting position. My eyesight still a little blury from sleep. "Dad, are you okay?"

Puuuussssssssssssssshh. His radio squawks to life.

The dispatcher's voice fills the silence. It's Station 1's district. Not Station 2.

That means Dad's not going anywhere.

When my father reemerges from the laundry room, he had changed his clothes, but his face was blotchy and black.

I wrinkle my nose. "You smell awful. And have you looked at your face?"

My father swips his hand across his face and then examines it. And then he just shakes his head.

"What happened?"

As my father callopses into his worn, leather chair, he sighs. "Long day..."

I raise my eyebrows. "You look worse than just your average long day."

My father is a farmer and a first responder fire fighter. Hard work is no stranger to him.

He swipes his hand across his forehead and coughs. "I got a call while I was working on the brooders in number three chicken house."

He doesn't say anything else.

I prod. "And?"

Sighing again he says, "And it was a house fire off Plainview. So I dropped what I was doing and decided to just head over there, since I was only two minutes away, instead of heading to the station to grab my gear. The dispatcher said that whoever called 911 told 'em there was someone still inside."

He stops again and clicks on the television. The Weather Channel. He keeps his eyes glued to the screen but mutes the volume.

"And when I get to the address. I don't see any smoke. Just a man standing on the front porch talking on a cell phone."

He stops and coughs.

"Okay... So no fire... So why do you look like you just crawled out of a chiminey?"

My father smiles. Slightly.

With his eyes still glued to the television, "Well, I went up to the man and asked him if anyone had called 911. And he said yeah, but that there was no need for me to be there. That there was nothing I could do."

My mouth fell open. "What a moron! Why did he call 911 to begin with?"

My father looks over at me. "He wasn't the one who called 911."

"Okay... So who was?" This was turning into a weird story.

My father shrugs his shoulders. "Nobody knows as of yet. But I asked the man if there was anyone inside. And he said his daughter was. So I pushed past the man to get to the front door, but he blocked me. I told him I needed to get inside but he said the door was locked."

He stops again.

Am I gonna have to syphone it out of him?

"And?"

"And I pushed him out of the way and the door wasn't locked, so I shoved my way in. Only I had to crawl on my hands and knees. The smoke was too thick to see anything. I felt my way down a hallway. I shouted and shouted, but no one answered back. By this time, I hear Donny hollering for me."

Donny is a sherif's deputy, and my father's best friend.

"When I turned around I could see Donny crawling towards me down the hall. I tried turning the knob to the first door in the hall, but it was locked. Me and Donny decide to kick the door in. And when we did, we found the man's daughter."

My father's eyes are back on the rolling forcast on the tube.

"And what, you guys got her out?"

He coughs again. "No, she was lying on a bed, engulfed in flames and I didn't have any of my gear on. She was dead by the time me and Donny got there anyways."

I'm completely shocked. "So that man just let his daughter burn alive? He didn't even try to get her out or put out the flames?!"

"He was high, Mandie." My father looks back over at me.

High? "He was high?"

"Yes, that house was used as a meth lab."

My mouth falls open. "So you just went into a burning building without your gear on. On top of the fact that it was a meth lab and could have exploded at any moment?"

"Comes with the territory."

"Dad, please promise me you won't go into anymore burning meth labs..."

He looks at me and smiles. "What if you were the one trapped inside a burning meth lab?"

I laugh. "Okay, but that's the one exception."

Until Death Do Us Part.

2010-02-21T23:47:00.000-08:00

Feburary 14th, of 2010:

Snowflakes were falling and dancing in the wind. Swirling and twirling the world delectly into a wonderland.

Children were running around in the snow, with chocolate smears on their faces, trying to gather enough snow for a snow man. Some of them with their bright faces turn up towards the heavens with their mouths wide open.

Maybe their first taste of snow.

It was like the inside of some magical snow globe.

Men bustled around town, in such a hurry to buy whatever flowers were left at the supermarket for forgotten lovers and mothers.

The wind that blew and tried to make a popsickle of your nose, was neutralized by all the love in the air.

All the bouquets of flowers. All the boxes of chocolates. All those precious looks exchanged between lovers.

I'm not sure if that's what the world looked like to him that Sunday.

That beautiful Sunday.

Maybe he didn't want to look at the world. Maybe it hurt too badly, as he sat at his kitchen table writing and rewriting letters he'd written before.

He signed them. He licked and sealed them. Maybe he kissed them.

I wonder if he even saw the snow that Sunday as he drove across town. Or maybe he thought the snow fitting for that day.

I wonder if he had tears slipping down his old wrinkled face.

Maybe he was smiling through the tears.

Or what if he was just smiling? Maybe all his tears were dried up.

Like a well gone dry...

There was no trouble finding a parking spot. There was no one there but him.

Reaching over into the passanger seat, he grabbed up that bouquet of roses before stepping out into the snow.

He walked slowly, like old men do.

Did he look around? Did he say a prayer?

Or were his eyes glued to that one place? That one place where all his love was suppose to have stopped.

But never had.

What was it he had vowed?

"Until death do us part..."

Yeah, that was it. That was the hard part.

Death had parted. But love had not stopped. It had never even wavered.

Not for a moment.

Slowly, reverently, the old man lay the roses at the wife's final resting place.

He leaned forward, placing his forehead against the cold stone that held her name. Her date of birth. And the day she had been taken from him.

"A wonderful mother, a treasured wife..."

A treasured wife. No, she had been more than that. She was his life.

The beat of his heart.

Across the street, a young woman watched as her little daughter made snow angels in their front yard. And through the falling snow, she watched as the old man made his way across the cemetery with a bouquet of roses in his weathered hands.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she watched him kneel down at a grave.

She looked down at her own wedding ring and her growing belly. Growing new life inside. A manifestation of the love between her and her husband, the one making funny faces at her through the front window.

Gigglying and waving back, she posed for him in her huge winter coat over her huge belly.

He winked and blew her a kiss.

As she blew him one in return, she could see her breath float above her hand.

A frozen kiss.

That was the moment when she heard the gun shot.

Her daughter screamed. She jumped. Her husband appeared at the door.

She turned to peer back over across the road at the cemetery.

Where he had been kneeling just moments before, the old man was now slumped on the ground.

The above is a rough interpretation of what happened on Valentine's day this year in my town.

The children of the old man said that he had been complaining of heart problems but that the doctors had found nothing.

His children said, that he had said the doctors were idiots. There was something wrong with his heart.

It was broken.

The woman, the only eye-witness to the man's suicide, said she would never regard Valentine's Day the same ever again.

Michael Buble---> Swoon.

2010-02-21T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm in love with Michael Buble. Is this crazy?

Haha. I mean I'm married.

But everytime I hear one of his songs on the radio, my heart skips a beat.

I'm in love with the man's voice. And his songs are just so, so freakin' romantic.

Swoon.

One of my husband's best friends even looks like Michael Buble.

I swear everytime I see David, I'm like, OMG!

Lol. I'm not kidding.

One day I'm gonna figure out a way to inconspiculously snap a picture of David and prove that he's like Buble's long lost twin or something.

Anyways, I have no good blog material for tonight, which is why I'm confessing my love for Michael Buble.

I'm currently listening to his song, "Save the Last Dance." And eating birthday cake. Today. Or more correct to say, since it's like past midnight now, yesterday was my mother's birthday.

She's now 54. And I'm starting to feel old. Just because she'd getting old.

Not that she acts it or remotely looks it, but still...

Anyways, adios. I'm off to do more swooning.

Swoon.

Miss Audrey.

2010-02-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

One of my three nieces.

It Ain't That Bad.

2010-02-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

"Aw c'mone, Mandie, it ain't that bad." Daring me to take a dip, my husband held out his can of Copenhagen.

Now, I've had my share of cigarettes, and they weren't really for me. Plus, all that nicotine brought on way too many panic attacks.

My family's convoy of four cars: a Ford van, a Mitsubishi, a Ford F250, and my husband's Hummer H3; had just pulled out of the Cracker Barrel parking lot where we'd had way too many pancakes and way too much sweet tea.

We were now following my father, driving the van, trying to find a gas station with an air pump to fix my brother's tire on the Mits.

As he stops the car at a red light, my husband urges me again. "What happened to that adventurous girl I met in high school?" The right side of his bottom lip sticks out a little where he always puts his dip in.

I smirk and cross my arms over the seatbelt. "One of us had to grow up."

My husband laughs, "Alright, you chicken." He was starting to put the lid back on the can when I snatch it from his hand.

I peered down into that little round can of black, stinky stuff and swallowed. This was going to be gross.

I looked back over at my husband, who's eyes had grown a bit wide. Apparently, he hadn't expected me to take his dare.

I smile at his shocked face. "Okay, so how do you do this?"

He laughed. "Are you serious?"

As a heart attack. I wasn't about to be called a chicken. And my father had dipped for as long as I could remember and my husband had for years. My brother did also, and he swallowed. He never spit.

I cocked my eyebrows at my husband. "I ain't no pinchy pollo." I hold the can up. "So how you do this?"

When he stops laughing at my stupid Spanish, he proceeds to show me that you pinch a good bit of the tobacco between your fingers and squeeze thight.

Easy enough.

Then, he shows me how to open my lips wide enough to stuff the wad between my cheeck and lower teeth and then squeeze my mouth shut and mash the mass of sour mush with my tongue to make it stay in place.

Easy enough.

Then, I proceeded to spit into his dip bottle every five seconds.

A few minutes later it tastes really bad. "Ew, is it suppose to taste like this?"

Husband: "Yup."

A few minutes after that, my throat is really starting to burn. "Is my throat suppose to burn like this?"

"Hay no, cochina." My husband looks at me like I just told him I was gay. "You're not suppose to swallow it!"

I glare at him. "Like I want to? I'm spitting every five seconds, but it's still draining down the back of my throat."

"Okay, use your tongue to push it up closer to your lips. Get it away from the back of your mouth."

Okay. Easy enough. But that's when the world starting spinning. Everything was spinning.

And apparently, I found something very funny. Because all of the sudden I started laughing and couldn't stop.

"Chingado, Mandie! Spit it out! You are way too buzzed!" My husband shoves his hand in front of my face.

"Wait!" I'm still laughing. "Is this what happens to you everytime you dip?"

His face wrinkles up for a second and I find it hilarious and go into histarics again. "No. You get used to it after a while."

I feel as high as a kite and my face it completely numb. My heart feels likes it's beating 100 beats per minute, yet I feel like I'm about to faint.

"Freddy! Why didn't you tell me about this before? This feels awesome!" I go back to laughing.

"You're not going to feel so awesome in a little while. You should probably spit that out here in a few minutes." My husband gets all serious.

"What? No way! This is awesome..."

By this time, my father has found a gas station with an air pump and we all pull in. As soon as the car comes to a stop and I see my brother and father get out of their cars to work on the tire, I open my door.

"Where do you think you're going?" My husband had a death grip on my shoulder.

"Uh, to ask my dad why in the world he didn't tell me about this stuff before?" Duh.

"You aren't gonna be able to walk like that."

I shove my body towards the door and out of my husband's grip. I fall my way out of the Hummer and find that, indeed, my husband was right. I could barely put one foot in front of the other.

The concrete was spinning.

I stumble my way over to my father and brother knelt down by the almost flat tire. "Dad, why didn't you tell me about this stuff before?"

My father looks up at me a little confused.

I sway a little and my brother catches me before I kiss the concrete. I think he smelled the tobacco on my breath. "Amanda, do you have a dip in?"

I smile, probably with tobacco in my teeth and all. "Sure do."

My father stands up. "You better spit it out. You're gonna hit the ground if you don't. Not to mention you're gonna be sicker than a dog."

I roll my eyes. "Whatever."

I turn back towards the Hummer and see my husband propped against the bumper watching me.

I pass the van, with my grandmother and step-mother in it, right when I felt the need to spit. I bent over just a little to spit. But it must have been a little too far because I just kept going.

And there I was lying on the concrete, laughing my butt off at myself and how insane I felt, when my grandmother threw her door open. "Amanda Kate West! Do you have snuff in?"

This I found even more histarical. "Sure do."

And this my, prim and proper, grandmother found even more histarical because she nearly fell out of the van laughing. My step-mother had to pull her back in and my husband had to come haul me off the ground and back into the car.

Once he had my seatbelt on, he held out his hand. "Spit it out."

By now, I didn't feel so good anymore. Sure I still felt like I was flying, but my stomach was churning and burning.

"Fine." And I spit the wad into his hand.

When they had finished fixing my brother's tire, five minutes later, and started rolling again towards the highway, the worst nausea hit me.

I swore I was going to blow pancake chunks everywhere.

My huband felt like it was his fault. "I shouldn't have dared you to do that."

I lay my head back against the cold window and breathed slow. "It's okay. It was fun while it lasted."

Forty-five minutes later, somebody needed to take a potty-break and we were getting off the exit heading toward the nearest gas station. I threw up a "Thank you, Lord" as we pulled in.

I headed straight for the Sprite and a pack of Rolaids.

When I emerged from the gas station with what I hoped was going to cure me of this dip-hangover, my father was standing outside with my husband and brother.

And my father can't resist. "Freddy said you turned green but didn't vommit."

I glare at my husband. "No. But I wish I had. All over his interior."

My husband laughs.

My father laughs too. "Did I not ever tell you about the first time I dipped?"

No, apparently oh wise father, that is one life lesson you left out.

I shook my head.

My father laughs again. "Well, I was on top of the house, fixing the roof with my ex-father-in-law when he offered me a dip."

My mouth fell open. "On top of the house?"

My dad laughs harder. "Yeah, on top of the house. Imagine being on top of a house when everything starts spinning. I nearly fell off."

By this time, my brothers and sisters have had a good laugh over my experience and we're all headed back to our cars to continue the road trip.

I had just pulled open my car door when I hear my father call from the van, "You sure you don't want another dip?" I see him pull his can from his back pocket.

"Hell to the no!" I yell back.

And then I hear my grandmother laughing histarically again from somewhere in the back of the van.

My Brain Hurts.

2010-02-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, well I've had like three ginomous cups of tea... And I've gotten absolutely nothing accomplished except for finding a couple of cool new blogs to foller. (No I did not mistype that. That's my southern drawl coming out.)

This week is about to get a little insane.

Starting: Tonight.

So if for some reason I don't blog for about a week, here's why.

Tonight: I have to finish one of my short stories. That means finishing last chapter. Proofreading the whole freaking thing. And then printing it out. Two copies.

I will be up all night.

I have to finish it because a local church wants to use my story as the jumping board for a Bible study.

Then, the second copy, I'll be sending to a publisher. (Keep your fingers crossed for me?)

Tomorrow: Have to run to Office Depot to grap supplies I will need for what I described above.

I have an appointment to get my tattoo touched up. (Gonna be fun.)

I have to drive down to Kennesaw to buy a new ski jacket, because I lost my last one.

I also have to babysit my four month old niece.

I will also have to buy my sister a present for her birthday. Which will be Wednesday. I just loooove waiting until the last minute.

I will also be putting in a lot of research due to the curiosity this blogger, whom I follow, has caused for me. I was raised Baptist/Non-denominational. And now I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the protestant thing is a bit off-the-wall and maybe Catholisism isn't as crazy as it sounds.

Don't worry people I'm not questioning my faith. I've been praying and asking for God's guidance on this one.

Same Jesus. Same God. Same faith. Just a different way of approaching it.

Family would freak if they found out though. Haha.

Wednesday: I have to be at that church that wants to use my story for the first night of their study to introduce myself, tell background story about said story, and then get feedback. (Hopefully positive feedback.)

Also, it will be my sister's 19th birthday so we'll be going out to eat later.

I've also got to get all my clothes washed and packed and ready to go for Thursday.

Thursday: I will be heading off to the mountains with my entire family. Brothers, sisters, dad, step-mother, grandmother, nieces and nephews.

Hopefully this trip will be awesome and not totally insane due to the amount of family going and being cooped up together in a cabin for a long weekend.

And hopefully, weather conditions will be good enough to allow me to get some much-missed snowboarding in!

Sunday: Heading back home from mountains.

Whether or not there will be blogs between now and then is totally unpredictable.

Sorry for the press pause, Folks. But that's life, I guess.

Genuine Vs Superficial

2010-02-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

Gen-u-ine

-adjective

1) Possessing the claimed or attributed character, quality, or origin; not counterfeit; authentic; real

2) Free from pretense, affection, or hypocrisy; sincere

Su-per-fi-cial

-adjective

1) Of or pertaining to the surface

2) External or outward

3) Concerned with or comprehending only what is on the surface or obvious

4) Shallow; not profound or thorough

5) Apparent rather than real

6) Insubstantial or insignificant

I like to think that I am a genuine person. That I stand up for myself, for my belief, for what’s right, for my faith.

But many times that’s not the case.

“Obama’s going to be a great president.” My friend smiles and continues. “’Bout time this country voted in a black man…”

I wanted to punch her in the face. I want to scream that it was reverse racism.

But I didn’t. I smiled and nodded my head like I hadn’t voted for McCain.

“Biggest damn mistake this country’s ever made.” The man shakes his head. “Voting in a black man.”

I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to scream that he was a racist bigot.

I would have voted for Obama had he been Republican, regardless of his race.

But I didn’t say that. I just smiled and nodded my head, making me just as much a bigot as that man himself.

Ladies walk into the hair salon all the time complaining about how our state is overrun with Mexicans.

I want to rip their hair out and ask them how they would like to try and survive a day in Mexico.

And I don’t mention the fact that I’m married to one.

I just smile and nod my head like I agree, when inwardly I’m screaming at myself for being just another hypocrite and betraying my husband.

Because he’d never stand for it.

He’d never let people talk about white people the way I let others talk about Mexicans.

But I’d rather not rock the boat.

I’d rather smile and just kick myself about it later.

Sometimes I feel like it’s so much easier to be superficial.

I’d rather hide behind make-up and the “right” clothes, than become the talk of the town or become gossip at my church for wearing jeans to Sunday morning service.

I don’t ever say, “God doesn’t care what I look like or if I wear jeans…”

Because I’d rather not rock the boat.

“Oh, you’re in school to become a hair stylist?” I see the laughter in her eyes. “Wow. That’s so… Great. My daughter’s away at KSU for pharmaceuticals.” She has a smirk on her face.

“Oh that’s so cool.” And I flip my hair and pretend to be the airhead she already thinks I am.

I don’t say that just because I want to do hair, means I don’t have any brains, or that I had a higher grade in Biology and Chemistry in high school than the freaking Valedictorian.

Why? Because it’s easier being superficial.

And I love to be carrying the latest handbag from Coach or Michael Kors, or Kate Spade, or Guess… You name it.

But what for?

So I don’t feel like I’m missing out in the world of superficial girls everywhere?

So I feel like I fit in.

It’s easier being superficial.

I don’t have to fight or stand up for anything.

But today, I felt nauseous at the thought of laughing at a racist joke.

So I didn’t.

And I got some funny stares. And I felt my face turn red. And I wanted to scream.

But I didn’t.

But I didn’t laugh just because.

And I felt something. Maybe a break through.

I felt an inner peace. Maybe God was nodding his head at me saying, “That’s it, daughter.”

But I felt something. I felt what it must be like to live a genuine existence.

One where you are who you are. You don’t take crap off of other people and you don’t just sit by and watch Right being beaten to a pulp by Wrong without having at least tried to do something about it.

So, I’m going to try just a little harder everyday to be genuine. To be me.

To be Amanda West, not just another face.

To be the Christian, the woman, the sister, the daughter, the wife, the writer, the dreamer, the Republican, the snowboarder, the horrible cook, the shampoo girl that I am.

Not a plastic, air headed, stupid-grinning superficial version of the real me.

What about you?

Be Stupid.

2010-02-07T13:07:00.001-08:00

Okay, I have an addiction to LUCKY Magazine. I love fashion. Pure fashion.

I hate reading Cosmo and Glamour and Marie Claire and having to skip through all the sex articles.

I like to read about fashion. Just fashion. So hence, why I read LUCKY.

Anyways, so this month I was flipping through the March 2010 edition with Keri Russell on the cover and I come to an advertisement.

What magazine doesn't have 'em?

I almost skipped right over it and onto the next page until I glanced down to flip the page and saw these words at the bottom of the article: Be Stupid.

Do what?

So, that's all I have for today. Really the ad just really through me for a loop.

We're humans. Do we really need a reminder to "be stupid"?

Dear Love,

2010-02-05T19:47:00.001-08:00

I wrote this a while back. Thought I'd post it since this is love month...

Dear Love,

I’m a hopeless romantic. I admit, what you’ve heard about me is true.

I have ridiculous dreams about what love should be, Darling.

You know that story, the one about the Princess who gets rescued by her Knight in Shining Armor?

Mmmm, or just a Mr. Darcy would do it for me.

Maybe, an Edward Cullen (book version, thank you very much).

But here you are, Love, a real man.

A real, live red-blooded male. Who doesn’t shave on a regular basis and forgets my birthday and Valentine’s Day.

And here I am, Love, a real woman.

With bad hairs days, bitchy days, cellulite, and love handles.

Not exactly a Megan Fox, Love.

Love, can you promise me forever? Can you promise me a lifetime when we cannot even see tomorrow?

The Dear Lord himself, doesn’t even promise us tomorrow, simply the right now.

I will admit, real life has instilled doubts in me about love.

It’s done a number on my romantic fantasies about men who want more than just sex.

How can you promise me tomorrow?

Love, and what if I were to get fat? Or all my hair fall out? Or by some freak accident was mangled so badly, as to be grotesque looking…

Could you still promise me forever?

And, Love, what happens when we forget what we have together?

What about those moments when we no longer want forever together?

Will we still hang on?

Can we still promise forever, then?

And what about when you catch your breath. Mouth falling open a fraction of an inch, eyes growing a bit wider.

And I look up to see what’s happened. But you’re not looking my way.

Upon turning to search for what’s kidnapped your attention, my shoulders fall a bit and that sparkle in my eye fades a shade.

The mouth of that inner voice I’ve been able to keep duck-taped shut tonight, just ripped free of its bondage.

The catalyst? That beau-tiful woman who just waltz in and single-handedly made papier-mâché of my self-esteem.

What then, Love?

Not exactly my picture perfect love story… But are there any out there?

And what about when we’ve escalated from throwing pillows, to throwing shoes, to throwing whatever we can get our hands on?

And neither one of us is throwing under-handed…

What then?

Can we still promise forever when life crashes in around us?

Will we still hold onto one another?

What about after forever?

What if we keep our promise of forever and this love turns out to be a success?

If indeed, we spend an entire lifetime together, without actually acting upon fantasies of killing one another with obscenely large steak knifes, then when we both finally arrive on the Other Side?

Will you still want me then, Love?

Because I for one might, (and only might, I’m making no guarantees here, Love) look you up.

We Shall Nev'r Surrender.

2010-02-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

That man was my grandfather in his WWII days. --->

Today, I miss my PawPaw horribly. I'm so unsure about the future and so tired and depressed lately. My PawPaw always knew exactly what to say to put things in percpective for me.

My PawPaw, Howell Jones West, was one of the best people I ever had the honor of knowing.

He always told me he was proud of me. Even after I told my parents I wanted to drop out of high school because I was so far behind that I'd never graduate, my PawPaw said, "Oh yes you can. Don't you remember what I used to tell you when you were a little girl that Winston Churchill used to say?"

I rolled my eyes, "Yes PawPaw," I muster up my best British accent and say, "We shall nev'r surrender."

My PawPaw nodded his head like he was the one who'd done my raising... And I guess in a way, he did.

And when I told my family that I had decided to drop out of college and go to cosmetology school, let's just say they were less than thrilled...

But my PawPaw said, "Thatta girl, Armandy (My PawPaw never called me Mandie or Amanda, always Armandy) I'll be proud to tell every body my granddaughter's a professional hair cutter."

Haha. I'm laughing through my tears right now.

But in October of 2008, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. It had originated as skin cancer that had gone untreated and had spread through-out his body.

The doctors suggested radiation. Possibly chemo.

My grandfather suffered through the radiation that zapped his tastebuds that he couldn't taste anything ever again. He had a huge hole in his head in front of his ear, which was where the skin cancer had originated.

He lost weight and refused to eat. He lost that sparkle in his eyes.

And somewhere in my heart, a piece of me began dying too.

I begged my PawPaw to keep fighting. But my pawPaw was 85 and so tired of fighting. He was exhausted and ready to go home to the Father.

But I wasn't ready to let him go. I still needed someone in my court. I still needed him. Maybe it was selfish of me to want him to stay so badly.

Because my PawPaw was proud of me no matter what.

And when he asked me to give him his final haircut... The last haircut he would have before he passed away. I said no.

"Why not, Armandy?" My PawPaw cocked his head to the side and looked at me.

I crossed my arms. How could ask this of me? "Because, PawPaw, I suck at hair cutting. I'm only in the first quarter of school."

"You're the only one I want to give me my haircut."

And that was it. I set him up in the bathroom and went away at cutting his solid white hair. My PawPaw didn't have that ugly gray hair, but that beautiful snow white hair.

And I cried silent tears and wiped them away on my sleeve before he could see my reflection in the mirror.

Later, my grandmother told me that all of my PawPaw's friends that had stopped by had to listen to my PawPaw brag about how his granddaughter had given him his great haircut.

Hm. This laughing and crying bit is killing me...

A week before my grandfather died, I went into the livingroom where he was in his favorite rocker.

"PawPaw..."

He looked up at me with tired eyes.

"Will you tell me what Winston Churchill used to say back in the war?" I hadn't heard my PawPaw say it since I was a little girl. And I wanted to hear him say it with that funny fake British accent of his one last time.

But I figured he'd be too tired to muster up the accent.

He looked me in the eye and then didn't say anything. He looked up and then down and then took a deep breath like it was all he had left in him.

And in his fake British accent no less, "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

I cried tears that my PawPaw didn't see. Because when he finished I left the room immediately. My PawPaw knew me well enough to know that I just needed to hear those words in his voice, just one more time.

I miss my PawPaw. But on days like this, when I feel like just giving up, I hear his voice, "We shall nev'r surrender."

No, PawPaw, I don't guess I will.

My First Ever Vlog Attempt... Yay me.

2010-02-03T17:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is me, People. I know I probably sound like a hillbilly. But, oh well. This is me:

Attack of the Sweet Tooth. Revenge of the Brain.

2010-02-02T21:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, let me start this off with:

I'm not really a sweet food person. When I get cravings it's usually for things like pickles, or hotdogs, or chili, or Chinese, or Salt and Vinegar Chips, or something like that.

But nooooo.

Not tonight. When the house is stocked with pickles, and left over fried chicken and plenty of Salt and Vinegar Chips.

Tonight I wanted something sweet. But, alas, my options where few.

There was one lone Moon Pie I found shoved into the back of the pantry and some marshmellows...

And I'm thinking: Where's the sweet stuff??????

So I put on my thinking cap, because it was either that or drink a bottle of maple syrup... :(

So... Drumroll please.

I rediscovered Cokefloats! Ah! It's amazing.

I found some vanilla icecream in the freezer... And I'm usually not an ice cream person, but then I thought of the Coke out in the garage!

And I just don't understand how I could go so many years without a Cokefloat.

Because let me tell ya, it was good.

Discovery:

Brain Power:

Muawwwwwwhahahahahaha. Sweet tooth you are no match for the MANDINATOR!

(Forgive me for my ghostly appearance but it was like midnight and I was not about to go put on make-up for a freaking picture.)

The Glamorous Life of a Shampoo Girl

2010-01-31T13:31:00.001-08:00

<--- That would be me, after the kind of day I'm about to describe.

I ran into an old friend from high school recently. And everyone knows how that goes. We exchanged “how ya beens” and “what ya up to nowadays.”

My friend, April: “So, Mandie, where you working? You still at GAP?”

Me: “Naw, I quit there two years ago. I’m a shampoo girl at _________ Salon.”

April: “Oh my gosh how cool! I’d love to do that…”

Hu hu hu. Yeah, okay.

Me: “So, where are you working?”

April: “Oh me? I waitressing at __________. It’s so boring. I’d love to have your job.”

Great! You wanna trade? Like right here, right now?

You see, some days my job is…

How should I put this?… Insane.

With extra emphasis on the insane.

Those days go a little something like the following:

Intercepting Crazy-People/Telemarketing Phone Calls

Ring. Ring. Ri-

Me: “________ Salon.”

Crazy Person: “Uh, yeah, let me talk to Keeva.”

Me: “I’m sorry she’s busy with a client. Are you wanting to make an appointment?”

Crazy Person: “No. I need to speak to her.”

Me: “Well, she’s busy. Can I take a message?”

Crazy Person: “No. I need to talk to her now. It’s really important. My name is _______ and if you just tell her, she’ll talk to me.”

Me: “I’m really sorry but she’s busy at the moment. Are you sure it’s not something I can help you with?”

Crazy Person: “Well, are you Keeva? Because I need to move my appointment. It’s very important.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m her book-keeper. I book all her client’s. I’ve been working here for two years. I can move your appointment.”

Crazy Person: “I’ll just call back later.”

Me: “You’ll be talking to me again later, too.”

Crazy Person: “Uh?!”

Click.

Part of my job is making sure that I answer all phone calls so that our stylists can keep working and not have to stop to answer the phone all day.

So, no one. No. One. Gets past me.

And this pisses people off, so bad. They want to talk to the stylist. The manager. The owner.

Not the shampoo girl… Naw, ‘cause lawsy, she ain’t got no brains ‘bout her ‘t all.

(Sorry, I got carried away with my Southern drawl there.)

Ring. Ring. Ri-

Me: “_______ Salon.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “Yes, is this ________ Salon?”

Oh. My. Freaking. Golly. Pete.

Me: “Uh… Yes.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “Are you the owner?”

Me: “No.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “Can I speak with her?”

Me: “No.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “Is their a co-owner?”

Me: “No.”

Annoying (Brain-Dead) Telemarketer: “Why can I not speak with the owner?”

Me: “She’s busy.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “I will just call back later then.”

Me: “Oh, she’ll be busy then, too.”

Annoying Telemarketer: “Who ar-

Click. Slam. Bam!

That would be the sound of me taking my aggression out on the poor helpless phone.

I go through these same type calls, all day long!

Baby-Sitting

Now, I love kids. But for some reason, not the kids who come with their parents to the hair salon.

They’re brats!

For example, there’s this one lady who has four LITTLE kids and she always brings them with her when she comes to the salon.

And I don’t know how this became established as the norm or as expected but the shampoo girl has to babysit?!

It’s funny because my boss has a rather large sign posted inside the salon that says, “Parents please watch your children and do not let them play on or with our equipment. Unruly children will be sold as slaves.”

Ha. Ha! I wish.

Well, back to the lady with four kids.

They are always super hyped-up like they each just drank a gallon of Georgia sweet tea.

(Never underestimate the power of that stuff, People.)

So now, I’m stuck trying to handle four heathens while their mother is getting her hair cut.

One little girl goes straight for the stationary blow dryers.

No big deal, I think to myself. She won’t hurt the dryer.

Another kid goes for the magazine rack and starts yanking them all to the floor.

No big deal, I think once again, I’ll just pick them up once they leave.

Another kid goes for the shampoo bowls and plops down in one of the chairs and leans back like he’s getting his hair washed.

And I think, he’s not hurting anything.

And last but not least, the fourth gremlin is on his way towards the waxing station.

OMG!

I run as fast as I can to get to the other side of the salon before he--

Too late.

The kid had already stuck his hand down in the searing hot wax bowl and was now screaming bloody murder as he flung his wax dripping hand back out.

All over me.

His mother started freaking out over at the cutting station and Keeva wants to know what’s going on.

So, now I’m having to clean up the wax covered trouble-maker and get some burn aloe for his hand.

And now my shirt and apron are covered with wax and the floor is sticky too.

But before I can get to cleaning it up I hear something.

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Oh no!

I know that sound.

Instinctively, I look over towards the stationary blow dryers and the little girl is trying to pull the dryer down over her head, but she’s too short and now she was trying to yank it down and break it!

I hurry towards her. “No. No. No.”

She peeks her head out from under the strained dryer head and looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “What?”

What?! Is this kid sassing me?

“You can’t pull it down like that, hun.” I grit my teeth. I try to smile and look all innocent and sweet and unalarming.

I see that demonic look in her eyes.

She sees right through me.

“Yes, I can!” She shouts. “This is my space ship! And I have to get to Dablueon.”

Well, unfortunately I don’t speak four year old.

“This is a hair dryer. Not a space ship.” Should also just go ahead and tell her there’s no Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy?

Narrowing her eyes, she points her little finger at me, “You’re a liar!”

Rip. Rip. Rip. Riiiiiiiiiiiiip.
Now what?

When I turn around, the other kid is now not just pulling every magazine and hair book off the rack, but ripping them to pieces.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” I snatch the magazine he’s holding out of his hand.

And hear it comes… Wait for it. Wait for it.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a kid scream louder.

My ears start ringing and now the mother is upset again.

I relinquish the magazine back to the kid so he can finish demolishing it.

That’s when I see the oldest kid, the one who had been sitting at the shampoo bowls acting all harmless and crap.

Now, he’s turning the knobs and once again, I’m not fast enough to prevent a calamity.

OMG!

I felt the wave of cold water rush over me before I see it. The kid was wielding the sprayer like a water gun and was soaking me!

When my brain kicked in, I wrestled the sprayer from him and managed to get the water turned off, before we all drowned.

By this time, the mother is finished and is paying Keeva.

And I’m standing in a puddle of water, with my hair and clothes soaked, dripping like a wet rat.

I’m sure I looked like one.

Janitoring

I scrub toilets. Sinks. Empty trash. Sweep until my arms feel like they are going to fall off.

I scrub mirrors and windows. I scrub hundreds of brushes and combs.

I wash towels and fold towels and fold more towels.

Goferring

I run out for cigarettes. Dr Peppers. Salads. Hamburgers. Shakes.

I make deposits. Returns. And pay bills.

And I’m suppose to do all this within a ten minute time period.

So I run around town running errands, honking my horn in traffic and acting like a crazy person to get back to work in time and with commissioned errand completed.

Oh! And The Old Ladies

At the salon we have the regulars who come in once a week for a shampoo and set. These are older women who no longer know-how to, or are just too lazy to do their own hair.

But fine with me. More money for the salon.

But they’re so mean! They never fail to mention to me when I look like I’ve gained a few pounds or look a little tired.

And they love to tell me how skanky my tattoo is.

They also love to tell me I’m going to hell because I wear pants.

I’d love to tell them they probably are too seeing as how they cut, perm, and color their hair…

But I don’t. For the sake of keeping my J.O.B.

Oh, and they don’t tip.

Well, I lied. Sometimes this one woman will dig out 50 cents for me.

Yeah…

Oh! And The Rich People

These ladies waltz in the salon with their Louis V’s in tow, dressed in Juicy sweats. And wearing Armani sunglasses. And talking on their iPhones and driving their Lexis and Mercedes.

Now I’d really have no problem with these people if they didn’t treat me like I was a slave, or a second-class citizen.

They’ve flung their jackets and purses on me like I’m a butler!!!

Has anyone ever seen the movie The Devil Wears Prada?

Well, you know how Meryl Streep is always flinging her stuff on Ann Hathaway?

Yeah, well you sort of get the picture then.

I Also:

Eat hair all day long. It’s inevitable. It’s in the air and floats around all day with the hair dryers going.

Breathe toxic fumes that are supposedly killing the Ozone layer.

So, yeah.

I just love my job some days.

But hey, at least I’ve got one.

Maybe Obama won’t try taking it from me, too.

Best Damn Mistakes.

2010-01-28T20:30:00.001-08:00

I was throwing the last bite of my bologna and pickle sandwich into my mouth, when I hear my father start laughing.

Engrossed in my copy of Pride and Prejudice, I had been sitting on the couch in the living room for the past hour.

So out of curiosity, I look up at the television to see what my father had found so funny.

But there was nothing funny.

Just John Travolta beating the crap out of some guy in a bar.

I glance at my father and the beer in his hand. I had never seen him drunk, but perhaps tonight he’d had one too many.

It was close to one in the morning, and my father and I are the only night owls in the house. He likes watching the history channel and drinking a few beers. And I like eating weird stuff, like bologna and pickles, and reading my books.

“Uh, dad,” I venture, “What’s so funny?”

My dad looks over at me as though he had forgotten I was even in the room. And his smile fades a bit. “Oh.” He takes a swig of his beer. “Nothing.” His eyes go back to the TV.

I look back at the TV as well. I’m a Travolta fan, but I had never seen this particular movie. It looked old.

“What movie is this, Dad?”

Keeping his eyes on the TV, he responds. “Urban Cowboy.”

“Oh.” I go back to the part where Lydia runs away with Wickham.

Minutes tick by and I’m once again engrossed in my book.

I hear my dad crush his beer can. That’s usually his signal that he’s done for the night and about to hit the sack.

Waiting to hear the TV click off, I pretend to continue reading, never looking up.

My father seemed to be in a strange mood. Which isn’t typical of my father. He’s laid-back, humorous, and light-hearted.

Never moody.

I could still hear the TV, rolling the credits for Urban Cowboy.

My dad cleared his throat, “You’ve never seen Urban Cowboy?”

Wow. So I started this discussion how many minutes ago, Dad?

I didn’t actually say that. I just looked up at him, a little surprised that he was now interested in talking. “Uh, no. Not that I can remember.” And I go back to pretending to read.

Apparently my father really was in a talking mood. “Have I ever told you I’ve been there?” He gestures toward the TV.

Behind the rolling credits was a building and a parking lot.

I was confused. “Been where?”

“To that bar, Gilley’s. It’s in Texas. Me and Sandra stopped there on our way through to Arizona.”

Sandra, was my father’s second wife.

“Oh.” I’m a bit taken back. My father rarely talks about his past. I’ve gathered it’s something he’s not quite proud of, so I’ve never pried.

But what I’ve picked up from my mother, brother, grandmother, and step-mother was that my father was addicted to cocaine and used to run drugs from Miami. Apparently he ran with a pretty rough crowd before committing his life to the Lord.

My father looks back at the TV and mindlessly watched the credits continue to roll.

Before I open my mouth, I consider the question I want to ask.

Will it offend him? Will it make him feel bad?

But I was curious and I wanted an answer, so I drew in a silent breath and closed my book between my right index finger, just in case it didn’t go over well so I could just stuff my face back into my book.

“Hey, Dad?”

He looks at me. Nope. He’s not drunk. Because he looks at me, seriously.

Did my tone give me away?

“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but do you like ever regret, you know, being married four different times?”

To my surprise, my father doesn’t balk at my prying question, but actually smiles.

A little.

“Do I ever regret it?”

I know my father’s an intelligent man. Do I need to grab a dictionary?

“Yeah. Like feel bad?”

My father’s face clouds over just a bit. “Now, feel bad? Yes, I would say I feel bad about it. But I’m not quite sure regret’s the right word.”

“Oh.” I consider for a moment diving back into the world of Jane Austen, but curiosity bit me again. So I push on.

“Do you ever wish you could take it back?”

He’s not looking at me, but flipping through channels. But nothing’s on but infomercials, because it’s one in the morning.

“Sometimes.” He continues clicking the remote.

I let my finger slide out of my book and I lay it aside me on the couch. “Did you ever marry for love, though?”

Now, this question seemed to throw him off guard. And he looked a tad offended. “Well of course. I married for what I thought was love at that time in my life.” My father looked at me like I was heartless.

“But why didn’t things work out between you and Katherine?”

Katherine was my father’s first wife and the mother of my half-brother, Chris.
My father rubbed his forehead. “Because I wasn’t the kind of husband I should’ve been.” He sighed. “I failed her. And I wasn’t the father I should’ve been to Chris.”

For a moment, I didn’t say anything. He’d failed Katherine? How? Was it okay to ask? He didn’t seem eager to divulge any details.

“What do you mean you failed her?”

The remote stopped clicking. The TV had stopped on the Weather Channel. Rain tomorrow.

Great. Just what I-

“I had an affair.”

Whoa! Whoa! Do what? No. No. No. No. Not my dad. My dad was a good man. He would never do something like that!

“Huh?” I couldn’t stop myself before I uttered that dumb question.

My father didn’t seem phased. “I wasn’t ready to settle down and so I had an affair. Stupidly, I figured it was the easy way out. But it was a coward’s way out. I hurt Katherine badly and probably damaged your brother for life.”

I feel numb at this point.

“Who was the other woman?”

He didn’t respond right away. He had a far away look in his green eyes. “She was an older woman. And I was young and dumb.”

“Oh.”

This conversation was just a bit too much for me, so I grab my book and start fumbling through it, desperately seeking where I’d left off.

“Right and wrong.” My father mumbles.

Huh?

I’m worried I’ve drudged up things from my father’s past that I shouldn’t have.

“What, Dad?”

“Right and wrong,” he continues, “I knew right from wrong back then, as I do now. And if I could go back and do the right thing. I would have stayed with Katherine and raised your brother in good home, one with a mother and a father.”

“Oh.” I feel a little pain in my chest. The kind of feeling you get when you’re heart broken. My heart cracked just a little.

Dad regrets me?

But I wasn’t about to let him stop there. I wanted to know the rest. Might as well break my heart completely if it’s already cracking.

“So what about Sandra?”

My father clicks the remote. The TV goes blank. And he turns his full attention to me.

“Are you wanting to know the whole history of my love life?” He smirks.

I shrug my shoulders. “Why not?”

My father grabs his bag of peanuts that he always keeps beside his chair and begins cracking them.

Oh man. Is this gonna be an all-nighter talk?

After popping two in his mouth, he says, “There was someone before Sandra.”

I laugh. “Who? The lady who had some of her intestines removed to get skinnier?” Some of his past, I did know.

He laughs. “No, Christine was after Sandra.”

“Okay, so who was this other woman?” I ask a little dramatically.

There my father goes again, with that far away look in his eye. “She wasn’t the other woman. She was the woman.”

Whoa. The woman? My dad had a the?!

“Wow. What was she, the love of your life?”

My father smiles, faintly. “Yes, I suppose she was. Her name was Diane. And I had loved her since high school. I got another chance with her after Katherine and I were divorced.”

I get way too curious at this point. “And…?”

Here comes another sigh. “And… I treated her horribly. I’m surprised she put up with my crap for as long as she did. I loved her. But I didn’t know how to show love. Like I said, I was young and dumb at that point in my life. So, I lost her.” And here comes the far-away look again.

Even if he had cracked my heart earlier, I felt sorry for my father.

“Oh. So then comes Sandra?”

My father looks like he’s re-entered the planet’s atmosphere once again. “Yes, and then came Sandra. And Sandra and I liked to party and travel and just goof off. But after five years, I was ready to settle down. Be a good father to your brother and have some more kids.”

Oh. “So what was the problem?”

My father looks me in the eye. “She didn’t want to settle down. She didn’t want to have children. She wanted to keep living like we were still two college kids. Which we weren’t.”

“So…” I pry.

“So, we divorced.”

“And then comes Christine?”

“Yep, but that didn’t last long.”

“Like her bowel movements…?” I smile.

My father cracks up. “Yeah, something like that.”

“So after Christine is that when Mom comes in?”

There he goes again with that far away look. “Yeah, that’s when your mother comes in.”

But there’s no need to re-iterate that story. I know it by heart. My parents were together for eight years before they had me and my little sister, Kim. And then my mother decides she doesn’t want to be married to a poor farmer and leaves my father for my rich step-father…

“I loved your mother, Mandie. Very much. She broke my heart into a million pieces when she walked out on me and took you and your sister away from me. I had always told myself that with your mother, I would do right what went wrong with Katherine. That I would raise you and Kim in a good home. But I deserved what your mother did to me. I‘d done the same things to Katherine and Diane. I guess I had it comin‘ to me.”

My throat starts to constrict and I try not to let the tears filling my eyes roll down my cheeks.

My father clears his throat. “And then came Leah. And she was far too young for me. And I was on the rebound after your mother and I let Leah think our relationship was going somewhere that it was never going to go.”

“Oh… And then came Marcia?”

My father smiles. A genuine smile. “And then came Marcia.”

Marcia has been my step-mother since I was four and I love her to death.

But now I wonder. “Is Marcia your soul mate, you think, Dad?”

It’s quiet for a few moments. “No.” My dad finally admits. “But I love her dearly. And I see myself growing old with her.”

My thoughts are everywhere at this point. “So you regret your love life?”

My father pops another peanut into his mouth. “Yes, I do. There were so many things I did wrong. So many places I failed. And I let Diane slip through my fingers.”

At this point I’m ready to just go to bed. I start to get up off the couch.

But my father starts talking again. “Have you ever felt horribly bad about something, yet, as wrong as it is, you wouldn’t take it back if you could?”

What is he talking about? “I… Guess.”

“Well, that’s how I feel about my life.”

I sit back down. “So you wouldn’t change things if you had the chance?”

“No.” My father looks me in the eye again. “I regret just about every thing about every relationship I’ve ever had with a woman. But as badly as I hurt them, I wouldn’t take it back. Does that make me bad?”

Why was he asking me? “Um, I don’t know, Dad. I mean there’s no way you could change the past anyway… So what’s it matter?”

My father smiles at me. “Because you and you’re sister are the only women in my life that I don’t regret. Things turned out the way they did because I was an asshole in my younger years. But it got me the two of you and your brother.”

I smile.

And so does my father. “The three best damn mistakes I ever made.”

Be Nice to Crazy People.

2010-01-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

So this is something I wrote a while back when I was having panic attacks everyday. This was the worst one. Utterly terrifying. No joke.

When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t remember how I got there.

My jeans were wet. My face and hair were soaked. My arms were…

Wait, I couldn’t feel my arms. I tried to move a leg. Nope. No luck. I was paralyzed.

All over my body, I felt the sensation of pins and needles. I was completely numb.

What the heck?

I took a deep breath. But I choked. I was facedown in grass and had just sucked in some dirt.

Where am I?

Even though my head was spinning faster than the Tornado at the Fall Fair, I tired lifting it to see where I was.

It was completely dark, except for a dim yellow light coming from somewhere over my right shoulder.

But I didn’t try to turn to look for the source of the light, I felt nauseated. Bile began bubbling up the back of my throat, and I knew I was going to vomit.

I gagged and let the spit and bile fall out of my mouth onto the grass.

“I think she’s conscious!” Some unfamiliar voice shouted.

I tired to roll myself towards the voice, but my arms weren’t working. Neither was my mind, apparently.

A hand reached out for one of my arms, “Do you think you can sit up?” The voice, attached to the unfamiliar arm, asked.

“Should we just call 911?” Another unfamiliar voice asked. Only, this one was a woman’s. And she sounded suspicious.

“I don’t know.” The arm pulled me into a sitting position on the grass and my head spun even faster than before as I tried to process my surroundings.

I tried to lift my hand to my face, but my arm just lied in my lap. Dead weight.

The arm turned out to be a man’s. He looked like he was in is late twenties, but I squinted. I wasn’t quite sure. Why was my vision so blurry?

My glasses… Where are my glasses?

The man looked down at me, and I could see the faint yellow light was coming from a house, behind him. And there were three other people standing behind him. Almost like they were afraid of me… They all looked at me as though I had fallen from the sky…

Had I?

What was I doing here?

“Are you okay?” The man asked, stooping a bit to look into my eyes.

My head was still spinning. Was I okay? I didn’t know. What was I doing there? How did I get there? Who were these people?

And that noise. Some strange humming noise in the background. I glanced over my shoulder and found the source of the noise.

My car. It was running, with the driver door open.

And then I remembered exactly how I got there. Well, maybe not quite why I was lying facedown in the middle of some strangers’ front yard… But the memory of the night hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’d been driving, on my way to my boyfriend’s house, which is out in the middle of no where.

And then, all of a sudden, a panic attack strikes me. Out of no where. And I’m in the middle of no where.

In my panic, I call my mother. “Mom! I’m having an attack. Talk to me!”

I hear my mother fumble for something to say. “Okay. Just calm down. Tell yourself you’re alright. Focus on breathing slow. You’re breathing too fast I can hear it.”

Right. Breathe. Breathe. Ugh! Not working! “I’m trying but it’s not working! Say something. Distract me!”

My mother fumbles again. “Okay, what time do you have to be at work in the morning?” She rushes through the question. I know she’s panicking now.

I can’t even remember. I can’t think straight. Trying to drive while fighting hyperventilation and paralyzing terror, all the while trying to keep from hitting on-coming cars and mailboxes, was just too much.

“Uh…” Panic. Panic. I’m suffocating. My chest is caving in. Can’t breathe. “Uh, I can’t remember.”

“Mandie, are you still driving?” She sounds really worried now.

“Yeah, yeah.” Panic. Panic. I’m going to lose control and crash!

My breathing becomes more erratic. And my heart feels like it’s going to beat its way out of my chest.

“Mandie, listen to me. Do you need to pull over? I can come get you. How far away from Freddy’s house are you?”

Way too many questions at once. Okay, so maybe only two. But I can’t process information very fast when I’m in this condition.

My fingers begin to go numb. “Pull over?! Pull over where? I’m in the middle of no where!”

“Are you able to safely drive the rest of the way to Freddy’s house?”

My throat gets tight. And then my face starts losing feeling.

Dammit! Why can’t I breathe?

“Mandie?!” My mother shouts into the phone.

Where’s my voice? I cough. “I don’t know!”

I feel the numbness shooting down my legs. My foot begins to feel heavy on the gas petal.

“Mandie, you’re going to have to pull over. I can hear your breathing. You’re going to hyperventilate!”

Too late. My legs were numb. My hands were numb. My face was numb. And my arms were going numb.

“I can’t, Mom!” The thought of stopping here, in the middle of no where, in the middle of the night, shot another shock of terror through my already erratic body.

My heavy foot, which I’d lost feeling in, pushed down too hard on the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward, too fast.

My reflexes were still working, and I immediately lifted a numb foot and slammed the brake.

Too hard.

Thank God, I was wearing my seatbelt. It was the only thing that prevented me from face planting into my steering wheel.

By this time, the numbness working its way down my arms begins to intensify. My fingers begin to draw up. I can barely grip the steering wheel.

And that’s when I dropped the phone. I remember still yelling in my car, to my mom on my phone that was somewhere in my floor board.

I begin frantically looking for somewhere to pullover. I was going to kill myself. Because my vision was beginning to go black and I was about to pass out.

I had to pull over somewhere. Anywhere.

The last thing I remember was trying to claw my out of my car. My freaking fingers had drawn up so bad that I couldn’t grip anything! I couldn’t even put my car in park.

I couldn’t grip my door handle. I screamed.

I was parked halfway in some stranger's yard at midnight. Screaming. Trapped inside my own vehicle. Irrationally, believing I was dying. My body was numb. My ears hurt. My brain wouldn’t shut up. My heart was skipping beats. My breathing wouldn’t slow down. And I couldn’t stop screaming.

And then I thought about my horn. And I laid on it.

Someone would hear me and get me out of here.

But then I felt my door give way. My paralyzed hand had finally pulled the handle up enough to open the door.

I felt the cold air, the wet grass, and then nothing.

I was out.

(To have a panic attack is my biggest fear. It’s like being trapped inside your body, when your body is completely out of your control. They royally suck.)

Eh, Your Mother's Mustache.

2010-01-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

Crunch. Crunch. Cruuuunnnnccchhh.

What in the world?

When I open my eyes, all I see is a blur of words.

And my nose feels weird. Like it's asleep. All tingly.

Crunch.

I pick up my head, out of my book.

And I see Zane. Eating my Pringles.

My vision is all blurry and I feel drool on my mouth. Ew, I'd drooled all over my book!

I squint my eyes at Zane. "Why are you eating my Pringles?"

Crunch.

He smiles. Apparently something is funny. "You look like you lost a fight with a wall."

Crunch.

I squint again. The sun was coming through the windows of the break room. "What are you talking about?"

Crunch.

Zane points to my face.

"How long have I been out?" The last thing I remembered was reading. I had just gotten to the part where... Wait. I couldn't remember the last thing I read.

"I don't know. Like half-an-hour, I guess." Zane loses no time shoving more of my Pringles in his mouth.

I get up and walk to the bathroom to examine my face and laughed out loud when I did. Zane was right. I looked like I'd lost a fight with a wall.

My entire forehead was bright red and my nose was blotchy red and looked smashed and a little crooked.

Great.

I'd had trouble staying awake at work all day. Even when I was shampooing someone, my eyelids had felt heavy.

It had just been a crummy day. I was exhausted and worrying about my husband and all the bills.

And I hated working on Saturdays. But alas, everyone wants their hair done on Saturdays.

So a few hours later, with a huge red mark still on my forehead, I collect my paycheck and what's left of my Pringles and head out to my car.

Usually on Saturdays after work, I just go home and take a nap and then stay up half the night watching rented Blockbuster movies with my husband.

But since for the time being my husband is out of commission, for lack of better words, and I've got absolutely nothing to do... Because Mom and Dad are at work...

So I go for plan, "Mother's Mustache."

Now, this may sound weird, but it's an inside joke in my family. Whenever you want to do or say something that you shouldn't or that would be offensive, it's my family's version of, "Just screw it."

We say, "Eh, your mother's mustache."

For example:

Me: "Hey, Mom. Smoking is bad for you. As crazy as you make me I'd like to keep you around a few more years."

My mother: "Eh, your mother's mustache."

Lol. We're weird.

So today instead of just heading home to crawl into bed, I drive across town to Long Horn, the steak house. And if you've never been, you should go, if not for anything else but their massive chocolate dessert called, "Chocolate Stampede."

On bad days, I go in and ask for a booth for one. Order a water and one Chocolate Stampede.

These are the days when the logical side of my brain says, "Mandie, that's an awful lot of calories to be consuming. There are better ways to work out frustration and bad days... Like going to the gym, or washing your neglected car, or just eating a healthy snack instead."

And this is when the non-logical side of my brain says, "Eh, your mother's mustache."

From the Shadows of the Twenty-Fourth Step of this Velvet-Lined Staircase.

2010-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

She doesn’t understand the world.

She just sighs and relights that cigarette she knows she shouldn’t be smoking. From the shadows on the twenty-fourth step of this red-velvet lined staircase, she watches the rest of the world spin on.

No one’s eyes can detect her dark silhouette from the shadows. Laughing in merry oblivion, they pass her by. Silk glides through the air on delicate high-heeled, strappy sandals climbing up and down the steps around her, balanced on the arms of sharply pressed and tailored tuxedos, with fake smiles.

She doesn’t understand the world.

Ashes spread all over her satin get-up, as she flicks the end of her cigarette carelessly. She slides her fingers through her messy black hair. Just a nest of tangles and bobby pins from an up-do that was stunning just five minutes ago.

That tiny chip in her red manicure catches her eye as she lays her hand back atop her knee. The smile that transforms her lips is bitter. Perfection is intangible. So with a cigarette dangling from her fingers she chips at the polish until that tiny chip is a large gash.

She doesn’t understand the world.

Or why trying to cope without tears is just as effective as trying to swim without limbs. But she’s determined not to cry. Even though no one would know.

But her.

The smoke starts stinging her nose. Chanel doesn’t mix well with cigarettes. The fume is sickening. So she puts out her cigarette on the bottom of her Louboutin. And from the shadows she tosses the butt over the railing.

She doesn’t understand the world.

Or why a girl like her should even try. Why even stop to ponder, such a trite issue? What with the rest of the world twirling and laughing on the dance floor below her? None of them find reason to crawl into the shadows to wallow in confusion.

A tuxedo meets her eye. She feels caught, like a cat with a wing hanging out its mouth. But immediately her eyes cloud back over and she smiles automatically. Continuing to climb the red velvet lined staircase, he smiles back.

She doesn’t understand the world.

Because no one looks long or hard enough to see anything behind her brown eyes. No one cares to see anything beyond their glassy exterior. And then she wonders if maybe all there ever was, all there really is, is a glassy exterior.

Those brown glass windows begin to fill with tears. But she doesn’t let them fall. That would ruin her mascara.

She doesn’t understand the world.

She finds herself lighting another cigarette that she knows she shouldn’t be smoking. Her throat is raw she takes another rough drag.

But she doesn’t understand the world and she’s tired of trying. Just not quite ready to crawl back out of the shadows.

The Old Man

2010-01-19T20:10:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I have a big family. Two stepbrothers and one stepsister. And a blood-related sister and brother.

Well yesterday, me and my blood-related sister and brother, Kim and Chris, crashed our dad's house while he and my step-mom were out. We played their Wii and ate their food and drank all their sodas.

When my parents came home to a house full of children that they had already shooed from the roost, they perked up. I find it hilarious that my parents couldn't wait to get all six of us all grown up and out on our own, and now that we are? They want to buy us dinner, take us to movies, put gas in our cars, and bribe us to come back home more often with shopping trips and new games for the Wii.

Haha! They have such a bad case of Empty Nest Syndrome.

God bless my dad. He's a good man. He's loyal. Honest to a fault. And hard working. Solid in his faith in God.

But Kim, Chris, and I gave my dad the hardest time when we were growing up. We were always into something or up to something.

Kim and Chris had their rounds with random drugs. And I just hated high school and skipped class half the time and nearly didn't graduate on time.

We were trouble makers.

So it wasn't really a surprise when Chris came home one day with his shoulders, back and chest covered in one solid tattoo.

And I suppose it wasn't a shocker when Kim came home with two of her own.

My dad figured I was his last hope. His last remaining proof that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't failed completely as a father. Well, yesterday my father's hopes came crashing down.

I live in a small, tiny, minuscule, think even smaller than that, town. So apparently word gets around fast. Especially when your step-mother is a judge and your father is a firefighter... I swear they know everyone.

Ever since I'd gotten my rather large tattoo down my left arm, I'd been wearing long sleeves. Of course it's something I'm proud of. It's Isaiah 43:3-4, some of my favorite verses.

Well when my dad got home, he looked at me and said, "So when were you planning on telling me about your tattoo?"

My brother and sister stop dead in the middle of their virtual tennis game, and the ball goes double-bouncing into my brother's court. But he was watching me and so was my sister.

Crap. "Uh..." How in the world did he find out?

My step-mother is standing behind my dad, with her arms crossed. Grinning from ear-to-ear. What was so funny?

I clear my throat and swallow loudly. "Uh, I was planning on it. So who was it that beat me to the punch?"

I glare over at my siblings. They both shake their heads profusely and throw their hands up in the air, with Wii remotes dangling from their wrists.

With one look back at my parents, I know they're not giving up any names.

Ugh. Freaking-small-can't-do-anything-without-somebody-being-up-your-butt town!

Chris comes to my defense. "Hey dad, it's no big deal, mine's way bigger."

Kim chimes in too. "Yeah dad, I have two. At least she only got one." Extra emphasis on the one.

My dad chuckles. "Yep, that's because I raised three idiots."

Cigarettes and Cellphones

2010-01-17T19:42:00.001-08:00

In her left hand she held a cigarette and in her right her cell phone. I studied for a moment the way she delicately dangled her cigarette out the window while apparently reading a text message from someone in her endless network of friends. And somehow between the two, she managed to steer the wheel.

Ahh… What a nervous wreck I was. But soon I was pulled away from thoughts of my possible bloody end by way of car accident by a flickering thought. When had she picked up smoking as a habit? Oh, I am not so naive as to believe she had never smoked. I doubt many have made it through the teenage years without so much as a puff of smoke in their previously virgin lungs. The cause, I'm sure, is about ten percent curiosity and ninety percent rebellion. Ha. At least that was the case for me.

But what really got to me, I should say, rather was the thought that she had changed. Something quite remarkable about her demeanor. Possibly, I thought, it was the fact that she was a smoker? I questioned this to myself for a moment.

No. No. That was not it. Though, she had developed what I shall call the Traits of a Smoker 1. Haha! Yes, she had. Her head was cocked up in an air of arrogance. Her lips stayed in a constant purse as though she had some devious secret that would spill out at any moment. And that look in her eyes… A warning to all in her path that she was as tough as an anvil, if not tougher.

Yet, it was not just the physical condition of her poor lungs that I was sure had changed. It was something deeper inside. Something almost good, but smelled sinister.

Growing up with this friend of mine had given me the chance to see her in a way others can‘t. I knew the child inside her. I knew the awkward middle school-er in her. I knew the guy-swooning teenager in her. Yet, she was becoming a woman.

The bridge between teenager to woman, I must say from my own experience, is terrifyingly rocky. It sways and bows and threatens to throw off any who dare to cross it. Slow is the process, I must say. Some days one must crawl to prevent falling into the abyss. The abyss of broken souls of women, or should I say young women, who never made it.

I smiled to myself. That was it. And somehow I had missed it. When does one begin regarding oneself as a woman, rather than a mere teenager? When does that long-hoped-for day when we arrive at the other side of this torturous bridge occur? What exactly marks the start of womanhood?

Something inside my dear Friend had indeed changed. It was as if somewhere deep behind those big blue eyes of hers was a sign: Caution! Under Construction. What a fragile state this is, between childhood to womanhood. Marking or scarring one for life.

I smile once more. For I had every confidence my dear Friend would arrive on the other side of this bridge and become nothing less than a fine woman.

But for now all I could see was the image of my dear Friend at five, toothpick in hand, cocking that pretty blond head of hers, pretending to smoke a cigarette the way grown-ups did.

1No offence, Smokers, I am simply for the sake of this um, essay using a stereotypical description… (How horrid of me.)

The Disappearing Spoon Act

2010-01-16T14:43:00.001-08:00

Anyone wonder about the whole "stealing spoons" thing? Well, this is the story. Very personal to me.

To say we’re being too loud, would not give the capabilities of our vocal cords the right amount of credit. It’s chaotic. Everyone is talking at once. Leaning over the tables with hands cupped around our ears to attempt a conversation.

There are six or seven tables jammed together, close to the front window. Same spot, every year. More of our family and friends are coming through the door, late as usually… It’s expected. Time’s really irrelevant. This always takes all night, anyways.

The date is January 16th. And I’m sitting in one of iHop’s uncomfortable wooden chairs. Just like every year.

I order chocolate chip pancakes. I dowse them in maple syrup. And I’m drinking sweet tea. (Georgia sweet tea, mind you.) Just like every year.

I do it every year. Usually, by the end of the night I’m sick. But it’s all worth it.

My aunt and her boyfriend are arguing about football and teams… Georgia/Tennessee…

My cousins can’t sit still to save their lives, not that all that syrup helps, and one of them just threw a cheese stick at me. I almost retaliate, but choose to act my age… At least until the waitress is out of sight.

My mom is getting antsy, I think she needs a cigarette, but she’s in between my cousin and her husband… Because they’re fighting over her new choice of hair style… So my mom’s not getting out anytime soon.

Carl’s telling the story about his dad burying their old refrigerator in the backyard…

Then someone pulls out the photo album. And the collection of drawings. Eyes begin welling with tears and soon we’re all laughing at his goofy camera poses and that long hair of his that he never got cut. We reminisce about what talent was lost, as we flip through the drawings we’ve all seen a hundred times.

And around the over crowded table-conjunction of ours, spoons are disappearing. One just went into a purse. Two just got jammed into a coat pocket. There went one "accidentally" falling into my cousin’s lap.

With a glance to my left then right, I reach for my spoon, next to the butter knife, and shove it into my jean pocket.

On the morning of January 16th of 1999, my cousin Michael Marshall was in a head on car collision that claimed his life. At the tender age of seventeen. He was an artist and an avid collector of spoons. He actually stole a spoon from every restaurant he ever went to.

Somehow, it became a tradition. Remembering Michael with a yearly get-together, that’s always at the same time, and always at the same place, iHop. And that’s only because it is the closest restaurant to the cemetery, besides the Huddle House.

(Now, don’t think me and my family to be nothing but a bunch of spoon thieves. We always tip big. Enough to cover the cost of about 20 spoons iHop knows they are going to lose on the same night, ever year.)

After we’ve finished our rather loud dinner, we head to the cemetery, with all our spoons in tow.

We all gather around Michael’s grave. We light a memorial candle, after fighting over who will get to light it that year. We say a prayer.

And then we each take our spoon and stick them into the soil in a circle around his grave marker.

Every time I visit his grave, I remember to grab a spoon from the kitchen drawer. It’s nothing real remarkable. It’s just my family’s way of keeping Michael’s memory alive.

One stolen spoon at a time.

The Devastating, Horrifying, Bloody-Awful Murder of...

2010-01-15T16:28:00.000-08:00

Every woman has her own picture perfect idea of what beauty is. Strangely enough, I tend to see beauty in eyebrows. It’s the first thing I notice about a person. And sometimes, to my dismay, I find myself staring at a person’s eyebrows while conversing with them. Honestly, it is a difficult task for me to focus on looking someone in the eye. Especially when it is more amusing to watch the animation play in someone’s eyebrows. For anyone out there who’s never given that part of the human face much attention prior, it’s much like a theatrical production…

Anyways, continuing on topic…

For me, nice eyebrows are beautiful. They are the picture frames for the windows into the soul. So you see, they play quite an important role in "beauty". (For me anyways…)

When I was in the ninth grade, it was predestined for me to have a meeting with fate. Somewhere, somehow, I saw a picture of a female celebrity with a set of parenthesis for "eyebrows". Her "eyebrows" had been plucked, waxed, tweezed, whatever-ed down to two pencil-thin lines on her forehead.

Now I, as an extremely awkward and impressionable freshman in high school, fell for this terrible fashion faux-pax that, by the way, was a highly popular trend in 2004, almost five years ago.

Armed with my mom’s stainless steel tweezers, I marched right up to the bathroom mirror with the burning desire and intent to rid myself of the caterpillars above my eyes. This would be the biggest mistake of my life.

If given the chance to take back one thing I’ve done in this life, it wouldn’t be to have stopped the chair that fell on my sister which broke her arm when she was two (Sorry Kim), it wouldn’t be to have rethought my decision to run away from home by way of stealing my stepfather’s car when I was fifteen, it wouldn’t be to have passed the tenth grade by way of actually attending class instead of skipping nearly the entire year to do stupid teenage-like things… Nope. Amanda Kate West would go back to that awful, fateful day when she tweezed away nearly every hair on her forehead… Which were never to be seen again.

You see, to this day, my eyebrows still refuse to grow. Too-far apart, too-short, and too-thin, they are shaped completely wrong for my face. (The story of my life.)

Once I heard a theory that if you put cow manure on your skin where you want hair to grow, that it will. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I have yet to reach that point of desperation.

The God Who Gives and Takes Away

2010-01-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, I received a text message from my older sister, LeeAnn.

She was five months pregnant. Was glowing with that glow that only a pregnant woman can. We had yet to find out the sex of the baby so we all started calling the baby, P-Nut. At Thanksgiving, me and my whole family lovingly talked to P-Nut, all the while patting and rubbing LeeAnn's belly.

The text I received was on the day LeeAnn was suppose to get the ultrasound to find out the sex of P-Nut. The text read: No lung development, nonfunctioning kidney. DNC scheduled for Thursday. Talk to you later.

What? Such an emotionless message from my sister who was so looking forward to becoming a first time mother.

I looked up at the ceiling. I don't know if I was looking for God... Or thinking maybe he'd write me an explaination in the ceiling plastering... But I couldn't understand. Whether or not she would say it alound, this was breaking my sister's heart.

And it was breaking mine too. I have three neices and nephews and am about to have another one in about a week. But each one is special and P-Nut would have been no different.

Why had God given, just to simply take away? There's a worship song I've heard before about praising "the God who gives and takes away." But at that moment, I didn't want to serve a God that could take away. How cruel.

My sister went through with the DNC after begging the doctors for someway to save P-Nut. But there was none, aside from a miracle. P-Nut was born dead.

And if all that wasn't enough. My sister was taken into emergency surgery from complications. She almost bled to death.

All the while, I try to smile and hold back the tears while the rest of my family tries to wrap their brains around what had just happened.

LeeAnn had P-Nut's (named Ashley David) body sent to be cremated. And the next week my family held a memorial service for Ashley... Just weeks away from Christmas. Pastor Steve talked of the greiving process and how Ashley had not been forgotten by God and was in the arms of Jesus.

But how could we celebrate Christmas, the birth of the Savior, while grieving the loss of one of our own?

Praising God in the storm, admist the turmoil, when the world is falling apart. Is easier said than done.

It's so hard to keep loving God and praising Him when you know He could have prevented your pain. Keeping the faith is more difficult when you know He's testing that faith.

My favorite scripture of all time is Isaiah 43:1-4 which reads:

1 But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

3 For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush [a] and Seba in your stead.

4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.

I have verses 3 and 4 tattooed down my left arm and they bring me encouragement during tough times and on bad days.

I've interpreted it many ways at different times in my life. And this past month when I read these verses, this is what I heard:

Listen, this is what the Lord says-
he who created you, Amanda
he who formed you, Mandie
Don't be afraid, because I've rescued you,
I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you say goodbye to Ashley,
I will be welcoming him with open arms,
And when you've cried so many tears, you fear you'll drown,
The flood will not sweep over you.
And when you walk but don't understand where I'm leading you,
Trust me, for I will not let you go.

Because I am your God,
the Holy One, the ONLY one, your Savior,
I would pay any ransom to get you back,
I would give up treasures to have you back.

Since you are my precious and honored daughter,
And because I love you,
I will give anything in exchange for you life,
I will even die on a cross in exchange for your life.

I'm Back. I guess.

2010-01-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Okay... So I've been away for a long freakin' time. Having computer problems along with internet problems. So for now I'll be coming to you from la Madre's computadora.

I've moved three times since I last posted. I'm so tired of moving, some days I think I'd be happier just being homeless and living out of my car. Less complicated that way.

I also am now an aunt of three. Not two but three. And in just a week and half it will be four. Not three but four. Ahh!

So, I suppose I'm try to get to reading everybody's blogs that I've been missing and will start writing again as soon as I find my muse... In whatever box I packed him in...

Funny Where Time Takes People...

2009-09-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

Before I can outrun him, I stumble over the long beach towel I have wrapped around my waist, and he catches up to me and throws one of his long olive-tanned arms around my bare shoulders.

I roll my eyes. Here we go.

I should’ve just skipped this beach trip and went later with the high schoolers. At least they were a level less embarrassing than my middle school friends.

I was on my church’s yearly youth group trip to Jekyll Island. And all the middle schoolers, myself included, had decided to take an afternoon stroll to the beach before our seminars started.

Anthony looks down at me, “You’re such a loner,” he says and grins.

True.

But Anthony and my entire batch of friends trailing the sidewalk behind us were embarrassing. They had no couth. (As my grandmother would say.) And they knew I was shy and painfully introverted. And never did they once fail to jump on and maul every opportunity to embarrass me.

We walked down the sidewalk of that small, quiet beach suburb, his strong arm keeping me from putting distance between me and him and the rest of our friends.

And my luck… There were plenty of people wandering around on bikes and lounging around lazily on lawn chairs as we made our way to the beach.

Not a good sign for me.

Anthony saw his opportunity, “Reach for the stars! Climb every mountain higher…” He began to sing, in a fake British accent, in a mockery of a popular show back then, S Club 7. (At the time I was 12, and that show was real popular, although I never really understood the cult following, kind of like Britney Spears or Nsync. Though, I admit I have a tiny soft spot for the Backstreet Boys… Shhh!)

And Anthony’s singing was really loud, and his "British" accent was really bad, and on top of that, with the arm that didn’t have me in a near head-lock, he was stretching it out and pretending to pluck invisible stars out of the sky.

“Reach for the stars!” He belted, even louder. And people started turning to stare at us. The blood rushing to my cheeks made me dizzy.

I guess I should add that Anthony wasn’t gay. He just loved a good laugh. Especially on me. And he loved to act… And was pretty good at it… Even if his British accent was lacking just a bit.

I punch him in the ribs with my elbow in an fruitless attempt to escape.

Of course, it didn’t work. And Anthony continued to get laughs off my easy embarrassment well into our high school years. But eventually, like it does to everyone, time drifted me and that particular group of friends apart.

Like boats slowly drifting apart at sea… The distance comes on so slowly, that by the time you realize you’re miles away, it’s too late to go back.

And I partly fell away from those friends, including Anthony, because I only spent the summers in Georgia with my father. The rest of the year, I spent gallivanting around the country with my mother and my poor excuse for a stepfather.

Anthony ended up taking Calhoun High School’s football team to State during his senior year. I watched the game on television. And they won. It was a huge victory for the tiny town of Calhoun.

The last time I saw Anthony, was about four years ago, after having spent two weeks with him in the tiny border town of Pedras Negras, Mexico on a mission trip. He’d been one of our only translators and kept getting busted for sneaking out, of the dingy motel we stayed in, at night to walk to the Oxxo ( Mexico’s version of our Dollar Store…) to buy yet another Mundet. (They really are addictive, People.)

But soon after that, Anthony headed to California in an attempt to make in in Hollywood. I guess we all saw it coming eventually, and wished him the best of luck.

One of my other old friends from church had headed out to California right after graduation with his daddy’s credit card and high hopes of breaking into acting… But we all know how quickly the harsh realities of this world can squash passion and dreams. Because the last time I talked to Ben, he had enrolled in some community college out there in California and was doing some soul searching.

But it’d been almost four years since I’d heard anything from Anthony.

Imagine my surprise when I stop in one day this past week to visit my old boss at Gap. (Yep, I used to work for Gap, People. That’s where half my closet originated from.) And she’s gushing to someone about something…

And then I catch the word “Twilight.”

Now, I try to contain myself when I hear anything mentioned about Twilight. I mean, I try not to act like a fourteen year old girl trapped in a 20 year olds body… But trust me, it’s hard. I’ve read all four books. Twice. And I don’t even want to attempt to guess how many more times I’ve watched the movie.

So, while I’d been there just staring into space, waiting politely for Laura to finish her conversation with this other lady… I was dragged out of my own little world with one word. Twilight.

“Do what?” I said.

Laura, my old boss, spins around to look at me. “Did you know Anthony?”

What? I thought this was about Twilight…

Nevertheless, I shoved myself into their conversation… Might as well act interested.

“Anthony who?”

Laura looks at me like I’m the densest person she’s met lately. “Audino.”

Anthony Audino? Yeah, the kid who used to embarrass the hell out of me by belting out S Club 7 songs?

“Uh, yeah.” I respond. What’s this got to do with Twilight? Somebody get to the point.

Laura smiles and her eyes light up. “Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

Laura gives the other lady an exaggerated eye roll. “Gosh, Mandie, I can’t believe you haven’t heard already! Anthony was one of the werewolf stunt doubles for that new Twilight movie, New Moon. He’s in several scenes…”

No. Freakin’. Way.

I think my jaw hit the floor.

Wait, I Thought Labor Day Meant...

2009-09-08T20:30:00.001-07:00

From where I was laying on the hammock, I could hear all of their conversations. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel like talking… It was just that I didn’t feel like I had much of anything meaningful to add to them.

My sister-in-law, Shayna: “So, any contractions, yet?”

My sister, Kim: “No, just back pain. You know how that is. How’s the nausea?”

Shayna: “Better. It’s worse at work. LeeAnn, have you gotten sick yet?”

My sister, LeeAnn: “Just twice. I think Charlie feels worse than me… Sympathy symptoms, I think.”

All three of them start laughing.

All three of my sisters were pregnant. And I’m as clueless as a dude when it comes to baby-talk. All three of them have been joking that there’s something in the water and that I better watch out.

My nephew, who’s ten years old, can’t quite understand why three of his aunts are pregnant and the other one isn’t… Which is sort of difficult to explain to a ten year old.

My brother, Marvin: “So Freddy, they catch that guy yet?”

My boyfriend, Freddy: “What guy?”

Marvin: “The guy that stole your razor.” He starts laughing.

Freddy: “Pu. Huh. Huh.”

I hear something hit the ground. I think Freddy chucked a hot dog at him.

I can hear my grandmother and stepmother talking over baby shower plans.

My dad and my brother-in-law, Charlie, are talking about fishing.

That hammock was so comfortable I probably could have gone to sleep, had the mosquitoes not been trying to suck me bloodless, thus requiring constant swatting.

It was almost dark and we had just finished eating our hotdogs, hamburgers, and accidentally burnt marshmallows. (Personally, I like mine a tad on the crispy side.) The day had been great. Despite feeling as though I don’t quite fit anywhere in my family these days, I know they still love me. And it was sort of comforting to just lay there in that hammock and listen to their conversations and bantering.

That’s when my nephew, Devin, walked over to the hammock. “Hey, whatcha doing?”

I yawn and look over at him. He was covered in dirt and was swinging a stick. “I was just thinking about going to sleep… But I don’t think that’d be a good idea with all these mosquitoes.”

Devin swats one away from his face. “You wanna go look at PawPaw’s pumpkins with me?”

My dad had a row of pumpkins planted in a pasture, ready for Halloween.

I smile. “Sure, we’ll walk out there before it gets totally dark.”

And so I started trying to lift myself up out of the hammock. If anyone’s every been in one, you know how hard it is to get back out of one. After rolling and rocking a few times, I put one foot on the ground to steady myself. Then I rolled onto my left side and tried again, but I didn’t make it up.

Devin reached out a hand to help me. “What’s the matter, that baby giving you trouble?”

Adventures in Hicktown.

2009-09-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

The following is what happened to me last Sunday.

How it all started…

With one eye open, I look at my phone. It’s 2 in the afternoon… Way too early for me to be surfacing on a Sunday… Yes, I’ve skipped church once again.

But my phone is ringing… It’s the boyfriend. For a split second, I consider not answering. But then I think, “Hey, it’s 2 in the afternoon. Maybe this has gotten a little ridiculous.”

So, I answer. “Hello?”

“Hey! Were you still sleeping?” He sounds way too chipper.

Uh… “No. Why?” I suck at lying.

“Oh. Okay, well you need to get up ‘cause I’m on my way to come get you.”

Now, I’m awake. “You’re what? Um, aren’t you s’pose to be at work?”

“I had somebody else take my shift. We’re gonna go mudding. And you’re coming with.” He sounds sure.

Mud, dirt, four-wheelers… Eh, so not my thing. Funny, because he knows this. “Um, I don’t really feel like it.”

“Oh well, I’m almost to your house. Be sure to wear something old.” Click.

Great.

A whole Sunday of mudding, when all I wanted to do was lay around in bed, feeling sorry for my sorry self.

I know what he’s up to… He’s trying to get me out of this funk. He’s been trying ever since it started. And he thinks dragging me, kicking and screaming, out into the heart of nature is going to fix me?

I find a pair of my dad’s old Levi’s and dig out a sweatshirt. Because today, of all days, it’s cold. In Georgia. In the middle of the freaking summer.

But I refuse to ruin any of my precious Nike’s or New Balances with mud.

So I opt for a pair of flip-flops.

(This would prove later, to be an awful, awful move on my part.)

The boyfriend shows up, five minutes later, with a few of our old high school friends in tow. Friends he failed to mention…

Lovely, now all of my old friends are going to the think I’m insane when I start having a panic attack.

I smile at my friends as they walk through my front door… And if looks could kill, the boyfriend would have been dead ten times over.

Background info…

Now, for some background information… My boyfriend, while a good boyfriend, is a manly man type of guy. He likes to go fishing. Goes hunting. Drag races at the strip on the weekends. Has way too many speeding tickets on his record. Watches Pinks religiously. Takes everything apart and then tries to put it back together. Usually has grease and oil stains up to his elbows. (The boyfriend’s a mechanic.) Never reads any manual to anything. Pisses outside every time he has the chance.

Hmmm. He sounds lovely, right?

Well, the boyfriend’s house is out in the middle of no where. I am talking out in the middle of the boondocks, People.

To get there, first you go down a lonely paved road, until you get to the end. Then, you turn down a lonely gravel road, until you get to the end. Then, you turn down an even more lonely dirt road and you keep driving until you get to the end.

That’s where my boyfriend lives.

Out in the middle of a God-forsaken forest with a Red Heeler and a Pit-bull. Oh, and Leatherface is his closet neighbor.

Shudder.

Now, my boyfriend owns quite a few acres surrounding his house. And he has carved out a bazillion trails for four wheeling. Some are mediocre. Others are death traps.

How it all went down…

We all pile out of my house and my friends climb into the back of their Toyota 4-Runner and me and the boyfriend climb into his STI, which has been the source of said speeding tickets.

It takes about 45 minutes to get to the boyfriend’s house from mine, doing the speed limit. The boyfriend has no idea what that is, so we make it there in 20.

Once we get to the boyfriend’s house, he heads to the shed and cranks up all four of his four wheelers… Why men feel the need to own toys in multiples, women may never know.

Everyone starts piling on the four wheelers, and I climb on the back of the one the boyfriend’s driving.

He turns around to look at me. “Are you feeling panicky?”

I roll my eyes. “Well as long as I don’t have to see Leatherface or any of your other road-kill-eating neighbors, I may be okay.” I pat my pocket. “But don’t worry I brought the meds just in case.”

He gives me a long hard look. “This’ll be good for you. You needed to get out of that house.”

I glance around at the rest of our friends. No one was paying us any attention. “This isn’t my thing, you know that.” I glare at him.

He laughs. “Yeah, Babe, I know.” And with that he revs the engine a little too hard and we’re off down a rocky trail into the woods, tailed by three other four wheelers.

Like I’ve said, the boyfriend likes speed. So we’re flying past trees and branches that could easily decapitate us, if we don’t duck in time.

I lock my arms around his torso for dear life and pray that I don’t fall off.

Well, God must have been busy answering other prayers at the time, because He apparently didn’t hear mine.

It had only been an hour into our little adventure, when the boyfriend decides to see if the four wheelers will climb an extremely steep hill.

An extremely muddy, slick, steep hill.

I whisper something along the lines of, “Asshole,” into his ear and then duck my head behind his shoulder and close my eyes shut tight.

I feel the four wheeler slip, and give way. But I still don’t open my eyes. I just cling.

But the next thing I know, I’m lying in a bunch of bushes looking up at the boyfriend and his four wheeler that was about to kill me.

Somebody hollers. But I don’t look around to see who it is.

The boyfriend stomps on his break, but it’s useless, the four wheeler wasn’t going to stay up. And it was coming at me.

Oh shit. Was about the extent of my thoughts at this point.

I try rolling away, out of line of the four wheeler. But something goes wrong. I’m stuck.

And then I realize why. There’s tiny sharp pains all over my arms and down my back. I hear one of my sleeves as it rips.

I had fallen into a bush of briars.

At this point, I was making up my own cuss words. And then I screamed.

I was going to die.

Okay, Amanda, you either suffer the pain of briars ripping off your skin or get prepared to meet your Maker…

I choose the way of pain.

And I scream again as I feel each individual briar yank open gaping holes in the largest organ of my body.

I make it out of the way of the four wheeler, right as it slips down into the ditch full of briars.

The boyfriend’s eyes are as big as saucers. The blood has already started running down my arms as I crawl my way over the rest of ditch and back onto the dirt path.

One of our friends helps me up and another is helping the boyfriend out of the ditch I was just in, and helping him pull the giant monster of a machine out also.

Of course, the boyfriend apologizes profusely and doesn’t argue when I tell him I want to go back to his house.

The rest of our friends continue riding.

When we get to his house, we’re both soaked in mud and he parks the four wheeler, which I’ve swore I’ll never set foot on again.

The boyfriend doesn’t even try to object. He just has a sheepish look on his face.

We get into his house and he looks at my bloody arms like he poked each individual hole himself.

I’m mad. But I feel sorry for him. All he wanted to do was help, and now I’m gushing blood. (Okay, not really gushing, but it was pretty bad.)

I give him a hug, despite my anger and I think it made him feel better… And me too, even if my arms were still throbbing.

Now if only that was the end of the story…

The boyfriend’s house doesn’t have AC. Or a central air system, so the only way to cool it off, is to turn on the fans and open some windows.

Well, we decide to watch the Lord of the Rings, while we wait for our friends to get done riding.

So we start opening windows and turning fans on. And it just so happens that the boyfriend is in the middle of remodeling one of the bedrooms in his house. Well wouldn’t you know…

“Hey, Babe, will you go in there and open both those windows, while I grab some Cokes?”

So I walked into the bedroom, stepping over random pieces of trash and tools, and had just finished pulling open the last window and stepped back with my right foot, when I felt something, weird.

It didn’t quite hurt. But it didn’t feel good either.

Fear hit me, then. I was afraid to look down. I knew exactly what I’d done and I was not going to be the one to assess the damage.

“Freddy!” I tried to stay calm, but it came out like a scream.

Breathe. Breathe. People do this all the time… Nobody ever dies from this kind of stuff.

I hear his rapid footsteps as he runs through the house. He’s breathless when he throws himself though the doorway. “What? What’s the matter?” He looks me up and down.

“I think I stepped on a nail.” My voice is starting to shake.

Freddy bends down to inspect the damage. I had stepped on a nail sticking straight up out of one of the baseboards he’d pulled.

“Shit.” He sighs. “Does it hurt?”

I gulp. “No. It just feels weird.”

He grabs hold of my ankle with his left hand and grabs the baseboard with his right. “I’m gonna have to pull it out. Just hold still.”

Ugh.

I’d felt pain before… And my arms were still throbbing… But that hurt. I mean that really hurt.

I look down at the nail that just lacerated my foot. “Oh my gosh.”

Freddy grimaces. “That went in deeper than I thought.” The nail had gone into my foot almost an inch.

(Now I said I was gushing blood before. That was an exaggeration. I’m about to tell you that I started gushing blood. And this time I’m not exaggerating…)

I started gushing blood. It was pooling on top of my flip-flop. Freddy and I look at each other.

I’m starting to freak. I can handle blood in small doses. But large amounts make me dizzy. I can’t even handle bloody movies. “What do I do?”

Freddy shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have a first-aid kit. I don’t even think I have a band-aid. The only alcohol I’ve got is beer.”

Despite my panic, I roll my eyes. Figures.

With Freddy’s help, I limp into the kitchen and prop my gushing foot into the sink.

That’s when I saw Leatherface. I was looking out the kitchen window over the sink, as he was making his way up Freddy’s long driveway.

What in the name of all that is sane?

Freddy had started rustling through some cabinets looking for a band aid that I already knew was non-existent. After spending the last four years of my life with the guy, I knew he’d never in his life bought band-aids… Not a manly man thing to do.

“Freddy, what is Leatherface doing in your driveway?” My voice is tight.

The rustling stops and Freddy walks over behind me to peer out the window. “I don’t know. But I wish you’d stop calling him Leatherface. It gives me the creeps.”

I laughed. “Well, you know if the guy didn’t act like some insane asylum escapee…” By this time, Leatherface is almost to Freddy front porch steps.

“Um, I should probably go see what he wants…” Freddy heads towards the living room.

“Hey Freddy you got any bullets in your riffle?” I holler after him.

He peeks his head around the kitchen doorway he just went through and looks at me accusingly. “Why?”

I shrug my shoulder. “Well you know, in case he brought his chainsaw, I’m gonna need something to defend myself with…” I try not to smile. I’m pretty serious.

Freddy’s eyes narrow slightly. “Shit, Babe. Just chill.”

Knock, knock.

Freddy heads off to get the door. And I stand helpless with my right foot hanging over the kitchen sink. It’s funny to think about how we started calling the guy Leatherface…

It was New Year’s Eve and Freddy’s family had come over to cook out and shoot off fireworks, since out here in the Sticks, the cops don’t care if you blow things up or set people on fire…

Anyways, Leatherface lives by himself and had come over to see what all the noise was from and Freddy felt bad for the guy and invited him to stay for the cookout. Well, Leatherface drank one too many beers and ended up talking about killing his ex-wife or something and started banging his head against the shed, over and over and over again.

Freddy’s uncle, Tony, went over and offered to walk Leatherface back to his house. And then Leatherface goes all crazy and starts threatening Tony and pulls his lighter out of his pocket and tried to set him on fire…

So well, yeah, that was some night. And after that, everyone refers to him as Leatherface.

Freddy comes back into the kitchen as I see Leatherface heading back down the driveway. I’m shocked to see my boyfriend still alive. “What was that about?”

Freddy pats his back pocket, the one where he keeps his Skoal, “He just wanted some tobacco for a bee sting.”

“Oh,” I say. “So, you wanna go in there and see if that nail was rusty?”

The look he gives me, I don’t like. “I can already tell you, Babe, that nail was rusty.”

Shit. “Guess that means a Tetanus shot for me tomorrow… Great.”

Freddy smiles sheepishly and walks over to the sink and grabs a wad of paper towels to clean up my foot as best he could. Then, he gently lifts my foot out of sink and helps me regain my balance on both feet again.

He pulls me into a tight hug. He’s taller than me and my face is smashed against his chest. “This day didn’t really turn out the way I planned… I’m sorry, Babe.”

I don’t respond. I just keep my head on his chest.

“But you know, I’m proud of you. You haven’t had a panic attack all day…”

Wow. True. Hadn’t even thought about it.

I laugh. “You’re right. I hadn’t even noticed.” I pull away from him to look down at my foot. “I don’t think I’m bleeding anymore. Now what do we do?”

I look up at Freddy and he looks like he’s trying to suppress a grin. And then he winks at me. “Well, I saved the best for last.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “The best for last?”

“Now, I get to check you for ticks…”

I Need a Tree House.

2009-09-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

To say I was an awkward kid growing up, would be putting it kindly. My family moved around constantly due to my, then, stepfather’s job. And I learned early on, attempts at making lasting friendships were in vain.

I was a loner. A loser. I never tried to fit in, because by the time I’d picked up the vibe and started getting the hang of things… We were up and moving again.

You know that new gangly girl with the dull brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, with last season’s clothes on, that sat behind you in middle school pre-algebra class?

That was me.

No one ever dared to strike up a conversation with me. And I never spoke to anyone else. I ate my lunches outside, under some tree, away from all the kids who had friends.

Occasionally, some painfully nerdy kid would try making friends with me, probably thinking I was a nerd myself, with my glasses and hand-me-down clothes and all. But eventually they would get fed up with my lack of intelligence and move on to some other hopeless soul.

I guess, if I’d been smart, I would’ve had a place to fit myself into… But I made it through middle school and high school with consistent C’s. School didn’t really matter to me, and as long as I passed, my parents were happy. I had no big-time plans for after high school. So why bother?

It was a strange coincidence that every house we ever lived in, always had a tree house in the backyard. And I thank my lucky stars that none of my other siblings cared about those tree houses… Because in the midst of my loser-dom, I had a sanctuary all to myself.

After school, with my backpack and walkman in tow, I’d climb the rickety latter and sprawl myself out onto the floor of my little kingdom in the sky. I ripped numerous holes in my favorite tie-dye shirts climbing that latter. And accumulated clumps of tree sap on my baggy jeans, that never came off, no matter how many times my mother washed them.

But it was my hide-away. No one ever bothered me up there. Well, except for the occasional strange looking bug or spider. But those bugs didn’t care that I was awkward or antisocial.

Those bugs never laughed at me. And I never had to explain myself to them.

I’d lay up there for hours just listening to my Hanson and Rick Astley cassettes. There was solace in my tree house. And time was irrelevant back then. In my tree house, I didn’t have a care in the world.

Now, I find myself wishing I had a tree house to run to. Somewhere to go, away from the world and everyone in it. Somewhere no one could get to me. Somewhere, where I wouldn’t have to explain myself. Somewhere to just let go.

Does a Daughter Ever Stop Needing her Father?

2009-08-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

"Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express." -Joseph Addison

When I woke up this morning, to my annoying alarm clock, I did something weird.

Instead of hitting the snooze button, I just turned it off, and sat up. After a few minutes of sitting there, I decided if I was going to overcome these chronic panic attacks and the inevitable depression I felt descending upon me, I was going to have to push myself…

Which meant, getting up early, and going to the bathroom and putting on some make-up and doing something with this crazy, unruly hair of mine.

The drive to work this morning, felt good. Driving through town, felt peaceful. Maybe I’d forgotten how much I had come to love this little place. This little corner of this big ol’ planet that I have the pleasure of calling home…

Maybe today will be the turning point, I thought. Maybe today it will all be over. No more panic attacks.

Imagine my disappointment, when after only having been at work two hours, I’m already teetering towards the edge. And the moment my breathing loses rhythm and my heart starts beating erratically, I feel myself slipping over that edge.

I’m in full panic mode within seconds.

Somehow, I manage my way into the back break room and start pacing and talking to myself.

C’mon! You can get over this, Amanda! This doesn’t have to beat you down. You’re the one in control here. Tell your body to behave…

Easier said, or should I say thought, than done. Twenty minutes tick by as I try my best to settle my temperamental nerves.
I’d been rocking myself back and forth in floor, trying anything I could think of to calm my erratic body.

My blackberry sits next to me, and I know I need to talk to someone. Anyone. Someone to talk me down from this. Someone to tell me I’m not crazy. I just don’t know who to call…

My mother was at the police station, trying to get something done about those damn people who keep calling her phone about a bunch of money orders she supposedly sent them all… Drama doesn’t seem to follow my mom. It stalks her.

Kim, my little sister, was probably still asleep.

The boyfriend was at work… Plus, he’d never been good with my nerves. He doesn’t quite understand.

My friends don’t really understand what’s been up with me lately either. And I’m terrified to call any of them out of fear they will think I’m crazy.

My other brothers and sister were probably doing their own thing, and I felt a pang of guilt at the thought of calling one of them just out of dire need to talk to someone.

Have I really turned into some needy, crazie?

For a fleeting second, I consider calling my dad. But I decide to sit instead, just staring at my phone. Of course, he’d understand my unexplainable panic, because he suffers from the occasional panic attack… But at the thought of calling my dad, a lump forms in my throat. And I can’t do it.

For some reason, my dad’s opinion of me matters more to me, than anyone else’s. And I’d feel like a huge failure, admitting I couldn’t even handle a panic attack on my own, to my dad. Plus, I hadn’t even gone to see him in weeks. How was I suppose to just call him up so he could talk to me because I irrationally thought I was dying?

Not to mention, it’d only been two months since he’d had to bury his own father. My dad was still dealing with his own grief… And definitely didn’t need to deal with my craziness on top of all that.

I push my phone further away from me. No. I would battle this one out. On my own. Suck it up. Toughen up. I would sit right here, rocking back and forth on the floor until I felt some sanity seep back into my bones.

That’s when I heard the timer go off.

So much for awaiting sanity.

I had a perm to rinse and neutralize. And those things don’t wait for sanity…

Shakily, I push myself up off the floor and down the hall, into the shop.

Mattie, the lady with the perm, smiles at me, as I try to tell her in a calm voice that she’s ready to get rinsed.

We walk over to the shampoo bowls and I reach into the above cabinets and pull down some towels. I help her get settled into the shampoo chair and start to remove the bag that’s wrapped around her perm rods.

Breathing seems to be coming easier, but my hearts still pounding away in my chest… For absolutely no reason.

That’s when it happened.

Suddenly, Mattie slumped forward and began to slide sideways. I still held her head in my hands.

"Mattie?" I wasn’t sure what she was doing.

No response.

The shop was quiet. Keeva had slipped into the back break room. And Mattie’s daughter was sitting over in the waiting area, reading a magazine.

"Um, Mattie?"

No response.

My heart started pounding faster.

I couldn't see her face, but her head was limp in my hands, and her arms were hanging awkwardly down out of the shampoo chair. Carefully, I crane my neck down to look at Mattie’s face.

(Now, just so you’ll know, in case you hadn’t already guessed, I don’t do well in stressful situations. Not to mention, my nerves were already hanging my a thread…)

I had to suppress a scream when I saw Mattie’s face. Her eyes were rolled back into her head and her mouth hung open.

For a split second, I bit my tongue until I was sure when I opened my mouth what came out wouldn’t be a scream.

And damn it I couldn’t remember Mattie’s daughter’s name. "Um, I don’t think Mattie’s okay…" My voice was loud.

What? You don’t think she’s okay? The woman looks positively dead!

My breathing speeds up. I wasn’t quite sure I wasn’t going to faint.

I hear papers rustling. "What? What do you mean? Mom?" Her daughter hurries over to the shampoo bowls.

I’m still holding Mattie’s head steady, and trying to keep her body from sliding into the floor. "Um, I don’t know. She’s not responding."

I watch as panic flickers across the woman’s face. "Mom? Mom can you hear me? Oh my God." She reaches for her mother’s face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Keeva rushing towards us.

Thank God!

"What happened?" Keeva reaches out to take Mattie’s head from me.

"Um, I… I don’t know. She’s just not responding…" I’m terrified. I start backing away.

"Mom? Mom? Can you hear me?" The woman now held her mother’s hand in hers.

Keeva reaches to take hold of Mattie’s wrist. After a few moments the color drains from Keeva’s face, "I can’t find a pulse."

Now, Mattie’s daughter is in full panic mode. "What?! What do I do? What do I do?"

Keeva keeps her hands on Mattie, keeping her balanced in the chair. "Call 911."

The woman nervously fumbles for her cell phone and nearly drops it as she pulls it from her pocket. Once she has it flipped open, she just stares at the screen. "I… I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to… What number…?"

By this time, I’ve backed up against the far wall. How could this be happening?

Keeva looks over at me. "Mandie, come here. You’ve got to call 911."

Mechanically, I walk over and take the woman’s cell phone from her. And somehow, I get 911 on the line, although I don’t even remember dialing the numbers.

I pace the floor of the shop as I talk to the emergency operator. My voice is shaking and I can barely hear the man’s voice from the pulsing in my ears.

By the time the paramedics get there, Mattie has regained consciousness. But they still wheel her out on a stretcher, while saying something about her blood pressure being way too low.

Keeva’s talking to a local police officer who showed up on the scene just after the ambulance.

And I find myself numbly walking back to the break room, where I crumble to the floor, right next to my Blackberry.

Only this time I don’t think twice about dialing the number I dial.

He answers after only two rings. Like always. He always answers.

"Dad?" I sob into the phone.

"Yes. I’m here. What’s wrong? Are you having a panic attack?" He’s concerned.

I sniffle. I try not to cry. But it’s useless. "Sorta."

"Do I need to come get you? Where are you? At work?"

I smile despite my tears. I guess it didn’t matter if I was twenty years old. If a girl needs her dad…

"No. I just need you to talk to me…" My voice cracks.

"Okay. Well, um, you wanna hear something funny?"

Is She, or is She not, Crazy?

2009-08-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

"Do you think I’m crazy?"

She won’t look me in the eye, as she flicks the end of her cigarette for the umpteenth time. She puts it to her mouth and takes a long drag.

I wait, rocking myself back and forth in the rocking chair on our back porch.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

She clears her throat.

I look up.

She flicks the end of her cigarette again. "I don’t think you’re crazy, but…"

And there it was. Always the but. Seemed like nowadays, it was always there… Waiting like a patient stalker… Creeping up at the end of people’s sentences, right before they trailed off.

Great.

I knew exactly what my mother wanted to say… Just like everyone else. "No, I don’t want to think you’re crazy, but since we have exhausted all other options, looks like we have no other choice but to give this one a go…"

I suppose you could say that’s how I ended up in the counselor’s stuffy office this afternoon. Man, was it hot.

(And all the blinds were drawn closed. I start wondering whether or not the place even had an air conditioner… By the way, if you’re not from Georgia… Or you’ve never been here in the middle of summer… It’s hot as freaking hell, here.)

All the walls were white. And all the furniture was too big.

And all the doors creaked.

Ugh.

Gallons of sweat were pouring from my pores as I took a seat, across from Mrs. Brown, on her enormous sofa.

I slide closer to the end, feeling like the piece of furniture was trying to inconspicuously swallow me.

What is it with shrinks, counselors, and therapists? Do they all get like gigantic, Hulk-sized sofas as graduation presents?

Mrs. Brown is nice. She has a calming voice.

But I’m a nervous wreck. And no amount of niceness and calm is going to override my Central Nervous System at this point.

I twist and wring my hands. I twist my rings around my fingers.

I make myself swallow. My mouth is as dry as a desert.

And all of the sudden, I don’t quite understand why I’m so nervous about seeing a counselor… No one has to know I’m mentally unstable. No one has to know.

No one has to know.

Plus, these people are trained to help. Aren’t they? They get paid to solve other people’s problems for them, right?

"Okay… Mandie? Is that right? Is that what you prefer, instead of Amanda?" Mrs. Brown’s eyes are searching mine.

So much for my little mental pep talk to myself. I can’t find my voice. I just nod my head.

"Okay. Well Mandie, you’re here because of panic attacks, is that right?"

I nod.

Mrs. Brown starts jotting down some notes, then looks back up at me. "What does a panic attack look like for you? How does it feel for you?"

Great. Well, I feel like I’m going to die… Suffocate. Implode. Pass out. I have no ability for rational thought while having one which just simply adds to the fear itself. I choke on my own saliva if I try to swallow… All of my limps start going numb.

"Um…" My voice is weak and cracking, "I just feel like I’m going to die." Immediately, I feel stupid for having said that out loud.

Mrs. Brown jots down more notes. "Okay. It says here, you’re not the only one in your family to suffer from panic attacks." She looks back up at me, "Who else has them?"

I swallow and silently pray that my voice doesn’t squeak like a pre-pubescent boy’s. "My dad." No squeak but it‘s still weak. I make myself swallow again. "My brother and my little sister."

She jots down more notes. "Okay, and how often are their attacks?" Her eyes meet mine again, searching.

I swallow. "Um, not very often…"

Yep.

I’m crazy.

When Vitamin D Levels Plummet...

2009-08-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

I was hopelessly restless last night. What little sleep I was able to get was plagued with nightmares.

Everything was wrong.

I read a statistic somewhere once that said people who are chronic worriers tend to die due to heart related health problems.

Imagine that.

No fear all my anxiety prone people! Those car accidents, summer tornados, terrorist attacks, falls in the economy, and random gang initiations in the local vicinity aren’t going to kill you.

They’re going to make you kill yourself.

Oh, life’s sweet little ironies.

Everything is wrong. I know I’m killing myself and I can’t even stop. What is this?

Chronic Worry Numero Uno: My hair is turning red. Without my permission, of course. Not that it was any kind of deterrent. No. And how convenient that I can’t even dye my hair due to the fact that I’m severely addicted to my straightening iron.

And curling iron.

And blow dryer.

I should be committed.

I guess I should be happy that it’s at least not gray. Not that I haven’t seen a few of those. Not to mention, I think I’m thinning… Ha. I am my father’s daughter.

Chronic Worry Numero Dos: Mysteriously, my clothes have been shrinking.

I am refusing to link this in any way, form, or fashion to me. The culprit is, obviously, my clothes dryer. (Anyone got a pair of hand cuffs?)

On top of that, I’ve misplaced the memory that I own a scale.

I’m telling you, everything is wrong.

Chronic Worry Numero Tres: I’m starting back to school next month. Certainly for any normal, warm-blooded, mentally stable kid this would be just another random blip on the screen of "life’s little inconveniences."

In my world, that little blip translates into a fire alarm that could rival any two-year-old’s blood curdling scream.

Where is my sanity?

Chronic Worry Numero Quatro: My eczema is bizarrely out of control. No kidding. Not that it has the least bit to do with my anxiety issues…

Recently, me being the pitiful wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve type, I had my feelings severed painfully. I shook hands with someone I’ve known for a fairly long time, only to have that person jerk their hand away from mine. They, then, proceeded to proclaim, quite loudly I might add, that my hand was disgusting.

And that was it. All they said to me.

It took every ounce of self-control I could muster, not to burst into tears.

If I had to guess, I’d say I’m now a freak in their book.

Ugh.

I now have a complex.

This is going to sound bad. Probably stupid…

I haven’t been to church in two weeks. I mean, if they could just cut the blasted hand-shaking part of the service out. Or better yet, out-law it altogether, I’d be ecstatic.

The universe has it out for me. I can hear God laughing. I guess I should be thankful I have hands at all.

But no.

All I can do is get angry when I can’t grip a door knob with enough pressure to turn it. (It doesn’t take a lock to trap Mandie in a room… Just install a knob.) I throw a tantrum when I can’t grip my steering wheel. I fight tears when my hands are so swollen I can’t type on my keyboard. For the love of Pete, I can’t even floss anymore! Oh, and my fingerprints no longer exist.

How convenient. I can now rob that bank.

Amazing these trite little issues have the immense power to hurl me into the pit of depression.

Too bad I have a conscience. Or else I could move forward with the bank idea.

Is There Something in the Freaking Water?

2009-08-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

I hear the door open from back in the break room.

Ding, dong.

That old familiar doorbell that signals the door has been opened.

Glancing up at the clock, I could have sworn the next client wasn’t due for another half an hour.

Voices echoed up the hallway, a couple of clients were already in the shop. I waited to hear Keeva greet, Helen, the next client.

But to my surprise, the tall, slender blond that rounded the corner and stepped down the hallway, was my sister.

Weird, I thought. LeeAnn, my older sister, never came to visit me at work.

Closing the book I’d been reading, I stood up from my chair.

LeeAnn bounced her way down the hall and into the room before I could even form the word, "Hey."

"Hey to you, too." Something had her elated. She was glowing. No. Beaming.

All of the sudden, I feel awkward. She was grinning wider than she had on her wedding day.

I’m not a short person, but LeeAnn is tall. And she’s towering over me, fiddling with her keys… Not saying anything. Just grinning.

Looking at her, just standing there, grinning like that, it was easy to see why every man I’d ever known had been infatuated with her.

Of course she had it all going for her… Tall. Slender. Blond. Gorgeous.

But today something was different. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I waited for her to say something else…

Okay… This is getting weirder.

Maybe she had gotten that job?

Awkwardly, I smile back at her. "Uh, did you get that job?"

Her eyebrows draw closer together. "Job?" Then, she quickly catches on. "Oh, the job! Um, no. No. This isn’t about the job…"

She’s still grinning.

Okay.

"So, uh, what’s up?" I can’t remember my sister ever making me feel so… Strange. Out of place. Which was crazy… I worked here!

She’s still grinning. "Well you know how Kim [our sister] and Shayna [our sister-in-law] are," She paused and glanced down. "You know…"

It took me maybe all of two seconds to gather where this conversation was going.

She was pregnant.

The huge smile spreading across my face, is totally forced. "Oh! I’m so… So happy for you."

I thought it impossible, but her grin gets bigger. "I know. This was definitely not planned. What a surprise."

"What a surprise…" I repeat back. The muscles in my face feel strained, they’re beginning to protest. Burning. But I don’t let the smile slip from my face.

LeeAnn slides her keys into her back pocket and pulls me into a hug. Why did this feel so weird?

When we pull apart, I ask, "Do they know?" They as in our parents.

Once again, that grin gets bigger. "Yeah, told them a couple of days ago. They’re excited. Mom’s already taken my shopping." She giggles.

"Oh. What about everyone else?" Everyone else as in our brothers and sister.

"Of course." She stops. "But I wanted to tell you in person, ya know?"

There’s a familiar pain in my chest. But I don’t let my smile falter.

Of course. I’m the last to know.

Still grinning, she points back down the hall, the way she came. "Well, I just wanted to come by and let you know."

We part with another hug. Just as awkward as the first one.

I didn’t quite sit back down. It was more the act of falling and the chair broke my fall. It was one of those kind of sits. The kind you don’t even have the energy to sit for.

Well, it was official. I was the only kid my parents had left that wasn’t married or had kids, or was pregnant.

Heartbroken didn’t quite fit my mood. Neither did jealousy.

How was I suppose to feel?

I had nothing left in common with any of them. And Kim, Shayna, and LeeAnn were no doubt all bonding over being pregnant together.

Wasn’t I happy for my sisters?

Of course.

Absent mindedly, I fiddle with the stud in my nose.

And before I can stop it, I’m laughing out loud.

I knew how I felt.

Like a frost bitten corndog.

I Said Hello to the Mirror and Gooodbye to the Reflection.

2009-08-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

I feel it coming before it takes me over.

Cursing myself, I mechanically begin a frantic search. My groping fingers push around the contents of my crowded purse. My keys. My cell phone. Lipgloss. Gum. Wallet. Random receipts. And finally, I feel the cylinder object brush my hand.

I snatch it from my bag.

All I can hear in my ears, is my heartbeat, hammering away in my chest like punches from within. My breaths are coming in short gasps and stars begin to edge their way into my peripheral vision.

I’m terrified.

Gripping the edge of the table I’m leaning on, I just know I’m going to suffocate. My throat has already started closing up. I try to swallow, but I have no control.

My hands are trembling as I pop the cap off the bottle and shake from it, a tiny green pill.

I curse myself again. Weak. I tell myself. I’m weak.

I throw my head back as I let the pill slide its way down my tongue, leaving a bitter trail behind it. Quickly, I chug down some lukewarm water.

My breathing has not leveled out. I grab my right wrist with my left hand and try to take my pulse.

It’s erratic.

A lump begins to form in my throat.

I put the bottle of water to the tip of my lip again. The water filling my mouth causes my swallowing reflex to kick in. But something goes wrong.

I sputter. My fingers clutch my throat. I feel like I’m choking.

Breathe. I remind myself harshly.

I need to move. The small, cramped break room is starting to close in on me. Unsure if my legs will even work, I venture a small step towards the door.

My head spins.

I can’t faint. I can’t faint. How embarrassing!

The door post, which I reach out for just in time, keeps me from crashing to the hardwood floor.

Breathe. Breathe. Slow. Slower.

My chest feels as though it’s being crushed, I gasp for some more air. My heartbeat won’t slow down.

When will that damn pill kick in?

My mind can’t function right. "Where am I going to go?" I ask myself. I try being rational. "Out in the middle of the shop filled with customers?"

The nausea is starting to bite my stomach. I cringe. The sandwich I ate for lunch is threatening to make a re-appearance.

I shudder. Get a hold of yourself, Amanda!

The hallway I’m looking down looks longer than I remembered. Laughter floats up the hallway and invades my ears.

Can I make it to the dispensary, without fainting? What if I do? In front of all those customers?

One glance back into the inclosing space of the break room, and I’m hobbling, dizzily down the hallway. My head spins impossibly fast.

I make it into the shop. Two customers are chatting with Keeva, as she’s rolling a perm. As I try to fake some normalcy, one of them looks over at me and smiles. The smile I respond back with, I can feel, is tight and my face feels strange making this expression.

The lump in my throat grows bigger. And I’m still gasping for breath.

Before anyone has the chance to speak to me, quickly I shuffle through the shop, past the row of shampoo bowls, and I swing open the door to the dispensary.

Hot, muggy air invades my lungs. I clutch at my throat as I lean against the door I just came through. The air conditioner doesn’t reach back here.

But there’s no one here. No one to give me bazaar looks and stares. No one to ask probing questions.

Just me. And my distorted grip on reality.

Tears begin welling in my eyes. I choke back a sob. Frantically, I begin throwing wet towels from the washing machine into the dryer and turn the dryer on.

I needed some kind of noise to drown out the sobs I could hold at bay, for only so long.

As soon as I hit the button that sends the dryer into motion, my poorly constructed dam has broken and the sobs flow from my swollen throat uncontrollably.

Slowly, I lower myself onto the floor and bury my face in my arms. And I wait for the medication to make its way through my system.

Weak. I remind myself. You’re weak! That small inner voice is now screaming at me.

And my sobs come on more violently.

Weak. I agree with myself. Weak.

I flashback to that day in the doctor’s office. "Panic disorder," he’d said.

Of course I couldn’t understand why all of the sudden I could lose all and absolute control of my body. But panic disorder?

I knew I wasn’t crazy. The laugh, that escapes from my mouth now, scares me. Wasn’t that just the type of thing crazy people say?

It feels as though I’ve sat there in that slump for twenty minutes, when my sobs start to slow and my breathing doesn’t feel as labored. I reach a shaky hand up to grip the edge of the dryer for support as I drag myself up off the floor.

With my sleeves, I pat at my tear soaked face. I was sure my make-up was a mess. I was sure I was a mess.

I stare out the window as cars pass up and down the street outside. Life was going on as it should. The world was continually spinning as it should.

What was happening to me?

That familiar sensation begins to warm my head. I feel limp and weak. My eyelids begin to close. And the dizziness I now feel, is different, it’s medicated.

And I remember exactly how I got here. The day it all started...

My newly dyed black hair was pulled back. Something that was so not me. I love the feel of perfectly round curls cascading over my shoulders. Makes me feel like a princess or something.

But not that day. I had it slicked back. My dress was pretty (even if it was black), to give it it’s due credit, as it should’ve been, for the nearly forty dollars I paid for it. But I slipped into a pair of boring flat sandals. (I love heels.)

I didn’t fuss with my make-up, like I usually would do. And I didn’t care that my manicure was chipped in several different places.

I’m not even sure I looked into a mirror that day.

The day my grandfather was laid into the ground.

Maybe that was the day, I can’t quite pinpoint it, but about two months ago… I lost control of myself.

Gone.

The only thing I’ve felt for two months now, has been excruciating fear. Fear that’s had me paralyzed. Fear that’s left my mind frayed. Fear that’s left my faith shattered.

Maybe I’ve been introduced to my own mortality. Maybe I can’t stand the thought of my grandfather being gone. All I have is a bunch of maybe’s. No one knows. Not even me.

From where I am, I can’t see a way of escaping this noose around my neck. I want my life back.

One day I was fine. And then the next, I said hello to the mirror and goodbye to the
reflection.

There Should Be a Recovery Club for all Former Maids of Honor.

2009-08-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

You know what I think?

That all Maids of Honor should have to go through mandatory counseling and therapy after all the wedding crap they are bombarded with by a crazy psycho bride-to-be.

Hmmm. Deep breath.

That came out a little harsh. Let me start this again…

I have been a bride’s maid before a few times.

When my older sister, LeeAnn, married a few years back, I was one of her bride’s maids. But since she didn’t want to have to pick between me and our other sister, Kim, she asked her husband-to-be’s sister to be her Maid of Honor.

Thank God.

Of course, LeeAnn, wasn’t too bad of a demanding bride. She had her moments. Just one small panic attack at the flower shop… I won’t go there. But for the most part, she kept her cool. But then again, she’s more laid back than most women.

I was also a bride’s maid for my brother, Chris’s wife-to-be. Now, I wouldn’t say that she was a full blown bride-zilla, but she came close. The morning of the wedding, I was with her as she was getting her hair done. When the lady had finished wielding the curling iron and jamming a million bobby pins into her hair, it looked gorgeous. She looked gorgeous.

I swear, the moment she saw herself in the mirror, she burst into tears.

What the hell?

"It’s hideous!" She shrieked, throwing her hands in the air.

I’ve never seen a grown woman throw such a temper tantrum, as I did that one.

All the while, I was laughing my ass off on the inside. She had picked out the most awful looking dresses for the brides maids to wear. I looked like a marshmallow on steroids. My hair had been done up to resemble a cupcake. And I was wearing the ugliest shoes to ever grace the face of this planet.

But of course, it wasn’t my wedding so I was grinning and putting on a good front for my sister-in-law-to-be…

And she thought she looked hideous?

(Needless to say, she and my brother are now divorced… Thank the good Lord, once again.)

Rewind back to this past January when, my first cousin, Megan, whom I love dearly, asked me to be her Maid of Horror.

Ahem. Excuse me. Maid of Honor.

To Be Continued…

My blank/flashback to the eighties/being the nerdy kid walking around all day with their earbuds in... Day.

2009-08-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I hate it when someone says it’s impossible to be thinking of nothing.

Example:
Someone: "Hey, what are you thinking about?"
Me: "Nothing."
Someone: "That’s impossible. Everyone’s always thinking something."

Okay. Well, I’d like to argue that it is, indeed, possible. When my feet hit the floor this morning, I believe all ability for cognitive thought stayed under the covers.

Because when I went to the kitchen to fix a bowl of cereal, I just grabbed a box at random.

Um, yeah. That’s not me.

Usually, I’m standing in the pantry debating between Fruit Loops, Honey Bunches of Oats, Kix, Chex Mix, Frosted Flakes, Reese’s Puffs, etc… For. Ever.

(I don’t know why this thought never occurred to me before now, but I think my mother stock piles cereal…?)

Randomly I selected my cereal, and I don’t even remember tasting my breakfast.

I did nothing with my hair. No. Thing. Not a thing. I’m talking, I went to work with what I rolled out of bed with. And no make-up. And I wore my bright neon blue t-shirt, my ankle-tight sweatpants, and my New Balances. (Come to think of it, I probably looked like a flashback to the eighties with my big hair and all.)

Today was a blank day. I can’t remember actually having completed an entire thought all day long. Not one. It seemed as if I did start trying to think, my brain yawned at the idea.

I don’t quite remember my drive to work. Or home from work. Everything was just so blank.

It’s just been a strange, strange day.

To keep myself sane, I kept my iPod plugged in in my car while I was driving and I kept my ear buds in during all my breaks at work.

So I decided since my ability to form thoughts is M.I.A., that today I’d blog of my favorite 105 songs. (Okay. So I tried to narrow this down to just 100. And then I tried for 101. But I just couldn’t cut anymore out. They’re just too awesome.)

These are the 105 songs that remain in my favorites category in my iPod. And all the while I’m deleting and downloading songs nearly everyday, these songs are going no where. They’ve stood the test of time. For me anyways.

Some are new, some are old, some are just in between. But they are all full of awesomeness. (Did ya’ll know that’s a real word? Lol. I thought I made it up… Apparently not.)

105 Songs that have a permanent residence in my iPod.

All the Same- Sick Puppies
The Older I Get- Skillet
No One- Cold
Super Massive Black Hole- Muse
Los Infieles (Remix)- Aventura
I Don’t Want To- Ashley Monroe
Complicated- Avril Lavigne
Only the Good Die Young- Billy Joel
Hey Jude- The Beatles
It’s Not Over- Daughtry
Blow Me Away- Breaking Benjamin
Dead Skin- Crossfade
Luv Addict- Family Force 5
Say the Words (Now)- dc Talk
Mmm Mmm- Crash Test Dummies
Jenny- The Click Five
Dance Like This- Wyclef Jean
Strawberry Wine- Deana Carter
Pour Some Sugar on Me- Def Lepard
Roll to Me- Del Amitri
Stupified- Disturbed
No Scrubs- TLC
Wait for You- Elliot Yamin
What it’s Like- Everlast
Sugar, We’re Going Down- Fall Out Boy
Kountry Gentlemen- Family Force 5
Rhiannon- Fleetwood Mac
Building a Mystery- Sarah McLaughlin
Slide- Goo Goo Dolls
Good Riddance- Green Day
Ooh Ahh- Grits
Save Me- Hanson
1973- James Blunt
Jack and Diane- John Cougar Mellencamp
Another Try- Josh Turner
I Go Back- Kenny Chesney
Salaam Namaste- Kunal Ganjawla
How in the World- Family Force 5
The Beautiful People- Marilyn Manson
Be Without You- Mary J. Blige
Realworld- Matchbox Twenty
Unwell- Matchbox Twenty
Enter Sandman- Metallica
Summertime- New Kids on the Block
How You Remind Me- Nickelback
Somewhere Out There- Our Lady Peace
Red Star- Third Eye Blind
That’s What You Get- Paramore
Have a Little Hope- Paul Alan
In the Air Tonight- Phil Collins
Stranded- Plumb
What Hurts the Most- Rascal Flatts
Ever the Same- Rob Thomas
Ladies and Gentlemen- Saliva
Why Don’t You and I- Santana/Alex Band
Me Love- Sean Kingston
Bullet with Butterfly Wings- The Smashing Pumpkins
It’s Been Awhile- Staind
Never Let You Go- Third Eye Blind
Red Rag Top- Tim McGraw
Breathe (2 am)- Anna Nalick
Hey Soul Sister- Train
Meet Virginia- Train
Take it Easy- The Eagles
You Got it Bad- Usher
When it All Falls Apart- The Veronicas
He’s Everything- Vertical Horizon
Realize- Colbie Caillat
Laugh Until We Cry- Jason Aldean
Dimelo- Enrique Iglesias
Suffocate- J Holiday
Foundations- Kate Nash
Charmer- Kings of Leon
Facedown- Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Saving Me- Nickelback
Disturbia- Rihanna
Why Georgia- John Mayor
I Miss You- Blink 182
Slide Along Side- Shifty
Just So You Know- Jesse McCartney
Baby It‘s You- JoJo
Break Down Here- Julie Roberts
Sea of Faces- Kutless
Beauty in the Breakdown- The Scene Aesthetic
Hero- Superchic[k]
I’ve Always Loved You- Third Day
If the World Had a Front Porch- Tracy Lawrence
Never Think- Rob Pattinson
Not Meant to Be- Theory of a Dead Man
Fake It- Seether
Straight Tequila Night- John Anderson
Uptown Girl- Billy Joel
All My Life- K-Ci and JoJo
Hear Me Now- Framing Hanley
Never Let Go- Brian Adams
Dirty Little Secret- All American Rejects
Eyes on Fire- Blue Foundation
Indian Summer- Brooks and Dunn
Inside the Fire- Disturbed
Don’t Know What You Got- Cinderella
The Joker- Steve Miller Band
The Best I Ever Had- Gary Allen
Always the Love Songs- Eli Young Band
Crazy for this Girl- Evan and Jaron
She Only Smokes When She Drinks- Joe Nichols

Tear Soaked Cherry Blossom Scented Hand Towels.

2009-08-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, eight months ago, I ran my fingers through her silky blond hair and promised everything would be okay.

I was lying. I had no idea how everything would work out. And I knew I couldn’t protect her from the world, that she was so fiercely trying to run away from.

Beside us sits the stick that just changed her world forever. The one with two little blue lines… Faint as they were. They were still there.

She’s sobbing into my mother’s cherry blossom scented hand towel, as I try to form some words of encouragement. Which I’m no good at.

"My life is over." She cries, "I wanted to go to college…" She chokes out the words.

I thought I wouldn’t cry. But I feel the tears making their way down my cheeks.

This is one time I can’t undo what’s she’s done before our parents find out. This is one time, my big sister skills are useless. This is one time, where I feel like I can’t protect her anymore.

Sweet seventeen. High school senior. Beautiful girl.

My little sister was pregnant.

And by a drunken, one-night hook up, no less. I was furious. How could some asshole do this to my sister?

Fast forward through eight months of humiliation as my sister is tormented by those she once called "friends". Church members are whispering in the pews behind us on Sunday mornings. My grandmother cries when she finds out. The father of the baby is already moved on to some other girl.

Kim, my sister, looks beautiful. Eight months along and she looks like she’s swallowed a basketball. She’s yet to gain weight anywhere else. Women have already commented how jealous they are that she was able to keep her figure all the way through her pregnancy.

The bedroom Kim and I shared at my mom’s condo, is now a gorgeous nursery. Stocked and ready for Audrey’s (it’s a girl) arrival.

I now sleep on the couch or in my mother’s bedroom. And I’m beyond depressed.

Kim seems ready. She’s accepted her role as a mother, wholeheartedly. She graduated high school back in May and went and got her Certified Nursing Assistant license.

My mother is overjoyed, now that the initial shock has worn off.

But last night, I found myself crying into one of my mother’s cherry blossom scented hand towels. Maybe it’s selfish to say that I’m not ready.

It’s not my baby. It’s not my grandbaby. But, am I ready to be an aunt? Not just an aunt you see every once in a while… But an aunt, living in the same house with a new born baby.

I feel like a failure to Kim and my mom by saying I don’t know if I can do this.

I may be twenty years old, but I still feel like I need my mom. I don’t know if I can share her with a new grandbaby.

And I still need Kim. How am I suppose to face my uncertain twenties without my sister, my best friend by my side? She’s going to be so consumed with Audrey.

The lone ranger. A pilgrim in an unholy land.

That’s how I feel.

I'm Just One Frost Bitten Corndog These Days...

2009-08-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

Whoever said that being in the middle meant being the best part… Of the Oreo Cookie… Of the sandwich… Of the corndog…

Was way off.

I’m the middle child of my family. Well, of my biological siblings, anyways. Throw in three step siblings… And yeah. It gets a little claustrophobic on my end.

Lately, I’ve been going through some sort of weird life crisis thing. I’m majoring in Cosmetology and all of the sudden I’m like, "What am I doing? I am going to be doing hair. For. Like. Ever."

I still live at home, with my lovely parents. I tend to go back and forth between my mom’s condo and my dad’s house. I can always tell when one or the other is starting to get tired of me… And so I head back to the other’s for a while.

It’s this weird cycle thing. Most of my stuff stays in my car anyways.

Well, back to the whole life crisis thing… I’m starting to have second thoughts about my

"purpose in life" if you will, and well the rest of the sibs aren’t.

Marvin just got married. He and my new lovely sister-in-law are already expecting… It’s a girl!

LeeAnn just got married. She and my new brother-in-law are already settled down in a cute little house. And I have a step niece and nephew now.

Jeff is going to be getting married here pretty soon. He’s already out of college. He’s on the job hunt.

Kim’s expecting… She’s having a girl also! She’s finishing up her Certified Nursing Assistant license and is going back to school in the spring to pursue her nursing degree.

Chris is still in prison. But seems to have turned his life around. Should be getting out within a year.

My parents couldn’t be more proud.

And me?

I’m just a shampoo girl who keeps changing her mind about school… First it was Chemistry, then it was teaching, now it’s Cosmetology…

Of course no one was really happy about my decision to become a hairdresser… So I’m beginning to think this corndog got freezer burnt or something…

So, yeah yesterday, I did something. I did something because I was starting to feel like I was fading into the background of the rest of my siblings…

I felt the need to… Rebel maybe? Don’t really quite understand the motive behind what happened yesterday.

Yesterday, I found myself in the local tattoo parlor, Forgiven Ink, with a bald guy, whose skin color was nearly undetectable from all his tats, shoving a cork up my nose and then proceeding to shove a needle the size of a pen into my freaking nose.

And I paid for that torture.

Yeah, I believe I’ve fallen off the dear old rocker.

So, Mom’s seen the result. She just shook her head and said, "Well, it’s your nose." Such a mom response.

I’m not really sure if this was some cry for attention. But I sure feel like crying alright. I’ve got pain shooting all the way into my eyeball socket and it hurts when I smile.

Not to mention, no one tells you when you get your nose pierced that you rack up like a million boogers! Lol.

I’m not really sure if I could call this a mission accomplished. I think it got my parents attention alright.

Next time they introduce us it’ll probably go something like this, "Yeah this here is Marvin. He’ll be graduating Dalton State soon. He and his wife are expecting. And this is LeeAnn, she just got married and settled down. Oh and this is Jeff, just graduated and about to get married. Yeah and Chris will be getting out here pretty soon. Yeah sir, turned his life around. And Kim, she’s expecting. Just got her C.N.A. license. Oh, I already told you? Oh yeah, and that’s Mandie, our middle daughter… The one with the hole in her nose."

If Death had a Cousin...

2009-08-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Fear is potent. Fear is merciless. Fear is cutthroat. Fear is razorblades and lemons. Fear is paralyzing. Fear is life-stealing and passion-killing.

If death had a cousin, it would be fear. Fear is death turned inside-out. Death kills the physical. Fear kills spiritually and psychologically. It’s the vampire to the soul.

Immunity to fear, unfortunately, is not a trait I possess. I have my fair share of fears… Spiders, lightening storms, roller coasters, airplanes, doctors, the dark, blood, chipping my manicure…

Some I’ve faced… Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, ain’t going back. (As my mother would say.) Take for example, roller coasters. I’ve been on a few. Usually, it was the result of extreme peer pressure. (I’m an advocate for "Live Above the Influence." My heart does a little pitter-patter when those commercials come on…) Luckily, I lived to tell about them. Though, not much to tell, if you ask me. Just a bunch of heart-pounding terror, gut-wrenching terror, and gouge-your-eyeballs-out terror. I really don’t think someone could pay me enough to ride another one. It’s not worth the years it would inevitably take off my life.

Another example, spiders. When I see one, I can barely force myself to get close enough to just kill it. It takes me five minutes or better to calm down and stop shaking to even talk myself into killing it! Actually, my little sister, Kim, started killing spiders for me when she was five. One night, when I was seven or eight, I found a spider in the bathroom. I made a mad dash back to the room Kim and I shared. Shrieking with fear, I shook her awake and all-but dragged her out of bed, begging her to come kill it for me. Needless to say, she was quite annoyed. But she stomped her feet and rolled her eyes all the way to the bathroom where she proceeded to squash it for me. (She is the bravest person I’ve ever known.)

I have no shame in admitting this. But I think Kim must be embarrassed of me. Because to this very day, I still ask her to kill bugs for me. And she does, with plenty of exaggerated eye rolls and a long speech about the necessity of my being less of a chicken because she won’t always be there to kill them for me.

Ha. Well, I can always hire someone when the time comes…

Other fears, I face like a warrior. My parents no longer have to gag and sedate me to get me to a doctor’s appointment. Sometimes, my blood pressure even stays normal. I ride airplanes, without having to be heavily medicated. I sleep with the lights off, on most nights. And blood, well that one’s up in the air. I like to call it situational. Some situations are good; others, not so good.

And I thought that was it. I didn’t think I was a fearful person. I don’t consider myself a chicken. As a general rule, I’ll try anything once. (Within reason. I’m not looking to buy a first-class ticket to hell and I don’t have a death wish.)

But, recently, I discovered a pattern in my life. Something had crept in and taken up a permanent residence in my life, right under my nose. At first, I denied it. But what’s the point in denying the obvious?

Failure and judgment. Such big, implicating words. Somewhere along the line these were added to my subconscious list of fears without my ever knowing. Until I, wake up one day to, find myself shaking in my favorite pair of suede boots at the thought of shaking someone’s hand?

What?

The fear of judgment. To fear what others think of you, simply put. I’m always terrified, petrified at the thought of people judging me. I’m terrified to fail, at anything. I’m one of those poor souls who wants to be liked and accepted by everyone. Unfortunately, as we all know, in the world in which we live, that is impossible. Everyone on this planet is so bizarrely different. My personality, my dumb jokes, the clothes I wear, the car I drive, the job I work, even my looks (which are generally out of our control) are not going to appeal to everyone.

Back before I started growing a backbone, I allowed people to plow through me out of fear of judgment. Sometimes I still do.

It’s an ongoing battle.

I graduated from a county high school. I loved it. I had a blast my junior and senior year. People, here, turned out to be way more open and interested than I had anticipated. But there are those in Calhoun, who do, and I presume forever will, hold to the ridiculous notion that those who graduate from/attend Calhoun High School are more intelligent, more driven, more respected, and more classy, sophisticated, etc. Anything a rank above that blasted county school.

Puh. Ah haha.

I’ve heard countless, nasty comments about my alma mater, which I didn’t respond to. I’ve been the butt of many jokes, which I had no rebuttal for. What was I so afraid of? They were essentially calling me lower class, what did I have to lose? But no, I sat and took them in silence. Something I intend to never do again. I just never wanted to be made fun of, or picked at, or called stupid. Who does? But I didn’t speak-up for myself or try to frame a defense. I didn’t want to face the judgment, head-on. But, I’ve come to the firm realization that, the address on your diploma doesn’t make yours any better than mine.

And the idea of shaking hands with someone makes my head spin. And then usually some appendage of mine goes numb. Sometimes, several at a time. I fear what people will think if they see, feel, my hands and arms eaten up with eczema. I try, usually unsuccessfully, to dodge the looks I get from cashiers who watch me sign receipt slips. Pure disgust in their eye. The thought of what those people think of me makes me sick.

It’s in the fear. The failure. The judgment.

After a semester at Dalton State College, wondering through my classes, I decided that I wanted to do something that I wanted to do.

Isn’t that the rational thing to do, anyway?

But it took me nearly half a year to tell some family members and friends of my decision to go into Cosmetology.

I won’t graduate with a doctorate, a bachelor’s, or a master’s… Just a diploma. There’s always been this invisible weight around my neck, which represents the expectations that I’ve always felt. Expectations for the kind of life I was meant to pursue and have. But who can I be expected to please? Can I spend an entire lifetime attempting to please an impossible amount of people, or do I do what the one person who knows me best of all, myself, wants me to do?

But in some eyes, I’ve already failed.

Though when I’m old and looking back on the years of my life, I want to say, "That was my life. I did it for me. Some people didn’t like it. Those people got over it. Nevertheless, I was happy."
Don’t fail yourself. Don’t ever fail yourself. Don’t love yourself any less because some boy doesn’t. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t let people run you down. And don’t run from fear. It always finds a way to hunt you down.

Fear may have won battles in the past. It will inevitably win battles again. But remember, this is war.

Don’t let fear get a hold of you. And if it does, fight to the death. Because it will cement you to the ground, right where you are, and never let you go. The fear will live forever in that introduction you never made, the job you didn’t take, the hurting friend who came to you and you walked away, the dream you never dreamed, those expectations you don’t break, the paths you don’t take, and the person you think you could never be.

It’s those opportunities and once in a lifetime chances we don’t grasp. Because we ask ourselves, what if I fail? Fear is our little inner signal to prepare for self-defense and self-preservation. But if left unchallenged, it can leave us with no self-confidence and no self-reliance.

We all do it. We all fear the judgment of other people at some point in our lives. Though some of us live like prisoners to this fear, others have decided to challenge it and in return have learned to live above it.

I’m terrified sometimes! Like going some place new… When I started college, my first day was full of deep breathing techniques and billion pep-talks. Fighting the fear.

And doing things alone in public... I don’t like to be in public alone. I feel a million eyes all over me, reading me like a book. I become paralyzed by the fear because I know myself. I see every weak spot in me. I know my failures. I know my struggles. When I picture myself in my mind, there’s snap-shot of this weak, frail, trembling person, who is so easily crushed, so easily manipulated.

But is that what everyone on the outside sees? No one can see that snap-shot, that inner revelation of breakability. For all anyone knows, I could be a real go-getter, take-no-crap piece of work. Maybe in the end, it’s not how we feel about ourselves and our capabilities, it’s what we let the world see.

Some days, I fake everything. And trust me, I’m a firm believer in being genuine. But when your ability to function, to face fears like some superhero is in jeopardy, what can you do but front; to show the rest of the world you’re a force to be reckoned with? How are they ever going to know you scream like a banshee at the sight of a spider?

Life is but a Fleeting Vapor.

2009-08-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

A funeral took place this afternoon in Dalton, and I was there. My great aunt on my mother’s side of the family had passed away. I never got to know her. Actually, I couldn’t name for you any family member on that side. I was just never close with them.

Everyone had something nice to say about the woman, Sally, and all I could gather about her (I believe) 80 something years of walking this earth… Was that she apparently dyed her hair. And that was only from my distant glance from across the long funeral home viewing room. I don’t like that idea of dead. So its more like a form of torture for me to pay my respects, than like actually paying my respects.

I don’t do death. Though, I suppose it wouldn’t be correct for me to say that I don’t do death. I do not like death. Death would definitely be picked last if I were picking tag football teams… Yeah, I just don’t… Like to go there. But it’s more like death does us. One day you’re here and then death could just hit you like that and abracadabra all of a sudden you’re not.

During the entire service for remembering Sally, all I could think about was how I didn’t feel anything. I knew nothing about the kind of woman she was or the kind of life that she lead. Sniffling and quiet weeping filled the sanctuary and all I could do was sit there as stiff as a corpse myself.

Every time the preacher raised his hands to emphasize something he had said, all I could do was stare blankly at his long bony fingers. They reminded me of ET’s. And when I should have been listening to what he was saying… I was hearing, "ET phone home. ET phone home…", from somewhere in the back of my head.

The preacher made a comment about family that pulled me back out from within my shell, where my heart and head had been in hiding together. From under the bed somewhere inside me where they both retreat when things start getting complicated outside, they crawled out. He said, "Family has a special bond. A bond like no other. You can lean on each other to get through this."

I thought to myself before today these people were nothing more than complete strangers to me. If I had run into them somewhere on the street, I would not have known them from Adam. "Well here’s my shoulder if anyone needs to let out a good cry… And I’m a good listener…", I thought. And just as those words flashed through my mind, I saw my heart turn on its heels and run back for that bed deep inside me and crawled back under. I don’t do death.

Life and death are kind of like luck and gambling. The slot machines in casinos have a million different combinations of symbols, letter, numbers, characters, etc… But eventually if you yank that lever down enough times… Jackpot. But only in life, the combination is for death… And sooner or later you’re going to be in the right place at the right time and at the right age and in the right circumstance… With either the rope, candlestick, wrench… In the ballroom, kitchen, or study… Just kidding. But you catch my drift.

But here’s my question… What is a person suppose to do with death? It is just the final and abrupt end to something that once shared the same air we breathe. It’s not like a memory that can be filed away and kept for years. Death doesn’t have file-away-able qualities. Death demands instant dealing. It’s a fog that hovers and won’t leave one to be at peace. But do we ever really deal with death? It’s one of those reoccurring things in this world you wish you could have at with a high powered machine gun.

God promised everything would be explained someday. Everyone always says they have that one question they are going to ask God when they get to heaven. Mine’s going to go something like this…"What the heck was that about?" Yep, that’s going to be it believe it or not. I figure I can cover more territory with that one.

So back to topic… Life is but a fleeting vapor. How does one deal with death? What is the purpose?

Me? I’m going to sit right here and wait for that someday when God’s going to play answer my twenty (bazillion) questions with me. And until then I’m going to hold death in my hands, since I don’t know what else to do with it, with its poor defenseless neck between my thumb and index finger and choke it to death.