Peace of mind

The offspring 1994

So my sister arrived in a whirl wind on Monday and stayed the week. It was nice spending time with her at odd moments. However it did get overwhelming sometimes trying to write and finish NaNoWriMo with the three kids running amok through the house. A week is a long time with three children under the age of 8. Interruptions were constant and sometimes sweet, sometimes irritating.

I'm still writing away at odd moments and then some regular moments;but find myself, tired, crabby and pecking today and looking for a way into the flow of writing. Sometimes that is elusive and the best course of action is to come here and share. I still have time to finish and heading towards 40K. But at this point, I'm trying to make it flow as a shorter story and to finish, but still allowing room for it to grow after the finish. 

Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. Many bad memories of fights and such. This year again;Thanksgiving turned into the turmoil that it is every year. I find myself longing for it not involving what it does every year. Which is pressure, guilt and a great desire to be elsewhere in the world. Someday it would be nice to wake up on the third Thursday in November and have just a sense of peace.

It is supposed to be about family, sharing, caring and giving. All good kind things to be doing but for me every year it is an incredible amount of pressure and I wonder often if I was with someone I loved in another place would it feel any different?

Bare bones...to the root of the problem... what is the problem with this holiday for me? I have to think about it and find it. Showering to think it through and making a list of what is bothering me about this recent holiday.

List
Fights from the past.
The heartbreaking addiction of heroin.

Feeling unwelcome.

Toiling over food all day and women only.
Kids fighting.
Black Friday.
Pressure to be in more than one place at one time.
Guilt about where to be.
Anger directed at me.

Alright I have made the list. Now I'm going to think about the best Thanksgiving I have had in a long time and that was at my sisters in 2009. Her house was finished and Eric cooked. We had an eclectic group of people and drank. So why was this one so nice? No ex-husbands, no drug addicts and did not allow myself to be pressured by family about where I wanted to be. I flat out said where I wanted to be and did it. So the answer lies in me.

Rant of the day

News alert: breathing will get you killed.
 
I have been arguing with this kid at work... and I mean kid.. young enough to be my son..He cracks me up, very open about being gay and I love gay men; actually I love men period. I'm surrounded by them. Digital is a man's world at Amazon and I'm on a team of twenty-five and we have only five girls. The twenty guys are... with the exception of the two close to my own age... all young enough to be my kid. I love them all and they always make me the heavy.

Anyway he was giving me a hard time about smoking. And I can put up a damn good argument about smoking. Everything in moderation is my motto; because If you give up the things you love to live a healthy life style, shocker news alert... you still fucking die.

I eat incredibly healthy, I'm not overweight or close to obese. But once in a while I like a McDonald's Happy Meal. Once in a while I like to have an almond joy candy bar for breakfast and once in a while I like to have a cigarette. I smoke a pack of cigarettes in about three days...so a moderate smoker but still addicted. But I smoke American Spirit without all the additives. The healthy choice for smoking. I like to have a beer or a drink every now and then at whatever time of the day I feel like it......but I will still end up dying in the end..... and yes I could die from lung cancer. However I could die from lung cancer from never having smoked at all. That happens to people all the time, every day technically....something kills them whether they enjoyed it or not .

People run around denying themselves meat, dairy, alcohol, coffee, tea and all kinds of fun tidbits that make life enjoyable. They work out, eat right, avoid second hand smoke, don't do drugs and do the right things  and guess what in the end they still get the same outcome I do...... dead. Just saying.

In life there are a lot of nasty stinky habits... pooping, farting, spitting, burping, tanning and I put up with them from all of you when I don't necessarily want too. I smoke outside and there are nasty loogeys everywhere and it's a disgusting habit, because your snot gets on my boot and then goes everywhere with me for the rest of the day. I walk into a restroom and somebody took a nasty shit from a god-awful meal they just ate, that's a nasty habit, but I put up with it because we all have to poop. But if you eat right your shit would not stink so bad. Coughing and sneezing into your hand and touching my stuff right after is a nasty habit and could kill me. Tanning beds make you stink and make you look old before your time. Smoking is all of these things; disgusting, unhealthy, stinky...but you know what it makes me happy to have one outside in the fresh air. I put up with you and all your nasty habits, stop complaining about mine.

To this kid who could possibly die from aids as a gay man, is he going to stop that lifestyle to avoid it? Probably not because he would be unhappy and miserable and the point is we do only get one life and yeah it sucks to be addicted to things but get this... we. are. still. every. single. one. of. us.... going to have the same end no matter what we do or don't do in life.

DEAD

This scared the piss out of me this morning.

It is important for you to be extra cautious today, Shannon. Make sure you are calm and collected before you get behind the wheel of a car. Be sure to have a helmet on if you are riding your bike. Strong emotions that come up today are apt to trigger a physical response that could be quite powerful and even a bit violent. Be careful of such tendencies.

I had a lot of driving to do today and frankly did not appreciate this first thing in the morning. So I was careful driving in the snow. And I kept my panties on. And I made sure to walk with ballerina attitude. So having made it safely through the day I'm proud to say I wrote my ass off yesterday and passed the milestone of halfway!

Hang time

Yesterday I pulled the car out of the garage and headed to the mountains. Listening to music and thoughts. Thoughts of avoiding any temptation and steering around fate. I picked up #61 from school and we went to his new house and it is very nice, cozy. I like that this new woman in the Father of my children's life is normal and cozy, I met her finally on the last visit and liked her instantly. The house is a happy place and all the men are happy. Mickey Blue Eyes showed up and we had a nice visit, then #61 and I packed up the car and headed East away from it all.

We stopped at the store and bought fixings for Clam Chowder and also any other cravings we might have that the house is out of due to no one eating too much of the fun stuff. Brownies, ice-cream, chips. I made dinner and #61  caught up on his games and downloads and then we watched the movie Invictus.

This morning finds me writing on Curador, frantically with ideas and keeping up with the days requirement, yet I'm consumed with thoughts of my life and the man that I love and can't seem to have. This morning, my day is consumed by him and suddenly I had an Epiphany, once in a while that happens if I take the thoughts down, so far down I'm at the bones of the thoughts.

Commitment. I'm terrified of commitment because I want it to be the right man and I think that he is. But the fear comes from the opposite direction,wanting commitment so badly with everything it entails. That I run from it, because it needs to be the right person. I like marriage, commitment and loyalty. So the epiphany is that I'm not running from it I have decided, I'm running to it. I'm waiting for the right person to commit too.

In my dreams this year it has shown me so much of him, for a change in them. He is turning forty this year in just a month in fact and will that be the moment? Our turning point finally. The dreams of never being in the same room at the same time and then the other where he grew up because of turning forty. But it's not so much him growing up as both of us maturing into who we need to be for each other.

On the complete opposite of the axis with being ready is the behavior in the first paragraph where I avoid him and fate at all costs. So that if it is never going to be the right time, I can still be okay with that. Avoiding being a mess after touchdown per say, a defense mechanism.

This morning #61 and I made roll-ups our visit ends tomorrow and we settled back into being together well and happily.  My dreams have been waking me suddenly in the night. They are not always what I want them to be and I'm fighting them but the worries in the pit of my stomach are prevalent and have to be handled.... but why at 4 am and 2 am concurrently?

Ah, can you hear the sigh, it is my weekend. I have this day for myself to catch up on writing and just being. Then tomorrow off to the mountains like at the beginning of this post to take care of appointment with #61. It has been snowing in locations all over the State, the holidays are just around the corner and the Kindle Fire was released early.

This mornings horoscope.

Tap into the electrifying energy of the day, Shannon, which encourages social interactions and activities that include partners. You will find that there is a great deal of oxygen to keep your internal fire raging quite hot. Take the lead and others will follow you willingly. Chords may be struck within you today that will resonate with large plans that you have been secretly brewing in the back of your mind for quite some time now.

Undone

This disturbs me....

As I began the day I always look at my horoscope and sometimes they are easy to toss off. But this one disturbs me and it will be interesting with the plans I have today to reflect on it tonight. It's Tuesday and my Friday, which is a schedule that seriously messes with my head in identifying the frigging day that it really is.

Your horoscope for November 9, 2011
	Secure your bunker and make sure it is fully stocked with the heavy artillery because there is bound to be a battle, Shannon. Trust that you need to be fully prepared to enter into the fight today, because you do. There are actually some battles that you like - the ones that get things rolling and that produce results. It will soon become clear which type this is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWslXN68dSw&feature=related

Love this song and woke up with it my head and did not wake up in any sort of battle mode let alone battle gear. (She says this as she glances down at her tank top and pajama bottoms). Yeah, not really battle gear.. maybe If I put on a bra.

Rendered helpless by those wicked charms. Love that line from this song and no one can say the word undone like Shaun Morgan of Seether. And I love that word undone. It encompasses so many things naughty and nice and perhaps that is the battle I'm going to face today, dressing for a battle with naughty. Another great word itself. Along with wicked.

Wicked
Undone
Naughty

So it is a Seether kind of writing morning and my favorite song from the new album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PA3rwOBC8E&NR=1

Also plan to write, write and write another battle all its own. And for shits and giggles Shaun at Uproar coming live from my own iPhone. The second mans voice this week that I have listened to that could melt chocolate. Ah, here is the battle.... the incredibly tough challenge of uploading a video from iPhone to computer to blog. jfc. what a nightmare. Going to have to shower and put on a bra to figure this one out.

Two attempts and getting some not happy going on. A couple of years later.. and I have figured it the hell out.

Airborne

Ill today with chest cold, nasty ass cough, eyebrow headache and sipping on some Airborne after waking from a early morning nap. First cold in.....two years? Anyway quite pissy about it, I hate being sick. Still plugging away at NaNoWriMo at 14,440 words and happily above target. At seven days in, the target is 11,662.

Also has been an interesting week, because while researching hops and Mr. Klaber and Mr. Meeker (Hop Kings) mentioned it to my Mom and she says "My family brought hops to that area (Mr. Klabers area), you should check it out the last name was Black."
I thought to myself hmmm... I recognize that name and backtracked my research and sure enough found the little story of the Blacks. Printed it out and shared it with her and both my parents were just tickled by this and it led to all kinds of information about family, hops and me collecting interesting tidbits and stories of hops. Not really feeling up to explaining it all today but leaving with one quote I made up about myself this week.

Just saying...sometimes there is a method to my madness...and it relieves me to no end...to find the odd note to self to prove it...

 Also quite conveniently Black became the last name for the character in the book. Some pictures of Juliet Blacks house in Fauntleroy from Curador.

National Novel Writing Month

This morning writing early and inspired by NaNoWriMo. Uploading and dedicating myself to Curador for this event. 50,000 word goal. Started the morning at 9,800 and finishing the day at 10,545.

From the website itself to compete I had to complete:

Short synopsis:
The idea coming from eating as often as I can at my favorite restaurant Endloylne Joes and taking that helpless but needed walk after overeating a fabulous meal there, the walk leading you down to the private street that sets above the ferry and down this street is a house with a turret that looks over the sound. Inspiring me to think of witches, gardens and crazy Aunts.

Set in Fauntleroy (West Seattle) near the Puget Sound. Daniel a former professional boxer is sent by his Aunts to help around the rambling house that sets just about the shores of the Fauntleroy Ferry. He is suffering from a past that haunts him. Juliet is a healer and this house she lives in belongs to her family.

Novel excerpt:
The turret, bold and rounded stood as sentinel in the trees. He liked it, the eccentric architecture of it. We all need a turret in our lives he thought. He swung his keys in his hand making music with them as he twirled them to land in his palm and looked for a break in the wall to gain entrance to the house. Finally finding it, the break in the wall and taking the concrete steps that climbed steeply into the base of the house and a porch. Instead of going to the door right away he took a right and went into the gardens. At this end there was a green house, small but real, He hated the tacky plastic ones. He wound through the paths of the garden. It wove in and out in the shape of a Spirograph. Spirograph; he thought, man he had not thought of that toy in years he had played with it for hours when he was a kid. The memory made him smile.The yard seemed chaotic, but he could tell it was from talent and not from being unkempt. It had purpose, poise and wild beauty and it was the intent, he knew because of who she was related too.

Brought to you by

So this morning finds me back in the midst of a rewrite of what I fondly call Errant Breezes. According to yesterdays horoscope I have rebounded from a mess and into gestation. Gestation is that what it really said, please stand by.... checking.

Yes indeed; gestation.... see the proof below...

The celestial energy is signaling an agreeable change for you today, Shannon. Finally, the overpowering emotions from your relationships will subside. You are now beginning a phase of gestation, and may feel as if you were about to depart on a long trip, with all the time in the world to meditate on the events of the past few months...

Anyhoo, yes I'm feeling back to my usual happy self and have decided the best course of action is to run from fate every time she tosses shit my way. Much better than being a mess, and if things are meant to change then he will ponder and decide it for me. That is somewhat cryptic to those who are not inside my head but to me it's what I'm dwelling on and the answers I have found within myself. Avoid, run and wait for the outcome.

As I work on this rewrite; I'm continually shocked by what I do not recall writing. "Where the hell was I," comes to mind occasionally when I have read what I have written. Scratching my head in wonderment. When, what, where did this happen? But the creative juices are flowing and I'm riding it. Must be the gestation factor and what exactly is the written meaning of that word. Because I'm thinking it's reproduction...Hold on opening a new window to check it out.

Ah:

Definition of GESTATION

1

: the carrying of young in the uterus : pregnancy

2

: conception and development especially in the mind 

 

And okay we will take number 2 since number 1 would not be a pretty situation. But yes this is a good portent. Today is my Friday and I plan to take some downtime and write. Let the gestation begin, ha!