L to R:  emma, my mom's service dog puppy in training; daisy, 15y/o family dog; and bella, my 2y/o pibble mix.


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1.  sheila and closed on our house today.  we signed our lives away, and we're moving on wednesday.
alice is helping us pack the truck on tuesday night.  my mom and dad are helping unpack a little on wednesday, and sheila's mom & grandma are coming down that day also.  though i don't know if they intend on helping or what.  plus i think alice will help us on wednesday too (right, alice?) .
syd is coming up on thursday and staying the night, and hopefully we can get cherie over to take a look at the space where i want her to do a mural and we can go paint shopping.

2.  we adopted another dog.  she was rescued from a neglect situation.  we drove over 3 hours in a snow storm with white-out conditions just so that she would not have to spend another night outside.  cute little red & white beagle.  about 3 or 4 yrs old.  got her a dental, a spay, a microchip and some shots, and named her olive.  she's mostly sheila's little girl, which is good because charlie's such a one-person dog, and i am his one person.  charlie doesn't really appreciate olive (1 uptight older phobic dog who does not know how to play + 1 hyper playful obnoxious energetic dog = do not want).  when we take the two of them over to my mom's to be with her 2 dogs, olive and emma (her paws with a cause foster puppy) tear around the yard and work out all their wiggles, while charlie and daisy (the old man and the old lady) relax inside.

3.  so yeah, i've had a lot more contact with my mom lately.  mostly it's been good, but i'm very nervous that things are going too quickly.  and it would totally be my own fault too, because i call her all the time, and we get together and do stuff.  too often, i think.  i kind of miss the feeling i had when we were not in touch as much... i felt more independent and more proud.  i have a hard time letting myself depend on other people.  i wish we could hang out as friends instead of mother/daughter.  as hard as you can try to make that happen, there always IS a mother/daughter dynamic there and it will never go away.  plus with the two of us being in such completely different income & socioeconomic brackets, there's always a feeling of inequality.  i would rather be her equal, but these factors, plus others, make that not an option.

anyway, pics of 1 & 2 are forthcoming, but i think i might need to buy a new camera first.  i've been looking around at them, but i have such a hard time making a decision.  the one i have now doesn't work right anymore, but i don't want to learn how to use a new one!  it's one of those things that stresses me out way more than it should.  i mean, this morning, i bought A SHITTIN' HOUSE.  (and a fucking entertainment system but we don't need to talk about that right now).  yet i can't pick out a camera.

oh, ps, if you want to see pics of emma, go here.  note the date.  she has doubled in size since then!

i was at the beach of lake michigan when i came upon a mother with a young daughter.  she was probably 5 or 6.  they were sitting on a driftwood log, not unlike the one that sits on the shore at the leelanau school.
a cobra had washed ashore and the girl was playing with it.  it kept lifting its head and swaying back and forth with its neck fanned out, spitting at the girl.  i tried to warn her that it was dangerous, but she was having fun and was not scared.  her mother knew the snake was dangerous, but didn't think that it would bite her daughter, so she wasn't worried.
a while later, the 3 of us were sitting on the curb outside my parent's house.  the girl was still playing with the snake.  suddenly, the cobra bit the little girl.  she screamed out in pain and fear, and threw the snake into the neighbor's yard.  her mother looked at me and asked if the bite of the black cobra was venemous.   i told her i didn't know, but i would find out.
i ran into my parent's house and went upstairs to the office.  alice was sitting in front of both computer monitors, so i had a hard time getting online and seeing the information.  i kept trying to type "black cobra" into the search engine, but i couldn't hit the right keys and nothing was coming out right.  i kept glancing out the window and the mother was pacing nervously and looking up at the house, wondering where i was and if i was coming back.
i went out to the garage and tried to explain to her that i was looking it up online but having problems.  i went back inside to try again, but then i looked out the window once more and saw the mother leave with her daughter.  i didn't know what she decided or where she was going, but i hoped they were going to the hospital, because i was really scared for the little girl and afraid she might die.  i knew her mother's intentions were good though, even if she didn't wind up doing the right thing.

this morning, upon remembering this dream, i felt compelled to find out more about cobras online.  it turns out that there really is a kind of cobra called 'black cobra'.  i didn't know this until today.  and apparently, all cobras are venemous.  but i think that's beside the point.

it's funny that sometimes i don't understand what a dream is all about until i write it out.  i can go over it in my head time and again and not really get it until i sit down and write about it.

i keep trying to take control over what happened in the past, but it's too late.  my mother's intentions were good, even if she didn't do the right thing.

this message feels very reassuring to me.


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the crap that i got myself into over the weekend has led way (i think) to a head cold.  the whole situation took such a toll on me that i'm assuming it compromised my immune system just enough to catch a bug.  kind of annoying, but not debilitating.  just stupid.  i can't believe i didn't keep closer track of my meds to know when they were running out.  it's more of a challenge when you use a pill holder instead of opening up the bottle every day and looking inside.

our offer on the house isn't looking too good.  they got another offer that i think they're gonna go with instead.  that's okay though.  there are more houses.  AND, yesterday afternoon we were finally able to turn in the rest of our paperwork and documents for the home loan application, and we FINALLY have a pre-approval letter in hand!  you have no idea how excited i am about this.  it really means a lot when you are looking at homes and making offers.  people take you a LOT more seriously.

alice and i went to the trans group a couple days ago and had a good time.  we all went out to dinner after the meeting.  they're such a fun group of people.  as always, i feel lucky to know them.  they're so good humored and passionate and we never fail to have fun.

in other news, i have recently updated my user info (finally)... go take a look! 
fyi: all the names of pets and friends are links to pictures of them.  i don't know if people assume this or just think it's underlined text.

last night, i had horrible nightmares again.
god, i hate them so much.  i don't know if i can fully explain this one.
in the dream, i was SO distressed by what was going on.
marcia (friend who i thought was dead, from previous post) was there, my grandma (who really is dead) was there, and so were some of my other relatives, and my parents.  my mom and dad were going on and on about how i'm such a horrible person, and making up all these stories about me, and the more i tried to argue with them, i just wound up screaming and shouting and it just went to prove their point.  they would say, "see?  she's completely awful and out of control".  mostly i was concerned about what marcia would think, since she hadn't seen me in so long.  i had given up trying to convince my parents that i was a good person.  i knew that whatever they had to say about me would follow me for the rest of my life, wherever i went.  everyone would know how bad i was before i got there and there was nothing i could do about it.  i couldn't say or feel anymore.  i completely shut down.  i laid down on a couch with my head in marcia's lap and she wrapped her arms around me and told my parents that she thought they were wrong.  she said it just once, and that one time meant a lot to me, like maybe there was someone out there who would finally disagree with my parents.  but they kept on and on, talking about how horrid i am and telling lies and secrets and stories with varying degrees of truth to them.  i knew some of it was true, and i was so ashamed and could only agree; i was a useless individual.
all the horrible things i've done in my lifetime, every bad reaction to every trauma that i didn't know how to handle because i was too young and too horrible and too stupid, came flooding back to me and consumed me with guilt and conviction of my own worthlessness right as i woke up.

i'm missin' mah hunny today :(

Syd's recent updateyness has inspired me to write an actual update too.
We have secured mortgage prequalifications from 3 different lenders!  House hunting is still in progress.  Money should be here by the end of the month.  Of course, that's what I was told last month too.
We have a new kitten named Miles.  He is black & brown stripey patchy.
We also have a new kitten named Mikey.  He is black & white with extra toes and no tail.
Both of these were Sheila's doing WITHOUT consulting me!  So yeah, now we have 6 cats.  At least they're cute.
We also have a fresh, new lovebird named Teej.  (aka TJ, aka Turd Junior).  Be is a black masked blue.  Also Sheila's doing ;)
Last night, Alice and I saw The Brave One.  It's really good.  See it.  I cried so much at the end, but I still can't figure out why.
Then we went to Denny's and blew bubbles in our drinks.  And got sundaes and brought one home to Peaches.  And watched an episode of South Park.
I think we're going to a K-Wings game tonight.  The first preseason home game of the year!!!  :)
Some fun pics I've taken recently:


I haven't gotten any good pics of Mikey yet.  But just visualize it... a kitten with thumbs and a bunny butt!  Mikey and Pork have become fast friends.  Pork really likes kittens, but I think one of them got him on the nose the other day.  Right on the front, the most sensitive part, he's got a scratch.  It looks really painful, but I think it is going to be okay.  It's been there a couple days and we're keeping an eye on it.  There's nothing you can put on a cat's nose that won't be licked off in 2 minutes anyway.

i'll have to make a more detailed entry later, probably friends-only.

so, you know, the intarwebs, right?  there's my grandma's obituary with a guestbook.  my aunt from sydney signed it. 
she wrote: "This gentle gracious lady will always live in our hearts. She was the most wonderful mother-in-law to me and though many miles separated us, we visited Mum Kelley at least twice a year and spoke often on the phone. We will be there soon to say farewell. All our love to Aunt Onie, Mark, Mary & Phil and Alice."
so yes, that would be, at the end there... my great aunt, my uncle, my mother, my father, and my sister.
ouch.

(and for the record... twice a year?  right.  maybe tuscany twice a year, but not here.)

my grandma is finally in hospice.
bin_code: call me.

so much despair in my dreams last night:

1.  there was a large, shallow aquarium with no lid.  it was on the top of a table at a museum.  it was a saltwater set-up with anemones, live rock, starfish, and crustaceans.  it was very beautiful.  i was looking down inside of it from the top.  there was an egg on the bottom that was halfway cracked open.  i could see a little naked baby bird inside.  it was very premature, but i knew it was alive because it was moving, struggling to break away from what was left of the yolk.  i was trying to take a picture of it with my digital camera, but every time i got close enough, a big lobster started climbing out of the tank and attacking me.  i didn't want the little baby bird to drown, but i felt that there was nothing i could do.  i just wanted to take its picture before it got destroyed.
i was having problems getting good photos through the water, so i decided to look at the instruction manual for my camera.  i couldn't find it, and the museum started to close for the night.  the man who worked there was trying to get me to leave, but i didn't want to go because i was sure the baby bird would be dead by the next day.  i told him i was looking for the instruction booklet for my camera, and that i could not leave without it.  he handed it to me, but it was for a different model of camera.  i pointed this out to him and he said it was mine.  we argued back and forth for a minute and he kept insisting that he had given me the right set of instructions.  finally i gave up and left, knowing i'd never see the poor baby bird again.

2.  charley and i were at my paternal grandfather's house in augusta.  it was several hundred years into the future, and all the neighbors were gone.  there was a big, dilapidated barn in the backyard.  i was supposed to make my way through the yard to be with the rest of the family on the other side of the barn, but there was electric fence all over in some sort of a maze pattern, and the fencing was very hard to see.  i felt that no matter which direction i turned, i would walk into the fence and get electrocuted.  i was afraid for charley too, but he seemed to be able to get around better than i.  i wanted him to stay with me, but he was running around the yard by himself.  my aunts and uncles kept telling me that i had to just run through the fence and get it over with.  they said it would only hurt for a second.  i wanted to be with them at first.  then, once i realized they weren't going to help me, i just wanted to leave.  i looked all around me and the rest of the world was black as far as i could see.  there was nowhere to go.

today was one of the best days of my life.  seriously.  a lot of people say that lightly, but i was crying tears of joy & relief in the street in the middle of downtown grand rapids.
my hearing?  i won.  back pay?  for the past SIX YEARS (i was expecting two).
that is a LOT of money.  i'm starting to realize just how much it is.  it hasn't even been officially calculated yet, but the bare minimum of what i would be eligible for is still some SERIOUS money, and it only goes up from there, depending on my work history and calculations that the social security administration makes.  it took a while to sink in.  when we got out to the lobby, my lawyer (i love my lawyer!) whipped out her calculator and started hitting buttons and i just about passed out.  oh, and bonus: my lawyer looks like paula abdul!
first, we pay off our debts, make right with all our creditors.  nothing TOO major, we just owe a couple hundred dollars here and there.
then charley, littleman, and weinermobile get dentals.  pork gets his ass examined.  birds get yearly exams & bloodwork.  think about vaccines. 
sheila gets her car fixed: repair locks, new windshield, fix power window on driver's side, etc.
sheila gets her teeth fixed.  i get my feet fixed.
and charity.  some serious charity.  the rescue where i got charley is on the top of the list, as well as several local animal-welfare organizations.
after that, work on living conditions.  calculate what our adjusted monthly income is going to be.  possibly put money down on a house, or somewhere else that we will be able to afford now that we have two incomes.
we have this planned out, roughly, so we don't blow it.
:)
:)
:)
and... this is still a long way off, but it gets me one step closer to being more comfortable with reconnecting with my parents some day.  they were so SURE i wasn't disabled, and that i could work, that i was lazy, and if they cut me off i'd buck up and get a job cuz there really wasn't anything wrong with me.
eat that, bitch.

so when i woke up today, the mother-shaped hole inside my heart was on my mind.  words needed to be written.  and i thought and thought, and finally convinced myself that i could put it out of my head and carry on with other things.  more important things like e-mail, dog walking, and parrot food.
and then i read this (the author, a grown woman, is speaking of her mother):

Surely she had never been all that bad.  Surely by now, she had changed.  She did what she did because she needed to.  She reenacted it on me, just like an abused kid would do with a doll.  Now that it was over, I was sure she'd be a whole different person.
This is how I led myself back.  Because the more I changed my scenery, the more I gave away.  The more I gave away, the more I needed.  The more I needed, the more I pined for a mother, a mother to help me, a mother to belong to.  I desperately searched the eyes of other mothers, hungering to be embraced as a little girl -- just what my mother wanted from me.  I longed to lay my head in a mother's lap.  I soothed myself to sleep during middle-of-the-night panics by imagining a kind, soothing mother sitting on the edge of my bed, hand slowly caressing strands of my hair, curling it behind my ears, around her fingers, sinking me dreamy with electric pulses that dropped like shooting stars across my scalp.  Healing my skull with the heat of her hands.
-Julie Gregory, Sickened, p.224

there.  now i don't need to write about it, because it's already been said by someone who is more gifted with words than i am.

and p.s., julie reconnected with her mother and found that she was still the same as always.  her mother would never be any more than what she had been in the past.

i've had a lot more "worst.dream.ever"s since the last time i posted.
night before last?  my parents were tormenting me and trying to convince everyone in my life how horrible i am.  they were saying i was a bad person, etc.  i was terrified of them and kept looking for someone to protect me.  they were physically chasing me.  they seemed to have superhuman powers because they always knew where i was anyway and would come after me.  when i told peaches about this dream yesterday, i cried about it, and how hard it is to believe that i am a good person today because of 20+ years that i went through believing otherwise.
night before that (i think)?  covered from head to toe in blood, showered and showered but couldn't get it all off.
i cried 3 times yesterday.  first about the dream where my parents were coming after me (it was truly terrifying), then about things going on with a good friend of mine who i feel like i'm losing after many years of friendship.  i cried one more time, but i don't remember what that was about.  got choked up on the phone with brachypelmic. 
drcrutchleg held me as i fell asleep last night.  it was nice.
you know what's especially weird?  terrible nightmares are nothing new.  but my emotional reaction to them is.  usually i feel nothing.

charlie, ziggy, and i are off to brachypelmic's place in indiana tonight to do some zoo-sitting while she and d3p3ch3mod3 are at bonnaroo.  i'll be back in about a week.  maybe a little more, maybe a little less.  i may or may not get online while i'm down there.  don't be surprised if i don't.



emc
May, 2007
State Theatre
Kalamazoo, MI

the inside of this place is gorgeous.
kalamazoo state theatre

things are starting to go pretty shittily in my head again during the past several days.  the temptation to do something really fucking stupid and self-destructive (not kill myself though... and not drinking and not using) is so strong because i have been really neglecting my need to communicate how i fucking feel.  i'm really really bad at asking for help.  but definitely, i'm not feeling stable right now, nor am i feeling very much like dealing with it in a mature manner.  3 different things, all relatively significant, have been affecting me, and i haven't talked about any of them to anyone.  i suppose that's what i get, huh?  i don't care to get into the details here... i have therapy tomorrow...
i fell asleep and missed charlie's vet appointment this afternoon.  i assumed i would wake up when the maintenance guy came back to my place, as i told him i would only be home until 3.  well, he never came back, so i didn't wake up until 5:30ish.  all of my other planned commitments went okay today.  saw my psychiatrist this morning, saw my grandma tonight with alice... that went better than i expected, and we're planning on visiting her every week now.
we have a hole in the ceiling in our bathroom.  to make a long story short... the guy upstairs needs new sealant around his bathtub.  his water was dripping into our bathroom whenever he took a shower.  that's gonna be a several day project for the maintenance guy, which pisses me off because i just feel like spending several days in bed.  see now why i have charlie?  :P

last night's dream:
i had some sort of sickness.  i felt weak and tired, and every couple of hours my fever would spike and i would lose awareness.  i was told that i was actually hallucinating at these times.  a strange sort of hallucination, one that i could not recall after it was over.  one during which i was supposedly saying things and believing things that were not true.
my illness was thought to be life-threatening.  i was at the hospital, but didn't have a room.  i was just walking around.  i was there to visit my mom.  my friends were worried about me, but my family did not care because they were busy worrying about my mom.  my mom thought i was overreacting.  i wanted to believe her but my friends kept telling me that i needed to be seriously worried about myself.

an interpretation:
this dream actually only has 2 people in it, my mother and myself.  my friends and family are both representative of different teams in my head.
the illness represents what i am going through in psychotherapy.  when the "fever" (the intense work) comes to a head, i "hallucinate" things that are not true (i remember things that i quickly discredit).  in the dream, i am not aware of consciously experiencing these memories.  only my "friends" (other parts of myself) are aware of their content, and assure me that none of it is true, yet encourage me to get help with the illness itself.  i listen to them, and i assume that my hallucinations are not a big deal so there is no reason to know or remember.
having the "hallucinations" (memories) remain buried, and ignored whenever they try to surface, is killing me.  i am heading in the right direction to heal (being in the hospital) but haven't quite committed or learned how to engage (i don't have a room).  i am still distracted by my mother's needs and influences and my propensity to tend to her before myself.  my "family" (different parts of myself) believes that i am overreacting and reinforces my obligations to my mother. 
so i am torn and so so so mixed up inside, with very strong parts of myself pulling me in all directions, and the constant presence of my mother, to whom i probably ascribe more power than she actually has, knocking around inside my head.  all of it makes me ill and threatens my ability to exist in reality.

last night's dream:

i was really upset over some major conflict with my parents (lots of yelling and screaming and crying going on), and i emailed my therapist about it because i thought she would get an email sooner than a voice mail.  when i finally got in to see her, the only thing she was concerned about was how i got her email address.  then she started talking, spewing out some crap that i already heard and knew, that had nothing to do with the situation i was in.  she wasn't listening to me.

it reminded me of when my mom was volunteering at the resource center, and she tried to taunt me by telling me she had dawn's email address.  i could tell she wanted me to take the bait and ask her what it was, but i refused to because a) i wasn't going to play that game, and b) i really didn't care to know anyway.
my mom's therapist, pam, had given out her home phone number, at which point my mom immediately figured out where she lived and drove past her house several times.  then again, my mom was never really all that great with boundaries, and i don't think she even realized it.
i'm perfectly happy with the boundaries between me and my therapist.  i always know what to expect, and it makes me respect and trust her as a reliable person who's not going to change the rules every 5 minutes.  consistency always helps me feel less anxious.

anyway, i think the dream is about being frustrated that i'm not communicating very well.  how can i expect people to listen and provide relevant feedback if i'm not being genuine?  it's not necessarily a reflection of any shortcoming on the part of my therapist so much as i associate it with my lack of being good enough, strong enough, fast enough, courageous enough, and trying hard enough.  i feel like i am failing to connect because i haven't completely engaged in the process.

and i don't want to bring this up, either, because i don't want to spend the entire next session talking about the issues surrounding the issues below the issues behind the issues.  i want to get on with it, charge through it, chew it up, and spit it out.  i want an emotional enema.

a random quote from a random website:

We will be two women. Mother and daughter. And we will be great friends as only a mother and daughter who respect each other can be. We will have a very deep and fabulous friendship, and this friendship will be the treasure of my last years.