Tag Archives: rambling

and there

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there are mornings like this which linger across days
gentle mornings filled with the wonder of your presence
and the touch of your skin against mine
and they wrap themselves around me
for longer than i ever dared dream

yeah, so i get a little sappy sometimes. so what.

i haven’t been writing much, because i’ve been pretty happy. i’m of that sadly predictable bent that requires conflict, angst and/or depression to write “artistically”, and i just haven’t really been conflicted, full of angst, or depressed.

yeah, sorry, i know how terribly much that stinks.

it was a long, cold, wet spring, and now the summer whistles by far too quickly, with far too little time for doing all the things i’d really like to do, but that’s how it always is.

i’m happy, but i think internally i may still be at a crossroads. the determination of how, exactly, to move forward beneath the light of some things, while firmly outside the light of other things, weighs on me now in ways that i don’t find comfortable. so much change has been, and so much continues, but what stands before me now seems simultaneously insurmountable and insubstantial. i feel that i can just barely discern what’s standing before me, but i know damn well i have to cross it before i can truly begin moving on.

and one of those things….

little deaths

it took a couple of little deaths for some things to begin healing inside me. the first of those was back in January, where complete, abject avoidance proved to be the stronger suit. it was a tough series of cards to play as an empath, i don’t mind admitting, but having played them, i know i am the better for it. i couldn’t hold anything resembling a coherent conversation with that one, and as a result, i am now even further removed from my past and the dreams i once dared to dream.

but that was quite fitting, after all.

the other little death occurred just recently, and while i still fail to understand just where exactly that particular train got derailed, i’m by no means pleased that i had to once again play the “unconcerned non-observer” role to get by. the words should have been enough, and the actions (or lack thereof), would have made my intentions clear to even the most deluded. but no, somehow, they were not. so that one wandered away in a fit of peevish self-pity void of exactly what i knew all along was lacking: a true to desire to change the reality in which she had entombed herself.

life goes this way, sadly, far too often. no one has piqued my pity and disappointment quite as well as these two fine souls have managed, and they are gone.

little deaths: little things turned grey within me, but i hope their lives prosper in positive ways.

(for that last one, a restatement of the obvious ~ in peace)

you knew
what it would and wouldn’t
be, let alone become,
long before i ever had the opportunity
to confuse it all. you knew
what would fail to move
before you set about to redefine
the benefit in attempting
to change what you knew would be
unmoved.

you knew
the realities surrounding
you, and chose to color them
in forgettable hues. you knew
where i stood, and transported
me, redefined me, and who i became
through your eyes was unrecognizable,
so i stepped away, thus becoming
unmoved.

the 23rd/24th of this month marks the completion of our first year together, ghosts, memories and all. we don’t like being apart from each other.

and that is the greatest gift i have ever been given.

but it bleeds like water flows

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Things go in certain ways, at times, and the difficulty comes not in the way they go or where they take you, but in the fact that once you’re there, where you’ve been most often becomes unrecognizable, and all the new places you have to go hide mysteriously behind the veils of your own closed eyelids.

Perspective is a bitch, like that.

I don’t know if I’m midlife-crisis-ing or what, but my perspective has been shifting all over the place, lately. In some ways, I feel the best I’ve ever felt (mentally, emotionally, and I’m getting there physically again), but in other ways, it’s almost as if everything I do is ultimately pointless. And ultimately, I just get mad at myself for feeling sorry for myself.

But unholy fuckity-fuck, I need to get out of this place. The waiting for it bleeds.

I know, I’ve said that before. I’ll have to dig up that old poem; I’m definitely in that mode of late, and it’s related somewhat to this post.

But this waiting, this stasis, the waiting for it to lift or be lifted bleeds like water flows, and I am somehow at the head and foot of it all.

Which, incidentally, means it’s nothing new.

Go figure.

syntheschism

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there’s a need for it like nothing i’ve ever known: a growing, changeful thing—a nuisance to itself and others—a thing that separates itself into anxiety, rhythm, bright darkness and understanding: things we tend to treasure, as if such things were remotely unique.

but it is a need. an intrinsic need: a part of the underlying conditions. a hopeful, insistent, semi-sentient, nearly-autonomous thing that seems to take control and drive us, and the only part about it that makes any sense is that those who experience it nearly invariably come to identify themselves by the virtue of its touch.

and then it changes, shifts, coalesces and divides again, trailing off in multiple directions, accomplishing different things, becoming far more than what was intended, sometimes until it’s far too large to rein back in. it becomes the light, the dark, the in-between, and eventually, it is everything and nothing: both more and less than what it was, and what we ever dared become.

it doesn’t matter what it is.

it is us.

we be leavin’

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but not on a jet-plane. and i DO know when we’ll be back again, even. it’ll be sometime after i leave. i promise!

but yes, we’re going to bail for a bit up to the in-laws place. in the meantime, visit the folks i just link-loved from here. gah. i need to update this blog’s blogroll. yeah, yeah. i have time for that. really. pfft.

oh yeah. it’s thanksgiving. supposedly we should give thanks for all the shit in our lives. so, at this time, i’d like to give thanks for all the shit in my life. and for all the non-shit. and maybe for all the people, but probably not for their shit. wow, i just used the word ‘shit’ in one paragraph four times. i must be the shit.

okay, maybe six.

anyway, i’m rambling because i have this tooth that desperately needs to be extracted and i have to wait all the way until the freakin’ 29th. it’s fun, let me tell you. especially when i’m about to go stuff my face all weekend. mmmmmm……i just can’t wait to go love me some dentist. eight days. shoot me.

okay, well, the last proof site i was trying to get uploaded finally uploaded so i’ll see you later. have fun!

talking shop and hair loss

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i hate days like today.

work-days like today, that is.

Thomas Knoll, who is one the extreme end of “genius” in my mind, and who writes the Camera Raw specification for Adobe, has unfortunately flinched a couple of times in the past. The end result being that “automatic” settings for digital photos taken a couple of years ago are by no remote means today, how they looked a couple of years ago. Which, since my business model encourages brides and grooms to come back on their first anniversaries or whenever to get their wedding albums, means that i have to spend an entire workday reprocessing over thirteen thousand photographs from 2005 alone—and that’s just weddings. well, not necessarily each file, but those i left as “automatic” because it seemed to provide the best mix of shadow, highlight, contrast, and….gah….a myriad of other settings that i would rather not have to readdress after such a long time.

that having been said, though, i’m thoroughly pleased with how the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw works, both in Lightroom and PhotoShop, so what the hell. it’s a bit inconvenient, but i’ll get over it….and myself.

the rest of today has been cool. we haven’t heard from The Elder and Unknown in a while, but that’s okay; she has her own reality to deal with, and i’m sure juggling her mother’s feelings about “all that” haven’t exactly been easy….or comfortable. the other two beasts….er….children are doing just fine. i think we’ve found a better place for #1 Son to go to school next year, and the program they have in place for #1 Daughter will support her for another three years.

so, while the computer sat and churned for roughly three hours, re-ingesting and meta-tagging thirteen thousand-plus photographs, i got a wild hair up my ass and shaved all my facial hair. it’s been a while since i did that—summer of 2005, in fact. i hate being predictable. #1 Son says i look old. #1 Daughter says i look young. pfft. whatever. the cats still love me.

3 days

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okay, so those of you familiar with my past blogging endeavors were probably wondering when the first hiatus would occur. so to you i say, “hah! 3 days is a heckuva lot shorter than [x] months!”

no, what happened is i picked up strep throat from some kind soul (probably my son, bless his little heart), so Sunday and Monday were not great days for me. i’m pretty much over it now, though, i’m happy to report. hurray for penicillin and its derivatives!

“the daughter” hasn’t responded to my mom’s last email. i’m a bit frustrated with my mother for this, because it tangented into all the sexual indescretions of virtually everyone in the family. she was trying to show how life can be okay despite some of those shortcomings, but i can’t help but wonder if that didn’t make The Elder and Unknown at least a little uneasy about things. in her communications with mom, church and church functions have more prevalent than mentions of family, after all.

since we are going to be in San Antonio, the Spouse-Unit sent The Elder and Unknown an email. there’s been no response to that, either. but she now knows a little bit more about all of us, and has the Spouse-Unit ‘s contact information. mine, too, since the Spouse-Unit gave her the link to our website.

but that’s where we stand for now. i leave for Saint Louis early Thursday morning, then the Spouse-Unit and I will join up in San Antonio late Sunday. it’ll be impossible not to think of The Elder and Unknown while we’re there, of course, but at this point, it’s pretty much 50-50 (or less) that we’ll get to see her. more likely is some sort of meeting with my adoptive parents, as i will be going by our old house while the Spouse-Unit is at her conference on Monday. i won’t be knocking at the door, but i am curious as to how the neighborhood has changed since i was there last in 1990 ~ which was when i dropped The Elder and Unknown and her mother off after they had come to visit me and my (real) parents up in Lubbock.