Personal Perestróĭka

Things that made me happy yesterday:

Ambushed by angels

One time I squished a chicken so hard that an egg fell out (link courtesy Slod)

Now the real question today is, will I achieve anything more than watching a dozen episodes of Scrubs?

Yesterday was incredibly sucky.

Am hoping today is better as it is Friday and I do not have to work tonight.

I need more coffee.

It’s sort of stormy here.  Though in more gentle way than I’ve come to expect from Tennessee.  It’s grey, windy and probably going to rain some more, but even with the heavy rains it’s oddly mild feeling. People keep saying it feels like fall, and I guess, because it’s grey and cool.  Still the light hasn’t hit that just noticeable difference that really means fall, and the air does not yet have the sweet scent of decaying leaves.  So I’m going to stick with late summer and storms.

However I did buy new jeans and a sweater the other day.  I’ve been talking about corduroy skirts and tights and fall shoes.  The true indicator of season change: when I start thinking about the clothes for the next season.

I spent a bunch of time changing all my auto-pay stuff for my bills (even though I got my cards back after the robbery, I’d already canceled them, so I had to wait for the new ones).  Only discover that I had most the important stuff set up directly from my bank account, rather than on my card number, so that change was unnecessary.  Go me for having the forethought to set things up like that, boo me for not remembering that I’d done it and stressing myself out.

Song for the day: Dolly Parton – Somebody’s Everything (click to download)

Song for today’s on-going mental state: Amy Rigby – Don’t Break the Heart (click to download)

I do not have even half the time I need to do everything I want to do.  And yet here I am buying sewing patterns.  Because I am going to sew when?  Maybe I can get a monkey and teach it to do some of my stuff so I don’t have too?  A good, flattering skirt pattern that will work in multiple fabric weights will be endlessly useful in our house and, because I’ve been thinking about it for far too long, I am determined to make the Butterick 4790.  Also contemplating buying a crinoline to wear under all my full skirted dresses.  Is that ridiculous?

Rain rain rain hooray!! Delightful, wonderful rain! I believe this is the first rain we’ve had this August. So we definitely need it.

My weekend went like this: Sleep, coffee shop, pedicure, sushi lunch, work, Scrubs, sleep, coffee shop, Target, Costco, Scrubs, pizza, sleep. Given my current mental state, this was near perfection, I tell you. Now I’ve been up, listened to the rain, imagined a more wonderful word, done yoga and presently I have coffee and a spicy Jamaican beef pattie. I swear I love nothing more than meat cooked in pastry in the morning. I think the Brazilians do it best, but Jamaica and Europe aren’t far behind.

I had a dream that I got the most amazing, beautiful house in East Tennessee.  It was on the edge of a town, but had this insane, unbelievable view and was funky and perfect inside.  Then I went jogging along the train tracks, the the nearby lake, where I found a sort of cafe that had dozens of flavors of ice cream, tons of fancy cakes and pastries.  I got stuck there for a long time, looking at all the stuff they had.  Then I couldn’t get service for a long time.  Eventually I ordered something called “Cathar bread”  which was a big awesome loaf of very European bread drenched in garlic butter.  Huh.

Looking at the line-up I was unable to identify the guy who held the gun when they robbed me.  The Detective said he was going to question him anyway because of the print match on my car. The Det. is concerned because they only got good prints off the outside of car and defense attorney could argue that the suspect could have been in the neighborhood and accidentally touched the car.  Which, hello, the prints clearly show that the handle was being pulled open, but I don’t think anyone photographed them when they were visible.  The high point though was the detective assigned ot my case.  He looks like Gary Oldman in Batman if he was dressed by costume designer doing a modern day remake of a 70s cop drama (still set in the 70s). Like he didn’t look dated, or like he hadn’t changed his clothes in 40 years, but he totally looked he was in a 70s cop drama.  I loved him.  He told me he had ways of making the suspect talk and his partner balked, but the Det. Clarified that he didn’t mean torture, rather “Jedi mind tricks.”  Anyway the cop was awesome.  I want to write stories about him, except he seems to maybe be living stories that people have already written.

I need to go get in the shower.  I need to be working.  I need to be less hard on myself.  I need more sleep.  I need a vacation to the land of no people.  I need. I need. I need. I need.

It sucks.  I’ve only been home for a handful of of minutes.  I’m too jacked up to just go to bed.  I need to, I dunno, decompress.  I could go out for a beer after work, but that would mean I’d be out until 3 or later, and I have stuff to do in the morning. Some times I can hang out and chill, mostly i just want to talk, review the day, get ready for tomorrow.  Feel connected to the universe.  But no one is up when get off work, except people who are already drunk.  I like working from home.  I like the time, the aloneness, the space.  But at the end of the day, I feel a little lonely.  It sucks.

I just went to make my fancy lunch of crackers and cheese and got totally distracted from that task and ended up making coleslaw too.  This is only my second foray into homemade coleslaw dressing.  Although I suspect I am one of like 6 people in the world that actually really likes coleslaw, for some reason I want to perfect this.  I guess so I can grow up to be the little old lady who everyone says makes the best slaw?  Who knows. But this second try is actually quite good.  The first try was tolerably good, but too sweet and no better than what you can buy at the store.  I will keep trying, but if you are interested here is what I did (measurements are guesses as I mostly just throw stuff in a bowl)

4 tbl mayonnaise
1 tbl dill pickle juice
1 tbl vinegar (I used red wine, I suspect apple cider would be better, but I didn’t have any)
2 tbl honey (dark, local wildflower)
pinch salt
pinch black pepper
pinch celery seed

Tastes best if you let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so. Also it’s the celery seed that really makes it taste right.  I don’t know why.  I don’t even know what else you’d use celery seed for.  This is good for about two to three cups of shredded cabbage and carrots.  Don’t put raisins in your slaw, it’s just wrong.

Today’s songs are:

Bruce Springsteen – Long Walk Home (click to download)

Blue Rodeo – 3 Hours (click to download)

Sometimes I pick a day’s song because I can’t stop listening to it (for instance the recent “Angel of the Morning”).  Other times, like today, I pick them because they came up on my iPod while I was working and something about them struck me.  Today’s specific choices came up back to back and both struck me as particularly meaningful at this day/hour/moment in my life.

When I first started doing this, three or so years ago, I used to post lyrics and try to explain why this particular song.  Now I just post, as I assume any song’s meaning will change with the listener.  So I simply put them out there, because I got something from them emotionally, and maybe you will too.  Also I suspect that only Rhiannonhero is downloading them, and I probably don’t have to explain to her (even though she’d love it if I did).

I am now sitting here listening to Bruce Springsteen, lamenting that I don’t get to go to the concert tonight.  Boss Daddy and Chef Daddy are going.  I asked Boss Daddy if that meant I was in charge of the restaurant tonight.  In a classic parent move, he told me that both PranavaGirl and I were jointly in charge.  Heh.

This morning I went to the new coffee shop next door where I got a lovely, effusive, friendly greeting from the owners.  They’ve only been open a week or two and I’ve only been in maybe 4 times, but they always thank me and say glad to see me, in a very genuine way.  I mean, yes, new business, so they are glad for my patronage, but seriously, I live 15 yards away, they serve the best coffee ever, so yes, of course I’m gonna be there if means not having to make my own coffee.  Still it’s nice to have people seem so happy to see me first thing in the morning.

Also last night I dreamt I was opening a museum with the cast of Scrubs.  It was going to be an amazing museum which would magically educate everyone in the world to ‘right’ (my way of) thinking.  As you left the museum you’d be routed through a huge book store and after seeing the exhibits everyone would be compelled to buy many books and read.  Hmmm.

I just got off the phone with the detective assigned to my case.  They got good prints off my car, and they have a hit, but unless I can pick the guy out of a line up it’s fairly useless.  Because the print was on the outside of the car, the defendant can say he was in the neighborhood and touched the car accidentally at some point during the day.  None of the prints they got off the inside of the car are good enough for matching.  So the Det. is bringing a photo line up for me to look at tomorrow. But since they had bandanas tied around their faces, it’s kind of a crap shoot.  We’ll see.

It’s nice they gave it to a detective that works the same hours as me, I guess.  But now I’m tired.  I’m lonely and sad and I can’t really call anyone at 1 am, just because I want to chat.  The perils of the night shift.

Boss Daddy, because he is the best, went down to the station and talked to the Commander for a bit this week.  They said yes, it isn’t our imagination, there has been huge upsurge in this kind of crime in our neighborhood and two other specific neighborhoods as well.  They think, maybe, that there’s new gangs moving into the area and that most of it is gang initiation related.  Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel better.  But it sort of does, like it wasn’t just random, hideous crime in my neighborhood.  However, if it’s true, I suspect the Nashville PD doesn’t have  gang unit that’s ready for this kind of thing.  Since one of the cops who responded when I was robbed spent a god deal of time explaining how gentrification and crime are related, as if it was new concept, I’m gonna guess they really aren’t ready.

I had the craziest dream last night.  In which I worked for a corporation, in some distant future, that had perfected robotics and nanotechnology.  The corporation was utterly corrupt and sort of destroying the world.  I ended up in some epic battle with the evil leader and destrpyed her and also unwittingly unleased all the nanobots into the world’s ecology, where they sort of interbred and ate the entire surface of the planet and all the people, but this wasn’t bad.  The nanobots replicated everything, cell by cell as they ate it, so we all still existed, memories, personalities, everything intact, but we were made of the nanobots instead of our regular cells.  Some people with careful practice, began to be able to control the nanobots in their bodies, essentially making themselves immune to disease and potentially immortal, able to change their haircolor and appearance at will.  They became, in effect, witch doctor wizards, as controlling the nanos was  a skill that couldn’t be taught and only a select few developed the skill.  All the world’s environmental problems were also solved when the nanos rebuilt everything, and most the large cities were destroyed, the population, what was left of it, was redistributed into small, ecologically sustainable towns.

So, yeah, crazy dream.  I often have these insane dreams that have whole plots and character arcs, usually in excellent sci-fi futuaristic settings.  I just can’t quite remember them well enough to tell the story, or rather to write the actual story with the intensity that I dream it.  I need to figure out how to tap into the dream stories better, so I can write them.

I am doing much better today.  Work was crazy busy last night with lots of regulars coming in, asking if I was okay, as most had heard about the robbery through the neighborhood grapevine.  And I’m glad everyone is concerned about me, concerned about crime in the ‘hood and all.  But maybe I need a pin to wear or something tells people what is appropriate to ask me.  I mean, “Are you doing okay?” is acceptable.  “Are you traumatized?” is not okay.  I’m not sure I can pinpoint the distinction, maybe it was in the way people were asking.  Also, so far I am okay, and I’m getting a little tired of the sympathetic, semi-pitying expressions on people’s face when they ask how I am.  Ugh.  On the other hand, I could use more cuddling, love and telling how I awesome I am from my friends.  I guess I just don’t want it half-assed from acquaintances.  As always I am a contradiction.  I want to be babied and feel taken care of, just only from the people I choose, I guess.

To that end, I had a nice morning, coffee at the new place next door with T-Rider, who is finally back in town.  Now I am prioritizing my work task list and contemplating going and getting a pedicure instead of doing work.  I should wait ’til Saturday so Ladybug and Miss M can go with me.  *sigh*  Work it is.

Songs for today:

Whiskeytown – 16 Days [acoustic version] (click to download)

Tom Waits – Ol’ 55 (click to download)

Song for today:

The Pretenders – Angel of the Morning (click to download)

I managed to shower today.  And I went out and got the mail.  Other than that I barely moved from the couch all day.  I don’t feel good.  My body hurts like I am recovering from a fever, or I have been run over by a truck.  Or I took mushrooms and got eaten by a bear.  My back hurts, I feel weak and sore all over.  I’ve eaten, but I’ve been having hard time eating much and holding anything down.  Ladybug assures me that it’s okay that I didn’t do anything all day.  I’m sure you all agree.  But now I feel sick, awful, and guilty for not getting anything done.   Gah, I’m even annoying myself.  Boo hoo hoo hoo!  Whine whine whine.  If I go on about this too much more, feel free to intervene.  Really I need to eat a healthy, vegetable-filled meal, sleep on a normal schedule, and drink way more water, then I’ll feel fine.  Or at least fine enough to deal with how I feel.  Not to set the bar too high for myself, but tomorrow I might shoot for showering, yoga and a walk.  Then hopefully I’ll feel at least well enough to work.

Because East Nashville, though still a place where you can get robbed at gun point, is also awesome, I got almost all my stuff back. The neighbors across the train tracks found my apron and paycheck in their yard and brought it to the restaurant. And then some guy found my wallet WAY up the road, and gave it to his friend to bring back to me. Because this is Nashville the guy who returned my wallet is Ketch from Old Crow Medicine Show. Then Ladybug, since she is the best friend ever, went and drove around where they found my wallet and found my make-up bag too. Now all I’ve lost is the actual purse and my phone (and my time and everyone’s peace of mind). My wallet had all my cards and everything but the cash in it still. Boss Daddy took care of my financial loss, I guess to assuage his guilt, but also because he is the best boss ever. The best part is, I do not have to go get a new driver’s license. Although I have no bank card until the new one arrives. Alas.

I am having a strange people coming out of the woodwork sort of week. Obviously I am fairly public about some aspects of my life, writing about it here and all, so that of course invites comments from people I wasn’t aware were reading. The support from my friends has been great. Really, thank you guys who commented here, and the people who called and everything. It’s really moving to know people care, even when they are far away. And my friends here have been really amazing. I’m vaguely annoyed by the guys at work hovering around me and worrying. But at the same time, it is really sweet. I feel the love. I guess I’m mostly upset that everyone else is so upset. I did totally put off calling my mom because I didn’t want to worry her. And now she is worried. I told her everyone else was worried to and I had people watching out for me. Which hopefully makes her feel better. I just don’t know how to make my friends and everyone else feel better. Sure, rationally I know that isn’t my job. But I don’t know how to stop feeling like it is.

Anyway, people out of the woodwork, so yes some of it is related to people checking up on me, but there’s been a few out of the blue surprises. People I definitely didn’t expect to hear from, and stranger still, they were just calling out of the blue, not calling in response to all this recent bullshit.

I am so very tired. I have a ring of mosquito bites around my ankle. My neck hurts. I want my mom. I want to never have been broken up with. And yes, yes, I’m still freaked out and I wish I could sleep for a week. Also I seem to have forgotten what all the things I need to do this week. Maybe I will feel better in the morning. Hopefully.

I can’t sleep, despite having been up until at least 5 am. I’m avoiding calling my mom and telling her about the robbery because she’s on vacation and I don’t want to worry her. Plus, I guess it will just seem more real after telling her. Of course there’s a possibility she’s reading this, so, um, sorry Ma, I’ll call you after coffee when I’m feeling a little more put together.

Since I can’t sleep, here are the things that are keeping me awake:

When I got in my car last night, I saw the kids who robbed me down the street. My first instinct was to get in my car, lock the doors and be on my way ASAP (this is my normal response to being outside at 1 am, alone, and seeing anyone). I hesitated though. I started to click the lock thing on my key fob, but then I remembered that if you do that inside the car it sets off the alarm, so I reached for the actual door lock and right as I was about to click it the dudes pulled my car door open and pulled me out of the car.

In retrospect, maybe I should have set off the alarm, it might have sent them running the other way. I had my keys in my hand the entire time, even after they pulled from the car and forced me to the ground behind the car (I really thought they were going to take the car too, and I’m very glad they didn’t). I could have hit the alarm button at any time, but I didn’t, because they had a gun, and they were very shaky and scared, and I thought setting off the alarm would put me in more personal danger. However, if I’d hit it that second in the car, before they opened the door, it might have made a difference.

A bunch of the guys who where in the bar last night were regulars, who I see a lot. When I went back in to get Boss Daddy to call the cops, they were all hovering around me worrying, etc. Two of them had watched me walk to my car, to make sure I was safe when I left. They saw me get in my car and turned around, went back to their conversation. The guys who robbed me were 100+ feet further down the road, just out of eyesight of the bar window, so while, from the window, I appeared safe in my car, I wasn’t. I believe all the male patrons at the bar feel really guilty for not having walked me to my car. The cop who responded had just cruised by less than 10 minutes before I got robbed. Other bar patrons, also friends of mine, rolled up 5 minutes or less after it happened. I didn’t feel any less safe walking to my car than I ever do. It was just freak accident of time that I was alone, right there, in that moment, in that physical space where no one was watching. I did everything I was trained to do, growing up in an urban environment: had my keys in my hand (so I could get straight into my car with out digging for them), walked with purpose and confidence, locked the car door as soon as I was inside (well, not fast enough, but I couldn’t have been much faster), complied quickly and calmly with the robbers (didn’t argue or freak out). I was in a well lit area, right under a street light, a few dozen feet from a bar with a dozen people inside. But yes, someone probably should have walked me to my car. Still it feels more like freak circumstances that allowed it to happen, like a lightning strike. Not necessarily inevitable, but unexpected, circumstantial and somehow unavoidable.

I’ve never really been one for could have beens. In the aftermath (standing around with the cops for eternity), several people were like, “you could have been shot!” Well, yes, I mean they had a gun, and assuming it was real, I could have been shot. But I wasn’t. And honestly, I’ve heard people who have been in similar situations say how terrifying it was because in the moment they knew they could die, or be or raped or anything could happen. And I didn’t feel like that at all. I felt instantly shocked, angry and resigned. I never really felt like they were going to shoot me. They were scared and they wanted out of there quickly as much as I wanted them out of there. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t terrifying, but I think that the sense some people get that anything could have happened, or that they feel really violated is because the person robbed was acutely aware of their loss of control of the situation, complete loss of control of their life, even for a few seconds. And I just don’t feel that way. Well not today anyway, I reserve the right to change how I feel about this a dozen times until I’ve dealt with it, but right now, I don’t feel any less safe than I did yesterday. Sure there’s a sense of violation, yes I’m fucking pissed about having to replace all my shit, but mostly, man, stuff happens. I can’t really control my own life, there’s too many outside factors. I spend most my meditative time letting things go. I think I can let this go too.

I really liked my wallet. I mean, yes, it’s good I’m safe, material things are really unimportant, blah blah blah. But I really liked that wallet and it’s pretty irreplacable.

I am a little disappointed in myself on one count. I spent a lot of time laying awake last night, post robbery, thinking about how alone I was. I mean, recent break-up, just days ago, and I had this sense of horrible loneliness like there was no one I could call, because I had no one to cuddle up with in the aftermath. And honestly, I don’t think I’m that girl, that needs a man to make things better. There’s tons of people I could have called (although I actually couldn’t since the fuckers took my phone) any time of day or night. Ladybug came right out, in her PJs, to get me and stand around with me while cops blathered on endlessly and fingerprinted my car. I have plenty of people around me to take care of me. I can take care of myself and I don’t even need to because of the aforementioned people. I feel weak for having spent time being self-pitying over being single. I feel vaguely stupid that a bad situation highlighted that in my thoughts. Then again, it’s okay, I guess. I mean being broken up with is also a loss of control of the circumstances of one’s life, so it does all sort of blend together.

Now I will go re-enter numbers into my phone until I have to get dressed and go back to work again. hopefully I’ll get a nap in before it’s that time.

I’m having a shitty week. I got robbed at gunpoint when I was leaving work tonight. They pulled me out of my car and took my purse, including my phone. Brilliant. Thanks, universe. Clearly I’ve been a very bad girl because I must be being punished for something. Anyway, I lost all my phone numbers, so if you think I should have yours, please email me. Things I have to look forward to: waiting at the DMV to replace my license and calling to replace my phone. As it is I’ve been on hold for an hour trying cancel my cards. Arg. On the plus side the cops got really good prints off my car and one would assume these guys have been arrested before, what with the having a gun and all. I’m not hurt. So far I’m just really pissed off and annoyed.

Breaking up is always shitty.  Sometimes it’s worse than others.  Worst when you get what amounts to a ‘it’s not you it’s me’ from some one you were really, really into. Blah blah blah blah it takes time to get over it.  And hey, I’m very patient person, but waiting for the pain to pass is one of the things I just can’t abide.  I’ve done two days of not getting dressed or showering.  Taking pills to sleep so I don’t lay awake crying and wondering what is wrong with me.  All the dishes are done.  Laundry done and put away. MP3s tagged and sorted.  Computer files cleaned and organized.  Tons of crap food eaten.  The blinds are hung on the porch.  The trash is out.  Tons of bad TV and movies watched.  Yes, any time is way too long to fuck off.  And yet, two days isn’t enough.  But then a week isn’t enough, a month isn’t enough.  So I stop at two days.  Get back to life, back on the horse, oh fuck me, but it’s got to be done.  And sure yeah, maybe I’ll get over it faster if I’m busy.  Maybe not.  I’m torn between obsessively throwing myself into work and ignoring everything else.  Or.  What?  I don’t know.  Throw screaming temper tantrums at the universe for being unfair?  Pout, mope and generally be unpleasent and unbearable to be around?  Meditate on what lesson I can take from this?  Ugh.  Work it is.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  My horoscope for today:

Creativity and the more enjoyable side of life are going to be a central feature for you for awhile. Let details take care of themselves and take the time to enjoy yourself and stretch out both at work and play. When something feels right, whether it be a new idea or the opportunity to just have a good time, roll with the feeling and don’t put on the brakes.

If that isn’t a license to dress slutty and drink whiskey then I don’t know what is.

I think the most horrible part of breaking up is how you don’t realize that you spend all day mentally cataloging things that you want to tell that person.  As  soon as you can’t tell them anymore, you can’t seem to stop coming up with things to tell them. It’s like this constant reminder of what you’ve lost.

I’ve eaten now, and finished my coffee.  So I will go shower and dress.  I will finish the work I didn’t do yesterday, go to lunch with the divine Miss M.  I will do even more work this afternoon and then it’s off to the restaurant.  I will not think about the break up for as long as I can because I am so tired of crying, I just don’t want to do it anymore.  I will concentrate on how awesome my friends are.  And work.  And trying to crush down the loneliness so at least it only feels numb.

Song for the day: Colin Hay – Storm in My Heart (click to download)

I have work I should be doing.  I am pathetic.

I don’t know where the Jezebel girls are finding them but Holy Homoeroticism, Batman.

Burger King commercials make want to be sure to never, ever, ever, ever want to go there.  Not that I do anyway, but goddamn they are the worst commercials ever.

Ankles are incredibly mosquito bitten, but bamboo blinds are hung on the porch.  They still need to be firmly affixed to the railing.  And we’ll see how they hold up in the first big storm.  But hey, for now, some semblance of of privacy.

Why is Dr. J in Dr. Pepper commercials? Did he spend all his money on the ladies?

Taurus, for today:

We are more aware of the fine line between spiritual truth and delusion as the Sun approaches an opposition with surreal Neptune early tomorrow. Relationships can become confusing as fantasy gets mixed up with reality. Meanwhile, the Sun’s annoying quincunx with erratic Uranus tempts us to overreact to the restraining Capricorn Moon. The Moon’s entry into progressive Aquarius at 6:55 pm EDT enables us to interact without being overly emotional.

Is it wrong that the word “quincunx” makes me laugh?  I guess I should laugh at it, as the universe seems to be laughing at me this week.