When it’s exactly 12 o’clock, midnight

I used to have this problem with jealousy and I would end up acting pretty controlling without it being brought to my attention. When I see it with other people, it is the worst and angers me to no end, so I did everything I could to stop that behavior. For several years, I thought it was gone. I was complacent about everything but never jealous.

I realized why is vanished for a while and it was directly related to my lack of passion in life at the time. When my passion resurfaced, so did the negative feelings that went with it. Then I spent the next half of a decade trying to figure everything out and I have made a lot of progress – but these last few weeks or even months have really reminded me that its not the initial feelings that I can control but how I react to it.

So at this point, if I think something that I know is stupid and I shouldn’t say, I try my best to keep it to myself or at least express that I am not thrilled with my feelings despite having them. Hopefully she can tell the difference.. I used to be a real handful. Then a crazy woman and some kids broke me and in my journey back to the surface, her smile kept me going. It was nearly a year ago when she contacted me. I couldn’t even tell you what day but I was already aware of the lay off but that was only 2 weeks in. When I felt like I was being buried alive, she extended her hand when I least expected it. I have my theories but I never ask. My life is a better place with her in it, so I really should learn to stop concerning myself with my fears and to look forward for once. I keep trying. She makes it easier.

What Are You Doing New Years Eve? (2011)

Phew, for a minute there

The woman that I love and I live blocks apart with a main road between us. I try to stay on my side.. but when I turn right to go down the hill, I often catch myself looking to the left where I can see up here hill. I actually feel some sort of guilt every time I catch myself looking in her direction – so often throughout history I have done everything possible to avoid it, but currently I don’t feel that bad and I don’t think she would mind if I looked her direction and saw what I perceive to be her car every once in a while.

Most everyone in my life knows that I am weird at this point. I have done my best to try not to share the details of my love affair with the world – and it really is no affair at all but it seems that everyone knows a little here and there and the small details that I do share usually leave me looking like a real fuck up – but… I could care less because the only opinion on the matter that I am concerned with is hers and I would like to think that I know a little bit about that by now.

Today, I came home on my lunch break which is a rarity but it seems that no one works on the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s Day so it leave the help desk a very slow and boring place, so I left. Somewhere in there I recognized that I am extremely spoiled but I moved past that quickly because it is all a matter of perspective.

On my way home, this time coming up the hill, I caught myself glancing right – only to see a van or something there. There is some sort of defense mechanism in my mind that leaves me making fun of myself – to myself but in an imaginary conversation with someone else. Today’s imaginary conversation was me telling her that someone is parked in her spot – because to me that is creepily hilarious.. but I only assume that she would laugh too. I hate when I am wrong about those things.

That conversation clearly didn’t happen because I appreciate her enjoying my company, but she is all too aware of my quirkiness. She may be the only person in the world that enjoys it – which leaves me the luckiest. She’s probably at work and I am here gushing about her on the internet to myself because that is totally normal. With all things considered, I just embrace it and in my heart, she does too.

If anyone else doesn’t like it – they can go fuck themselves. And that’s how I feel about that.

Creep (1992)

Karma Police (1997)

It was just the other day that I was thinking about how many times, I have accidentally said something just to have someone close to me look at me like – wow I had no idea you were a complete asshole. I suppose it affected me because I seem to think about it at all. I wouldn’t even try to explain myself because it is no one else’s business but I can assure the world that their original opinion of me is accurate as it just appears that way. I have my reasons and it is not what it looks like but there are levels to like that some people will never understand. Maybe I am wrong, but I feel like I do.

And I will write you a song

Today, when I heard that she was sick, I was determined to learn to make vegetarian noodle soup, though I knew there wasn’t a chance that she’d ever get to try it – but before noon, I knew I was making soup for dinner.

I think I told her I was going to learn to make it for her or even practice, but I try to minimize my oddities that most laugh at – but the soup was good for anyone that would like to know.

Come Away With Me (2002)

Turn Me On (2002)

For the historical record and my future book, here is my first vegetarian soup, which I named noodle noodle soup.

This was the recipe (Classic Vegan Noodle Soup) that I based it off of but there were a lot of changes, because celery is gross and I don’t know how to buy onions. Did you know pearl onions are hard to dice? I thought it was a great idea so I didn’t have to store a cut onion. I also used egg noodles since I was not concerned about the vegan aspect only vegetarian.

On My Island of Hope

This is a new complicated emotion that I am feeling and I must say, it is interrupting my sleep – which I love. I am actually still struggling with what I am even feeling but there must be something about the holidays that makes me want her close.

I actually try my best not to think about it. Sometimes I think that it is completely stupid that I tell myself a pacifist would wait at a distance and keep a close eye – because, how can you not when you love someone and worry about them. Does she know that I hold my breath?

Time means nothing to me, but what I fear – is standing by silently – trusting I will know if something were really wrong – and what if I am wrong. She once told me that she wasn’t the kind of person that needed to be checked on. It must have been a pretty serious situation, because I never forgot those words – however, I have found myself growing increasingly protective as I fall deeper in love with her. As a friend took a jab at me over something I said, she laughed and pointed out how must her own kids has grown up since then. That’s a hard thing to dispute as I see it in my nieces all of the time, but I have learned to have comebacks. This time I just smiled and said, “Yeah well, it happens to be my longest relationship – so you better respect it.” She shrugged and agreed because she has been there from the beginning. I gave her shit for asking her questions that I refused to when we hard first met. It’s interesting to think about those moments. I was so shy and nervous. I am not sure that she even knew yet. Damn, I miss her so much. I hope that I don’t make it to February 20th without seeing her. I don’t know why dates stay with me for so long, but there is something about sitting with her and talking. As I left, I asked. “Will I get to see you again?” She said yes…

I Love You (2006)

Memories trapped in time

Possession (2006)

Through this world I’ve stumbled
So many times betrayed
Trying to find an honest word
To find the truth enslaved
Oh you speak to me in riddles and
You speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive

Mirror Ballroom

I had no choice but to hear you

I would like to think that she thinks about me when she hears this song.

I am ridiculous sometimes but we have tickets to see Alanis Morissette in June. The concert happens to be the day before the 7 year anniversary of the day that we met. It will be a good show. I might get emotional.

Head Over Feet (1995)

Mary Jane (1995)

And I won’t put my hands up and surrender

Today, throughout our daily texts, I told her that I wanted to rewrite history casually, but told her I would explain later. What I didn’t say, is that right after I sent this email that I am about to post from 6 years ago, I then proceeded to go back to the craigslist ad that had made my heart skip a beat just minutes prior when I saw my future’s photo pop back up on my screen.

This email would haunt me for years to come. It would be the concrete item that tied back to that moment of – well I will not define that emotion right now but what happened next was not what I expected. It’s something that lead to a lot of personal grown ultimately, but at the time it felt like a ton of bricks knocking the wind out of me. As I meteorically stood there thing to catch my breath it suddenly occurred to me, if she did in fact care about me the way I truly believed and still believe that she cares about me – then my first email will probably feel about the same when she reads it.

I have never felt worse about such an innocent email but I learned not to reply to things before I actually read them no matter what it could say. There is no need to reference what the post said because I am afraid that I won’t forget it and I am sure she can remember the direction or at least the lines that she might have preferred for me not to stumble upon.

It don’t really bother me much now because, well it became my reality but at the time, I haven’t a clue.. at all – and it only lead to other discoveries. It wasn’t long ago that I decided to figure out what day it was I zoomed in on the Planet K app and saw a familiar name accidentally, shockingly but accidentally all the same. That was February 13th, so it took about 2 months to figure out who.. which didn’t make the world any easier.

Now I will back track and tell you why I was at home mid day on a work day reading w4w craigslist ads.

There was a point in my life when I was afraid and I just wanted to erase it all. For some reason, I feel like the way to do that is to get in ridiculously irresponsible situations that will always lead to disappoint. usually it involved a cute, straight girl, but I have no idea why I think that is safe. You never take it seriously, because you know that it is not real. They feel the same way and usually have a boyfriend. In this case, her boyfriend knows and claims to be fine with us spending time together. She had a few kids and she worked with me. On this day, she decided to tell me that she needs to choose her boyfriend and we need to stop hanging out. I was irritated more than anything. This was actually the first in a series of events that I could not see coming. I am glad I decided to attempt this with women that I was not specifically emotionally attached to because it was about to escalate quickly. I still thought I was quite attractive and a catch back 6 years ago – so I decided to leave work upset and quickly ended up online ‘to find someone better to distract myself with.’

Within minute I was completely distracted but I don’t think that it was the direction that I was expecting. It was by a woman.. a very attractive one.. but not a stranger. When I clicked on her post, I was filled with excitement. It included 3 photos of her and before I so much as read the first sentence – I responded with the above email as if it was an accident that we lost touch. I was head over heels for her and everything seemed wonderful – until it didn’t. This would have been several months later but apparently I hadn’t a clue for that long. The farther I read, the worse it got. That’s about the moment that I got offended but it wasn’t personal. I don’t know what it was. Possibly political. For the first time, I felt discriminated against because I was a lesbian.. just like all the bisexual women usually talk about. I am not even sure what I was thinking at that point but I know that I wanted to know why I was not good enough.

I refuse to look at many past emails because I only embarrass myself but I know that I must have read that post more than 100 times. It hurt. I was mad. I didn’t even know what I was mad about and we never really talked about it – but I always felt guilty about the way she must have felt after she read it, knowing what I was about to walk into.

White Flag (2004)

But wouldn’t it be beautiful?

This wasn’t really a song that I was ever into. To me, the song boarder lines bubblegum pop music and I know that I am at least far too cool for that. This song came out right around the time that I graduated high school. At the time I was attending mostly metal and hard rock shows. There was no way that someone could even pay me to stand around and listen to this crap – or wear a colored t-shirt for that matter.

I have gone through my share of phases but it turns out that being a lesbian was not one of them. No one ever actually said that it was a phase for me. I am sure plenty of them hoped that it was but knew that even mentioning that would only dare me to prove them wrong.

My family has had to do a lot of adapting because of me and though they are not perfect at it, nothing bad has happened to me yet. My grandmother was terrified about what would happen when my dad found out. She actually encouraged me to move out on my own for that very reason though she never said it directly. He was a conservative republican with a lot of guns and a lesbian daughter that just didn’t talk about it. Everyone knew how much he loved me but they still weren’t sure what would happen. I can’t imagine how many years of worry I have caused several members of my family. My life has always been quite hostile or possibly more volatile.

So now that I realize nothing that I have said has anything to do with this video or why I am posting it tonight. Well, it all started when I saw that Alanis Morissette is touring with Garbage and Liz Phair this morning. I quickly messaged her and told her about it and we made plans to go see them but then I realized I really didn’t know who Liz Phair was. I thought about Lilith Fair but didn’t know if it was just because it sounded similar. I thought she was known for her feminist agenda and it turns out that she is associated with both but I could only find this one song by her. I would imagine the older ones were before my time. I was still listening to Jimmy Buffett and country music depending on which house hold I was staying in.

So I start to listen to the song and the music is like nails on a chalkboard to me but I can tolerate the lyrics, because, I too am not right at times. Here you have it, Liz Phair – some 90s singer that I should know but do not.

Why Can’t I? (2003)

‘Cause I just want you here tonight

When I was driving home from work – to continue working from home, this song came on the radio and it reminded me about something.

There was about 5 years of my life that I did think I was just too cool for love.. feelings and just about everything. It was back when I was working diligently to built my army of platonic supports and enact every defense mechanism that I knew how to use.

Then I met her, my world instantly changed. I had shoes that I thought were stupid now. I don’t think that she ever even saw me wear them but I can’t say I wore them in a serious manner after that. I hit that brick wall and my armor must not have been glued well because it all just came crumbling off. I looked at her with a shy smile and it wasn’t long before – I thought – she knew that she was all that I could think about.

I’m not really sure when that change really happened for her – but somewhere in there, I no longer cared at all. If people wanted to laugh, they could. If people wanted to have opinions that differed from mine, that was fine, but I didn’t want to hear about it.

So I think that I used to be – a lot less secure with myself and much more guarded. Somewhere on my journey in making sure that she knew exactly how I felt, I completely lost track of any defenses. For several years my best defense has been, “I am in love with someone,” but once it failed – I had to come up with a better one. Actually, I didn’t – I just avoid people all together now. So basically – this song came on, it was the version without Justin Bieber but since he is my boy ‘twin’ I guess he can spice up the video with some cheese.

All I Want For Christmas Is You (1994)