Things that I Like

1. My Children










2. My Wife













3. Whiting Lily Sterling Silver

Things that I hate

1. Velour












2. Couches that are made of velour
3. Couches that are made of velour that have any of the following printed on them:

Pheasants
Wagon wheels
Patchwork
Barn wood
Animals of any sort (see pheasant)

4. Sculptured carpet
5. "Art" from JC Penneys, Home Interiors, or that you bought specifically to match your couch.
6. Lamps that you can clap or touch to turn on














7. Plastic plants
8. Chairs that either:

a. recline
b. vibrate
c. all of the above

9. Thomas Kincaid (you know, he is the painter of light)











10. Fox News
11. Hummers
12. Mirrored walls, ceilings or doors
13. Cork tiles
14. Indoor/outdoor carpet
15. Vinyl or aluminum siding








16. Patio Doors
17. Small Dogs
18. Most big Dogs
19. Paris Hilton (see small dogs)
20. Praise and worship music
21. The Bombay Company
22. Cinnabon
23. Seafood of almost any sort (don't ask)

That is all for now, I will add more later

I swear to you that I am a Romanov!

So, we have talked about the various and sundry experiences I have had with my extended family. It has been 16 years since we had any sort of regular contact and 22years since I could say that we had any sort of "normal" relationship.

A while back via Myspace I contacted a cousin, I have to say that she was better at e-mailing than I was. At any rate, I emailed her the other day and was rebuffed. After this I was really hurt, let's just state the obvious, my self esteem is roller coaster. It doesn't matter how many degrees I hold, how great my kids are, how talented I may or may not be, what my IQ is, how successful I may be, etc. at a moment's notice I allow myself to be reduced to the little 7 yr at his father's funeral, the guy that wet the bed and had no friends. Amazing how our brain can be so stunted.

The cousin just assumed that my e-mail was evidence of some nefarious plan. I was just trying to find out information about things that were "none of my business" since I had made "no effort" to make contact lo these many years. Of course, I replied and pointed out that it is hard for 14 a year old who has no money and no car to be in contact with their extended family members. But why split hairs? Besides, what the hell would I want? There is no money, no heirlooms, nothing. What could I possibly desire?

Oh Lord, why do I care? I am such a whore for approval! I know that I want them to recognize that I am of value (note, this is not a cry for help here, just stating the emotions...) You see I, like many people, never fit in with them. I could give less of a shit about sports, hated competition, crowds, boy scouts, velour and ROTC. I cared greatly for music, art, architecture, history and reading. Let's not forget that I was an over talkative hypochondriac that did not inspire joy in people who did not share my love of the aforementioned subjects. At any rate, the residue of these experiences is evident in day to day life.

That whole value thing is rough. I mean, shit! I try so hard to be a person of good will, I try to do the right thing (albeit, with varying degrees of success.) Other people that I like so much more love me, why the hell do these folks have an issue? Really? At any rate, yes Juli, it is sad...

Once, a friend said "if you could only see yourself as other people do." This hit me! I wasn't sure what it meant but it caused me to think. I mean, there are all of the good things that I denied myself. Then, there are all of the "crutches" that I allowed myself. I really credit that conversation with my conversion to relative sanity. All of this being said, and all of the work that I am doing, one stupid, ill-informed e-mail from a cousin and I am brought back to pee pee pants. What the fuck is that about?

At different times I have reached out to people and to be quite honest have not always been able to deal with what I got back. Sometimes the conversations were nice, sometimes not. In general, they are not fulfilling.

I could not have less in common with these folks, and yet it hurts when I don't get a response.

As I sit here and think, I would not go out of my way to have any sort of relationship with most of these people if we were not related by blood. There is no common ground.

Sigh...

So, keeping this in mind, I am reflecting on a conversation that I had with my brother today, complete opposite experience. We like each other, mind you this has not been an easy road but I would most certainly call him my closest friend.

Today, he did the virtual (well deserved) "bitch-slap", trying to get me to realize that this constant search for relevance in my "family's" existence is futile. We are not the same people, their lives only have bearing on me if I allow them to.

This was a good conversation, perspective is a good thing.

Gulf of Araby - Natalie Merchant

This one is boring...

It is late, I am awake, thus I shall blog.

OK, so if you have read any of the past tripe that I have posted, you can probably deduce that things are not exactly as I would like them to be. The last blog was my rather rusty attempt to write something in a literary fashion. Of course it was based on the current situation, but it was not a cry for help. Here is the deal, I am in therapy (the whole world breathes a collective sigh of relief...) my therapist thought that I should try to express my feelings in a creative way. Singing isn't my favorite right now, I don't have the will for craft projects, and well that is it... writing it is, so now you are stuck with me...

On to more interesting news, did I tell you that my therapist is from the KC area and went to college at the college that my mom and brother went to? No? Did I tell you that she was illicitly ordained as a Catholic priest? I know, funny! She is from Kansas?! Ok just kidding... I don't think that it is widely known that she was ordained as a priest, the only way that I found out was through a back issue of the Oregonian at the Dr's office. At any rate, she is a good therapist, whatever... Just funny given that most of my professional and personal life revolves, in some sense, around the Church.

Not a lot to say about Emillie, things are here. No news is good news...

House is put together, I have this new love for decoupage... I have a desire to glue bits of paper to well, pretty much everything. First order of business, the French table in the Dining Room.

Girls are good, growing at an exponential rate. Erin has work drama, I could use a little. Sometimes feel like I barely have a pulse.

Really would like to travel to KS, damn tickets are a budger...

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I would like to contact some of the relatives that I have spent the better part of 16 years avoiding. Cousins, Aunts and Uncles, just interested.

I guess this all came about when we found out that my maternal grandmother has forgotten the greater part of the last 20 years. Maybe it has improved my chances with her. The cousins are coming out of the woodwork, some via myspace, some from the web, just odd. I had rather forgotten that we were related outside of the practical necessity for a family tree. Not that I don't want them, just don't have a real connection to them at this point.

In less serious news, I have experienced a serious of rather absurd pratfalls lo these last three weeks. Twice I have fallen, a la Dick Van Dyke into a flowerbed (one while getting out of the car at our house, once in front of the girls school.) I fell one time coming up the stairs to our house, scabbed my elbow (I don't remember the last time that I had a scab.) Perhaps most spectacularly was the fall out of Charlotte's bed. I had decided to line the girl's drapes in the hope that they would sleep past sunrise. This required a stint on a step ladder and then on the antique Swedish pine bed that the girls both have slept in. I stupidly took a step back, caught myself on the stupid rail, flew into the air, narrowly missed Abigail's iron bed, and landed on my shoulders. Two chiropractor visits later, I am nearly back to my original height. You may ask: Are you an alcoholic? No, I wasn't even drinking. Maybe your thinking that I have a brain tumor? No, I had an EKG a while ago for other things, nothing more abnormal than this. Really, I think that I am constantly being followed by leprechauns that are thwarting me in my attempt to find their pot of gold, wait, did I write that? No, really, I am fine, just old, and don't have the balance that I once had (the 2-stone extra that I have put on is surely no help as well.) As a precaution, I ordered new glasses... That is all, told you it would be boring.

Birdsong

Olivier Messian, Saint Thomas Aquinas





O sacred banquet!
in which Christ is received,
the memory of his Passion is renewed,
the mind is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
Alleluia.

Te Lucis Ante Terminum

The Patient's File

This one, he struggles a lot to fit in. Not to a group or a mold, but more to a self definition.

There is (of course) the music, that is a given. Also, there are the "things", the trinkets, they play some role.

His personality is a mash of introvert and extrovert, conservative and liberal, traditionalist and avant garde. That is not to say that he is complicated, at least not in any conventional way. He is rather like a watercolor painting that has gotten a bit damp. The images are all there, easy to discern, they are just leaking into each other. Sad really...

He struggles, always has. Struggles against the feeling of dread, of impending doom. He struggles to create, creates and then is faced by the audacious, monumental lack of any inspiration in most of what he creates (there are fleeting bits of genius you should know.)

The talent, you will find, is not really in what he makes or does, but rather in what he finds (this is the trinket part.) It is in the odd sterling spoon, the chipped plate, the broken table, the out-modded lamp, the tatty chair, and most especially the "bad" art.

These are the things, they come to him, he ministers to them as Christ would to the blind man. He soothes their souls, he connects to them. They are the embodiment of what he can't find in others. The chipped plate is the caring of an unpleasant relative. The spoon, a long-dead aunt. Furniture, the father long absent. The art, well that is obvious, the sister betrayed.

A missionary, but not to the damned of the earth, but rather the damned of its occupants! He is good at it, silly fool.

So, what of the people you ask? They are there... He loves them, but in doing so holds the greater (or perhaps the lesser?)of himself back. It is not that he is uncaring, he is able to show the rudimentary symbols of human emotion with feeling. The real issue is deeper.

In daily life it is a game of cause and effect, common, unnoticed even, emotional slights to others. A sheltering of self from real connection. A distancing from family, friends, and self.

Faith you ask? That is funny! It is there, in spades. He believes!

"Christ is risen! Alleluia!" echoes form his numb lips not with fervor, no, rather with the sick sort of desperation of one who cannot forget that God is real. Watching, loving (from afar), judging, waiting, omnipotent but unwilling to share (for whatever reason.)

Faith, he links it to the trinkets as well. Surrounded by Icons, lighting candles, praying, working, singing. Things, not imbued with human traits as so common with iconography, but rather as a reminder of what it would be like to feel real emotion, to be a part.

The glowing Virgin, the Pascal Lamb, golden salver, tangible links to emotions long since squelched. The womb like darkness of tenabre, of the confessional. The shear drama of faith in and of itself, a weekly reminder of reality.

Family, well, there are several... The people of his childhood, mostly gone (or at least abandoned.) The people left who have moved through life with him, and those who he choose (and choose him) and those that he helped create.

The experiences he had with the missing ones shape what has continued after them. The echo of their demise is not summed in the common sentiments. No, they "are not just sleeping." They very well may "be with the Lord", but he fails to see the goodness in that for him. Most importantly, it "has not gotten easier" just different really.

They are gone, it caused a wound in him, but, unlike wounds of the flesh, these don't heal, they change, expand even.

The elegant shear of a knife's blade and it is 22 years since father spoke, the rough cut of stupid fate and 3 without sister, they tear at the flesh. Tear in quiet ways that limit emotion. The ones that come after sit upon the tight, deadened scar tissue left behind.

The observation? None yet... Like his uninspired creations, his experiences are not unusual. All life is imbued with loss, coping, struggles of faith, even self-loathing. Why should he be so less able to cope?













In hindsight, perhaps it is not a question of coping...

The Prussian Plate

Herbert Howells, Mvmt III, Requiem:



Giuseppi Verdi, Messa da Requiem, Offeratorio:

I have drank the better half of a bottle of red wine, probably not the time to be blogging. Just a bit down... Have taken to printing out family pictures, framing them and keeping about. I know this sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do, but every once in a while one of them catches me completely off guard.

Charlotte is three this Monday, the resemblance to Emillie is scary. I found some pictures that are just amazing.

That is all, more to come when sober. XO, Zakk