The Things In The Basement

My mother and I have been meaning to tackle the basement for some time now.

...Like...

Years.

It's been years and we haven't wanted to actually do this.  Mold and gross and spiders and cat shit and horrible.   That's the basement. 

I'm going to add to this post after a shower and probably sleep...

I can't even really breathe right.  It's just dust and chaos in my lungs.

For now, I leave you with this:

A three feet tall Mickey Mouse.   He is one of two.  I don't mean that my mom has a Mickey and a Minnie.  No.  No no.  I mean she has two Mickey Mice from like a bazillion years apart.  They are both symbols of my father's love.

At this point, I don't know which is the stronger symbol.

The fact that he got her not one, but TWO of these,
or the fact that he allows them to still hang around the house...
...
Including this one who looks WAY too happy living in the basement.

Later, maybe tomorrow... I'll draw things and explain this guy:

But not tonight. 

EDIT:  Okay, "tomorrow" became like half a year later but shut up. 

First of all, I was getting a lot of joy from getting rid of some of my sister's old PETA propaganda stuff.  I'm all for protecting against animal testing and of course any killing of animals should be humane, but let's face it, those people are mostly crazy.  
The PETA people are the people who DESPERATELY want everyone to be vegan, regardless of the health requirements others may have.  I, for example, would be living off of supplements and thus would probably be even more underweight and feeling like garbage than I already am.  Being allergic to nuts and chickpeas and being intolerant to soy means I need to not be vegan in order to live a resonably comfortable life.   I view these folks much the same way I view members of extremist sects of religions.

*Ahem* 

So, the basement.  

 At one point, Mom started playing with a Polly Pocket and ranting to herself about how toys should be wooden and not plastic. 

 I found my PEZ collection.  ...All of them.  Oh my fuck.  I'll need to post photos to show you all.  

EDIT: LOOKIT: 

I used to have even more.  This is what is left. 

EDIT to the EDIT: OH SHIT I FOUND ANOTHER ONE

EDIT TO THAT OTHER EDIT: HOLY BAJEEZUS THIS ONE WASN'T EVEN OPENED: 

 It's like a year later and I'm still finding these??? 


Lezee... What else? 

OH!  The music box! 

The creepy baby carriage music box! 

It just wouldn't stop.  Creepy AND never stopping.  Like some horrible, haunting background music in a horror movie where a child has just asked you to play but they've been dead for eight years.

Then my sister came down (Nevermind that she refuses to go into the basement due to spiders in order to do her own laundry, but she'll come down when we are trying to clean out the place...) and she immediately turned the damn thing back on when it had finally shut off.  

There was also a Whatever Happened To Baby Jane moment of her arguing with my mother about whether it was mine or hers to begin with.  According to Mom, creepy-never-stopping-baby-carriage-from-Hell was mine.  You know what?  My sister can have it.

...Then my sister dug through the garbage for a coloring book, farted loudly, and then went back upstairs.  

Of course, that coloring book kept her entertained for days, so who am I to judge. 

To state again here...  She basically came down just to fart at us and leave.

Finally, I found my old space heater.  It has since been cleaned by Rob and is being used in the apartment on its fan mode, as it is now Summer.  

This thing is just a little box but I love it.  For months between this original post and the edit, I had used this in a desperate attempt to keep my at the time very lonely and not-retaining-heat self warm. 

It's waaaaay too hot right in front of it, but freezing to either side in the dead of Winter until the air circulates.  As a result, I wound up curling up like a cat and happily burning myself.         

There was also a moment of Mom picking up a book and saying, "Oh!  Legacy of Love!  ... Oh.  Not what I thought."        

EDIT: OH BAJEEZUS WE FOUND ANOTHER ONE

Thankful for Alcoves

The temple I grew up with is very different now, 

yet eerie and comforting in how little it has changed.  
Entire wings have been added, but some areas remain the same.  

Since I grew up there, even though I had hardly ever attended services, 

I still get a bit defensive when people who have been hired since my leaving 

make jokes about me invading “their temple”...  

It's my temple.  After all, I know all the best hiding spots.  

I even found a new one.  It's an alcove. 

I thought it had an IOU plaque which basically stated that it will be... 

something, but apparently it's just a giant hole for the plaque itself.

It states the new name of the Hebrew school. 

People had spent a lot of money to have random things named after their family 

(and to help the temple)...
I thought it would be a display case, maybe?  Nope.

Well, it displayed a rare, rowdy Rowyn.

I even ignored my own thoughts!

I adjusted early on when someone passed me. 

He was questioning why I was hiding, 

but I assume my “possibly about to take a dump” pose didn't help. 

Thankfully, I've learned that smiling pleasantly tends to make people just smile back

and go away. 

Even as a kid, I was generally avoiding services to go make out with girls in the classrooms,

but I would sometimes sit just outside of the sanctuary, 

or on the stage in the room just across from it all, 

in order to listen to my father sing. 

The room itself, 

the expectations I felt, 

and the “community” environment that I never felt fully a part of 

kept me from wanting to participate. 

I thought “cult” whenever the congregation said things together, 

and I thought “fake” when a person I didn't know would hug me because of who I was. 

I had a lot of trust issues even then, 

and I knew that I was supposed to keep anything I was going through or living with a secret. 

These people weren't going to be my friends, 

even if some may have genuinely cared about me if I had given them half a chance. 

I didn't want a Bat Mitzvah. 

It didn't feel right to have one. 

Going up in front of everyone was horrifying to begin with, 

but add the idea of them all listening to me speak and chant 

when I couldn't even stand to hear myself, KNOWING how strange I sounded... 

How mumbled, quiet and awkward... 

And on top of all this, 

morally, I could not bring myself to lead a service for believers 

when I didn't really have faith myself. 

This is not to say that I didn't believe in things. 

I did. 

I had a lot of beliefs. 

They were just really negative 

and involved the idea of believing in the Devil more than a caring God, 

which is ssoooooo not a Jew thing. 

To this day, whenever I write a story about the Devil, 

he is mostly a victim of circumstance. 

Cocky, but was once a loved angel. 

The fact that I interpreted this character in such a way may say something. 

One day, if I remember, I may write a whole entry for this. 

In any case, “faith” implies something more positive and hopeful. 

It's that feeling of “I KNOW this going to be okay” and I didn't have that. 

I knew that I prayed and I followed the rules and did everything I was supposed to,

but nothing got better. 

In my little child brain, there was no future, 

and so if nothing got better RIGHT NOW, it was never going to. 

(The allergy incident in Israel probably didn't help, 

though the fact that I survived it should mean something.)

My love for temple then meandered to only a love for the camaraderie of my friends

and one for the building itself and all its hiding places. 

Somewhere in there, I did grow a kind of faith. 

It's small and strangely shaped, 

but it has helped me when I needed assistance, 

which means it has done the job just fine.   

Birthdays!

Again, being back at my parent's house is odd on many levels.

For one, I forgot about what my mother does for birthdays.

...My mother keeps things. Like... Everything. I'm not sure if it's a security thing or what, but it means that she'll reuse decorations like a really environmentally aware crazy person, rather than just a regular crazy person.

As such, I get bombarded by every birthday I ever had upon walking into my old room.

So, I had a troll birthday once.

I really, reeaaalllly liked trolls. I had hundreds of them, but they've since all been given away. Well, not all. I kept a couple really neat ones, like my Egyptian guy.

I'm awesome.

Shut up.

So the birthday party... How old was I? I don't even remember.

I had a troll birthday ice cream cake, troll plates, decorations... Oh yeah. I was trolled up, and apparently, this one fragment survived to say hello today.

Next up was a balloon attached to the inside of my door. Meaning, a deflated balloon. My door is kind of disgusting because I used to have a lot of stuff all over it, then tore it all down when I moved, aaaaannnd it still has gunk from all that crap.

So this is what that looked like:

Real classy.

My window is now sporting a bikini, 

and there was also a banner on the stairs.

What I'm not showing you is this foldable thing that involves a cupcake with eyes. Not only was this particular item kinda creepy as a kid, but as a now 27 year old adult, it was a little funky having it at the head of my bed... lookin' at me.

I asked my mother if she minded it's removal.

She thought about it.

She got me a couple tops and an action figure of Otho to add to my Beetlejuice collection.

Otho is kind of a big deal in my brain, just as Mayor Maynot of Nightmare Before Christmas. They were both played by Glenn Shadix, who has passed on.

In any case, the figure was wrapped in metallic silvery paper. I opened it up and realized that it was the inside of another wrapping paper made for Hannukah. I thought that was a smart way to re-purpose the wrapping paper.

Actual quotes below:

My mother is actually a very intelligent woman.  

She is also a nursery school teacher and I think somewhat in denial of the entire world.  So...  There is that. 

In any case, my father gave me a cold for my birthday, and I started my morning with a nose bleed. 

As I told my friend and my mother, it was like my face was trying to participate in the festivities.

“HERE! HAVE A NOSE BLEED! LOOK! I MADE IT MYSELF!”

My mother was looking on the bright side, as always...

My eighteenth birthday was a fun one. It was a Bruce Campbell party. I had all my friends dress up as various characters of his, while I was the man himself. This meant I wore a Hawaiian shirt and glasses.

I quickly questioned my assignment of Ash to a friend of mine when she said “Oh, that costume will be easy! I'll just go to my father's workshed, get the chainsaw and-”

We even had a cake with Bruce Campbell's face printed on it. ...Yep.

Most of my cakes over the years were either ice cream cakes or actually pumpkin pies.  I have no use for normal cakes. 

By the way, I actually sort of met Bruce Campbell in person once. 

I'd say he was solidly unimpressed by me. 

Nice enough guy though, so it didn't help my fangirlness. If anything, it just made it worse, because then I could say “ZOH MUH GUH HE LOOKED AT ME FOR A MINUTE!!”

I'm sure I'll try to relate that whole story sometime. For now, back to birthdays.

Lesse...

OH!

So my 21^st birthday was a hoot. I had a vampire masquerade. We rented out a space in the firehouse for it, and my friends acted as a live band. I invited everyone I could sort of call a friend at the time. It was like Facebook but in person.

“I vaguely know you! You don't know this person... but you should! BE FRIENDS NOW.”

I still have my giant blow up grim reaper. The decorations over all were pretty freaking awesome.

My birthday last year was actually a lot of fun for me, even if it ended kind of horribly.

See Birthday Bashing

Now, there is one special birthday I should mention here.

My 19^th.

It never happened.

I'm not saying it was bad. Not at all. It was a very peaceful day. So peaceful, in fact, that I totally missed that it was my birthday.

...as did everyone else.

It was my first time really away from home, off at art school three or so hours away (depending on who was driving). I had a cellphone for the first time in my life and I didn't really know what to do with it, I had my computer... I had ways to tell the date.

I did.

But I didn't have any clue that it was November 17^th.

And neither did any of my friends or family.

I had been in a minor car accident (this seems to be a theme?) with my mother, and being over 18, the insurance guy called me to hear my side of things.

What else? Ah. My 16^th.

I called it my “Sour Sixteen” because I was a creepy goth kid even then.

A costume party, as most of mine are, I told everyone to come dead. If they didn't come in a ghost/ghoul/zombie type costume, we'd “kill” them. ... With makeup.

We had people drown, be slapped to death, strangled... It was a lot of fun.

I was thinking of not posting this right away and saving it all till tonight, because tonight is glow golf... but I'll just add an edit after the fact. 

TO BE CONTINUED 

...
EDIT: 
 Here is an image of one of my friends, to give you an idea of how the rest of the night went.  

The glow golf is at the mall around here, and we had about ten people playing.  Mom stayed for a bit and then fled... Which was fine because a couple of my buddies came home with me.  We played a couple ridiculously long games of Batman UNO, because I'm an adult and I do what I want.  

In any case, glow golf itself was a ton of fun, and I wasn't the only birthday-haver present.  A gaggle of children were seated in the little party corner, and when they started singing "Happy Birthday", I decided that they were very nice.  Well, clearly, they were totally singing for me.  

After all, I am the Empress and it was my birthday. 

The whole place is divided into two sets of golf, but it doesn't make any sense since there isn't another entrance.  You can't actually play the other one unless you've gone past the first... so the fact that it starts over at "One" is stupid. 

We all behaved rather well until that second "One" showed up.  Then it was chaos.  

It was a good chaos though.

The music was hilariously awful.  A friend (who I call Xena for probably obvious reasons) described the people in charge of the music as "a bro and three *giggles like a valley girl*"  Another friend decided later on that this made them "sises"...  

They didn't know who Queen was.  We all felt a bit old, but...  Really?  Really you don't know Queen?  

I wanted to slap their parents. 

Xena described "Under Pressure" and got it played in honor of the fact that the band played that at my 21st birthday.  Nostalgia for the win!

Even sitting on a bench afterwards and hanging out while mini Christmas trees were fisted was fun.  

Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I'm not going to elaborate. 

Time Travel As Therapy

I'm not talking in the hitch a ride on the Tardis or a hop in a Delorean and zoom off way, but in a reviewing, analyzing, and actually participating in my own life way.

I do a lot of analyzing with no purpose.  I run circles around and around to no end.  Hell, most of this blog is just that.

I never come to any new conclusion, nor do I find a new possibility for letting it all go.

Clearly, that shit ain't working.

So instead, I'm rewriting my history.

I noticed I was doing this by accident, subconsciously. 

I was proud of myself for reconnecting with people I had pushed away, but there was more to it than what I'd thought.  Beyond a sense of "Oh good, they are still here," there was a comfort that I hadn't expected.

A man I knew mostly in high school, a man I knew mostly at the art school, and a man I dated after my life was over the first time should not instantly make me more comfortable that some of my new very close friends, but they were.

I understand that my new friends are still the people to go to, but I needed to understand why talking to these old friends had the effect on me that it did.  I think I get it now.

 EDIT: On why I draw my problems as little blobs with staring eyes and sometimes tiny mouths...  It's because that is exactly what they are.  My problems just sit there and stare.  They just sit and make me feel uncomfortable with looks that say they want me to do something for them, but they never open their stupid little mouths to tell me what they want.  They just gawk and criticize silently.  They wobble slightly and are at times even silly enough to be funny... but they bother me just the same.  And in large amounts?  When they gather up and become a crowd?  There is hardly room to breathe. 

I looked around recently and noticed that I'm most comfortable sitting where the computer is in the dining room of my parent's house, rather than eating in the kitchen.  It dawned on me…
The kitchen has been completely redone in recent years.  It is no longer the kitchen from the last time I lived here…
Which was six or seven years ago, after art school.

It was a time before my Psychology courses, which I have yet to pick up again.

It was a time when I felt my life was ending and that I was helpless… 

Which I've picked up again.

I'm searching for nostalgia and comfort to be sure, but also a sense of going back in time to fix what can still be fixed.  Not everything has been an issue, and already I've fixed some of the bigger problems.

For example, my fingers and my wrists have haunted me since art school.  I've been afraid to really do the work I'm capable of because I'm afraid of the pain and the failure I may have to endure yet again.

But now, I have these fancy new braces on my ring fingers that look like Elvish jewelry and actually help minimize the discomfort.  I also know how to pace myself more than I did back then, and I've been to a doctor who could confirm what I thought about my bones.  They probably aren't going to get any worse.  They just are what they are.
More than that, it could have been MUCH worse, but it isn't.

And now, that burden is lifted.  Now I can relax enough to apply for art jobs and feel like I'm going somewhere.  I still plan on finishing the MA in Psychology, but for now, I need more things like this.

I need to weed out the ones I can take care of, and then I can accept and let go of the things I can't change.  This seems entirely logical in theory.  

...In theory.

Obviously, some things are just plain done and over.  
Some things can not ever find a proper ending, and so I'll never really have my closure.

So for the first time, it is actually convenient that I've lumped all my problems together. 

It makes things overlap and count as other things from before.

I can't get my year at art school back.  I can't make my medical leave matter or feel like I achieved anything from it. 

But I left on medical leave from my most recent graduate school, and it was going about the same way.  No one cared.  The fact that I had a doctor give a note and everything didn't matter at all. 

But it's supposed to.

And it will.

My parents and I wanted to just forget the whole thing, but that won't help.  I'll just go the rest of my life adding this to the list of shit where I had no control and my life was meaningless, terrified that it will happen a third time because I'm too disabled to live a normal life, but not disabled enough to get any real help.  Only pity.

No.

I'm going to fight.

I'm going to write letters and make phone calls, and this time, my parents will help me do that.

I'm going to make someone listen to me, even if it doesn't change anything.  The point will be that this time I actually TRIED instead of just crying and walking away. 

This will be my closure for both schools, knowing I did wind up getting that art degree. 
Maybe now, that art degree can mean something to me. 

If my brain is going to decide that they are the same school and the same situation, I may as well make use of that.  I'll trick myself into finally letting them both go at once.  
Let them drift off on the wind.

They won't matter anymore because I will say they don't matter, not because anyone else says so.

For other things, I need to go backwards before I can go forwards.

For the eating issue, I need to remember what I ate and how I enjoyed it and who I ate these things with, and I need to just do it as though I am that person still.  I need to make it habit and a want again.  I need to become who I was in my mind, until I can act and feel like that person again.

THEN I can grow and move forward and be even stronger and better than I ever was.

This time, I'll fix my past and grow up to be a person who wants to drive.

I'll change my perception and how I reacted to things.

"I got into a terrible car accident!  I could have died," will become "I survived even this terrible car accident!  I'm invincible." 

Instead of thinking of how many times I was accidentally "poisoned" by people who didn't care or realize how scary an allergy is, I'll acknowledge that I ate walnuts accidentally, took some Benadryl and YES it was scary, but NO I didn't die or even need to go to the hospital.  I was fine.
Same thing happened years before with hazelnuts. 
And, yes, I did get in trouble and swelled up with hives and vomit and shitting myself for three days because of a small bite of a macadamia nut cookie when a "friend" said there were no nuts in it...  I even asked twice.

Okay, I always ask twice.  Now I know to ask three times.

And I could have used my fucking epi-pen.  I didn't.  I could have, but I didn't.  I don't know if I'm afraid of it, or what...  But either way, the fact that I still freaking SURVIVED WITHOUT using it and I didn't go to the hospital EVEN THEN should say something.  I should feel like I'm a fucking superhero.

Moving on, my throat got hurt, but obviously it then got better.  If it happens again, I know to go to a doctor who isn't an idiot. If I get told it's acid reflux, I'll know that person is wrong, and I'll move on. 

Looking at the posts I wrote at the time, I didn't have any idea what the Hell was going on anyway, and I'm sure that was a big component of it all.  It's weird, but you can actually watch my transition from all the Fishbone bullshits all the way to Of Strength, Luck, and Crashing Down.  It's an interesting change. 

My faith in the world got rocked so far that I couldn't even fathom living in it anymore. 
Yes.  
I get that.  
So, maybe I'll be more cynical than before.  
Maybe I won't be such a pushover.

This doesn't mean I have to be mean or a quiet ball of anger like I was as a kid, but I should take everything with a grain of salt and regrow my instincts.


I used to have very good instincts, as I recall.


Guh.

I'm freaking awesome, damn it.  Time that I remembered and understood that. 

I never believed it, but if I can convince myself that somewhere in my mind, deep down, I knew it, then I can assume that it was always there.  I can "remember" it.

My memories are so muddled anyway, and I have such trouble remembering the good things, I may as well start making shit up.

I won't lie or completely fabricate nonsense, but I can pretend that I felt differently about certain situations.  
I can pretend that I let things go and simply learned from them in order to better myself.  
Maybe I can teach others and I can avoid the same mistakes again.

Fear solves nothing.

Fear will kill me and I would much rather live.

I have a lot left to do if I'm going to make this stupid world any smarter.

I can notice different parts of the scenes playing before me as I go back in time, and I can choose to pick out different parts to keep with me.  
I'll find the most helpful parts this time. 

Simply...

It is time for a rewrite. 

I have friends who can help me edit.  I'm not in this alone.

I'll look at this post and this Winter is Coming to remind me of that. 

And already, I have rekindled some friendships I had missed.  
It may have been for odd reasons, but they were people I valued and people I felt I wasn't good enough to keep. 

I am good enough.

I am fucking awesome,
and I WILL survive this.

This is my life.

This is MY story.

I will decide how the next chapter goes.

Winter is Coming

And I don't have a dragon.

So, something I've been neglecting in my “I have time to get better, and I'm getting there...” is that Winter is coming. I live in an area where when Winter hits, it HITS HARD.

This is a problem for a few reasons.

One:

Winter = cold and cold = pain for me. I have a harder time drawing and painting when it's cold, and those are the things currently keeping me sort of okay. I also avoid going outside when it's cold, so the fact that I just started wanting to actually DO things with my friends is ...Well it's bad timing, really.

Two:

I certainly get my own milder style of seasonal depression. It never gets as bad as some people have it. Still, I already have this anxious, crippling, whatever-the-fuck funk cloud constantly above my head. What the Hell is this going to turn into? Or will I not even notice?

Three:

As sad as it is, I typically have a somebody around in the Winter. This is either a boyfriend or a good friend that I can cuddle up to for warmth and talk to when things are down in order to pretend it is not a season of never ending frozen night.

Well, I've got some friends for that, both new and old. This is good because I'm currently single (the longest I've been so in a long time) and my traditional cuddle buddy is on the other side of the country.  

I've even rekindled a friendship or two out of my realizing what I really wanted and missed in my life. 

My weeding out of some of the awful influences made a nice gap for the people I was too shy about to come back.

...So it's unfortunate that I'm still a loon.

I'm lonely and I want physical affection as well as time spent with people I care about... but I'm still just as freaked out about people touching me or breathing on me as I am about eating most foods, regardless of who or what is involved.

There are very few circumstances where I'll suck it up or even relax enough to forget. I'll still panic before and after, but these calm moments of not giving a shit are precious to me these days.

And then my self esteem comes in to fuck up my day.

I wonder why anyone would want to spend time with me until I convince myself that no one really does, despite the HUGE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE to the contrary. 

 ...Even you, Sign-Pointing-Guy.  You are so not into this. 

So I picture myself as this burden, and I either shut up, afraid to say anything, or I over-share, afraid that I'll be misunderstood.

Normally, my best buddy would be getting all this crap. To a certain extent, she still does, but she is busy being an adult type person and I don't want to bother her with my insane-child shit.

...See? See, it's that logic again. The fuck.

Instead, I've been not so silently putting it on an old companion who I've dragged rather forcibly back into my life, fully aware that I'm about fifty cards short of a deck.

I find him comforting and supportive, and I know I can be the same for him.  He reminds me of who I was years ago, and also who I was in the time when he barely even knew me anymore.  

...And then I just feel guilty that he should have to put up with me at all.

Below is my depiction of the whole thing. Feel free to click on it to enlarge it in order to read my lunatic rantings.

...Right.

The man is not so much of a pushover that he couldn't just ignore me and walk the fuck away if he wanted to. None of my friends are. These are all people who actually *gasp* care about me.

Why would they?

It doesn't matter.

I should just be thankful and move on.

Mind you, in my case with him specifically, we have basically abandoned each other before on some level, though even then, it was with good intentions.  As odd as it sounds, we were trying to avoid hurting each other.  We just did it... wrong. 

Still, I now know that one phone call would have fixed it. 

I chose to assume he wanted nothing to do with me, just as he chose to assume I wouldn't miss him.  

We are the same kind of stupid.  You would think this would mean we'd each give each other the benefit of a doubt as friends.  

...

We don't. 

But, it's nice when we are just relaxed and together.  We have a history and we know each other pretty well, but we also were apart long enough that there are still things to learn.  I have other friends who would fall into this category, and they wouldn't necessarily have the added complication of my physical attraction, but on some level, I suppose I'm just thankful that I'm still capable of having said attraction to someone.  Even if it doesn't amount to anything, it's comforting to have. 

 

No expectations, just honesty and friendship, knowing we care about each other.  That's pretty freaking cool, and something I've been needing.  Being someone I've had a relationship with in the past, we also avoid that nagging "I wonder" feeling on many levels.  We already know to a certain extent, even if it didn't last very long.  There are still "what ifs" but not enough that it would hurt anything.  

This is all pretty damn cool.  

...Until I over-think it. 

...

Shit.