Ravenna, However, Is Feeling Just Fine.

Guess My Mood

Getting ready for the practica tonight...just getting over a flu and emotionally all over the map, felt like showing it in attire and make-up.

And Obama Wins...

Had an incident with Jaimes that predicated that last post. It unfortunately happened just before the election was declared for Obama.

I'm glad that Obama won.

This other stuff has got me so caught up that I can't quite appreciate the election fully, though.

Ah well, I guess there are the next 4 years left for it to sink in.

Where Do I Belong?

Starting to wonder sometimes if I'm making the wrong choice, sticking around here in Seattle. Staying home with Ravenna, living on very tight financial means, tying ourselves to Jaimes, who can be very unpredictable and at times exceedingly difficult.

I want to enable Jaimes and Ravenna to have a good relationship. At the same time, he has little to no respect for me, and so will at times treat me with utter contempt, or he act in ways that are completely inappropriate. What sort of example am I setting for Ravenna to perpetuate this?

Then there is the issue of support. So many people that I used to consider friends have dropped out of my life in the last few years, either after I had Ravenna, or when Jaimes and I split. There are some still around who have proven themselves beyond any doubt, but lately they are busier and busier with their own lives. Seattle is becoming a rather lonely place for me.

I'm not sure I like the way that MN is developing or that I have a great desire to live there again, but at least there I would have family around. That's something special that Ravenna is missing right now.

I love being with Ravenna all day every day and it would break my heart in some small way to give that up to go back to work, but I could make us a good living, and who's to say that some other daily arrangement wouldn't be just as good for her? Children often love day care and pre school and thrive in environments with other children.

I'm so torn up about it all.

What's the right thing?

Is there a right thing?

If I did something else, then she'd be missing everything she has now; my full attention all day every day, a few hours most days spent playing with her father who adores and dotes on her, relationships with several close friends of mine who are really are a sort of "family" to her...and that's all special too. She's such an amazing child, and she's really thrived so far.

Would I be happier somewhere else? Or even here, still, but doing something else? Maybe.

Is that worth giving up these things? I just don't know.

Hair Cut

Here it is! I'm still not sure whether I like it or not.


I had been thinking about cutting it really short, sort of following the line of my jaw. Chantal, who cut my hair, thought that would be really extreme -- except the thing is I've had that sort of cut many times, so it's not that drastic in that I'm already used to the way it looks on me. I've never had this cut so it somehow feels more extreme. Every time I walk by the mirror I catch myself thinking, "Who is that?"

Then again, it's only been an hour. Plenty of time still to warm up to it.

Sleep, Where Are You?

Why is it so hard to sleep when you've got stuff on your mind? Wouldn't it make more sense to drift soundly away and work it all out in your dreams? In your subconscious?

I'm so rarely an insomniac, I just don't know what to make of it. What to do with it.

I'd like to just stay up and do something mindless, clean or code or paint or cook or...something, anything, but Ravenna will wake up in the next 3-5 hours irregardless of how well or how long or how little I have slept. And oh will I regret this then.

Back to lie down, close my eyes, and wish for sleep to find me...

Success!

It is cold today!
Seattle is cold.
My house is cold.
I am cold.
Cold to the bone.
Cold to through and through.
EXCEPT -

Here I be, a proud thing, having conquered many issues with kindling, structure, starters, showing off me first made fire in this place! Success! Light! Warmpth! Heat!

Ahh, fire.

Life is so good in this moment.

Reading a Book

Another Blast From the Past

Hadn't looked at this in years. Pretty sure I drew it in about the same time frame, maybe a year or so before I got the tattoo.

My tattoo

This picture is years old, shoulda posted it when I first got the tattoo, in...what? 2004? But I'm not sure if I ever did. It's my only tattoo, and it's my own design.

Unrequited

I have a crush on a man who is, for a number of reasons, absolutely unavailable. I really like him. And it just doesn't matter at all.

I haven't really felt this way since I was a teenager. Consumed with some feeling that I just can't find the words for, not able to really convey in a way that does it any justice. Can't find the right words, the right picture, the right anything. There's a bit of sadness to it, a bit of bitter sweet, something of an awakening, a bit of a feeling that it's good to be feeling anything at all.

It's all pushing on my chest; wrapped up in a cocoon but the cocoon is too hard, reinforced on the outside, I can't break out.

New Shirt

Rested

Last night, for the first time in weeks, Ravenna was able to sleep the night through, lying down, without needing me to be sitting up holding her. The cold, the sinus infection, the ear infection, the teething, all finally managable enough so that she and I could both get a night of real sleep.

It was AWESOME.

Sleep is, like, the best thing ever.

Sickness, Hers and Mine

Ravenna's still sick. Three days now with this bug...if it doesn't break tonight, we're going in to her pediatrician tomorrow.

Nearly two weeks if you count all the stuff that was going on before, the teething fevers, the ear infections...

It's pretty brutal.

She's finally sleeping for a bit.

And me? I'm doing pretty well.

A little lonely.

I've been stuck lately. Too much time alone with a sick baby, I don't know, I've been stuck obsessing about the why's and wherefore's. Why did Jaimes emotionally check out so soon after Ravenna was born? Why did it seem to him, when we hit some rough times, that the best option was just to bail out on our life? To move on to someone else? I mean...yeah, we had our problems. But all relationships have problems. Show me one that doesn't. And you work through them, don't you? Isn't there something greater, companionship, love, friendship, that makes all of that worth it? Why wasn't it worth it?

When will I start letting go of all these questions? I don't want to carry them around with me indefinately. There aren't really any good answers. It's not helping me to have them on my mind. It's not helping anyone.

Ravenna will be better soon enough. And I'll be out and about in the world again.

Maybe that's all that I need, maybe this obsessing is my own sort of sickness, and when Ravenna breaks free from hers I'll break free from mine. Let's hope.

Worries

Ravenna has been pretty sick for about a week. First there was this cold that started around Thanksgiving...it got better, but she just never totally cleared it.

Then there's teething; she's working on a couple molars and eye teeth all at once.

She's had this on and off high temperature, likely from the teething.

Then, maybe about this weekend, an ear infection kicked in on top of everything.

We went to the pediatrician yesterday and we're working on treating the runny nose and the ear infection. All good and well. But then she got worse again last night, with a temp of 104.1 °F all morning. I talked to the pediatrician again this morning and am giving her something else now to help bring down the fever, so now it's at 102.7 °F. Not as scary, but still worrisome.

She's been so groggy, not herself, wanting to be held all the time, nursed constantly...I'm worried for her. It's a heavy feeling.

Doh!

In a fit of stupidity, I managed to delete all the playlists that I have created over the last several years I've been DJing.

And by "delete", I don't mean they're sitting in the recycle bin...they're gone, gone, gone.

I meant to just clean up space.

And something went wrong while I was cleaning, so I wanted iTunes to resynchronize itself. So I deleted the files I thought would force that to happen.

Well, it does need to resynchronize.

Because it's entire library database is GONE.

So are all its library database backups.

Doh.

On the bright side, I found a disc backup I made in June 2006.

On the dim side, that's still nearly a year and a half of playlists that I'll never get back again. Including every event I've ever DJed with Ravenna.

Bugger.

Long Overdue

I'm finally starting to come back into my own body.

I left Ravenna in the care of my housemates after I put her to bed tonight, then threw on some clothes that only just recently have started to fit well again, brushed out my hair, and went out dancing for a few hours.

It felt SO good.

So, amazingly good.

I'm still floating on air!

There must have been 8-10 people who came up to me tonight and commented on my appearance or my demeanor, who said that they hadn't recognized me from behind. Several of these people were folk who have only met me since my pregnancy, so they never knew me before I went through that great transformation.

I have missed my body.

I have missed dancing, really dancing, without worry, with some level of control over my trunk and limbs.

I've still got a ways to go before I'm completely back, but I'm on the road now, and it feels great.

More of the Same (long and self-pitying, reader beware)

Jaimes says some of the most hurtful things imaginable.

I mean...I guess there are always worse, more hurtful things that could be said. But he says things to me that cause me a great deal of pain.

We got in a fight the other night. Really, about stupid things. I was tired, it was the end of a day that had been terribly stressful, I was not at my best, and he wasn't at his best either. He stormed off.

I called him a few minutes later, and he answered the phone, "It better be important," in a sharp tone of voice. I was stunned and didn't know quite how to respond, so I didn't speak right away...and then he hung up on me.

I messaged him a while later to say that I didn't want to see him for a while, that he doesn't have to live with me, he doesn't have to love me, he doesn't even have to like me...but at a bare minimum, he should be able to treat me with some courtesy and civility. I did say in the message that, while I don't care to spend time with him at the moment, I don't want to keep him from Ravenna, and if he wanted to see her he should let me know and we would arrange details.

Two days passed without a word from him.

Today, I called to ask if and when he wants to see Ravenna, and he took it as an opportunity to get into it about the other night. As he sees it, I am entirely in the wrong, and my message was totally unwarranted. It is perfectly civil for him to answer the phone however he chooses, and to hang up on me if he feels the conversation is not worth his time, and it's unreasonable of me to ask anything else of him. My problem is that I think he and I are equals - and we are not. I need to pay attention, I shouldn't have called, I shouldn't have tried to manipulate him with my silence, I shouldn't have been upset when he hung up and should have expected it, and I shouldn't have sent him such rude, manipulative messages. He hardly let me get a word in edgewise as he expounded on all of these things, and ignored repeated requests to drop the stuff between us and to focus on if and when he'd like to see Ravenna, and on arranging the visit.

Early on in the conversation, I tried to communicate to him that I don't want him to hang up on me when we speak...if he doesn't want to talk to me when I call, let it go to voicemail. I don't think it's an unreasonable request, but he was completely closed off to it, just continued talking over me, interrupting me, telling me how I need to pay attention, understand that he is right, listen, I don't know...it went on and on, I had trouble even keeping track of everything.

Since he was not open to my request about refraining from hanging up on me when we speak, I eventually shifted to asking him to please understand that if he is unwilling alter his behavior in any way, he needs to understand that calling him will not feel safe to me, and I will be less inclined to call, especially when I am tired, stressed out, or already not at my best for some other reason. He didn't take this as well, accusing me of trying to manipulate him, telling me that I need to go to 4 years of counseling, I need to learn to pay attention, that nothing he did or does is unreasonable, that I need to learn the lessons he's trying to teach me, etc.

At some point, Ravenna was crying in the background, and I asked him, "Do you hear Ravenna crying? I can't continue this right now." He hung up on me.

I called back after I had resolved the situation with Ravenna, and he said, "It better be important," very curtly.

I said, "What, are you still trying to teach me some lesson?" We got back into it, the conversation (was it even that?) about the same as before. He told me several times that he was tired of repeating himself, I was boring him. And he finally said that he does want to see Ravenna, that he gets back from Pittsburg on Tuesday (I didn't even know until this moment that he was going out of town), and that he would call me then. Then more of the same. Why can't I just listen? I'm so stupid, boring, I need to learn to pay attention... he was so condescending. And apparently offended that I would presume to think that he didn't understand exactly how I felt. I told him that he is very smart, intelligent, and aware, and probably is aware of the effect that his actions have...perhaps he does not like that I am still so emotionally attached to him, and his actions were intended to sever some of those bonds. He flared up at that and said that I was trying to manipulate him by making him feel guilty. And then, at some point, he said that I have never loved him. That I don't even know what love is, I only want something from him, I only manipulate him...going on, and on...bitter, biting, accusing.

This really, really hurt. I couldn't help myself, I started crying. "I love you, I LOVE you," I said. "How can you say something like that? Do you really mean it?" He talked around my question, maybe said something like, "Would I say it if I didn't mean it?"

After a little bit more of that, I told him I just needed to ask him one more thing, and then I would let him go. He finally gave me a little space to speak, and I asked, "Do you honestly mean everything you have been saying to me, or are you letting anger and frustration color your words?" Again, he didn't answer my question, just talked around it...asked me if I thought he would say something he didn't mean, or something to that effect.

That was it. I kept to what I had said, told him I'd talk to him when he called on Tuesday, and said goodbye.

And then I carried Ravenna inside, told her I was very sad, we laid down on the bed together, and she let me hold her while I cried.

Why does he say things like that?

Even when you're fighting, why would you say something like that to someone you care about?

Does he really believe it? Or was he just saying it because he knew it would hurt me? If he believes it, does that mean that I've wasted these last several years of my life, putting my energy into loving him?

I don't like being hurt this way. I hate it. I hate fighting. I hate getting so emotional. And I hate that he says these things. Whether he means them or not, they are terrible things to say.

All this, and I hardly even see him any more. We don't live together. At most, I see him for an hour or two every day or every few days, so that he can spend time with Ravenna, and sometimes not even that. And still...he has so much power to hurt me. He oscillates from being very loving, sometimes for quite a long time, to suddenly being very hurtful. It's circular; I'm hurt, so I pull away, and then he's very sweet and loving, so I am drawn back in, only so that he can ultimately hurt me again.

I can pull myself further away again now, that's all fine and good, but when will I finally learn to stop letting myself be pulled back in?

A Maritime Pompeii

From Newsweek:

"Pisa is famous for its leaning tower, but archeologists there are now uncovering an amazing fleet of ancient ships, some complete with crew and cargo. . ."

Cool!

How Could Such an Angel Cause Any Trouble at All?

Photo Courtesy of John Lee.