It can't seriously have been 5 months since I last wrote here. Where does the time go?

I'm considering taking this blog a different direction from here on out...maybe post all the interesting shit I find in my daily life...in real life and online. I often find things that I think are amusing and things that make me believe that the rest of the world really needs to know about, but then I forget them just as quickly, cuz, as Cheech & Chong would say, my head is like a sieve. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, at least have the decency not to admit it, okay?)

The most interesting thing that's happened in the interim is that I have reconnected with someone that was one of my bestest friends ever, way back in the day. I haven't seen or heard from her in 20 years - I think we were both so anxious to get as far away as possible from our experiences in high school, that we lost track of each other. But wow, I gotta say - she turned out to be a totally kickass chick! She does roller derby (how cool is THAT???) and she's...I dunno...she's just unapologetically who she is. And who she is freakin' rocks! And she's really inspired me to stop being so damned reserved and insecure all the time. I really want to work on being comfortable in my own skin and realizing that it really doesn't matter what other people think cuz (as Bon Jovi or Gwen Stefani would say) it's my life. (Actually, come to think of it, I think the Gwen Stefani song is a remake of some 80s song, but I digress...) I think that events in my life, and my own weakness, have allowed me to believe that there's something wrong with me being just what I am. I've felt for so long that just being me wasn't enough. Wasn't good enough. Wasn't smart enough. Wasn't pretty enough. Wasn't ladylike enough. Wasn't strong enough, fast enough, thin enough, obedient enough, kind enough...I could go on all day. Thing is, I really groove on being around quirky people. I love it when people don't conform. I like the weird, the odd, the unusual, the original, the strange, the goofball, the wacky, and the unique. So why the fuck have I wasted so much energy trying to be anything other than what I am?

I don't know either. Today is the first day of a life spent living out loud.

Oops She Did It Again

My mother, that is.

To say that my mother and I have a long and tortured history together doesn't even begin to cover it. She left when I was 8, came back when I was 18, left again when I was 23 (with 3 days' notice and 1,000 excuses), I found her again when I was 32 and now, after several years of intermittent communication and myriad excuses she's preparing to leave again with only 3 days' notice. (I'm now 38.)

The problem isn't simply that she left those last 2 times. She moved for work when I was 23, but I have to believe that you generally get more than 3 days' notice that you're moving cross country. She had a bunch of excuses for why she didn't tell me sooner and promised to call me with an address as soon as she got settled. Six months later I got a call from her because my grandmother had died, but still no address.

We patched all that up 7 years ago, and I do mean patched. The wounds are obviously still there, but there are many Band-aids slapped over them. We do a delicate dance most of the time and pretend that she hasn't abandoned me repeatedly during my life. Until she drinks and then she alternates between telling me I need to grow up and stop holding grudges and offering weak excuses for why she left me when I was 8 years old.

So today, after not hearing from her for 6 months, she called my husband's cell phone (not mine - can't wait to hear her excuse for that one) and left a voicemail telling him that she and her husband will be leaving for New Mexico on Friday and that she'd love to see us all before they go. Then she sent me an e-mail stating pretty much the same thing, but also adding that the move was very "last minute". I should mention that she lives 4 blocks away from me, so this all could've been done in person if she really wanted to see us that badly, but she will avoid confrontation at ANY cost. I'm not sure what type of job requires you to move thousands of miles with less than a week of notice to secure housing and such, but evidently that's how this is all going down.

When and if I ever get a chance to actually confront her about this latest abandonment, I am sure she will make me seem like the bad guy, since technically she did try to get hold of me. And she'll be completely unable to see any parallels between this time and all the others.

Happy Mother's Day.

Check out this awesome contest!

Win BUTTON IT UP

http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2009/03/win-button-it-up/ @croqzine

You can win a copy of the great new book "Button It Up" with lots of awesome craft ideas for buttons!

Peace,
Michelle

Menopause can kiss my ass

Y'know, I'm all about empowering women. I get a kick out of joking about serious things and making light of things that scare me. But I have run out of laughs about this one, and I really don't feel very empowered.

I think I'm in menopause. I say "think" because I don't know for sure. I had a partial hysterectomy last August - partial meaning that I kept my ovaries, so I should've been okay for a little while. And like I said, I don't know for sure because I went for blood tests nearly two weeks ago and somehow the estrogen test hasn't come back yet. All the other hormone tests came back okay, but the estrogen is anybody's guess. So I haven't gotten an official diagnosis yet.

All I know is, I haven't felt like myself since I woke up from the surgery. The list of symptoms is a mile long and a lot of it's rather personal, so I won't go into it here. But it seems to affect totally random things like my mental accuity, skin and my ability to be around other human beings for longer than 5 minutes without wanting to scream. It may not be menopause, but if it isn't, then the alternative is insanity.

It's very hard to look ahead of this and see what I have to look forward to after menopause setting in at 38. Mostly I just feel like I'm way too young and really not ready to go through this just yet. And as always, I'm the first of most of my friends to go through this, so nobody can give me much advice on this one.

So if I am testy for the next little while, forgive me. This is all new, frightening territory for me.

Join my swap!

I am hosting a new swap on Swap-bot - the A to Z Journal Swap: Feel free to join and tell your friends!

http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/31809

Rainbow photo mosaic

This is my first time ever making a photo mosaic - I gotta say, I think I love it! :) I wanted to try to make one because I am considering hosting a swap on Swap-bot, and I wanted a graphic to coordinate with it. I'm thinking of trying something completely new for me - a whimsy jar swap. I've seen tons of them on Flickr and on Swap-bot, but I've never done a whimsy jar swap myself. It seems like my kind of thing - a glass jar full of all manner of goodies and such. So I'm thinking that the theme for my swap should be a Rainbow Jar. Just seems like a good idea for dreary February days. I'll post more later when I get all the *whimsical* details lined out. :D