Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have a Bathroom April 30, 2008

Which, by the way, I almost killed myself over, but hey.

When they say “Have adequate ventilation” when you use that tub surround adhesive crap, they ain’t just a’kiddin. Picture me, oxygen on. I’m not even kidding. What a moron.

However, as of today, the tub surround is UP, the old countertop is GONE, the new one is ON and looks fabulous, the new faucets are in the new sink and the bathrtub/shower. And they don’t freaking drip.

The matching toilet paper holder/towel racks etc are up. The cabinet doors need to be put back on and the floor put down but hey.

I have a bathroom.

It’s filthy right now because apparently you have to let that satanic adhesive “cure” for 24 hours before you, like, take a shower.

My friends asked me what room I was going to tackle next and I almost cried.

My non-functioning stove was hauled out today. Interesting mess underneath and behind it, let me tell you. In fact, when I was laying there, unable to breathe, all I could think of was something about the Hanta virus killing people and coming from rodent droppings.

Nurses are always dying of something catastrophic, you know.

Oh - and my car is insured. And loaded to the gills with Goodwill stuff, although I didn’t get there yet. And I also went in to work for an hour and got certified as an instructor for nursing assistants.

Next project is something simple and cosmetic only.

Please hold me to that.

I Got A Car! April 29, 2008

I got a car!!!

I got a car I got a car I got a car!!!

My little friend and her cheating boyfriend came through and brought me a car!!

And it’s mine all mine all mine all mine all mine!!

Woo hooooooooooooooooo!

Alright, This is Bullshit! April 28, 2008

So, I was feeling a little discouraged during the day.

This afternoon I get a call from the friend who is supposed to selling me the car.

“Hey Ho!” says she. “The car should be finished here pretty quick and I will bring it over!” Try as I might, the excitement and hope starts to rise.

Half an hour later, another call. “Oh hey, the car won’t be ready for at least another day.”

“What happened?” says I.

“Oh, they were one part short, so they have to get it from Napa tomorrow. Sorry.” Which wouldn’t be so bad except the last time they told me this I didn’t hear from them for another two weeks because the boyfriend working on said car (whom I hate for the cheating prick that he is - and sadly, he knows it) was busy.

Now we all know I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately with the things I’ve been trying to do not working out, so yes, I was pretty blue. And of the 97 of you who viewed yesterday’s post, five of you commented. Jeez, did I depress you that much?

But then I got a text message from my former fiance - the man I left a little over a month ago.

“Hey just wanted you to know they just let me out of ICU. (The doctor) found a bleeding ulcer.”

Now, I’m a registered nurse. I know that a “bleeding ulcer” rarely ends one up in the ICU. So I can’t help myself. I call, only to be told that he had “collapsed” at home Sunday morning, been rushed by paramedics to the hospital with a sky high blood pressure, and it was only Monday morning that they finally did a scope and found the ulcer.

And he says to me……

…”So did you go out partying Saturday night?”

And I think to myself, Nanna, you ignorant fool. Once again I got sucked into calling because surely it’s the decent freaking thing to do to call someone when they have been in the ICU - only to be slapped in the face with the reminder that - to him - I am and always will be some crazed, wild bar slut that couldn’t stand - and I quote - the “nice normal stable family life” that he wanted to provide.

The laugh is that I worked eight hours of overtime Saturday - on one of my most precious weekends off - to pay for the hole I jumped into - and when I got home, my neighbor cut my hair. A rocking and rolling good time was had by all, believe you me.

I am so pissed right now - pissed at him and pissed at myself for merrily jumping on the merry go round again even for a quick whirl.

You know what, thank GOD I was reminded why I moved out.

“I’m just going to die alone I guess,” he says to me.

I would rather deal with fucked up bathroom faucets that I can’t unscrew and whizzing around in 30 degree weather on my oh-so-green-electric bike than to ever have to listen to that manipulative bullshit ever again in my life.

I will live in a rat hole - in a metal sided tipi for the rest of my life before I will ever live with someone who - having been privileged to have my very heart and soul bared to him - still can’t freaking see me for the bullshit in his own head.

No.

And yes. I did go out Friday night. Big freaking deal. I was dancing away a heart broken and bruised all week by actually caring for people more than myself - and I can be a very egocentric person.

No more whining and crying - at least not this week.

BOY am I pissed!

How Old Is Too Old To Start Over? April 28, 2008

This was my weekend off, but I worked Saturday for time and a half because - uh - this is the time to do stuff like that. I don’t have anyone to complain about it, except the dogs, and I do need the money.

I still don’t have a car. You may remember I was going to have one two weeks ago - and then the person who was going to put the fuel pump in didn’t. Didn’t get to it. And you know what - it’s not his problem that I don’t have a car. I know that.

So anyway, last week they contacted me again, two weeks after not delivering the car by two weeks ago, and said, hey, hooray, you’ll have it by Sunday or Monday at the latest.

So once again I foolishly let myself get excited. Even told a few people. And last night, Sunday night, I sent a text message. Uh - any news?

The response. No. Hopefully by tomorrow night.

Now listen. I did put the two windows I had ordered in all by myself. And I am very excited about that. And I’ve had all the bathroom stuff here for a few weeks now, but I had to wait for someone to come cut the countertop. One friend was going to “be over the next day” and I guess forgot. I did finally get it cut, paying a local handyman $35 to do it (I paid $35 for the whole countertop).

And yesterday I sat down with the tools, knowing exactly how to disconnect the old sink, unscrew the old countertop, screw on the new one, drop in and clamp down and screw in the new sink and connect the new faucets.

Except I couldn’t get the goddamn water connectors loose. I got one, but the other one - too corroded. So I have a call in to the plumber to come do that Wednesday. And you know plumbers - whether or not they show up when they’re supposed to is anybody’s guess.

I’m holding on for dear life to the money for the car, in case by some miracle they do show up. Yes, my electric bike is wonderful for short distances, but I live out in the middle of nowhere, and I need to take a shit ton of stuff to Goodwill, for instance. But I can’t get it there on my bike - it’s about 25 miles.

Yesterday I borrowed a truck and went to my storage unit and got my washer and dryer, called and begged a young friend to help me load and unload it to get it home. Got it home, hooked it up - except the dryer. I have a 220 outlet - but apparently my 220 plus doesn’t match the 220 outlet here. Go figure.

But I still got to wash my own laundry in my own house for the first time in a month and go hang it out on the line to dry because the threatened rain and snow (yes, snow!) didn’t come. So that felt good.

I just get so frustrated. It’s not like I’m not trying. But I keep running into roadblock after roadblock.

I am adamant that I will not get a car with a car payment right now - not now, when I still have two and a half years until I am finally free of the heavy debt load left after my marraiege - which ended five years ago.

Yes, I could go get a Menard’s “Big Card” and a car loan and look normal and not so white trashy. But I am haunted by the thought that if I were to get sick and couldn’t work for any length of time - even a day - I would be screwed, glued, and tattooed.

Last night I sat here thinking, c’mon Nanna, it’s OK. You’ve been here before, and always for the same reason. You invested your life and your money into someone else’s life and home - and now you’re starting over. You’ve come out OK before - you’ll do so again.

And then the scary doubts started creeping in.

Yeah - but I’m almost 48 this time. Maybe I’m too old to start over this time.

I chant to myself, “I am not white trash - I am not white trash,” and I worry about my son coming home for the summer, and how I’m going to feed him since I spend very little on food right now. Coffee, cigarettes, and Diet Pepsi, yes, but not food. Dog food, yes. Heh.

Encourage me, please. Tell me stories of how 2-1/2 years is not that long, and the $1000 I’m paying out to pay off old debt right now every month will be gone before I know it, and I’ll have everything I need for a nice, sane comfortable life.

I watched “Sleeping With the Enemy” last night. For years, I couldn’t watch that movie without getting the worse stomach aches, but last night I sat and watched it voraciously, smiling sadly and sweetly to myself at how delighted she was to buy African violets for her own window sill, and the freedom she felt in letting the towels on her bathroom towel rack be less than perfectly lined up.

I still froze, watching her freeze and allow herself to be controlled.

And of course, it pissed me the fuck off to know that, in Hollywood, it was OK because she had her handsome next door neighbor who convinced her to love again and was there when the creepy husband found her.

Fuck. That.

Besides, he had 80’s hair.

Please encourage me. I need it today.

I’d Rather Dance Than Breathe April 26, 2008

Well, apparently it’s become a once a month thing - at least, it has for the past two months.

Last night was Al’s night for karaoke, and I went after a horrendously grief filled week at work with a gaggle of co-workers.

And I can honestly tell you that it helped trememndously.

One thing I almost forgot - which amazes me - is how much I dearly and truly love to dance.

Not with anyone. Just me. In this case with a group of friends out on the floor, just completely losing myself in the music and the rhythm, eyes half closed except when you catch the eye of someone dancing near you and you grin - or you catch the eye of someone sitting on the sidelines cuz “Oh God I could never get up there and dance” and you feel like you can fly or something.

Dancing, for me, has always always been better than sex, better than the most luscious meal, better than almost breathing.

It’s like expressing everything I could never find the words to say.

There’s no way to feel depressed when you’re dancing.

At this point in my life, I don’t even want to dance with anyone, or have anyone touch me or even too close when I’m dancing.

It’s just my way of shaking off the shackles and the years and the cares and just being some eternal timeless laughing spirit.

Yeah - I know. That sounds corny.

But only if you don’t love to dance as much as me.

It’s Going to be OK - I Promise April 24, 2008

It’s a Friday post. Meaning that I could just take the opportunity to post a bunch of random shit that never quite made it to “full post status” this week.

Like the fact that I rode my electric and marvelous bike home in a thunderstorm tonight - and didn’t get struck by lightning but did get hilariously soaked. Or the fact that the carpenter guy is finally going to come and cut my countertop tomorrow morning, so that I can finish my bathroom this weekend - that or call the plumber on Monday to help disconnect the old and reconnect the new sink and faucets. Update on Monday on that one.

Or that my neighbor called me in a panic because her six month old Chihuahua puppy ate half a chocolate pie-thingy left on the couch - but she was too scared to call and “bother” the vet at 10 pm at night - and wuld I please come over and take her for the night, because she couldn’t bear to watch if the puppy got sick.

But I realized something tonight. As always, whenever I am casting about, sort of adrift, sooner or later answers come to me - something that helps me out along the way.

Britt’s posts this week about sexual abuse - gossip I heard today at work about so-and-so cheating on such-and0such, a new friend agonizing over what to do about the violence in this world, the death of one of my friends and the impending death of another……It’s enough to make a girl crawl into her cave.

And then I was reading on the computer tonight and came across two articles that together made me realize that I really do believe the world is, at its essence, a benevolent and beautiful place. People, on the other hand, can screw up and do some pretty horrific things.

But things work out.

We continue getting up in the mornings, and in spite of our frailties, we do reach out. Just look around the blogs, if you don’t believe me, and watch people reach out in compassion and solidarity with one another.

Sure, we’re egocentric. That’s why we blog, at the heart of things, because we have a voice that needs to be heard. And it does!

But we’re listening too.  And we’re open to learning, and discovering.

The tree outside my window is now covered with big fat buds that look like a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, full to bursting with the promise of another green and beautiful spring and summer. With bonfires and lawn chairs and barefoot baby feet running through the grass and mother voices calling as the sun sets.

It’s going to be OK, guys.It’s going to be OK.

I promise.

Just as it’s been promised over and over and over and over throughout millenua.

If we could just remember to listen.

My Miracle for the Day Was My Son April 23, 2008

Toda when I got to work, I was told that one of our residents had died this morning.

He had been fine when I left Monday night - tired, but he’d been rambunctious all weekend, so that’s not unusual with dementia.

And I cried.

Some people ask me, “Why does it affect you? It’s part of your job. You know they’re going to die.”

And it’s true - I do. And I accept it, and I am grateful for the privilege of sharing this part of their lives with them and their families.

And still I cry. Because I know the grief of his wife and children and grandchildren. Because I will miss him. Because I truly believe that the day I stop crying and grieving is the day I better look for another line of work.

It’s natural to cry at loss.

So I was sad. And my first instict, out of habit, was to call the man I broke up with a month ago, because sometimes you just need to reach out and be comforted.

But I knew it would be like a shot of tequila - comforting and distracting at the moment, but not something I could successfully make a lifestyle out of. And I know, because I tried. I had asked him - no, demanded - that he stop calling, emailing and texting me. So I surely couldn’t go there.

Hmmm, I thought to myself. What do single peple do without a significant other to go to when they need a shoulder to cry on?

And then a little miracle walked in the door.

Actually, it was my lunch break and I came whizzing around the corner on my little electric bike to go home and let the dogs out, and there he was, my youngest son, just getting out of his car ourside my work.

“I was going to surprise you!” he said with a grin.

“Oh,” I said, and then, “Well…surprise!”

We both went home, and he walked in and told me how impressed he was that I really had put in the two new windows all by myself yesterday. “I even pushed on them, and they didn’t fall out!” he said - while I cringed. He loved the new couch I had scored from a friend - he liked the finished paint job in the bathroom. And he agreed to drive to Dollar General for me while I went back to work to pick up some necessities. (Toilet paper, toothpaste and Diet Pepsi for me - rawhides for the puppies.)

And I went back to work newly bouyant and refreshed. Somehow, the little bugger has shown up unexpectedly the last two times I was feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, or sad, and been exactly what I needed at the moment to get through and get balanced again.

Which gives me a feeling of faith and hope. That I will have what I need when I need it, somehow, and not in any way I probably could have planned. That I can master this single life, although I’ve never really been single since I was 19 years old.

Putting in windows etc by myself I’m not afraid of. Handling the emotional part is where I have tended to fall down in the past.

So thanks, little son. I know you read this blog sometimes - I want you to know how important your encouragement is to me - how much impact it has.

Especially considering that you hated me for most of your teenage years.

Hehehehehehehehehe

Necessary Time To Heal April 22, 2008

There is a tendency, after a break up, to need to revisist the whole thing, replaying every moment in one’s head, every argument, every good memory.

And then there is the tendency to want to hash it out - over and over and over - like the movie “Groundhog Day” - arguing the same old arguments again and again and again as if, by doing it just one more time, perhaps the other person will really hear this time - and understand.

And then, if there’s going to be any sanity or healing, it has to stop.

No matter what else is going to happen in the future, there must be time to heal.

Heal from the anger, the pain, the disappointment and disillusionment.

No one can stay stuck there forever and remain sane.

Or rather, I don’t want to stay stuck there.

I realized tonight, sitting on the couch worn out after working my ass off on my day off (but I got those goddamn windows in, yes I did!), that I never really let myself heal from my divorce five years ago. Or from the self-medicating relationship I leapt into a year later with someone who all totally wrong for me. Or the last one - which wasn’t much different.

Tonight it’s just nice to sit here and sort of reflect, sort of not.

To just get in a little more practice time of being totally by myself. No recriminations, no anxiety, no expectations, no being “on” for anyone. If you’re like me, or like my daughter, you spend a lot of time being “on” unconsciously.

It’s just one day - one night - but it’s been helpful.

Ahhhh….On. My. Own. April 21, 2008

Well, it’s been almost a month now. Technically, four weeks since I moved out into my own little abode - four weeks of cleaning and throwing out and fantasizing and agonizing over home improvement websites and stores. Four weeks of living with sinks and countertops and faucets and bullshit in my kitchen, because they wouldn’t fit anywhere else.

And I realized tonight, whizzing home on my wonderful little electric bike, just what it is that I like best about living by myself.

The absence of drama.

I worked the last four days over the weekend during a full moon extravaganza - which means that everyone was crazy. Seriously.

I’m tired. No doubt about it.

So I came in, slipped out of my scrubs and into my very favorite pink tie dyed sweatpants and bare feet and just sat on the couch.

I was going to paint but I’m too damn tired. And it will keep. And no one lives here full time but me, so who cares?

I watched “Will and Grace”, which I love every single time, and I never would be able to watch it if I lived with someone else.

I don’t feel like talking although I stopped at my neighbors’ and threw some laundry in - my machines are still in storage awaiting the day when the weather, a borrowed truck, and some friends with muscles all cooperate at the same time.

I put a pot of coffee on and realized:

* I don’t have to call anyone, or wait for anyone to call me.

* I can eat a bag of popcorn - or nothing at all.

* I don’t have to listen to anyone’s proclamations about how terrible the world is, or people are or anything like that.

I can just veg out.

I’m sitting here yawning, looking like I’ve been dragged through a knot hole and not needing to be nice or supportive of anyone, or reassure them that my laziness and blah-ness has nothing to do with them, or my feelings about them - it’s just me being tired and lazy.

Sigh.

I could really get used to this.

Descent of a Woman April 20, 2008

When I thought of the title of this post it made me laugh, thinking of “da scent of a woman” - you know - the movie.

It’s been a hell of a few days.And I’ve decided that there are times when a woman needs to just be prepared to yank up her big girl panties (in my daughter’s words) and hie herself on down the steep and slippery slope to where she really doesn’t want to go.

There are times, yes, when positive self talk and all that shit are good and handy and right for the occasion.

But there’s a time for the dark too.

Like there is time for the shortened days of winter just as there is for the sweet and lovely sunshine of summer.

We are all so afraid of the “darker” emotions like sadness, loneliness, regret, grief, anger and discouragement that we run from them, talk ourselves out of them, medicate ourselves against them, drink, screw and pair ourselves up against them.

Maybe sometimes it’s time to just let them be. To let ourselves feel them.Feelings are just feelings, after all, and if you’re like me, they come and go like Iowa weather patterns.

But I believe they can teach us something, if we don’t pretend they’re not there.

I don’t have to be sunny and optimistic and perky and funny and strong all the time to be “doing this right” or to be a “good” woman.

I can allow myself to feel lost even, or as if the ground underneath me trembles. And still have faith that it won’t alwas be this way. To have faith, even, that this quicksand has something to teach me.

Some things I’ve learned in the last few days:

* Home improvements for a normal person is not like the typical 30 minute segment on HGTV. Damn them.

* When ex’es come out of the woodwork, they come out in droves. And they all basically say the same thing - which says, I think, more about me than it does about them. Maybe. Or maybe they really are all morons. Or both.

* It’s OK to make mistakes, sometimes, and then instead of beating oneself up, to say, whoa, shit, whaaaaaa???? And start over.

* That sadness doesn’t have to be this big Greek tragedy kind of thing - it can just be a background color - sort of a hazy green wallpaper - to the rest of life. And I will never use the word “wallpaper” ever again. Ever.

* That there are some people in one’s life that can always always always be counted on - regardless of geographical distance or age or gender or anything else. Britt, Jay and Creed are those people for me. I am lucky beyond measure.

* That electric bikes are a bitch to put together - and yet WICKED WICKED FUN to drive! And one can zip around like crazy - assuming one can acclimate oneself to riding after decades off wheels and not crash and kill oneself.

So I’m in “cave mode” right now. Not particularly fun, but at a very rich place of my life, mining the darkness.

And - endlessly - painting!