Miraculously my email has started recieving Blogstream mail...I dunno what happened, but I'm happy...got a PM from old bud Marvin that I woul've missed if it hadn't magically fixed itself...that is soo cool...Marvin & I play rock n roll trivia...a few stantzas from a tune & the other guy has to guess the tune&/or artist. vig fun 4 me...I had a great day...am hitting the sack & will fill you in on details when I can get it together...until then, no worries...hard work good and hard work fine, but first take care of head....I'm sleep-typing...day is done & has done me in I'm done.

Crashtome ladies sing this song "Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah..." & I b truckin on to crashtown like a doo-dah woman & catch y'all on the flip side

1.Tried this yesterday, but storms knocked me offline, and made me humble & grateful that now further damage was done. I was really wise & prolific yesterday, sorry you had to miss it. Dunno what I can come up with today.

I know I mentioned finishing, "tuedays with Morrie," yesterday,& how it so coincided with what my father is going through right now...his anger, his intent on discontent, his putting up a brave front that can be shattered with a hug or a kiss. Morrie craved human touch...accepted what it felt like, and detached when needed. I was wondering if maybe it might be a good thing to take "tuesdays" with me to Dad's on Sundays, and read a lil of this or that...maybe to all 3 folks. They may all already be to far gone to grasp the concept of accepting death being simply the next thing that is done, after life...and we need to accept this in love, and then detach, and go onto learn more about living & loving in the moment, for the moment. I'm thinking it might beat searching for conversation & having them ask for the blare of tube to cover the fact that they ( &I ) are too uncomfortable to formulate any coherrent sentences that they most likely want to talk to someone about. They are children, again, as was Morrie, and maybe they will enjoy me reading to them. I'll get back with you on that.

2. High on a hill, in San Franciso, The Director known as "Razz" will be retiring as Director of Rock Medicine tomorrow at a "Partially-catered", pitch-in dinner celebration at a local Bay Area bar. I googled it. Razz will be 59 and "returning to sanity" as he retires from the Rock Medicine division of The Haight Asbury Free Medical Clinic. I'd been there through many Directors during my 17 yr seasons on & off volunteer years...when I last left, in '92, Razz was in charge then. I had already been on the scene a lot, when Razz started volunteering & had risen quickly to a no nonsense leader..mostly. I mean hey! They all lived the Haight! There had to be some occassional nonsense... Fat Tuesday gatherings at a bar we hired for the celebration...we came in the bar& the door was locked behind us...that was the night that I won the costume contest...where this other purty lil girl & I want dressed as a magician(me, with top hat & wand), and she went as the rabbit that came out of my hat. We showed a lot of leg, and won 1st prize & had a blast...my old friend, Sean, will be attending the party, tomorrow, & surprising Razz & taking his 2 brothers, & they are all pitching in to give Razz the Complete Collection of Dick's Pick's as a gift. I wish I could be there for the party, but I am happiest here. What would I do in a bar anyway, these days? I've changed a lot. I'm happy to be here, right here, right now. Adios, Razz...me companero y me hermano, Viya Con Dios...

3. Right here, right now, the humidity has lifted in Indiana...rain storms moved on out this morning, and a coupla sinus pills moved my head ache out with it...it is uncannily breezy & beautiful & bright & I plan to go brush out the mutts here, when the back porch dries up some. Have done some house work, and will do more, but I'm not looking to win any medals here...unless, maybe on the treadmill, all things in moderation. Ipod, H20, &/or mucical DVD(Santana has this great one, all instrumental & scenery, "Lightdance" which is almost perfect, but only lasts 25 minutes...& there is always the risk of Bubba coming in from his lawn-mowing festival, and I'd have to again having to hear, "What are you listening to?" He knows it's Santana ...he doen't really care who it is, as long as it is music, to him it is noise....he just wants all music to cease when he is around. Music bugs him. IMAGINE THAT! what a drag, that must be for him!. I reckon if that if it is his only tragic flaw(and I do find it tragic! don't you?), then I am simply going to have to love music enough for thr both of us, or blissfully die, trying.

4.I've been suffering some communication problems with folks I love off & on as of late. I say what comes to mind, & as I am trying to construct some lines of defense, & boundaries, etc. There have been misunderatanding words and concepts exchanged, and I seem to have problems making myself heard without hurting... guilt, confusion, regret, border line self-rightous indignation, desire for autonomy mixed with desire for love, conflicting emotions and maybe some hurt feelings or maybe some indifferent feelings & I am blowing things out of porportion, just trying to get a grip. Ahhhh... drama, I know thee well... such old pals, the 2 of us. where would we be without drama? Some of us more than others, lost, mechanical, unfeeling...overly, detached...
I shall attempt to make amends for misunderstanding as is my natute in the near future...

5) I've been cornered into working 1/2 day this Sunday, even though my boss promised me that last Sunday would have been my last Sunday. No body else cares if it gets done, it has to be done & if it is not done, I will eat crappola from the overheated, angry & ill tempered facory workers come Monday morning...workers, that are my friends when my company lives up to the promises that they have made... A lil thing like running out of Lemon-Lime Powerade Friday set 2 lil ol ladies off shrilly yellin at me Friday...I have 4 other flavors...I showed them the order sheet where I had orded 6 cases & they were out of stock at the warehouse.. Only comeback was that my company should be better prepared.

" Yes, Maam, they should. Perhaps you'd care to tell them just that?" I always offer ill-tempered customers the chance to vent at my office, I often dial the number for them. Ususally, most folks just want to vent @ me cuz I am there... methinks that makes me a spank-monkey, does it not? ...really not what I was going for here, & I just don't want to be there Sundays anymore...I put 25 miles r/t on my truck, to waste 4 hours hustling to try in vain to please all of the people all of the time, stock up & replenish what my company has to offer, and after taxes, I bring home roughly $20 before I go back home, pick up Rex, visit friends & family in another town 30 miles the other way, close to 70 miles round trip & well, I guess I'm still, in a sense, trying to please all of the people all of the time for the rest of the day...& then, get to come home to Bubba, to please me.

things could always be worse,& many times, they have been, and I suppose, some day they will get worse again,- if I don't keep my guard up & don't choose to let it become worse, things might not, for a change...but,then, as it is in the nature, of life, change and choice, the circle will come back again. One can not know true joy, unless one has known true sorrow...

THIS WILL BE MY LAST SUNDAY WORKING...(I bet!-not)

Now, I must be off to brush out the dogs, clean the house, truck on the treadmill, enjoy the weather, enjoy the moment, put on or take off some music, dance whenever possible, laugh, and to try & make up for the time when I did know that great sorrow would one day bring me the knowledge of great joy... Sorrow, in it's own time, will come again...in time. not today.

no time, not enough of it something always needs to be done but I am the face of procrastination.

what a time in my life to be reading, "Tuesdays with Morrie,"...my sweet dad called tonight to ask if I will come to work for his nursing home so that he & Rene could get what they needed when they needed it...I did caregiving in his home for a year or so...to Dad & Rene. Spent the day, most days there with hired help or without her. She would stay nights, I'd come Days. Such a soap opera. Watching them decline, fighting or nor fighting depression, in pain, so uncomfortabele...my brother & sister came to bat for me then, too...realistically advising Dad that caring for the two of then on their down hill slide, had taken a toll upon me and that I could no longer be their caregiver. Drama every time you turned around...My brother Buzz, took the control and stepped up to my Dad & declared that Cher could no longer do this, that they were too ill and required professional care...I felt horribly guilty for letting them down, but Buzz was right, it was detremental to my emotional and physical well-being. I felt guilty, but grateful They were failing fast, Dad, drinking as much as he could whenever he could in a hopeless effort to get a grip...sly...Rene on rampages...I had to take a step back, and my brother & sister saw it & had the guts to speak out...

you must please all of the people all of the time, my inner child pouts..."Is everybody happy?" "Let's all get happy!" What can I do to make you happier...to heck with what I want, your happiness is more important to me than my own happiness is...what is it that makes me look for approval without, for I fear, I will not find it within.

Gag me. This is a lil sickly kids, let's be realistic...I know better, but my first instinct is to ensure the comfort & well being of others, people that I barely know....to go that extra mile, and rah/TEAM/rah!& then, I just figure I'll be happy if I can make others. And i know better. Life is short, even if it seems otherwise to those who are not watching it dwindle away, losing touch, barely missing the mark, but always missin.

I want to find stuff by Leo Buscagula, esp "Love"...I want to rediscover the PBS speaker whose lecture on love one Saturday morning saved my life. Talked me right out of doin' sumthun stupid, using his only tool-"Love" shouln't there be copies of thos tapes somewhere? what an eyeopener...love, life, death, decline...Maude once said, "I like to watch things grow.They sprout and grow and come th their fruition, then wither and die, and turn into something else..." or words to that effect.

late. Crashtown Bound

I spent my first hour in counseling, Tues. afternoon with Cecile, a "Licscenced Mental Health Theapist." This was the aforementioned appointmet that my brother & sister thought that I would benefit from, awhile back. The recommended counseling that I spent two days cring over because I felt like-what kind of flake am I if family thinks I should seek professional assistance with the way that I am living my life... & I even agree with the concept. I really ought to be better than I am, I have the ability to be better, but fail to feel able to take neccesary steps to achieve a better me. And, big brother, Buzz, wants to foot the bill, he feels that strongly about my need for self improvement... Those two days, I felt like an absolute loser, a screw-up...Afterwards, I got a lil' better with the concept. I suppose it took a while to wrap my head around, and when you've reached my age, you like to think that you can take care of your own self. It's a desirable way to feel about one's self. It takes guts to go lookng for ways to improve myself, and I felt a great deal of shame that I could not pay for what I agreed that I needed. It put me in a wierd head space-it still has, but I do feel much better about it today.

Her office was in the basement of a moderately small office building. I found it to hold a cooling relief from the heat wave, & I wore a skirt & sandals for the occasion. She had me fill out the intake form & where she asked my reason for coming, I wrote "Low self-esteem and odd behaivior." I think that she was expecting to see "depression" written there, but those are not the words that I chose.

She pounced with a grin & asked "What odd behavior?" She had a comfy, homey office with lots of pillows, a lit candle, many places to choose from to sit. I forgot that most therapists give you your choice of multiple seats & where one choose to sit, usually tells a lot about yourself, right off. I sat on a pillowed divan near her office door & desk & her desk seat on rolling wheels. put us at eye level. I figure, in retrospect, that that may have been a good choice on my part-we were equals, in spite of my afore claimed low self esteem.

"Well, when I am faced with detailed instructions; ambiguous, conflicting, multiple instructions, I kind of go into a fugue state, my eyes seem to glaze over & even though I am aware of my surroundings, when the need to organize my responses and complete those instructions arises, I feel overwhelmed, eaisly confused, and pretty much unble to peform anything, as instructed. It feels like what I would imagine an autistic feels-I know the world is out there & I have things that need to be done, but I draw a big, fat blank at where to get started...get really nervous & pissed off at myself, too, because I know that I know better..."

Then, I asked her if she was familiar with that line from David Crosby, "And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do..." I don't think that she was familiar with it, but she caught on to the concept right away, chuckling, grinning, and nodding her head.

She had asked me to bring my recently updated resume with me, and she seemed intrested in things that I had done in my past, asking me to tell her a little about this n' that. You don't wanna ask me to tell you some stories, unless you've got some time on your hands, &/or you are getting paid to hear it, 'cuz you know, I just love telling my stories... Like my Dad, I'm a natural-born story teller, and rarely the abridged edition, at that.

So I told her tales of the Navy, & chasing the California Dream, and friends, and ex's, and old deeds well-done, and mistakes that I had made & hoped to have learned to not repeat them in the future. I had tales of working Rock Medicine, of dancing ("when I dance, free form and alone, I don't care what I look like, I feel like I am sparkling!)" She wrote that one down word for word, she liked it...

And I had no touble rambling on...folks, friends, siblings, work, my past jobs, past & present relationships, Bubba, my earlier wanderlust, my current semblence of happiness & contentment with my home these days, here in Indiana,and so forth & so on.(I had slammed a sugar-free Red Bull prior to the appointment, and never ran short on conversation, nor a fair amount of laughing)

Liking the work that I do, but getting the shaft from those I work for every time they can pinch a penny-I know that there are few as good as I am at what I do, but I get no recognition beyound an "Atta-Boy",or a "Go Team, GO!" I talked about how if I had adapted against all odds favorably to this job, I should be able to pull off a similar scenario in a better job, except that I just freeze up when it comes to doing the fookwork, shining at the interview, etc.& getting that better job..

Cecile tells me that in any relationship there is either a Parent to Child relationship or a child to child or an adult to an adult, or parent to parent...Light bulb moment, when I recalled being married to HP & calling him "Daddy" as a term of endearment..ooops!(sicko!) And she tells me that a relationship between a parent-type and a child-type, can never grow unless the child grows strong enough to relate parent-type to adult-type, or adult-type to adult-type. And I need to continually keep myself from falling into role-playing as a child, and step up and demand to be recognized as an adult.Hmmmm...More light bulbs do I see...if I don't feel well upon rising in the morning, I often find myself asking Bubba if maybe I should take a sick day. I am asking his permission, as a child would ask an adult or parent. Being Bubba, he says "Awww, you can make it," & unless graphically ill, I obey & go to work. I often ask his permisssion to do this or that...and he says, "You go do what you want to do", and I feel a little lost initially. The Navy, my marriage, my life, I've always sought permission, forever trying to please all of the other people all of the time, & unless graghically ill, (& beleive me...it does makes me feel ill to stand up for myself, or be self-righteous),I always tend to do what I am told to do with little regard as to what it is that I want to do. Does that make any sense? It did to me. I've got stuff to work on. I am not a child, but expect and allow myself to be treated as one. Everybody I know seems in a higher position of authority than the authority I grant myself... in so many aspects of my life. I find it is a lil scary that it does make so much sense to me, as by & large, this is how I allow myself to be treated,& how I live my life... trying in vain to please all of the other people all of the time-it's even the conception of a child, as it is an impossible thing to do. I am the old wandering hippie-child, still shuffling around happy in tie-dye and sandals, chasing the music, chasing approval, chasing acceptance, puzzled when folks treat me as child-like as I am, as child-like as I tend to act... how I view my world, live my life... I expect to be experimenting with setting not only new goals, but new boundaries, as well.

Cecile & I had a great time. We hugged. We ran over the alloted time. I will see here again next Tuesday @ 4. She wants to explore my inner child-can't help thinking of the Eagle's tune "Get Over It"-"I'd like to find your inner child, and kick it's little ass!"

Who knows? Kicking myself in the ass (kindly), might be just what is needed for a better me as a whole.

She told me as I left, that I was quite the entertainer, and that observation puzzled me, and I asked her "How so?"

"Well," she answered, "I've been thouroghly entertained for well over an hour, now, & I wish we had time for an encore. That makes you an entertainer..."

Yeah, in a way, I guess it does.

Saturday morning had such potential, until out of sheer foolish habit, I once again put my foot in it.

Oh, we slept in until after 7...that in itself is quite the accomplishment. Had a liesurley breakfast, & watched the local news & then, GMA...other than the latest insanity in the Mid East, all the headlines were about the heat wave. Bubba had a migraine soon after rising, watched all the heat wave warnings with me, then announced he was off to mow his Mother's lawn, before he came back to mow another yard of ours(we have sizeable, front, back lawns & then either side of the house lawns & a section of land that will someday be a road that Bubba races our neighbor to mow). Except Bubba has a push mower & the neighbor has a rider. It's a testosterone thing, I guess. Long about then, I put the aforementioned foot in it.

The heat, the humidity, the warnings on the tube, Bubba's recent flirtations with heart problems, his high triglycerites, his blood pressure pill that he takes upon himself to cut in half as it makes him lethargic...and his plans to maybe skip his next MD appt., & if he does go, will not allow himself to be "used as a guinea pig trying to find pills that don't bother him," so he will not mention his problems with the medications, his migraines, his occasional palpatations, etc.

My own blood pressure sky-rocketed. i couldn't reason with him. He remained a steadfast man with a mission, mowing lawns. In the mid 90's, with the high humidity, his health, everything...he had a mission. I went nutz. But none of it matterd. A man's gotta do what he thinks he's got to do...and he did it... & he survived it.

Me, I hit the treadmill, angry & unpleasant. Not the me I like to be. I realized that after the 1st mile. God help me, I was trying to control the man I love. Whatever made me think that I could change him(shades of talks with past shrinks)? My answer, the one that jumps to mind now, as then, was..."I wasn't trying to change him, I was trying to help him"...oooooooo wait a second. Helping IS changing. I thought that I had learned that one already. I must've forgotten...again. By the 2nd mile, I had mellowed entirely.When he returned from the first lawn, I apologized. When he went out for the front lawn, I only joshed with him (pointedly, admittingly), but being a better me than I was when he left the first time. And he survived. I only have control over me & a few of the little things...the movies i picked to watch after the treadmill, hitting the computer, lovin' the mutts, kicking my own migraine as best as I can...yup, the storms moving out, the humidity moving in, letting myself think that had control over Bubba for his own good, arguing, anger, frustration, all put together gave me some instant karma. It's gonna getcha, if you give it the opportunity.

I'm better now. Headache seems to be easing.I've been deep breathing & hitting the ice packs, and "The Green Mile", and an old Louis D'Amour classic "The Shadow Riders."

Now, to the vacuum as the 2nd movie ends...the county finally blacktopped that dirt/gravel road in front of the house, which eliminates 1 xcuse for not keeping up with dusting & housework. My cup runneth over-with dog hair. This stuff, I may be able to control a little bit with a little bit of effort.

I just started reading "Tuesdays with Morrie" & I am so excited that Morrie & I share that passion for dancing....I gotta do some housework, but cannot wait to go back to learning some life lessons from a kindred spirit in paperback.

My God...1/2 the day is gone! almost all of it! To think I allowed so many negatives waves to rule for so long...when will they ever learn? when will I?