Communing with nature...

Just took a nice photo safari/hike in Wildwood Canyon. Okay, hike may be stretching it. More of a walk 10 steps, stop, huff and puff, pretend to be focusing for a picture of a flower, walk 10 more steps, stop, huff and puff, focus again... You get the idea.

It was a break I needed, though. Quiet, peaceful. I brought my nifty Shuffle along but remembered Peter blogging about how we block out the world around us with our music and our headphones and all the electronic gadgetry at our disposal and I left the headphones off. It was a lovely meditative walk/huffpuff/hike and I desperately needed it. The blue moon has been wreaking havoc with my mood the past few days and I needed to clear some of the cobwebs.

I'll post some pictures later as I took them the old-fashioned way, with my excellent Canon Rebel film camera. My digital just doesn't shoot as nice as this does.

So my advice for today - get out of your house/office/apartment/head and go grab some air. Leave the phone/Ipod/Wii at home and just breathe. It'll do wonders for you.

Luv. =)

Musings at 5:18 AM

I hate that it’s 5:18 AM and I’m wide awake.

I hate that my heart and my mind disagree so early in the morning and decided to have a full-on drag-out battle this early. I’m not ready to deal with these emotions right now but they seem to be ignoring me.

Can’t seem to let him go, despite logic, despite my brain telling me that every relationship – friendship or otherwise – has its flow, its ebb, and sometimes friendships just go away. But I feel like I’m missing a part of me. I can still feel him in my heart, the way I can feel all my good friends and the people that are dear to me.

I don’t let things go easily, particularly things that I don’t understand.

And I know there’s nothing I can do about it. At least, my head knows there’s nothing I can do about it. My heart is entirely another matter. It’s stubborn and obsessive and juvenile and given to tantrums and heartbreak. And right now, it’s throwing one hell of a hissy fit.

Maybe morning light will bring my heart some peace and my mind will rule during the daylight hours, finding a tentative treaty with this silly, stupid, irrational muscle. Maybe it’s the pending blue moon bringing this on. Whatever it is, I vote for the head to win this time so I can move on in peace.

Fear of...

I’m afraid that I will never be held again. Really held. With love. With passion. With fervor. After sex. Before sex. During sex.

Oh, yeah. And I’m afraid I will never have sex again. But, honestly, I think I can deal with that. I’d rather not have sex than have bad sex with someone I’m not in love with.

I’m afraid I will never have the shivering, quivering chills that come with delicate kisses on my neck.

God, I need to have sex.

Or not.

I just want to be wrapped up in someone’s arms, whether we’re watching TV or falling asleep.

Sometimes it’s hard when the men I adore hug me good night because that’s as close to the feeling as I can get right now. But those hugs always end too quickly and that feeling dissolves. And I’m left with this lingering want of something I can’t have.

And I’m afraid of spending the rest of my life alone in my daybed with my cat.

And I’m afraid I’ll never have that rush of a first kiss with someone. Or the rush of a second kiss. Or a hundredth kiss. Because I want someone who’s going to thrill me 15 years from now with his touch and his kiss and that may be too much to ask for.

And I’m afraid, occasionally, that maybe my ex (second one) was my soul mate and I fucked it up somehow. That he was the one meant for me and I was too stupid or blind or selfish or something-ish to see it. That I allowed what I wanted outside of our relationship to cloud what I wanted inside our relationship. I know that’s irrational and it’s stupid but it’s there.

I’m afraid that, after two marriages, that this is all I get. I had my chances and I blew them both. Now I get nothing else but the love of friends and the fleeting hugs of the men I love.

Mostly, I’m just afraid of never being held that way again. Because that leads to everything else. And, unfortunately, there’s not much any of you can do about it right now. Unless you want to send George Clooney over.

Virtual Fridge cont'd

One good thing about being a bit under the weather, I can justify sitting around, doing nothing. So I did nothing but paint this evening, while watching the evilest of all genres - the romantic comedy.

So check out my sickly paintings... working on this landscape drill I have to teach and am not feeling terribly confident about. These are the ones that I will show you. Others will never see the light of day. And a Georgia O'Keefe quickie knock-off.












Oh, and I changed my mind. George Clooney as sex slave. Robert Downey as naked house boy.

Sick ramblings of a blurry mind...

Tired and sick. Can’t decide whether to paint, draw or write. Consequently, I’m really doing none of the above.

My dear friend, Anna, commented that my blogs have been a bit cheery and bright lately and she was wondering what was going on. I laughed.

What is going on is this – I’m getting settled, I’m getting happier about my life. After two very long years, full of confusion and chaos and disarray, I feel like maybe things are finally settling down. I feel like I can kind of see my future, I can feel the beginnings of feeling the future inside me. For so long, I’ve struggled with figuring out a future without someone at my side. Now I’m accepting that my future is that – mine and will probably not have anyone in it, at least for a while. I need to plan without holding out for someone to be there. I need to take the last vestiges of my life off hold and finish the leap I started.

That doesn’t mean bright and cheery every day. Maybe about half the time. It’s still hard every day, particularly living with my folks. I love them dearly but, good god, sometimes I miss the chaos of living with Tiffany and her two crazy dogs.

Communicating with my first husband has put some things in perspective for me. Makes me realize a bit more about what I want.

I want that kind of love again. I want to love without hesitation, without fear, without panic. I want someone to take my breath away. I want to feel that thrill in my chest when he walks into the room. And I want to do the same to him. I want to see that in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he says, “There she is.” I want that first time love again.

And I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.

Partly because I still don’t have my heart back from OOMA. Yeah, I know that’s a dead-end. Yeah, I understand all the things you have all told me over the months of obsession and fixation. But the heart is a muscle with very stubborn memory retention and it hasn’t decided to come back to me yet. I don’t pine anymore. I miss his presence as I don’t see him as often as I used to and I know he’s been struggling with his own pile of crap lately. But there is a melancholy echo inside me where my heart should be and until that echo finally fades, I’m not sure I can reach out to someone else yet. The heart doesn’t always listen to logic, damn it.

And until my heart is whole again, there won’t be that potential for the kind of love I want. And I guess I accept that. Because I won’t settle for less than that. Maybe it’s nuts but I watch the women around me who I adore who are with men who don’t make them happy or don’t fulfill them or just don’t… And yet, they hang on to them because, I guess, they’re afraid of what would happen if they let go. So they settle for less than because it’s better than none. And I won’t do that, after fighting to get so much back into my life, I won’t settle for someone who doesn’t totally and completely curl my toes. That doesn’t mean I expect a perfect relationship to fall into my lap with no arguing or fighting or disagreements. That’s part of the fun of relationships. But it’s about the times in between, when things should be good. They should be GOOD. Even after fighting, I should want to make up as soon as possible so we can get back to the good stuff. I don’t want to waste more time just passing time with someone because I don’t want to be alone. To me, that would be worse. That would be like reliving the last five or more years of my marriage, where I was pretty much staying because I couldn’t see any other way.

I won’t waste that time again. I don’t consider the time focused on OOMA as wasted because it helped me define what I do want. And I think there was a window there where I could have maybe had what I wanted but I wasn’t ready to make that very scary step. I think partly because I was afraid of what would happen if we got together but I think I was also worried about becoming involved with him just because he was there and ending up like my friends – being with him because there isn’t anyone else in the immediate vicinity. I was so afraid of the “what if” with him that I chose to not even try. Maybe that’s as bad as being with someone unfulfilling, I don’t know.

And communicating with my first husband makes me know that, in 20 years, I don’t want to be here again, wondering if the man in my life is the right man. I know my first ex is struggling with something right now, he’s suggested that maybe he’s ready to walk away from his marriage of almost 20 years, and that makes me sad because he left me for her and I’m sad that his life hasn’t been happy. I would hope that he left me for something better. If he didn’t, what does that mean? He left me and ruined his life? I can’t believe that. I believe that we follow a path that is set before us and we choose when to veer off that path. If he veered, there was a reason. It’s up to him to find what will bring him back to the path he’s supposed to be on.

Okay, I’ll admit, the above paragraph had a point when I started it but my head cold is making it hard to remember why I was going there. Oh, well, most of my posts are blithering rants, why should this one be any different?

So maybe it comes down to this – why can’t we be happy? Why can’t we find what we seek and why are we afraid to seek that which can make us happy? Why do we tell ourselves we don’t deserve that happiness? Why do we fear that happiness?

I guess if I had the answers to that, I’d have my own best-selling book and my own talk show. I just know that I don’t want to settle for less than all the happiness I deserve and I may spend the rest of my life looking for that happiness but I won’t settle for less, even if I never find it. At least I’ll know that I did my best to try to find it.

Seens appropriate somehow...

Keith Urban's Stupid Boy. For no particular reason.

It all comes back around.

(the long version)

So many things in my life have seemed to circle around and return to me. The latest is this job at Mission: Renaissance. I looked into this job several years ago but due to lack of support on the home front because that job would interfere with my ability to be at RJ’s beck and call, I decided not to follow up with it. The irony is that this job would have solved a number of our financial problems.

So now, five or six years later, I am finishing my training, posted at a studio permanently. And today, the program director at Northridge, Jessica, talked to me about my future there. She has already gotten approval for me to continue my training up through oil painting. She wants me to be trained for the assistant program director position that she hopes will open up there in the fall. That means a weekly salary, benefits, paid vacation, the whole she-bang. This is after I’ve been there less than two months. All the things my ex pushed me to find in a job but always insisted on my settling for something 9-5, something more traditional.

The irony of all the things I passed up and passed by coming back into my life now staggers me sometimes. And sometimes, I am a little sad that he’s not around to share in the success I am achieving and the amazing life I am living.

Of course, because of him, I wasn’t able to embrace my success and I wasn’t allowed to live an amazing life.

I guess that’s why I am here today. He could have shared, he could have supported, he could have done so much that would have let him still be a part of this life.

But God seems to have known that these things were things that would be great for me, things that were in His plan for me, and despite the fact that I couldn’t choose to take the chance on some of this before, these choices have come back for a second and maybe a third time.

This gives me hope that other things I have passed by will come back around, if they are meant to be.

So, sorry for the rambling blog, but I’ve only got a short time between jobs to scribble this down. Much more I’d like to say about other things and hopefully that will come in the next few days.

Is this bad?

I've only but awake for 10 minutes but after dealing with my folks (Dad had eye surgery, is insisting he can drive to the doctor this morning, Mom hasn't driven in here in Burbank and, on a good day, drives probably worse than Dad with an eye patch) and I already want a stiff drink.

Hmmmm....

365 plays – I rock!

So, after weeks of misunderstanding, miscommunication and a whole bunch of misses, I arrived at the theater tonight to put together the 365 Plays at the Ark filled with apprehension and frustration. Too many things to go into here but just know that until the day before yesterday, I wasn’t sure this was going to happen at all.

I finished up the script this afternoon and emailed it off the script to the cast, unsure of what would happen.

Thank god for professionals. I walked in and the cast (Tricia, Douglas, Lindsay and Libby) were already reading through the script and working out some ideas. We read through the script, we chatted about embracing the total chaos that this had become. These actors were so open and ready to tackle anything. They all had checked their egos at the door and were prepared to go. We threw around some ideas about how to take the skeleton I had put together and make it more interesting. They had some great ideas and jumped in with both feet. We had about 45 minutes of rehearsal, laughing ourselves silly in the process. By the time we went up at 8:15, there was a real play there. Granted, it was a seven minute play but it was all there. The actors were off-book and really just went with the organic and chaotic essence.

We had a small but enthusiastic audience of four audience members and two of our own Ark Theatre members. These six people laughed their butts off and responded beautifully to everything. I was so excited and thrilled to see something that has been such a challenge and so frustrating come together in such an instinctive, organic, beautiful way.

I know that this would not have happened without the road map I wrote at the last minute and I’m thrilled, as always, to know that my instinct and my intuition was right. But nothing would have come together so well without a crew of actors willing to go on the ride with me and trusting me with their incredible gifts. Maybe seven minutes doesn’t sound like a big deal but if you’ve gone to a bad seven minute play, you know how long that seven minutes can be.

We do another show tomorrow (Friday) at 8:15 PM with a few new cast members (Trina, Rose and Janel) and I’m excited to see what these great folks are going to bring to the table.

So if you’re not doing anything Friday night from 8:15 to 8:22, stop by the ARK Theatre Company and check out our short but sweet 365 Plays.

This is why I changed my life...

Woke up at 6 am to work -

Went to MR Academy to sketch -

Came home, did some work -

Went and taught two classes (sketching and watercolor today!) -

Go to the Dodger game
with my two fav guys - Chairman () and Al ()

Came home and curling up with Twyla to go to bed -

My old life would have never allowed any of the above or any of the fun of the above (except the work part).

"These are the days that we'll remember..."

Virtual fridge and more

With apologies to Georgia O'Keefe (watercolor):



And I found out today that I have a permanent position at the M:R studio in Northridge beginning this week. I'll be teaching Tues thru Fri from about 3 til 7 and Sat from 8:30 to 3PM. Not too bad. That about 10 classes a week at $32.50 each. Yay! Money! Way too much fun. I'll also be going into the Academy once a week to keep up my training to move up through learning about tone and color and then into oil painting. Hopefully in a year or so I'll be doing oils and advanced watercolor.

Wow. And I was just looking for a fun part-time job. Silly me.

Virtual fridge - new artwork

So this is what I've done lately:



cougar in pastel/charcoal (got a little blotchy from the protective spray to seal the pastel)

and



watercolor penguins

Wheee!

Nostalgic but saner…

I think I just miss being 20. I miss the innocence and the fact that you can love that much and that hard because your heart is still new and hasn’t been battered by life yet. Even though there may have been seemingly horrible heartbreaks by 20, I think you still come into your first real, true, “adult” love unfettered by pain, open and willing to believe that this person could be your forever person. There is such a willingness to be open and loving and give yourself completely that I don’t think you ever get to again in your life because once that forever person breaks your heart, there is no mending it, there is no going back. You’re scarred for life and no other love will ever be the same because your innocence has been taken.

I’m just longing for that innocence again, to believe that someone could love me that way and that I could love someone that way again.

Stuff and nonsense.

I had written a whole blog yesterday about letting go and breathing and not clinging and finding my breath and stuff.

But that went out the window. I’m sure I’ll post it sometime soon.

What threw me off?

T.S.

My ex.

I find myself torn about this whole situation. We’ve been having lovely little “how are you and what’re you doing and, wow, you look great” kind of email exchanges. He’s on Myspace and put up some pictures of his family for me to see. I’m sure he’s perused the ones on my page as well. He looks great. He has two very lovely kids (almost adults now). And he’s still with the girl (woman) he left me for. They look happy. But everyone looks happy in pictures from Belize.

I don’t know. I guess it’s stirred up thoughts from the past, regrets about our relationship, weird longing that we never really got to have a real relationship because we were so young. It’s also dovetailing really well with my being alone at this point in my life. Lifetime movie fantasies of reconnecting with your lost love and discovering your whole life again. Yeah, we all know how much my life is like a romantic comedy. Does that make me Diane Keaton at my advanced age? (And “American Idol” is singing “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” in the background. Poetic? Tragic? Nothing at all?)

Part of me wants to give him my phone number and say call me. Maybe if I spoke to him I’d remember what a shit he had been. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do any more than say, hey, good to talk to you.

Part of me wants to keep this very surface, very light, very hands-off. He shattered my heart once, I don’t know how much I should let him in. But that was over 20 years ago. He’s a man now, not a boy. Married, family. He’s 2,000 miles away.

Part of me that is still 20 years old aches for him. It’s hard to believe he still holds my heart all these years and all these miles later. Do you ever get over your first love? Or do you just get past your first love?

I just know that right now, I have tears in my eyes, knowing that he’s online because of that fucking Myspace symbol that tells me he is. And I want to get on instant messenger and say all the things I never got to – why did you leave me and do you regret it and how much have you thought of me and did you miss me when I left and what did I do to make you leave and why didn’t we work out and did you really love me… and so much more.

So I’d better get off the computer, hide my head and hope that I come back to sanity very soon. Because I don’t need to go off in an entirely fantastical, ridiculous tangent. Because y’all know I can go there.

Boys.

This war is over

05/07/07

This war is over…

These last few years have indeed been a war.

A war with my ex that lasted over the last three or four years of our marriage as I fought for myself, fought for my dignity, fought for my self-preservation.

An emotional war as I struggled (and continue to struggle) to find my emotional core and figure out just who the hell I am with no significant other in my life and with changing everything in my life literally overnight.

A war with my heart as I try to figure out what I want, who I want and if I am ready to want.

A spiritual war as I try to figure out and discover if this is really what God had planned for me and am I following the path I am meant to follow.

A creative war as I fight to put all the negative input from my past behind me and try to find my footing in all of my endeavors, try to figure out if these are the endeavors I should be following and just what the hell I am doing in these endeavors.

What has led me to this is a song that keeps popping up on my Zombie Ipod playlist, a song by Melissa Etheridge called “This War Is Over.” The lyrics seem to be particularly impactful at this point in my life as I am beginning to let go of things and trying to just ride out my life and see where it takes me.

So I thought I’d share those lyrics with you and see if they resonate with you like they do with me. If you have this song, listen carefully next time.

THIS WAR IS OVER by Melissa Etheridge


"This War Is Over"

Take off my shield
Carry my sword
I won't need it anymore
Find me a sky
Give me my wings
Frozen and broken but free

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my shame
Bury it low
I won't need it anymore
Find me the sun
Give me it whole
Melt all the chains in my soul

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my pain
Carry me slow
I won't fight here anymore
Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

So this is what I've been doing...

Here are some samples of the artwork I have been doing as part of my training with Mission: Renaissance art programs. I've been in the actual art training just about two and a half weeks. Some of the stuff I've done I really love. Some of it looks like a fifth grader but, whatever.

Enjoy!

Musings on love (you have been warned)

It’s been a while and there are many thoughts in my head as of late, so please bear with me as I try to sort out the various paths in my mind. Be prepared, there may be more of these to come.

As you know, dear readers, my first husband contacted me recently. He said, as you’ve read, “In all my life I don't think I could find anyone who felt the way you did for me and for this I am sorry.” You have to understand, T.S. was my first – my first everything. The first man I truly, really fell in love with - heart, soul, mind and body. I thought you were supposed to love that way – in the way that you would give up everything for that person, take a bullet for them, stay with them if they were brain dead and on life support. Love them no matter what. He’s right – but in a weird way. I will never feel for anyone else the way I felt for him.

I thought I loved my current ex in the same way but I think I always knew that it was a little different. How could it not be? T.S. still had a piece of my heart, a piece that he will carry to his grave. I knew that the instant I opened this mysterious email message and saw his name on it. He still has that piece of my heart and I realized it in that second.

However, I did love my current ex with everything that was left of my heart because I didn’t realize that there was a segment missing. Maybe that’s why we didn’t make it – that missing piece of my heart. Oh, and his caustic, abusive manner may have contributed. But I gave him everything, because that’s how I thought you were supposed to love somebody – with every fiber of your being, ready to give up everything for them, take a bullet, etc., etc.

Then there was one who made me realize that I missed the passion and the spontaneity and the pure adrenaline that T.S. had possessed. Although we were never to be anything but friends, he stirred something in me long dormant – the desire to be around somebody exciting and who thought I was incredible and who could make me smile just by the sound of his voice on my phone. I tried not fall in very heavy “like” with this person but he had the passion my life lacked and that was so attractive. I knew there was no future, I knew there was nothing there except for this unexplainable thing he stirred in me. I knew so much of it was just that – he stirred something long dead in me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have good control of my emotions and my heart to not keep some of this to myself and not throw a huge piece of my heart at him, whether he wanted it or not. I tried to hang on to it but it got away from me. Things ended badly, although I never really knew why. Someone who knew us both through all this said that I was “too much” and needed to back off. I tried. Apparently, I failed because he withdrew, he attacked, and now he only is a beautiful, tragic, heart-breaking memory of one of the most amazing and terrible times in my life.

And my current OOMA has also retreated, pretty much completely out of my life now. What I feared for so long has come true – he doesn’t miss me, I don’t mean to him what I thought I did, and I did it again. I was “too much” and drove him away. And yet another piece of my heart went with him, a piece that I will never get back.

So, slowly but surely, my heart has been broken and fractured and shattered into a million pieces. Pieces that will never come back. Pieces that are where they belong, I guess, with those who took them. And I guess I have bits and pieces of each of theirs, tucked away securely so I can take them out and cherish them when my heart feels so broken and destroyed that I wonder if I can ever pull enough of it together to ever give it to someone again. Because there is so little of it left now that I don’t think I can chance giving any of it away again.

Because I still believe – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that love should be whole and deep and organic and unconditional. I still believe that loving someone should mean being willing to give up everything. I still believe that there should be love so pure and true and real that it takes your breath away to be in the same room with that person. That is what love should be. That’s what I think love is.

And I get glimpses of that kind of love, most of which is totally unconditional and comes from many in my life. They are seconds or maybe a minute or two and they are fleeting but they are what I seek.

Such as last night. Cute Boy (who I admit I still have a terrible crush on and secretly I still wish he’d dump his lovely but kind of dull girlfriend and come running to my door, despite knowing that we are worlds apart) gave me one of those moments. He hugged me good night in such a way that said, “I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad you came tonight, I’m glad you’re my friend and in my life.” He held me just a second longer that he probably should have, and I held him back, and he made that happy, affectionate noise in his throat that I know I have made when I hug someone I love – whether one of my dear girlfriends or the OOMA. In that millisecond, I knew I was loved, without agenda, without definition, just pure, true, unconditional. Those are wonderful moments and I treasure them. Monica has done the same thing to me lately several times.

It makes me wonder what would happen if we all just let ourselves go and just love. Just love. Just say, “I love you” to anyone you love. Not “I love you and want to fuck you.” Just simple – “I love you.” If, in that moment last night, Cute Boy had said, “I love you”, I’d like to think it would have meant just that to me – that he loved me, that he was glad I was in his life and that was it. Of course, I probably would have lost my mind and spent the entire night sitting up, wondering what he meant and if he truly loved me, etc., etc., because we’re trained by the world that people only say I love you if they want to be your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover. Not because you just do.

As I walked back to my car after this lovely moment, I realized something about love and me and my marriages and my life. I am too much and I love too much and I give too much and I expect too much. I don’t know how to do it any differently. I don’t know how to not give so much of myself to someone who seems to care about me, most obviously men who care about me. But, in the end, I always end up heartbroken and weary and wary and shattered. It makes me afraid to be fond of any men in my life. It has made me recently want to resurrect a wall around me and not give anything to anyone and just shut myself off. Particularly lately, knowing that the OOMA no longer cares enough to hang around. I don’t want to feel this way again, I don’t want to hurt this much again, I don’t want to risk anything ever again.

I have given up everything I had and I was and I wanted for two men, whom I married. I loved them deeply and purely and openly and with everything I had. And they took my love and they took what I gave and they took and they took and they took. Both of them gave back “as much as they could.” A phrase that should forever be removed from the English language. That simply means they aren’t capable of loving that person the way one should – without hesitation, without fear, without agenda. “As much as you they could” is not enough anymore, ever. It’s unfair and it’s disproportionate. If I love you with everything I have, you should give as much in return. One shouldn’t love more than the other. But it is often the case.

I guess what I really came down to is simple. I want someone who loves me the way that Cute Boy loved me in that millisecond last night. Unconditionally. No agenda. No fear. Not too much, not too little, just right. But someone who loves me that way always. Okay, now, I realize there are times when you want to throw a chair at the one that you love because they’re human and sometimes we almost deserve to have chairs thrown at us. But I want someone whose eyes light up when they see me, who cannot wait to see me to tell me all about his day and hold me and tell me how much he loves me – and who means it in that agenda-less, unconditional way. Someone who loves me despite my craziness and my over-achiever silliness and my spinning wheels of emotion. Because that’s how I want to love, that’s how I know how to love. I can’t internet date because I don’t want or know how to be that casual. I want real, I want true. I want it all.

But life doesn’t allow that. It allows glimpses just before someone runs away. It allows the pretense of that love, until “as much as he can” runs out and he doesn’t anymore. It allows the prevention of the mending of my heart and the rampant growth of my fear in that shattered organ. It allows me to stand on the side, thinking I need to change the way I love. It allows for me to be alone and afraid instead of allowing me someone who loves the way I need.

But I also realize that it is just a fantasy. There isn’t unconditional love out there, other than from my beloved Twyla. Even that is based on a clean litter box and the occasional treat. There are just men who are afraid and men who have to destroy in order to be fulfilled in some way. Men for whom “as much as they can” is what they give because that’s all that’s required of them. There is no one out there who is as “too much” as me.

That leaves me with a choice. Be “too much” and sleep with my cat for the rest of my life. Or be “as much as I can” and hold something substantial back, just to be in the company of someone else giving “as much as they can,” both of us being less than and both of us maybe wishing for more but unable to give more. Many have chosen the latter, which makes me sad. But I’m not seeing many other choices out there.

So, for now, I guess I choose alone.

Moved me to tears...

So, my ex-husband emailed me back and caught me up on his life. Married for the third time, but seems to be very happy, two kids (16, 17), two dogs, two cats. He's an engineer (of all things) and a GIS computer system designer. Wow. Stunned. He wanted to be a chef.

Then he added:

"On the side there something I feel I have to say. We had something wonderful and also tragic I don't feel I was even a knight (maybe a big toad or something)I was very selfish through all of the short time we had together. In all my life I don't think I could find anyone who felt the way you did for me and for this I am sorry. I hope we can be friends (like pen pals...cuz you are so far away). keep in touch."

He touched me so deeply with this. I loved him in a way that I don't think I've loved anybody since. We were so young when we got married - I was 21, he was 20. He had a very screwed up family and wanted to relive his teenage years, since he never really had any.

I'm so moved and touched and overwhelmed by the people who have come back into my life in the last few years - Chairman, Al Underwood, and now, Shawn. I don't know what it all means. I don't know that it's supposed to mean anything. i do know that, at times like this, I feel so blessed by these reunions of those from my past. With everything I've gone through in the last two years, it's strangely like going back to the years where I was most happy - the beginning of my relationship with Shawn, my time at Universal where I made some of my best friendships. Maybe it's the opportunity to return to the joys and the wonder of that time, letting go of the pain and the hurt of the last few years.

Whatever it is, I'm glad I've got it.

Yes, it was him...

The email from yesterday was from my first husband (a phrase I will never get used to). He didn't say much in his second email so I'm thinking I'll just drop him a line back, say it was good to hear from him, hope life has been treating him well and to stay in touch.

Strange how the internet keeps us all connected in the weirdest ways.

Here are a couple of badly scanned photos I was using for the original "Cinderella Drives a Pick-Up" book. Yeah, I WAS that young once.

Sing it with me... It's a small world, after all...

So this is an email I get today for "lifeonitsside" from Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up.

"Dear Life on its Side, I have happened across a synopsis of your book turned to film on the Web. It looks like a great piece of work and I am interested in either reading your book or seeing the film. Could you direct me to somewhere near my home that I could get a copy ?

Thank You,

T. Shawn Smith"

The email address is "mts" - Manitoba Telephone System.

Now, about 100 years ago, in another life, I was married to a Todd Shawn Smith. There are a couple of hits on my Cinderella site from Canada with the same amount of hits under a search for my name.

So I sent him a fairly innocuous email back, asking if he's in Winnipeg and if he is indeed the Shawn Smith I knew.

Wow. It's a weird world. I haven't talked to him in probably 10 or 12 years.

We'll see what happens. Wonder what he would do if he knew he was a character in "Cinderella", played by the awesome A.J. Bowen. He should be flattered by my choice of actors to play him.

Anyway, I'll let you know what happens.