Sleep July 27th

Dear Hearts,

So, I write this blog to you from my wireless keyboard and gifted iPad.

I left my fucking charger for my beloved laptop at the NY House. I was crushed but I couldn’t be too crushed considering I have a Kindle, iPad, iPhone, and wireless keyboard.  But I love my MacBook.

Nothing is like my MacBook. Since I got my first one in 1995, I have had very personal and emotional relationships with my laptops. Once you go Mac, you don’t go back. They don’t even fucking make MacBooks anymore. They have phased out the DVD/CD drive on the computers. Because who uses DVDs or CDs anymore? I do.

I survived those nights at grad school in the un-air-conditioned dorm rooms by watching DVDs on my laptop. I watched a DVD every morning when I got ready for school (starting in ’05) until Hulu and watching TV online became a thing.

Yesterday we were at the NY House and I slept till like nine and had a reasonable amount of time for breakfast.

Mom is not the Drill Sergeant she was the first time we tried packing up the house.  Three days seems to be our limit there. But, during our last spell there I dreamt of Arthur and T on the first night. I talked in my sleep all night long and then mom woke me up in the morning because I was swearing at them. T and that cunt Boss Lady from last summer--we're calling me a stupid, useless bitch.

And, I share a secret with you. Deep down inside I really am afraid they’re right. I am a useless, stupid bitch. I contribute nothing to anyone’s life or society.  Yeah, I comforted the lady at the hospital, but someone else coulda done that too.

Yesterday, we were supposed to stay and work at the house—attack the furnace room and throw out shit that I saved over the years. Yes. Johnny, you’re right. I have hoarding tendencies. I find it really, really hard to throw things out. I have hundreds of magazines—

I had to got down and make coffee so I can chill it in the fridge

--and papers. /receipts. Little bits and pieces of paper with story ideas—yeah, I used to write down fucking story ideas—quotes, thoughts, quotes I have thousand of those papers. The tags to my CK jeans. Keep ‘em. Empty perfume bottles. Oh the list goes on.

Johnny, my Barbies, precious things, and books do not count as hoarding. All the other stuff yeah. Also, it’s easier to just put it away and deal with it later  But so this blog isn’t totally self -indulgent, I want you, Dear Hearts, to understand—

Dad just called me downstairs to ask me when the special mini-series on the Unabomber is on. I always kinda felt sorry for him. He was a Ted Bundy or Timothy McVeigh. He was very precise in whom he targeted and for what reasons.

--I want you to understand what it is like to feel physical anxiety at throwing things away.

Okay. My  Barbie catalogs. I love Barbie. She is a passion. She makes me happy. The American Girl catalogs I love those dolls. I used to spend hours and hours looking at the dolls and their historically accurate accessories when I was a kid. Magazines. I need to save every magazine with J-Lo on it. Because I admire her and maybe if I keep “her” around I will gain some wisdom and be able to be more like her. You know, successful. Same goes for Angelina Jolie and Jackie Kennedy. And then there are the papers from 9/11 and Reagan’s death. Ya’ know what?

As I type this I really don’t know why it’s important to me to save the tags to my CK jeans. They’re special? Okay, I don’t understand it. It makes no more sense than the fact that I WILL NOT participate in the “sharing a sign of peace” with your neighbor at Mass but I have no problem letting a dog kiss me right on the face. Mouse droppings are far less threatening that Sally’s hand.

It’s a disorder, a disease, a thing. I have it. I save a little bit of wrapping paper from every Christmas. I save the shopping bags I got in England. I guess I am trying to hold on to…something…This is what I want you to get: I feel a physical and emotional discomfort and pain when I have to throw certain things away. It’s real and it sucks.

I can still get upset about lending that chick in college my philosophy notebooks that I never got back. I’m not justifying it. I wish I didn’t have it. But, no, you can’t “just get over it.” You think I think being this way? I’ve been this way since I was a kid.

I am way better now than I used to be. But going through the NY House and throwing out magazines without even looking at them—physical and emotional pain. Fear.

And guess what? My fucking Dad has it too. He saves wrapping paper for gifts too. I have hundreds of Barbie boxes. He wants me to keep them all. I could probably let some of them go—I am never gonna rebox them. I will never rebox the Hallmark ornaments. But going through the boxes and deciding would be so hard. He is determined to keep them all so I am letting him fight that fight with Mom for me.

Call me a pussy.

Yesterday as Mom and I stepped into the Furnace Room—which holds a lot of “Marriage” boxes—stuff from Arthur and my marriage—I couldn’t. We weren’t planning on going through those boxes. Those boxes are just gonna get stored. But there is other shit in that room too.

I couldn’t do it. I could not do it. I asked Mom if we could leave. I could feel the panic rising. The thoughts racing.

I just want to scream and run wildly off a cliff.

Imagine taking 15 years of your life—most of which was painful, heartbreaking, and tragic—and add in all the precious things that give you comfort and throwing them away and boxing them up.

My life is in fucking boxes. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I just sleep. I sleep eight or nine hours at night and then I sleep in the afternoon. “To die, to sleep…” “From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be…” Sleep takes reality from me. Sleep allows me to be dead.

Dad is sorting things now too. I throw out way more than he does. So yay me. But, found a card I wrote to him and Mom when I was 21 years old. I had such hope then.  I actually thought I was gonna fly. Oh, I flew and crashed, like JFK Jr.’s plane. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down.

Neither can I.

I have done a lot of fucking thinking about my tattoo. Mom disapproves of where I am gonna get it. Right below my collar bone on my left side over my heart. I could get it along my side. That would not be publicly visible.

And I have really thought about this.

I need that tattoo over my heart. Because women with wolf tattoos don’t get called fucking bitches or cunts. Women with wolf tattoos don’t let a boss bully them. Women with wolf tattoos don’t look at a bottle of Visine and Xanax and fly to that “undiscovered country.”

If I regret my tattoo when I am 50 or 55 or 48…I don’t fucking know. I need this tattoo. People get plastic surgery and Botox all the fucking time. So why not mark myself with something that says “My scars tell a story. They are reminders of when life tried to break me, but failed, bitch.”

So we go back to the NY House Sunday. I may or may not go to Mass tomorrow. Does God really care?

I want a cigarette and my coffee now. So that’s what I am gonna do. And, then I will stay up so late that when I do go to sleep there is no time to think.

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.

Grateful For: (Written Aug. 3)

Taking a run!

Vacuuming for Mom!

Family

Health

Bears