Ersatz Danie

Ersatz (n) Serving as a substitute; synthetic; artificial.


a few facts about my recents and things i've clearly just been too fucking lazy to just sit down and post in the last several months, meaning that most everyone who USED to read my blog most likely has gotten bored with and forgot about me?


i've put on very nearly forty pounds... this leaves me completely unwilling to go out into public situations where people may notice that i've put on weight. i refuse as wildly as i can to go see friends or go to open mic nights. i post very few photos of myself. i take even less. i hate looking at myself in the mirror and avoid it as often as possible. my hair's ugly. my face is ugly and pudgy. my belly is embarrassing. when going out i layer as much as possible to make it look more as if i'm just sheltering a thinner body with tons of layers... nobody else needs to know that most of those layers are made of fat. i hate for Muffin to see me and am stifled only with shame when he DOES catch a glimpse of me in any state of undress.

i have a job now... which is actually going astoundingly well. i was officially offered the job on my birthday, which worked out to the best birthday present i could have imagined receiving... even if it DID have to come from a chain retail store. i work at Kmart as a cashier and have been kicking so much arse and taking so many names (literally, for rewards programmes) that they have told me they are ninety-eight percent sure they will be keeping me on after my original strictly-seasonal hiring scheme and they have already begun training me to work the service desk. it's pretty thrilling and no, it's not what i imagined my future would look like, but if it DOES work out, Muffin and i have plans that will boost our future into a fabulous superdrive... until then, i ring things up, stock shelves and maintain an energetically friendly demeanor.

my stuff is finally coming home to me... after a long and very painfully drawn-out several months, all of my stuff from England is officially in the United States and undergoing customs inspections so they can make their way across the country to my very eager open arms. there is no way to actually explain the excitement that i wake up with every morning, knowing that i will finally be able to wear that ONE green jacket, crochet with that ONE skein of blue wool and look through that ONE box of photos that i had sitting quietly in the drawer of my little white desk. on the other hand, i am occasionally filled with dread, imagining the amazingly devastating emotional tornado that will fill the McBlowme household when the first box is opened and i catch that very familiar sent of England and Pow... merely thinking of the way it will feel offers me a very special nausea in my stomach that terrifies me. it'll be a blessing and a final closing of a very, horribly painful chapter in my life that i am not looking forward to.

                                                                                                                                               

so, when you no doubt ask yourself what the title and definition at the top of this post have to do with anything... i will tell you that just these small examples of my currents, they are what are making me feel that i am existing completely not as myself... i feel completely alone, empty and lost right now.

the only time i feel grounded is with Muffin. he makes everything in my aching heart feel perfectly okay. i seem to have finally passed that huge, hideous hurdle that was thrown up last February into a place that feels safe, honest and completely real and i find myself more and more often dumbfounded for all the luck i have to have finally been able to start building a life with him.

but when i'm at work? when i've woken up and he's at school? when he's in the bath? i sit and have no idea who i am or what i'm doing. the level of disconnection i have from everything and everyone at the moment is completely foreign to me and i have no understanding of how to deal with it, except to ignore it.... ignoring it seems to be the only way that i might be able to get past it... except for when people point out that i seem to have died, it's then that i feel fucking retarded because there SEEMS to be no reason for me to have literally fallen apart, i just have. it just feels like it was overdue for me to.

people, very few people have reached out, but not far enough and i've just not their grip too.

i seem to have lost my grip on everything.

the loss of friends, the lack of inspiration, the excess of stimulation over the last several months (travel, visits, sights, sounds, smells) seem to have left me raw... and that's all i can say to explain it... everything happened in such a short span of time that i lost touch with reality and sanity. 

so please, don't give up on me... reach further and help me if you wish, otherwise, i really will be back, eventually.

challenging...

i'm afraid...

i was laid in bed on thanksgiving night, filled with yum yums and realizing something that terrifies me.

during my time in England, the one thing i was and am most thankful for was the opportunity to learn about all the different films, music, food and art that i did.

the realization came because i was watching a film that Muffin had bought. a film that is not too dissimilar to most of the films that he owns/watches. typically, the films are slapstick-y and star adam sandler, rob schneider, seth rogan, will ferrell or some other "funny guy." (here, just now, i feel it very necessary to note that i have NO problem with these films and really, honestly do like them, a lot). i watched the film and enjoyed  it the same way i do all the other films that i watched with Muffin... mindlessly and without having to think or process any meaning or feeling that the director or screenplay writer was trying to get across to the viewer. i watched it and went to sleep without any further thought about the actors or the film... just further thought about england and the experiences i had there...

during my time in england i was constantly being pushed by Christopher, Pow, Janey and other misc people to broaden my horizons when it came to the films that i watched... i arrived on the continent a very naive nineteen-year-old who was raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming and had little or no knowledge of films beyond the mainstream. england and all the creatures i loved most forced me into a world of independent films and foreign films and animations and all things different. initially, i was terrified and fought the introduction of these films into my life with a violent tongue and harsh opinion... i was slowly broken-down by the different things people were introducing me to... vintage horror, black and white, war-themed... i learned to love them all with a new pair of eyes and a new mind. one that now, today, still yearns to see these from time to time.

it's not just films though, this was the case with everything. my culinary and musical palettes were pale in comparison to the ones that all my british favourites had and only after a series of fighting did i finally break down and learn the glory of stodgy european pasta dishes, homemade booze and andrew jackson jihad...

i feel my time in england has served to open my eyes to so many things that most people don't know exist... things people are sometimes scared to approach.

like, when i attempt to introduce a new film to Muffin, it is only after i harass the crap out of him that he finally breaks down and watches it under what i can only imagine is resentful duress.

foods... it's the same. he rarely wants to try anything new and when i DO attempt to put something new in front of him, he just placates me by eating AROUND the things he doesn't like, not even giving the baby corns or bamboo a CHANCE to change his life (and digestive transit).

musically, he's a good boy, but his passion is the music, whereas mine is the words... he'll listen to something, but if it doesn't excite him musically, he will rarely give it another chance... i heart words and i will listen to ANYTHING if the words say something special to me or strike a chord close to my heart...

i don't know, i just feel like i am not being challenged like i used to be. musically, film-wise or gastronomically.

i feel like...

hrm. i need to make friends. that's what i need... i need to go out and find people who i can cook for and show new music and films to, that way i can feel fulfilled in that way, because i am very, VERY aware that it's not healthy to just expect Muffin to fulfill ALL those criteria. to eat EVERY food ever, watch EVERY film ever and listen to ALL the music in the world... it's unreasonable and i need to broaden my people-horizons...

eh, off to make bolognaise and bread... for the third time in the last month.

12:50

i have a flight that i could get on at 12:50 today... a flight that will take me back to England, Franny, cider and the life that i knew as my own just over three months ago.

i could pack a quick bag and send for my stuff later.

jump on the plane and run as far away from the things here that have turned me into this ugly, stressed, depressed creature that i have done.

i could be back in england in twenty-four hours and have all MY things and hug all MY friends and not have to worry about anything else...

except i would worry.

i would worry about Muffin and where that would leave him. i'm not completely sure how it would actually leave him as he, like Pow, seems to find it easier to joke when actually, i'm being painfully serious. i asked him several times last night how he would cope if he came home today to find me gone with my key sat on the coffee table. he joked as he snuggled under the warmth the heavy stream of water the shower was spewing at us, said he would cry for ten minutes and then get over it, move on. part of that scares me, because i believe part of that to be true. after a bit more joking he had to abruptly get out of the shower because his emotions got the better of him. as we dried i asked him what was up, what he was thinking... he said that he didn't want to lose me and that he felt like he was already losing me.

i told him the same thing i always tell him when he says this... "then make sure you don't" that's all i can say. if he doesn't want to lose me, then he needs to be the person that i need, but only if that's the person HE wants to be. he says it is... but then nothing ever comes from it. he still ends up lying, forgetting and neglecting. i blame it on all the other stuff he's going through, but it doesn't make it hurt any less... which is one of the reasons that i am even THINKING about 12:50.

the loneliness.

i'm so tired of feeling lonely. even when he's home, laid next to me in bed, i'm lonely.

i would also worry about my father. this is not something i would be saying had i typed this blog at this time yesterday... this comes completely from a phone call that i had last night. at 18:29 i dialed his number, after not having spoken to him in nearly a year. it rang and a woman answered. i asked for my father. she said that she was on the other line and who was calling. i said it was his daughter. she paused and said, "well then this is your Aunt Monica."

wait.

i didn't know i had another aunt.

she got off the other line and when she came back on the line with me she said that she couldn't believe she was hearing my voice, that the last time she saw me she was changing my diaper. she spoke to me about the holidays and her children and her husband... she had me write down her number and said that i had to call her so we could catch up and then passed me on to my father.

suddenly, i had another aunt and cousins that i never knew about.

then my father. a person i've had more missed-connections with than i have with Muffin. so many times we've emailed or called and then stopped. like a car that works only sporadically, on days that are just the right temperature and humidity. the last time we spoke i was left with an incredible empty feeling, wondering why i had even bothered, because all he did was speak about himself and... that's not my point. my point is, i spoke to him again last night.

we spoke about jobs, his new house, my smoking, my photos (which, apparently, were the main source of entertainment for him and Monica the previous night, catching up on tiny danie) and at the end of it all he said to me, "you know, sweetheart, i'm a late-night person, so tonight, maybe i'll type you up a long email telling you some things about me and asking you some questions about you and maybe you can answer them so we can try to solidify this relationship?" he said it in the form of a question and sounded nervous. i said that of course, that would be really nice.

then i told him i loved him.

i've never, in the course of my entire memory, told him that i loved him, but last night, right then, i did. i loved him for what he was... a fragile man who had lost most of the people in his life but wanted to reach out to the only one of his children that was willing to speak to him.

i would worry that if i left at 12:50 i would miss out on something special... meeting and bonding with a man who has always been a mysterious shadow in my life. a man who has been painted a demon by all the maternal side of my family, but a man that still, despite many stories, i want to SEE.

mostly, i worry that despite all the hideous, terrible things i've been feeling and thinking lately, that i would miss out on something beautiful here. i feel like there is SOMETHING here that can be moulded into something incomprehensibly stunning. something that would change my life forever and i don't want to think that because i've had a few bad thoughts, i ran away from it. i worry that i would just be running away.

i don't want to run away. i want to stay steadfast. i want to be the person Muffin needs. i want to be the daughter my father needs and i want to be the ME that i need. every one of those reasons is why i want to stay... the glitter that seems to have covered the house since i've moved in. the smiles and laughs that Muffin emits when we cuddle and the hope that possibly, maybe, this might be the time that my father actually comes through and we can make a connection.

i want connections. i want a life. i want to live.

i think that's what i'll do.

live.

i worry...

things in the Muffin/Honeybun household have been tense over the last five days. i've only recently arrived home and Muffin has been dealing with a lot of personal shit. things have been a little too much to handle,for him, mostly, but also a tiny bit for me, because i don't know what to do or how to help. when i try, he gets defensive. when i don't try, he gets defensive... i just don't have any idea what to do... i feel quite stuck, but not so much that i can't find tiny little fibres to grasp onto to hold myself above water. 

i worry that over the last several weeks, whilst i was away in Cheyenne, i processed a lot of things alone and have not had any form of a safeplace or soundboard to help me to make any healthy or conscious decisions, leaving me wondering if the decisions i've made are okay and will benefit ANYONE, let alone me.

like, i worry i may have missed-out on important things because i've been processing solo... things like speaking to Ryu's grandmother made me really see things. it hit me in the middle of the face on a sunny tuesday afternoon whilst watching Ryu zoom back and forth on his bike. we talked about her deceased husband and how she finds it hard most days now because he was the one person that, no matter what happened, no matter what their moods, he would listen to her and help her process even the most minute of details.

this hit me hard because i have all these stupid things swirling around in my head... Pow things, Origami things, England things, kid things, future things, things that involve me being an actual, real, live adult.

this hit me hard because in all the time i had away in Cheyenne, and even now, five days later, i have yet to tell Muffin everything that's on my mind. i don't feel like i CAN. he just has so much going on at the moment and i don't want to have to add to it with all my crap.

when i DO try to broach a subject, he tends to become defensive without hearing everything and the end result usually just looks like me, curled into a heap on the sofa or bed, feeling slightly weepy, but not wanting to cry, JUST IN CASE he might see me cry and the process with have to start again. i've felt like i need to cry for the last three days. walking around wal-mart, gigs and taco bell with tiny, itty-bitty wells of water in the corners of my eyeballs, ready to erupt given any random assortment of variables that could hit me.

i mean, brief outlines of my junk look like this:

Pow: we're not friends anymore. we have had a huge fight that has resulted in him saying things to me and acting in ways towards me that i have never, ever seen. losing one's best friend is quite possibly the most horrific agony in the world. i've been trying to keep positive, hoping he'll come out of it, but i really, honestly don't think that this is going to happen.
driving: yeah, i've been studying for my driving test. whilst this doesn't seem huge to anyone else, this is gigantic to me and makes me want to die. it's just ANOTHER adult step that i am too tired to have to deal with right now. i WILL do it and i am sure i'll do fine, but it's just another stress i don't need.
Origami: that's a fun one. the entire time i was in Cheyenne, when i explained the situation re: the stupid triangle that is made up by her, Muffin and myself, they just scrunched their noses and asked me why i was putting up with it... i would immediately become riled and wonder WHY i was dealing with all her crap. why all her stuff was still in the house i live in, why she can come over as and when she wants, why she won't sign the paperwork, why she is fucking creepy and weird and...the whole thing is incredibly unnerving and i've no idea how to deal with it because when i DO bring it up, Muffin typically defends her or goes quiet and i'm left wondering if it's ever going to happen. it's one of the topics i've decided to just STOP bringing up because it just bums me out. bums me out and makes me resentful, which i don't need.
England: i'm not coming back for a while. that's the first thing i need to say. it's a hard decision that i've not been able to properly process but seems to make Muffin happy because it means he doesn't have to do much more than move house rather than country. for me, it means i have to completely shred my dreams of living on a cobble stone road again for a very long time which makes me hurt more than anything else. ever.
work: blah. i've applied and applied. even wal-mart has nothing for me. i feel inadequate and really just not good enough for any job.
money: i feel pathetic and useless because i've no money. i hate when Muffin spends money on me because it just makes me feel so, so worthless. i just want to have a job and be able to contribute and buy a bloody chocolate bar when i want to, but i can't because i've nothing. i just hate it. all of this.
dog: Muffin told me i could have a dog... so i have been looking for one. i've been promised three, all of which have fallen through. this is because of the stupid money situation. i've no money. there's SO MANY dogs i want and could have, but the money thing just completely stops me from getting anything, so i'm destined, it seems to be jobless, petless and alone for the eight hours or more a day that Muffin is away at work.

eh. i'm just complaining.