photo tuesday, it seems.

well, i was just going to cop out and do an incredibly lazy blog, but i decided whilst sat outside having my morning fag about ten minutes ago that i just can't. it's been a week of hearting a lot of things. some more than others, and some much, MUCH more than others, but hearting still.

sparrows... by far my favourite thing about sparrows, and most other tiny birds are their legs. i am constantly enchanted by the fact that they are so little, like toothpicks. i find it fascinating to see something so, so minuscule carrying bodies much larger than them.
my blog... firstly because i like to write and vent, but secondly because it allows me a place to say the things i need to say for people to read and digest in their own time. it's a special place for me to open up and allow people to process whatever they need to and get whatever they can or want to out of it.
dr pepper
del taco
fresh sheets
my handwriting... sometimes... very, VERY occasionally.

unnecessarily american things... stemming from my time in england, my eyes were opened to how stupidly american some people can be over here. it was in the six years i was there that i realized just how silly americans are how out of control they can be about being just as super american as they very possibly can be. it's because of this that i find it to be fairly delightful when i find little ridiculous things that remind me, like the little wet-wipe that i found in a package of candy floss on friday night. it sends me into fits of laughter and i love, especially that Muffin laughs at these things with me.
freshly painted nails
Quarter Pounders

George, the Mohawk Warrior... phwoar! i fell in love with his truck first, after seeing it and hearing the announcement that his truck was the owner of the "world's largest mohawk." there is just something about mohawks that still get my little gears rumbling even after all these years. so when he got out of his truck after performing some bitchin' moves and winning a race or two i began squealing and clutching onto Muffin, announcing that THAT was going to be my new future ex-husband. he was just beautiful and pranced all over the arena, harassing all the tractor drivers and friends. he is a beautiful man and i am pleased i got to see him, if only for the short couple of hours i did. i love you George, wherever you are.
pink lemonade
back scratches
getting a haircut
Beth... there are special people in my life, people i have never met or that i didn't even know existed until like, last week. my new sister's mum, Beth added me on facebook last week and has been a beautiful source of support and kind words since then. she added me with the note that she would offer me any information i wanted about my father if i wished. i haven't really gotten to that, because i'm still in the process of getting used to having OMGMOREFAMILY, but it's just nice to have someone there who is just so kind and uplifting.
crocheting
Safeway cupcake icing... just shut up, okay. saturday Muffin and i were prancing around safeway, in search of something that i just cannot seem to find, that will fill this tiny hungry void in my belly when i found the cupcake section. now, as a defined "cupcake nazi," i don't tend to eat anyone else's cupcakes, store bought or otherwise. the only reason i might delve into this foreign and forbidden territory is if i am doing it for "research purposes." my research was put on halt when i found the cakes at safeway. i saw them and remembered so, so fondly, the years i spent as a child eating cupcakes from safeway and adoring them. i would buy a pack of six and eat them all by the end of the day, sharing only small morsels with my dog. saturday was my opportunity to participate in a re-kindling of that love affair. the cake was goddamn disgusting, but the icing.... oh my LORD the icing. it's my new bff, for it was the perfect flavour and also, appeared to have been piped on to look like a particularly flappy vagina (i'm aware it was meant to be a rose, but i remain firm in my belief that it WAS a vagina, so shut up.)
hearing Muffin come home... yes, because you CAN hear him and i love that. his car and planning a suggestive or fun way to greet him every day.
fucking hot showers
showering with Muffin... which is hot in it's own right, but not in the temperature way.

the way the dog photobombs... bwee!! he's too cutesy for me to not mention his stupid face and the way he bombs any and all photos he possibly can with his little, ridiculous face.
our bedroom
Kiepert... just a beautiful, wonderful, little squishy man. he's one of Muffin's soldiers and i heart his tiny face. he cuddles me everytime i see him and always loves to talk about crafts and baking, which i adore.
Roger from American Dad
synthesizers
Eternal Sunshine... for many reasons. it's a beautiful film, which comes first and foremost. the other thing i love about that film is something that has been there since the first time i watched it, which isn't too often, due to the emotions it likes to conjure up. i first saw this film after Muffin broke my heart one of the many times he did. i saw it and immediately wished that i could do that... wished i could erase him and not have to deal with all the crap that i do... since then, i watch it and imagine who i could erase (it's typically anyone who i am hurting for a particular amount at that given time) and what i would have to get rid of to do that. what things i would offer them to erase all the memories that i have of certain people. more often than not, i know an ultimate erasing of the big ones just couldn't happen because you just can't erase smells or films from your life completely, but it's nice to imagine sometimes.
starting up a new diary
good dreams... because most of my dreams are horrific. i love it when i wake in the morning without a fuzzy head, wet face and tense muscles. my bad dreams are mostly about Origami, my mum, Pow, Molly or Muffin recently, but occasionally, i dream about beautiful things and those dreams are special to me. so, so special.
Lou Reed
ravioli
squids
laundry detergent
MONSTER JAM! PHWOAR!!!

the things my dreams are made of...

Last night I dreamed about my old house… 
I dreamed about my mum… 
It’s not often that I dream about her but when I do it is always incredibly vivid.
In my dreams she’s always alive and relatively well. I don’t ever dream about her being ill or not being there. If my mum is in my dream she is not just a memory, she is a real, living thing that I interact with and hold.
I always hold my mum in my dreams…  the way I wish I always had. I never held her enough when she was alive (that’s not to say that I held her at all when she was dead… I just made that sound incredibly odd. Just to be clear, I never once held my mum when she was dead… though I did touch her skin AND look down her top to investigate the colouration where no makeup had been applied).
Prior to moving to England I would visit her every two days between my shifts at Mini Mart and the mall… I would go to her room and lie on her bed and she would talk to me about what she won at pinochle or how well it went when she had called the numbers at BINGO the previous day. I would listen to her and snooze for the hour I had before having to get on the bus to my second job. She would talk about how she wished she could see the grandkids more and how proud she was of me.
Most every time I went to visit her I found myself unable to embrace her. I don’t know if it had to do with me being a sassy teen who was “too cool” to hug her mum or more to do with the fact that I was frightened of her being so ill, but hugging her… sigh, that’s it, isn’t it? I was terrified of her illness. Despite her large frame and outstandingly beautiful smile, she was so frail and I hated that. If you so much as brushed the skin on her arm she would bruise. She was forever covered in blemishes from where she had bumped herself on her wheelchair or the walls during her daily routines. I remember so clearly how tiny and frail her arms and hands always looked, the skin so perfect underneath all the bruises and cuts… the cause of the weak skin being her medication.
Medication time was always the most fun. Lamotrigine, Phenytoin, Hydrochlorothiazide, Amytriptiline, Levodopa, Glucophage, MAO-B Inhibitors, Wellbutrin… names of things that I forced myself to memorize from a young age but names that I should never have had to become familiar with. I would watch as she swallowed three of those little cups of brightly-coloured tablets to take away her pain, swelling, depression and sleeplessness. Some days they worked and other days she couldn’t cope. Other days she could barely leave her room. Other days I sometimes found it hard to look at her because her face reflected so much pain. I hated seeing my mum in pain. She would always try to smile but I could tell when it was fake… when she was putting it on to stop me from worrying.
But when I dream about her I never, ever have to worry. In most dreams she is suddenly as fit as she was when I was eleven… just before she fell very ill. In most dreams she always seems to have something I am looking for. Sometimes it’s a food I’m craving, other times she’ll be spending time with a friend I’ve been pining after. Last night it was an underskirt for one of my dresses. I went into her room at our old house and she said she had been going through her clothes. I laid on the bed and smelled it. It smelled like the sweet odour of her perfume and patchouli… there was an ocean of clothes scattered across the floor of every colour and fabric… some of them were actually ones she used to own, shirts that were silk or crushed velvet in deep purples and bright reds. I crawled to the floor and began sifting through her clothes, much the same way I used to when I was a child… I was mystified by all the things that she owned, wanting immediately to wear everything and to have her tell me I was beautiful. I lifted up her favourite shirt… it seemed so real, the way the fabric felt cool in my hands from the fan that had been blowing fresh air into the boiling summer atmosphere.
I kept digging, travelling from the foot of the bed into her wardrobe, touching all of the different fabrics to my face to smell them and memorize her scent. It was when I had reached the right-hand edge of her wardrobe that I found the underskirt… the perfect underskirt made from netting in several pinks and black, perfect for me to wear under my dress at my leaving party.
I put it on and it looked faultless. I pranced into the lounge where she was sat on her chair with the sunlight hitting her face. She was sleeping. I woke her up and she told me I looked beautiful and I hugged her. Her hair hit my face and it was so soft, smelling of a random mix of Herbal Essences shampoo and her perfume. I started talking to her about Muffin and the phone started to ring and I hopped up to answer it. I couldn’t find it and it got louder… then I woke up.
I woke up and missed her. I missed her so much it hurt today. The missing was made worse by a discussion that forced me out of my office this morning.
There’s a woman that used to work here who was diagnosed with cancer last year… cancer that spread through her entire body. She’s in her early sixties and last year was only given two weeks left to live. A year on she has just started her third bout of Chemo and Radiation-Therapy (as they have found a lump on her brain). Everyone is very close to this lady and it was discovered yesterday that she was in hospital and had been for quite some time. Two of my colleagues immediately went to see her and this morning every detail of their visit was explained from the way that she looked to the way she slurred her words.
It was at the mention of slurred words that I had to leave the room… I immediately bolted up and announced I had to go get a cola. For me, “slurred words” is synonymous with the last conversation I had with my mum… I still remember every single word that she said to me and just how her voice sounded as the phone was put to her ear. She couldn’t hear me through all the machinery whirring around her to keep her alive so she was shouting, presumably because she thought I had the same machinery keeping my ears from hearing correctly as well. My mum was on heavy doses of Morphine and Valium to help to ease the pain and everything she said sounded like it was being played to me in slow-motion. All of her words blended together and it made me hurt. I could hear what a struggle it was… I could hear her piecing the words together, not wanting to make a mistake, wanting to say everything as clearly and consciously as possible so as to not worry me.
I put down the phone after the nurse reassured me that she would be fine in the morning and I could ring then… I wept. I’ve no idea why I wept, but I did. I wept because I wasn’t there and couldn’t hold her, I wept because I had spent so much time being terrified of her illnesses, I wept because I loved her and was 8,000 miles away. All she ever wanted was to have me nearby and I left her.
Within four hours she had died and my sisters were booking my flight back to america.
I don’t know why exactly it is that when I dream of her I always find the things I’m looking for and I don’t know why exactly I never dream of her in any other way than how she was when I was eleven, but those are, without fail, always my favourite dreams.