The improved yet irretrievable day to day...

• My father, sister and I make fun of every person we come across in public. I used to think that no one was as judgmental as I was but then I remember it is in my heritage. 
• The smell of fall coming stimulates a rejuvenating sense of self that can be contributed to the feeling one got in elementary school. It is the smell of new pencils, old trees, and half frozen playground dirt. It reminds you of the way Halloween felt and the excitement that ensued while watching Hocus Pocus while your grandma fitted your costume. My grandma and I used to collect colorful leaves on our walks to and from school with the means of making wreaths. Every fall ended with my mom throwing away garbage bags full of leaves and chestnuts. I don't think it was the end result that ever motivated us.
• The overwhelming guilt of smoking comes no where close to the satisfying morning and/or drunk cigarette(s). Something about the way it makes me feel like a classic 1940's Betty Page type of woman when in reality I probably resemble a more realistic character like Amber's mom from Drop Dead Gorgeous, sitting in a trailer park drinking beer wearing cut offs and swearing at the top of my lungs; except I'm not in a trailer park, I'm at the Sunset. Regardless, none of these things seem to be stopping me. 
• I think I smell really bad. Seriously. Every time I start working out at the gym, the people next to me leave after a literal two minutes of me arriving.I wear deodorant, I shower. I'm not sure smelling bad constitutes these people's actions. If I wore 80's parachute pants and hacked up old people phlegm, then maybe.
• My cat is a serious asshole. The excuse of her being a kitten in starting to run thin. I might just have to come to the conclusion that I am a bad mother and I raised an inconsiderate asshole of a child who drinks your water and eats your socks. 
• The man situation in my life is...well let's face, nonexistent. Not counting the over 40-year-old men who just adore me...which I don't. On the plus side, they're rich, successful, and established. On the down side they could be my dads. Like if I was adopted things could get creepy fast. As far as men my own age, give or take some years, the ex is being douche of the year by only talking to me when he is drunk. Honestly I wish he would just find someone new to disappoint. And the other man that I would consider banging again is playing hard care games. I'm not a game player, I was never good at sports. 
• 
  

The day to day...

• The heater in my room clicks incessantly throughout the night. It drives me insane waking up in the middle of the night and hearing*click click cliiiick cli click tweek*. Sometimes I imagine myself putting on steel toe boots and taking all my frustrations out on it. 
• The backdoor to our porch doesn't close all the way. You can either slam it closed three times or slowly shut it while pulling towards you. My room mates have not figured that out and it's amazing hearing *SLAM SLAM SLAM* every night. 
• The boyfriend has a fear of putting new toilet paper on the toilet paper roll apparently and the best friend frequently complains about it. It's a race between telling him to nut up and do it and making sure it's done before she goes in the bathroom. 
• The trashcan is constantly full. I'm not sure if we go through a lot of trash or if the trashcan is too small, either way I obsess over the empty Stinker Store cups that surround it all the time and the lid that gets caught on boxes because it's too small. 
• My family life is ridiculous at the moment. I've never not wanted to go home before. But every time I think about it I think about how my childhood room is now a storage unit for my sister and brother-in-law's things that most of which should be thrown away. And then there is the fact that the three people in my immediate family do nothing but complain about each other. It just doesn't feel like a family anymore.
• There is always a huge pile of laundry that never seems to dim. And it costs $7.00 to do laundry which we have to make an extra trip to the bank to get quarters. Plus I'm pretty sure the laundry room is haunted.
• The Brita is never filled up. And that's irritating. 
• I can't drink the water here and that is also irritating. 
• My boobs aren't as perky as they once were and when I think about it, I stress over the day when my face will be filled with wrinkles. I mean, I already have to take an entire day to get over a night of drinking and find solace in murder mysteries.
• I spend an hour on my hair to let the wind mess it up. Oh God bless the Palouse.
• I need a fucking nail file. 
• I have recently found out that dinner isn't as good when you have to cook it but I won't let the boyfriend do it because I'm too much of a control freak. It's a vicious cycle. 
• Sometimes my phone won't hang up after a conversation with someone and they hear me talk shit about them. I don't care as much as I used to because I figure if I'm talking bad about them, I don't really care about them as a person. 
• I find myself psychoanalyzing and diagnosing every person I talk to everyday which in turn makes me hate people even more. 
• I interviewed for a job a few months ago when we were broke as shit. I didn't get it. Two nights ago they called me and wanted to hire me. I had to turn it down in order to graduate next semester with 20 credits. Plus I was mad that they didn't see me as adequate in the first place so they can suck it.
• I pretend not to notice people I know walking by me so I don't have to turn off my music and have a conversation that I could go the rest of my life without having.
• The key to the mailbox won't work.
• The internet slows down every night at 11:00, like clockwork.
• When I remember to pray for what I'm thankful for, I will inevitably forget that I am praying and pass out mid-thought.
• I have started thinking about how much I can't stand one of my oldest friends. To the point that I have diagnosed him and his whole family with narcissism. 
• I spend most of my day watching Netflix and smoking cigarettes on my back porch thinking how much better my life would be if I would accept people as they were instead of wanting to change them.
• And everyday I think of how much better my life would be if I just sold everything I own and moved to a city where they can show the play "Rent" without cast members being threatened with the fiery depths of hell.
• I need a big glass of wine to forget about the shitty things that have happened in the past four years. Including not being able to trust a man in my life that should be the one person I can count on. Is it so bad to want to date a man with the same morals and ethics as my forever accountable daddy?

It's pathetic, really. This list really is my day to day. If anything maybe it will help someone else feel better about their life, because nothing makes you feel better than to judge and criticize someone's life other than your own. 

Robots, tights skating and fried chicken.

My only sister and sibling is getting married in four days. Although I am extremely happy for her, considering I never thought she would be married or be a stepmother or be good at either one of those things, I can feel my childhood slipping away, nay our childhood slipping away. It is hard to imagine that we our days of scrounging for change to walk to the store to get fake nails and candy, putting on tights and making up dances on the kitchen floor to pretend we were in "The Cutting Edge" every holiday, making up songs about robots putting their elbows on the table or using the video camera to make a mock news show featuring "an escaped lion" also known as our fluffy orange cat, Fido are over. Yes, over the years I have been able to recognize that things rarely ever stay the same. Friends move away, parents and pets pass, the smell of houses change, family dynamics flip upside down and children, inevitably, grow up. I was fine with it all. But then I saw her in her wedding dress. All these memories came flooding back, all the songs, all the games, all the moments when we laughed so hard we cried, the moments that make us sisters...none of them seemed so important as when I saw her in that dress. The dress that she is about to embark a whole new adventure in with a new best friend, making new memories, making new family dynamics. I really am happy for her, she has become such a strong, intelligent and caring woman and maybe I'm just jealous that now this whole new family gets to experience all that is my sister. And she is no longer just a sister and daughter. She is a wife and a mother now. She'll be taking care of them now, instead of her baby sister. And she is going to do great and she'll be so happy, every bit of which she deserves. 


I knew this would be hard without our mother. The first thing that went through our heads was "She won't be at our weddings or with her grandchildren when we have them". Everyone felt this huge gap, this huge horrifying hole missing in everything the past week. Yes, the day to day does get easier. It isn't the day to day you need to worry about after a certain amount of time. It's the events that they are supposed to be there for. And the hardest part is accepting the plan so wholly that you don't tell yourself how it's supposed to be anymore. And the big events make it almost unbearable. I can't tell you how to get over it. I can't tell you "do this and everything will be okay" because I'm still having a mental breakdown about it and we aren't even over the hardest part yet; standing up at the alter, looking out at the crowd of people and seeing my father, sitting next to an empty seat, representing the missing hole in our hearts, will be the hardest. But I know it will be hardest for him more than anyone. People will tell you all these cliches like "time heals all wounds" and I can tell you right now, those cliches do not make it any easier. 


I know in my heart that she'll be there. I know that she will be smiling and laughing and bursting with pride and joy in her daughter that grew up to be such a spectacular, caring and amazing person. Which I know is all my sister really wants, is the permission and approval of her mother. I hope my sister feels her there. I hope something happens that is so apparent to her that she knows she is there watching her. I hope she knows that my mother couldn't be more proud of her oldest daughter and is watching her with every step, reassuring her and supporting her. I hope she knows that my mother knows that she is making the right decision. I hope she knows that my mother is confident in the fact that is prepared to work on and make this marriage work. I hope she knows how much my mother loves her. I hope she knows that she will always know what to do in her heart. It was the plan, it was always the plan and all we have to do is learn to accept it. 


I love you Ashleigh, with everything I have. My life and childhood would have never been as fun or as whole without you as my moral compass and best friend. I love you so much and I know that Friday is the beginning of a whole new life for you, filled with learning, laughter and love. You deserve every last bit of it.

Let's jump right in...

There was never one moment that I recall where I fell in love. It wasn't the first kiss or first time we slept together or a string of words that made me realize he was "the One". There was, however, a moment that confirmed how I felt about him: waiting in the parking lot of the bar, touching up my eye liner and mascara, when I heard a song that brought me back sixteen years, playing in my back yard while my dad blared the same song out of the garage. Jimi Hendrix's "Red House" will forever in my mind make me think of Curve cologne while he taught me how to play pool and the feeling that I was right where I needed to be.

Now, after we survived out first year, my love for him has come down to the little things that make him, him that I look forward to everyday 

-The wrinkles that form around his eyes when he smiles.

-The way his ears stick out when he puts his hat on backwards.

-The moments that he slaps my leg when he gets excited about tiny things or when he finds something stupid absolutely hilarious.

-How he makes me feel like no other woman in the world exists but me.

-The way his smell will always bring me back to when we first met.

-The way he ends everyday with "you wanna cuddle with me?" and starts everyday with "Morning beautiful!"

-The thrill in my heart that starts inside his eyes.*

-How my head hits his chest perfectly every time he hugs me.

Sometimes I'm still not sure I have been or am now in love but things seem to come together and make sense when he walks into the room. Yes, he has lied, hid things from me, is horrible with money, puts himself number one almost all the time and can't seem to wash all the dishes after dinner. He is sketchy and has an addictive personality that at times can lead him down a path that has otherwise been marked as dangerous. But when I'm stressed out, he makes me laugh and when I'm sad he puts things into perspective. I've never had so much fun with someone I was sleeping with and I have never been so scared to lose someone. I've always had this voice in my head telling me that if I was single life would be better and I would be able to concentrate on me. The idea of being responsible for me and no one else has always appealed to my better tastes but with him, with him things are different. 

I make lists of things he needs to do so I don't have to drive, I cook us dinner every night and he does the dishes (most of them), I repeatedly put his shoes in the closet instead of the middle of the floor like he likes and I don't say anything about the stash of dishes he has on his side of the bed, I put his socks in the laundry hamper daily and he cleans the room when I have school, I take off his glasses every night when he falls asleep with them on and he stays in bed until I wake up on days off, I watch shows that I hate including 1,000 Ways to Die and Man vs. Wild but on road trips longer than 20 minutes we listen to at least one Britney Spears album, I buy NesQuick just to see the look on his face when he helps put away the groceries.  

The point being that all the things I do for him don't seem like chores. For the first time in my life I want to make someone I sleep with happy, for the simple matter of seeing him happy. It's a strange feeling to have no background noise telling you how much better life could be, reminding you of the low points and the fights, repeating the lines, "I don't want to be with you anymore" hoping to stumble upon the courage to say them. I will admit it's hard to accept someone for who they are and love them anyway when they constantly make you insane. I'm not a firm believer in the fact that people change much after the age of 21 so I didn't count on changing him in any way. 10 years of doing what you want, when you want to isn't going to change because some 22 year old woman comes along and says it must be. I wasn't that ignorant going into it. And now it has become easier to see that you put with people's flaws when you love them because it's who they are. I don't like many people. There is a good, even probable chance that I don't like 90% of the people on my contact list or 99.6% of my "friends" on facebook (gross) and that I have probably talked shit on 100% of them, so when I see something in someone that attracts me to their personality there has to be something special there. And that's what I've held on to when he makes me want to commit capitol murder; I hold on to his sense of humor and his intelligence. I hold on to his stories and his past. I hold on to the jokes and the singing car rides. I hold on to the things that make me feel like a better person for just being around them.

*I stole that line from Alkaline Trio, don't quote me on it.

2004

I was sixteen and my life consisted of being with my best friends and scrounging for $6.13 in change to buy a fifth of Kamchatka vodka. There were six of us and we could be found anywhere downtown, yelling obscenities and hanging all over each other. We sprawled out all over each other on my couch, looking like sea lions on the beach, heads on each others stomachs and arms around each other. We ate together, we played together, we depended on each other for entertainment and for understanding. We knew each other better than anyone could imagine knowing another person, let alone five other people. We had a good idea of what life was supposed to be about. Although we never said it, we completed each other. We loved each other, all for different reasons and in all different ways. Even if the world wasn't at our feet, we paid no mind. Even if we didn't have it all figured out, we didn't care because we understood the better things in life.

Now, after jail, after the army, after Australia, after death, after life changing decisions and after finally not being the little one anymore, were needless to say not the same people. I can't remember the last time we were all in the same room together. We don't depend on each other anymore, we hardly even talk. We aren't even a 'we' anymore but for some reason it still feels the same when were together. I guess this what they describe as an engraving of the soul. We make each other feel 16 again, we make each other feel like nothing ever happened to any of us again. After all these years, we are still able to feel understood and accepted. We all took different paths but I have confidence we will all end up in the same place...with each other.

Grief, thou art a heartless bitch.

Stress killed my mother. Her doctors would tell you it was the cancer, the holistic healer would tell you it was the chemotherapy and some would say it was the loss of hope when she heard 'terminally ill'. I, however, am not convinced. I was mad for a long time at the doctors for giving her so many different prescription pills and passing her illness off as a 'head case'. I was mad at the FDA for not telling anyone the truth about what we consume, what we thought was safe because we were foolish enough to believe they care about our well being when it's all about monetary gain. But I was mostly mad at God and the universe because I didn't understand why my mom was taken when we all still needed her. Now, two and a half years later, none of that seems to matter. The only salient thoughts that make a difference is trying to make it through blue moments in our lives that she was supposed to be there for. The hard part is not telling yourself how it was supposed to be. Yes, I feel lost...all the time. I feel cheated and like a part of all of us is missing. I cry about things that I never even noticed before, a little girl holding her moms hand, a teenage girl shopping with her mom, mothers day. At this point in my life a good, solid day is one that I don't break down crying over a Disney movie or on the bathroom floor. Things don't appear to be getting easier which is disappointing because that's what everyone tells you will happen. The truth is, it doesn't. It gets harder. Graduations, engagements, weddings, bar hopping, babies, new boyfriends, A's on tests. None of these things seem to matter as much anymore, or at least don't seem to make you as happy because something is always missing. Happiness doesn't seem like a goal, it seems like a foreign custom that you don't understand. Smiling becomes a chore, irritation becomes that friend that won't leave no matter how loud you curse at it and you have to pray with everything you have left just to make it through the day. Truth be told, everything may not happen for a reason but if I told myself that, the last three years wouldn't seem worth it. If I told myself that, nothing would make sense. So I just breathe and smile, hoping that one day it will get easier and instead of wishing she was here and telling myself that it should be different, I will just breathe, smile and remember how to be myself again.

Being around family helps which is relieving that they don't look at me like the living dead anymore because of the resemblance between my mom and I. However friends are another matter. After she died I made amends with all the people I had a vendetta against or vice versa, in attempt to do the things my mom would be proud of. It turns out it was a waste of energy. Although it helped temporarily, the amends didn't last. I blame myself. I'm not good at being nice to people. I let my temper get the best of me and take a lot of things for granted. I guess the most trialing fact is, is that I feel nothing like my mother. Which in turns makes me feel like shit not being able to be proud of her years of parenting because I'm too busy hating everything around me, including myself. Life is one big paradox, an endless string of catch twenty twos.

I'm not a mother, or a scientist, I'm not even studying clinical psychology. I'm not a helper, I'm not a giver and I'm sure as hell anything but selfless. I make excuses for my behavior that even I don't believe. There are times that I don't know the right thing to do but there is no excuse for doing the wrong thing when you knew the right thing to do all along. And that's what my life has come down to, taking the low road when I had the map to the just road the whole time.

The point of all this self reflecting bullshit? There will be people who don't like you. Always. But it's when you start hating yourself that something has to change. Not that I have any idea how to do that. I would guess it comes down to knowing the difference between the battles worth fighting and the ones that aren't worth the scars. Most important being the fights with yourself.

"The only man a girl can depend on is her daddy"

My father can be found reading car and fishing magazines while watching his favorite movie on television even though he has it on DVD and VHS. He can tell you everything you need to know about Bass fishing in every kind of weather, what kind of car is coming down the street by the sound of it, the great American game of baseball and building a house. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan with his parents and two older sisters. He really is the opposite of a statistic considering he had a father who blamed his unhappiness on his only son, who turned out to be an incredible, patient and loving dad. He was almost in the major leagues of baseball and raced boats in countries that people only dream of going. He was married once before my mom and got divorced because, oddly enough, he didn't want children. His mother planned the same dinners each day of the week which explains his love for routine. He was the definition of 'alcoholic' until the day my sister was born and hasn't had a drop for almost 28 years, the most admiring fact being that he doesn't even miss it. He does, however, drink O'Douls because he misses the taste of beer. He eats porkchops, spaghetti and hot dogs for dinner which he washes down with milk in a glass that has been in the freezer all day (I'm convinced that if we made him eat healthy he would have a heart attack). He's creative, stress-free and funnier than anyone I could ever have the pleasure of meeting. He wouldn't be my dad without glasses, a basebal cap with a curved bill and a shirt featuring a car show from 1994. If I could marry a man that is half the man my dad is, I will be the luckiest girl in the world.