Coup manqué des choses I au sujet de Paris.

The things you find in big city windows. 

Operation get paid more

Yesterday my co-worker Lynn had her husband turn in my application to the air force base. Next monday I will tell my boss Lisa about it, just incase they call her.
I am excited and nervous; I really really want more money and it wouldn't hurt to do something new, or at least be in a new setting doing the same thing. Part of what makes me nervous is if I don't get that job, I won't know what to do. I'm broke as a joke but I have to work in child care while I'm getting my CDA.
Think positive thoughts for me please!

The equinox and snow

This is an email I sent to my cousin Susan, she had shared some family history with me then asked to know more about me. I didn't realize I had so much to say. (the corny title wasn't part of the email.)

Funny you went through all the siblings, got to my mom and said "you know the story." Well I do sort of.

I know she had her first child at fourteen and was somewhat forced (socially or whatever) into marrying the boy,  had her second two weeks before her sixteenth birthday and then continued on until she had the whole gaggle of us.

WARNING: This is VERY VERY long

My story goes like this:

The equinox and snow

         My dad, also a Bill, was living in a house in Wallingford, Washington with some friends while going to school at the UW. Some pretty ladies’ car broke down in front of his house; a truck (or something like it) with a ton of junk packed in it. He invited the lady in and said that they would get her car fixed in the morning… she never left. That's lady is my mom, Cindy. 

         Bill claims he didn't know she was an alcoholic until they had moved into their own place and were having a house warming party. He bought a bottle of wine (or booze?) and before the party she drank half then filled the bottle back up with water. After this incident, he found out much more about her; another life she run away from, five kids and growing drug habits.

         One day in May of 1985, woopsie daisy, my brother was born. He was 5 lbs when he was born; he's always struggled in school and has always been very immature. At a young age he was rejected from a day care and told to get professional help; he was about two years old! I will mention this again later.

         They, (Bill and Cindy) would often drop Johnny (Jonathan) off at Bill's parents house. He had his own room there. By this time Hank was in the picture and would also occasionally be dropped off at the grandparents house (though he was not their grandchild at all.) 

I don't know what happened exactly in the two years after my brother was born but sometime in March or April my mom claimed she had cancer, then it was mono. She was sure she had some kind of disease because she kept feeling sick. It was actually her body trying to tell her to knock off the drinking because I a little embryo later to be named Anny was fighting for it's life! 

         According to Sherry, Cindy had gone to the same doctor that Sherry went to for her anorexia. The doctor begged Sherry to get my mom to stop drinking somehow because she drank more alcohol than regular fluids, so her body was using the amniotic fluid to keep her hydrated instead of protecting me (which is why she didn't realize she was pregnant, her tummy wasn't round.)  <--- This could all be exaggerated from Sherry but judging by the state of the kiddo who came after me, I believe it.

         Once I was born, Bill and Cindy were pretty much over, though they may not have known that yet. When I was about three weeks old they dropped my brother and I off at our grandparents for the weekend, they said they were going to go apartment hunting. They were gone for nearly a month. Then they showed up nonchalant to get us, my grandmother was fuming and yelled at Cindy claiming that any mother in their right mind would crawl on broken glass to get to their newborn baby. Unfortunately at the time my grandparents had no parental rights and off we went with the doped up duo. 

         Some time passed and my dad moved into my grandparents’ house with us, things had ended between he and Cindy. According to his current wife, Cindy wanted to marry him and was heart broken begging for him back, and according to my grandmother often calling threatening to commit suicide. 

         My dad was in and out of the house, spending some time with us (I was still an infant) and then doing what ever he was doing. One day he put all his clothes in the car and said he was going to the Laundromat but he never came back.

         My mom visited a few times, once on Thanksgiving (I don't remember it). I guess I showed her around my room once and showed her all of my favorite toys. It figures I had no clue she was significant; when my dad left my grandparents with us unprepared we were with a different family member or friend of the family practically everyday. My grandparents were both working and didn't have time for two new kids; they were planning to retire before we came along.

         When I was three and my brother was five my parents finally went through with a legal adoption through the Catholic Church. My mother wasn't trying to have us and my dad was nowhere to be found; and anyway how could you not get attached to such cute little stinkers?

         Growing up I knew they weren't my mother and father; I always called my grandparents Nonny and Bumps. I used to tell my friends that I was from an orphanage and we found my brother in a dumpster (I heard the stories of babies in dumpsters in china I guess.)

         Then when I was 7 or 8 it all unexpectedly came to light for Johnny and I when my dad showed up with his new wife, and two other kids; Derek and Laura. Derek was his wife's son from before they had met and Laura was their creation, two years younger than me. 

The only thing I heard about my mother was when I eaves dropped on my grandfather cussing up a storm- "she's a god damn booze hound..." that's all I needed to hear. The next day I went to school in a fury of sadness and frustration. My grandmother told me that was when she first noticed me really appearing to be sad, before that I was a really chipper kid. 

         I don't remember what it was like when I first saw him, but I remember my sister- it was almost like putting two strange cats in a room together. I didn't know what to do with her but soon we became inseparable and my dad started repeating old patterns of dropping her off every summer with us, sometimes Derek too (Just like Hank and Johnny). Laura would cry at night because she missed her parents so much so we would stay up until our eyes ached thinking of ways to get her back to Tacoma- we could use a skateboard, we could ride a vacuum! 

         It was years before I really got to know my dad, I wasn't allowed to go to his apartment, there were two or three times when I was permitted, and I don't know what my grandparents put him through before he passed the red tape. Even in his apartment I would ask Laura questions to ask him, instead of looking at him and saying something. 

It wasn't until junior high when Bill and his wife Delia were in a rough spot that I got to know him. Bill seems to have no pride when it comes to taking what isn't yours and leaving the trash behind. He and his posse, Delia, Derek and Laura all moved into my grandparents’ house. It was lovely; all nine of us, Nonny, Bumps, K.D. (who moved in when Johnny and I arrived permanently to help out and never left) Johnny, myself and the new comers uncomfortably seated around the dinner table, pounding on the bathroom door in the mornings. 

         I was twelve and very dramatic, my way of welcoming Bill into my life was with a hearty-

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, FUCK YOU, YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS A KID"

and running out of the house. My brother and I treated my grandparents like they were normal parents, we were rude and demanding, bratty but through it all we loved them. Though my dad had no right to say anything, he thought we should be more respectful because of the immense favor(s) my grandparents had bestowed upon him. Maybe he should have been respectful by leaving us alone. Maybe.

         They stayed four years before moving into their own place again in lake wood.

         Okay let's back track a little bit...

         When I was 11 Hank contacted my grandparents and asked if it would be okay to meet Johnny and I. My grandparents, knowing him from his childhood, said that would be all right. We talked to him on the phone and made plans. I remember sitting at the dinning room table at my best friends house telling her family how excited I was to meet my brother. Her parents were practically my parents; I had a habit of getting attached to other kids parents. "Hank is coming to meet us on my birthday, he is coming to my birthday party!!!"

         And so he did, he came up with four of his friends; the only one I remember is Eric because he looked like Leonardo de Caprio. There are photos of he and I and Johnny. And his posse gathered around as I blew out the birthday candles. It was really magical, and he even got me a boys present which I loved- laser tag!

         I guess Hank had told Sherry and Shelly how well everything had gone over, he visited a few more times in the span of a few years, before getting caught up in writing and school. They were excited and also asked to talk to us, my grandparents agreed. 

         Once during a phone call with Hank when I was thirteen years old, he asked if I would ever be interested in talking to my mom, I said yes.  I thought it was somewhat rhetorical, but it wasn't. Out of the blue one day she called. She was drunk off her ass, she talked to both Johnny and I for quite a while. I don't remember the first conversation too vividly. I remember feeling strangely guilty and awkward. I was going through a really hard, really teen, time. Running around in the middle of the night drinking, wearing short skirts and black eye liner; doing everything to get attention and to get my mind off my family. I wanted to tell her all of it, but I didn't. Every conversation was so awkward and I never knew what to say, and couldn't ask any of the questions I wanted to. Once when my mom called I looked at the caller I.D. and booked it out the door, "I'm going to a friends house, tell her I'm not home!" 

         Right before my fourteenth birthday I got the flu, I remember laying on the couch feeling sick as a dog when the phone rang. Johnny walked into the room covering the receiver, "Sorry!" he whispered as he handed me the phone. Cindy wasn't very interested in talking to Johnny, from what I understand she was weird with all of her boys, probably, as you mentioned, due to that ass hole of a stepfather she had. She had even offered to get a lawyer to "get me back" I said that I couldn't go live with her because my grandparents loved me and would be heart broken, but honestly I also didn't want to.

         I mustered a scratchy “hello,” she said happy early birthday and asked me some questions about school starting; was I excited, how did I like school etc. I explained that I was quite sick and she understood, "I'll call you on your birthday okay honey, hope you feel better. I love you."          That part was always strange echoing back something I never said to my grandparents but couldn't deny to her "I love you too." 

She never did call on my birthday, or the week after, or the week after that. I pretended to not notice, I was busy with all of my teenager things. One day during school a classmate began complaining about her parents being split up, how she hadn't seen her mom in two weeks. I turned around and violently snapped, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, I haven't heard from my mom in six months!" 

         Although talks on the phone with Cindy were one of the phoniest, most awkward experiences of my life, I feel blessed to have had them. I had planned on meeting her one-day, even discussed it with my grandparents. Thought the whole play by play through in my head. She would be waiting for me on a park bench by the water, her hair would be long and beautiful and she would probably be smoking. We would just sit on that bench together and talk about everything, I'd finally be able to look at her instead of into a mirror, wondering. 

I wasn't ready at fourteen; honestly I couldn't have handled seeing her in her actual condition, strung out and miserable.

         On March 19th, in the late evening I got a really strange feeling. I hadn't talked to Cindy in six months, and for whatever reason I felt sick to my stomach with worry for her. Johnny and I had used our great reasoning powers to determine that talking to her was bad for me, so in turn Johnny had taken the piece of paper that had her number on it. The caller I.D. doesn't have numbers for much more than a month. 

I went to Johnny's room in a panic, I pleaded with him to let me have the number back but he refused, "it's not going to make you happy, you don't even like talking to her." 

         Johnny wasn't going to give in so I sat down in front of the computer and pumped out an email to hank, explaining how I had this strange feeling and wondering if everything was okay with her. 

The first day of spring my ninth grade year, March 20th 2002, I got a note in class asking me to walk over to my uncles house after school. This was customary when my grandparents couldn't come pick me up. I thought nothing of it I was busy thinking about the equinox and snow. 

"3/20/02 It's the first day of spring and it's snowing!" is what I wrote in the little black book I carried with me everywhere. 

         When I got to my uncles house everything was usual. When I got home I sat in the dinning room with Johnny and his girlfriend. We were eating macaroni when my dad showed up, it seemed a little off but he would stop by sometimes after a chess lesson, before heading back to Lakewood. 

         The atmosphere shifted when all the adults gathered in the kitchen, which was connected to the dinning room, and began whispering. Johnny and I looked at each other with confusion, 

"If you have something to tell us just say it!" Johnny shouted. Bill shakily stepped into the room, 

         "Ummm, come on guys, let's go for a walk" 

         "Can Jennifer come with?" Johnny didn't want to stray to far from his master,

         "No, no just the two of you." 

         It was serious. 

         We carefully walked across the slick, snowy patio in silence. Behind my grandparents house is a park, the neighborhood was built in a ring around a park for kids and families to play in. The gate creaked as we made our way toward what looked like a winter wonderland. We stopped at the bottom of a paved hill. Many hours were spent during many icy winters sliding down that hill on cookie sheets, sleds and saucers. 

         We looked at Bill, the man who we were just beginning to understand; he was clearly nervous and sad. Words found Johnny before me-

         "She’s dead isn't she?"

         Tears welled up in Bill's eyes. We circled the park, snow like powdered sugar drifting all around us, adding to the surreal ambiance. 

Cindy had died in her sleep of internal bleeding. 

         He told us how he was the only one in our family who loved her, that was hard for him because there was no one there to comfort his loss. He explained how he had thought she was on birth control, "you didn't ask women about things like that" and how Johnny was born and after he just assumed she would get on it, then I was born. "It wasn't a mistake to, you know, not to... we chose to have you." 

         I didn't cry for months, I went to her memorial service with Nonny, Bill and Johnny. There I met all of my other siblings, except the youngest- Kimberly, who was taken by the state and later adopted by her foster parents. Hank also was not present, the service was taking place at our grandmother Violet's nursing home, and she wasn't aloud to leave either that or had no means.

         The poor pastor at the service had been hired that morning; he didn't know anything about the family. He was shakier than bill had been, telling us Cindy had passed.

         Cindy's boyfriend was there, every once in a while I remember his name out of the blue, once on the phone he told me a funny perverted joke that I can no longer recall. He cried like a baby, he said she asked him to get her some ice cream; he had gone out and bought her some. He gave it to her as she lay on the couch watching T.V., nothing out of the ordinary. He went to bed in the other room and the next morning he got up, her body was there but she was long gone. 

         After the service, which was in Aberdeen, we picked up Hank and took him out to Chinese for lunch. I remember at the time he was broke and extremely excited to have some Szechwan pork left over to put on his top ramen. Hank explained that he did not go to the service because he has nothing to do with our grandmother Violet who, he elaborated, stood bye as her second husband sexually abused all of her children. 

We dropped Hank off at his house, which was Hank seniors former house. Johnny and I peeked in for a moment, it was a good bachelor pad, I suppose; Turntables and couch cushions, a broken doors type of place. 

I haven't seen any of my siblings since though I've kept in contact with Hank over email and Sherry over email and phone. 

        

         For many years on the day I would cry my eyes out or wander around feeling sorry for myself. It's been getting a lot better though; in 2006 my grandfather, “Bumps”, who to me was really my father, passed away. It helped me to understand death more; I watched his passing take place over a ten-day period. He had a stroke and hospice aided in him passing in peace at home. 

This past year on March 20th, I went about my whole days’ business as usual, it wasn't until late that evening or perhaps it was the day after that I realized another year had passed. 

         Some people make bad choices, some people are "bad" and everyone dies. In the end none of that is me, it just happens around me and I can choose to move beyond it and be whoever I want. And so I do, and I am happy. 

Driving Elanore to work for the first time in FOREVER, well actually I haven't ever driven her to work. My head lights are still broken for whatever reason, I'll deal with that later though.

"The influence of the senses have in men over powered the thought, to the degree that the walls of time and space have come to look solid; real and insurmountable... yet time and space are but inverse measures of the power of the mind. Man is capable of abolishing them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson 

My art room

Greetings,

I realize no one is a few people are subscribed to my blog, therefore I assume no one few people read it. Makes sense, since I do not update it.

Well here is a little update;

I am living in South Dakota, as I have been for the past... six or seven months. Heywood and I now live in our own cute little place, and I have my own art room.

To your left is a picture of my comfy chair ave le chat, my awesome sider plant and a poster of human pressure points.

Right now I am doing too many things at once, talking to erika, filling out a scholarship application... I will post more in a while.

Be well and peaceful.