She always believed in that fantasy world of hers

Here’s a strange thing… me.

So I’m still ridiculously busy, sue me. I’ve also become quite cynical and crabby in my old age. I’m thinking of killing everyone I know, because that will make them shut up already.

Seriously, I cannot wait for the day when I’m self-supported enough to just pick up and fucking leave. To not tell anyone where I’m going, how to contact me, or how long I’ll be gone. Just be gone. I like being alone so much these days, it’s like my comfort blanket. No matter what, no matter how much someone promises you or how much you trust in them, the only one that really matters is yourself. At least at this age, at my age.

I’m starting to get social with a certain group and they’re bugging me already. I’m finding incredible immaturity in college. Everyone is challenging with half-thought half-assed ideas and weak theories. When you try and rationally explain, they talk over you, as though that wins an argument. Please. Grow up. Oh yeah, I’m getting really, really cynical. Why not? These people have proven themselves unworthy of my presence, and so I’m devoting myself to my novel again. I observe and, for the moment, that’s enough.

I’m buying myself a leather journal tomorrow and a few special pens so that I can get to writing everything down in a linear order. I like the idea of first having a hand-written edition of something that will later be put to computer and later to printed page and later… we’ll see. I’m going to go to that evil conglomerate… B&N because they have some of the best leather journals that I know of, and large enough to suit my needs. Whenever I go to a Borders they seem to have these little itsy bitsy teensy weensy excuses for journals. I’m looking for a LEDGER. You know, one of those great big things that you slam down on a table and all the other papers go flying off along with a cloud of dust.

At least in my mind.

Mmmm… pretty. I love blank pages.

Saturday I have a map test in History. Defining the territories of the Native Americans, the different battle places and the original states, along with bodies of water and whatnot. I’m practicing a bit, but not enough. It’s cram time. It accounts for 25% of the grade and I’m amazingly blasé about the entire thing. I wish I weren’t.

Spanish is going swimmingly, in a way. No, don’t ask me how to say shit, you’ll just irritate me.

My, I’m in a mood today.

I’m thinking of chopping the rest of my hair off. It’s pissing me off to. I’m thinking… why not one inch? I could spike it, and use less shampoo. It would save me money. Anyway, it’ll teach all the boys that are interested a lesson. If they want long hair, they have to grow it to. This cannot be a one-sided affair. Lazy bastards.

Alright, I’m gone. Toodles.

-Lady Teigra-

That blasted Tower.

Oh.

My.

God.

OH MY GOD.

...OH MY GOD!

That's the most I've used the word "god" in a long time.

Holy shit!

I just finished listening to the audio books of Stephen Kings Dark Tower Series. Finally. I've been reading these books since I was twelve.

HOLY SHIT!!!

These books have a supreme significance for me. For one thing, they are some of the only books by Stephen King I will actually read. I don't like him, damn it. He's too popular and it pisses me off... because I'm jealous. Yeah, jealous. I said it. Finally.

Anyway, I just finished reading THE DARK TOWER SERIES by STEPHEN KING (mentioned that, haven't I?). If you have not read this series--well, I don't entirely blame it. It's ridiculously long. AND FRIGGEN GOOD SO PICK IT UP GODS CURSE YOU!

And if your too lazy to read it, get the audio book from the library (if you're poor like me) or buy it off eBay or just go to your local mega-chain bookstore and shell out $40 for each copy. Hats off to you for that, you rich bastards.

Sorry, I'm being insulting again but I cannot really help it. I feel like cursing up a storm, a big sooty-black clouded storm that rains all over everyone's parade.

I've been listening to book VII (Seven, for those of you slow on the uptake) and it's been ridiculously distracting. I've been sleeping in the guest bedroom/office so I can listen to the audio book on my computer while I fall asleep. I've been dreaming of Roland's and Susannah's and Eddie Dean's and Jake Chamber's and Oy's. And fish, for some odd reason...

There's something about this story that is ridiculously compelling to me. The bits that Stephen King throws in about himself, the bits the SK writes in the prefaces and afterwards about how he FEELS when he writes the story, about what it means to him...

I read Stephen Kings "On Writing" and, for the most part, it described my process, though mine is a little different in aspects. Still, writing is something that I feel I do because I was given the task of doing it, not because I woke up one morning when I was nine years old and said, "Hey, I want to write for a living". No, the stories were always there, they've been there for years beyond measure and before I was born, I'm only here because I have the ability to listen and to put pen to paper, keyboard to screen. It sounds hocky, I know, but it's how I FEEL, it is what I KNOW.

When Stephen King writes about himself in the stories, writes of how the voices sing to him, speak to him, how he knows that there are other worlds then these... well, it strikes a true cord in my heart. I feel kinship to this man I have never known and will likely never know, for I suspect his passing will come before or soon after I finally publish a finished work.

So the Dark Tower books, to me, are something of a religious thing. Almost. Not quite--scratch that. They're spiritual. That's all. And I know that one day I will spin a yarn that will be as the Dark Tower was to Stephen King. A master story, if you will. It's already in progress, and has been since a strange dream on the eve of my eleventh birthday. Dreams are my way into writing and always have been. Do not ask me to explain, because the way I just wrote it is the best I've put it so far. I know that my story is not the Dark Tower and a small sliver of me feels envy in that, but not really. The Dark Tower was King's story to tell, and he told it well. "Say true, say thankya." I only hope I can spin the tale I need to spin with the same dexterity as he.

I am glad that I have finished it, for I feel that this is my year. I don't know why, and a rational part of my mind is whispering caution against making statements such as these. That I do not know anything for certain and never have, but I have an INCLING. That's enough for me at most times.

What does that mean? My year? Everything and nothing. Everything and nothing.

Ah...

School is good but the homework has piled again. I'm going to be studying most of the night away tonight when I'm not doing laundry and cleaning up the condo a bit. The office stays remarkably clean, I think because it is my workspace and I must keep the place I work clean. The rest of the place is a mess. I must do laundry before I drown in dirty clothes.

And shower.

My first Spanish test is on Monday and I have two chapters in History to read and two in Anthropology as well. History is on Saturday, early morning, so I'm going to jump that hurdle first if I can, and then move to Spanish to study well and good and then onto Anthropology, which comes rather naturally since it is my favorite subject. Still, History is proving to be quite fascinating. Who knew?

Alright, alright, I feel I've talked enough. Hello, hello, to all of those I have not said hello to for a while. Please allow me this time to be in my own space, for there is much I have to do and I get overwhelmed easily these days. Sometimes the stress of handling almost everything on my own gets to me in a strange way. Feels like a great, crushing vice on my head. Other times I'm fine. Most of the time anyway.

I'm writing again. It feels lovely.

Goodbye, all, and until next time,

-Lady Teigra-

Every time it rains, I feel her holding me.

Wow. Holy shit. Here I am.

Yeah...

I still do not have internet access on my new computer. And since it is so shiny and new, I don't want to leave it. Having one of those windscreen flatscreens has really messed up my vision on my CRT monitor here--I keep thinking "Has it shrunk?".

I'm listening to music on my new pretty speakers on my new pretty computer. One day I will update to surround sound speakers for my computer, but God knows my neighbors will hate me then. I suspect they already do, and all I have is a subwoofer.

I started school Monday, and have class again tonight. Already piling on the homework, so I'm quite unlikely to carve out time to do much blogging. If I do, I shouldn't, so every time you see me I'll be chiding myself later, "Bad Teigra--more studying!"


I hemorrhaged about $375 for my course books. Ugh! Like a knife in the gut, that's what it felt like. That was groceries for more then a month! Two months!

Well, I was given a grand total of $675 last week for a paycheck sine I'm building my employer a website. After paying for the books, the website domain, and buying a new desk for my new computer, and groceries... I have $1.14 left in my bank.

Isn't that fun??

Well, today is a "Spare the Air" day, which means the VTA is all free and stuff. Great. Frees me up another five bucks in cash. I love Spare the Air days.

I got a haircut, too. I'm shorter now, by the insistence of my hairdresser. She said, "How long has it been since you were in a hairdressers?"

"... two years?"

"Yeah, it looks it."

So she chopped off about four inches, saying she was "cutting off the damage". Then did this trim thing to my bangs because last year I had a horrible accident with a cigarette lighter that left my front hair much shorter then my back. She fixed me up right and proper. Thank god. I was tired of slicking that little tuft in place with some hair gel. I hate hair gel.

But now I can wear pig tails without looking like a porn star, which is good. I like pig tails.

Oi. My fingers are hurting me, and I have to shower before school (It's bloody HOT!). I'll, um...

Well, you know me. I leave for unidentifiable amounts of time. I'm really bloody busy.

I'm working...

Going to school...

Oh, and, writing a novel...

Yeah, I'm hellaciously busy. And I still have something of a social life! How do I do it? Four to five hours of sleep, that's how.

Ta ta,

-Lady Teigra-

P.S.--

Sunday is my nineteenth birthday, just as a heads up. I don't think anyone around here remembers it... I forget too. So, yeah... what's nineteen supposed to be, anyway? Silly number.

I don't want to live inside this daydream anymore

Well, I've been on an unoficial hiatus.

My shiney new computer arrived and the Dell guys made two errors. One, they forgot my floppy drive. Another, they forgot a regular 56K modem so I can use my dialup. They included a wireless card! Like, what am I going to do with that? There's an ethernet jack as well, so I'll be updating to DSL soon... ish.

As is, I'm transfering files between one computer and the next to use the internet. Right now I'm sprawled on the floor of my office typing, and I keep making the basic key stroke mistakes. Garh.

Tonight I should have my old 56K modem installed in my new computer, which should have me on the internet on my new computer (A.K.A.-Glorificus) by later. That's a lot of shoulds, but you know how it goes.

Oh, and, ah... I finished HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.

...

Ta,

-Lady Teigra-

He had a lot of nothing to say, we'll miss him.

Well.

I'm reading a pirated copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Realizing that I needed to buy text books and cat food and human food before I could budget in the new HP book, I decided to go the cheap route--FOR NOW. I always buy what I pirate--this will be no exception.

Anyway, the copy I have has wordsrunningtogetherlikethis, which is really annoying when you have to pause, stop, and re-read what you just read because you're not sure if you got the words right. Not all the sentences are like that, but a great many are. Still, I'm about seventy pages in and I was reading for about an hour last night. I would have read longer but I'm sitting in a rather uncomfortable wooden chair for my office chair. Still, I kind of like having the book more at eye level then it usually is.

But I will be abstaining from reading most blogs for fear of spoilers. I've heard nothing about the book so far--but I've also been readily avoiding television, radio, and internet programs that might let things slip. I never did like spoilers.

Just as a little mini rant--my sister has not bothered to read the Harry Potter books. OK, she's read to book four, but only part way through. My sister is getting sucked into the wonders of the internet (Neopets, GaiaOnline, MySpace, YouTube) and thusly is neglecting her literary interests. She says, "They're boooring." To which I gape at her and say, "Are you really my sister?"

Three, four years ago she was showing every inclination of being a book worm. Now she's becoming like every other twelve year old girl with a high speed internet connection--and yes, I blame the high speed internet connection.

When my sister comes over to stay at my place, I ban her from using the internet--simply because she'll only use the aforementioned sites, and that they will crash my poor slow dial-up connection. She's not allowed to read the manga's, because that is all she reads at home. I tell her, "Read BOOKS. Actual books. Then get back to me."

When I was her age I was starting to get into Anne Rice (I know, I know, but I was TWELVE) and Garth Nix and some Neil Gaiman. I started to read some of the classic literary pieces, starting with War & Peace (because it was the biggest book in our library and I loved carrying it around), then moving onto some of the darker horror classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, etc. I still read books geared at young adults, but most of them had to do with the same dark, macabre stories like I just mentioned. They were also the older young adult books.

I enjoyed this time in my life. From about eleven to seventeen I was reading as much as I could lay my hands on. I knew, intuitively, that I would not have as much time for reading when I got out into the real world and, guess what? I don't. It really sucks.

I hate to see my sister squander this time she has that she could be reading piles upon piles of novels, short stories, plays and poems. Not only squander it--but squander it chatting for God's sake. Playing games for fake gold. That's something I got into when I was sixteen and I realized what an absolute waste of time it was before my seventeenth birthday. I still play some of the games on Neopets--but only because they're fun to play. Ultimate Bullseye rocks!

Anyway...

I'm worried about my sister. She shows no inclination towards, well, anything. Not art, reading, science, math, nursing, anything. She has a variety of health issues she will have to deal with on her own, with her own finances, when she is older. She needs to find her passion so she can actually work doing something that she loves to do. The only thing that she has said she enjoys is animals, but she has shown that she only likes the loving side of animals, so she would not be cut out to be a vet--at least not yet.

My sister has been whining lately that no one is paying attention to her and, you know, I'm quite tired of it. I'm her sister, I've let her know, and not her mother or her father. I'm the bully big sister that's going to make sure she eats her proper amount of calories and that she exercises and reads and has in depth conversation on various topics. I'm appalled with how much her mother and that family spoil her; and I know she's young, but damn it. So was I. I had gone through just as much in emotional pain as my sister has in physical pain. I was not spoiled, I was pushed. I want to push her to do something.

Interesting how this topic changed from books to my sister. I cannot help it, though, she's one of my passions. I'm severely interested in this little blondlings ambition and life determination.

I've noticed that the Middle Class families around here--California, Silicon Valley--seem to have produced a singular type of person. A teenager/young adult that does not have any ambition, seeks only for the momentary fulfillment, and will never try, unless pressed beyond belief, to put in anything other then half-assed work. My friend James is almost twenty-two and still living with his parents. Not just that, but he's had a free ride--why did he not go to college? Does he expect to live off his parents in their house his entire life?

I suppose situations like mine, and similar if less extreme, produce that type of people that will actually go out and get things done. But those who have lived a pampered life seem to strive to nothing but the same thing--an easy coast through life.

What fun is that?

Struggle and pain and loss is what makes all the shiny things extra shiny.

Maggio il vostro amore di luce non penetrare l'oscurità della notte,

-Lady Teigra-

She was living in a single room

I have the cutest cat in all the world.

Here he is cuddling up to me under my computer desk, something he's only recently done. How sweet is that?

Much love to my Constant Companion. His sixth birthday was last month.

Wish I knew what you were looking for....

I found this picture in my digital camera (again, an ancient piece of equipment). It's dated from last night, though I do not remember taking it. I do remember putting on makeup, something I never really do, but not the photo...

Odd...

He deals the cards as a meditation

Hoo-rah.

I have a very little itty bitty hangover. I've never had one that I can remember--but I have drank pretty much every night these last three nights. Don't look at me like that--I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing. Most of the time.

So I'm drinking tea and making some impulse purchases. Want to hear about them??

I turned on my computer this morning and it started to make one of the three very strange & frightening noises. It was a deep whirring rumble, almost like a mini thunder storm inside of my tower. I was upset. This is the fifteenth day in the row that I've shut down and rebooted my computer and prayed that it not blow up in my face.

This has been causing a great deal of emotional and practical problems with me. For one thing, I'm going back to school very soon and I would like a computer that is capable of browsing the internet, writing up reports, printing and generally not behaving like a nuisance. I would have called the manufacturer of my computer to see what the problem was--except that my computer was made in the basement of my mothers house using spare (eh--stolen?) parts from her husbands work... as well as whatever we had lying around.

I'm also greatly concerned with the state of my writing files. As EVERYONE who comes across or reads this blog knows, I write an awful lot. Most of my writing is stored in this here finicky computer. I'm currently starting a barrage of backing up onto floppy drives, since my CD drive does not seem to want to burn onto any blank disks. *Shakes fist* the bastard.

SOoooo.... I went onto Dell.com today and, uh, bought a new computer.

Yeah, I know. Just one entry ago I was ranting about the lack of money. However--I DID crunch some numbers recently. If I do a few simply things to limit my weekly consumption of money, I will be fine to purchase this new computer as well as purchase some health insurance and keep in check all the other monthly/weekly bills that I've incurred recently.

I'm taking great advantage in the fact I'm not paying rent. Huzzah for that--shout out to my Uncle Dave. He rocks.

Mainly the cut down on the budget will be to stop purchasing so much expensive food. I'm a sucker for taste, and I have expensive taste. Not to mention I've been having people buy me an assortment of beer and wine recently. I'll just have to, uh... get one more bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before I stop that. Hey--last time I got a bottle my Uncle drank half of it. Those are supposed to last me four or five days at least--and those are writing days. For multiple reasons I like a glass of red wine when writing about vampires. It's poetic in many ways.

So... new computer. I'm all fluttery. Half of me is going, "I cannot believe I just did that". The other half is doing the snoopy dance and going, "Yay, woot, yay, new computer, new printer, new speakers, oh yeah." The one thing I see as a general problem now, that I'll have to squeeze into my budget soon, is a new computer desk. The one I have now is over forty years old and gave a groan the other day and sank about two inches from where the screws were put. Yeah, it was a cheap desk to begin with.

Last thing I need is to bring home my new computer and set it up, and then have the desk collapse underneath it. Then again, my new computer ought to be lighter then the one I have now. The monitor alone must weigh thirty-five pounds.

Speaking of monitors--my cat has taken to stepping on/napping on my computer monitor, which is one of the old, old ones. I'm getting a flat panel with this new computer. I wonder what my cat will think.

Well.... to me, this was a necessity. I stayed my hand last week from purchasing this machine, but...

Well, it was on sale too. At least $600 off for the back-to-school bit. Still, it's a $1,400 machine. Because I went geeky on it and wanted the best there was to get. Yeah... and a laser printer. Booyah.

Now I need to keep myself from converting from dial-up to DSL. Maybe later...

I feel like my emotional age has dropped down ten years this morning. I've never let myself be all impulsive like this--not with this much money. Ever.

Now to save up the money to buy text books, and recover my things from Missouri.

And to stop my mind from tearing itself in two on the vice-versus of my latest buying decision. Sigh. I had to. I didn't have to. Jesus, this will be an interesting few days.

Maggio il vostro amore di luce non penetrare l'oscurità della notte,

-Lady Teigra-

To crawl inside the wire, feel something near me.

I'm going to rant a bit.

I've been kicked out of my house. My father has been on one of the lowest rungs of poverty since I was seven years old. I'm eighteen years old. I make twenty dollars an hour, yes, but I only work sixteen to twenty hours a week. I have to pay for food, rent, bills, clothes, cat toys & food and everything else that, if you're in this situation, you know crops up eventually. And now I'm realizing another, rather serious, thing that I have lacking from my equations and that is going to put another--very large--hole in my budget.

I. HAVE. NO. HEALTH. INSURANCE.

Recently I've been feeling very ill. Sick to my stomach--throwing up a half dozen times in the last two months seemingly at random. I've been having sharp pains in my pelvis, upper abdomen, the left side of my chest and in my shoulders, neck and head. When I say head, I don't mean headache pains, I mean SHARP STABBING PAINS that can sometimes temporarily incapacitate me. These ailments have been quite random, not following any recognizable pattern (I have been jotting them down as to when, where, how, what I was doing before, etc., in a 'ailment journal' I started a few weeks ago). They last from about a minute and a half to twenty minutes, then disappear.

A month and a half ago I went down to Social Services to file for MediCal, the local Medicare coverage whatnot. I was told that my coverage would start sometime in the next five months, and that I was not to cancel my current insurance until then.

Current insurance... ha!

So now I'm thinking of saying, "Fuck it", because I really need to get to a doctor and see what the HELL is going on with me. I'm not sure if this is simply stress and anxiety related, or if it is something worse, better... I DON'T KNOW. I'm not a doctor.

The thing is; even if I was patient and waited for the MediCal application to go through, I'd still have to drag my happy ass down to the Social Service office every three weeks (a three hour round-trip journey by bus) to sit in their grungy little chairs with every low-life FUCK trying to see up my skirt or down my blouse or else outwardly hitting on me/propositioning me for the sum total of four to six hours. JUST so that I can show my social worker my latest NONEXISTANT paystubs (I work for cash, under the table, so sue me).

I'm all for getting free stuff, but it isn't really free when it's taking up that much of my time.

So, onwards to hunt down medical insurance for some sort of affordable rate. Hopefully I'll find something so I can see the SAME DOCTOR each time. I like that, I really do. This whole... seeing a different person every damn time has been really irritating. Especially when my "insurance" only covers my womanlies at the moment.

This is just downright fucking annoying though. I'm likely only going to able to afford the insurance as long as I stay in this condo with zero rent. Afterwards, I will not have the money to spend.

I bet you're wondering--wait, if you're not paying rent, what's the big deal? You can totally afford insurance with twenty dollars an hour!

You forget my debt. And the fact that I have to pay for four hundred dollars (maybe less if I get them used) worth of text books in the next two weeks, and transportation, and food... and the list goes on, and it's not pretty. Let's say that, weekly, I'm left holding about $3.45 to do what I will with them. This time around I bought a pair of cheap sunglasses. Go me.

Getting kicked up seriously screwed up my finances for a while. I could not pay off the fees for dropping out of college and it went to a creditor person. Same thing with getting in my car accident. I'm now paying for 16 months worth of penalties for being late. It equals out to rent cost pretty quickly.

But I'm going to suck it up and pay for things--again. Looks like less splurging on the food and back to a primarily rice and vegetable diet! Damn--I was liking meat.

Maggio il vostro amore di luce non penetrare l'oscurità della notte,

-Lady Teigra-

Captivated by the legends of the undead.

Listening to Godsmack's "Vampires". Great little composite piece with no vocals save some guy--sounds like someone off a radio or old time television program--talking about the legends of the undead; what interests humans so about vampires.

I realized something yesterday with a shock quite like a lightening strike--that I'm not going to be happy with a normal life. I may convince myself, if I fail, that I am happy, but I really will not be. I am a writer and, above all, I want and need to write. I have extremely high expectations of myself--that I will be part of those 3% of writers that are actually able to support themselves with writing alone.

To me life is not about owning a house, or marrying and having children, or how much jewelry I have or fancy new gadgets I acquire. Life is about fulfilling my deepest desire--which is to go into a bookstore and see dozens of books on the shelf that are written by me. To speak to people about my writing and share my world. I have more books inside my head even now--at eighteen--that I could not write them all down in one lifetime. I'm fascinated with the paranormal and it's correlation into the sociological and psychological aspects of human beings. My stories are not just about vampires, werewolves, druids, gods, demons, immortals; they are about the human condition. What we find in life versus what we crave.

I'm not going to be happy, really happy, unless that is my life. The only alternative I could think would be if some dimensional portal opened up and I was actually drawn into my world--which would take some adjusting, but I'd be ridiculously happy there, as well. Just a fantasy.

Speaking in real life terms; I want to be a writer. I want to look around and be able to say, "All of this is from the words that I weave together, gifts from my head and from my heart and my soul."

Sounds a little cliché, I know, but it’s what I want.

I expect to be a highly successful writer. I will be satisfied with nothing less.

One thing I’ve noticed about all of my heroes and heroines is that, they have all experience an inordinate amount of pain. They have lost family, friends; they have personally gone through nightmares themselves—physical, mental and sexual abuse. I realized this the other day when I was in a counseling session, and this is why.

I’ve never met an interesting person who has not had some great tragedy befall them.

I keep hearing from people, on all sides, that I’m too wise, too smart, too mature for my age. There’s a reason for that. I’ve gone through a lot of hardships and a lot of tragedies my entire life. It has only recently began to calm down, for the first time, really, in all of my existence. This has been a time of tremendous emotional growth for me, because I realized that I had to learn from all of these experiences or have them all befall me once again. I’ve self-analyzed myself; put myself under and emotional microscope, tracked most of my motions, actions, feelings and wondered why, and come up with general explanations. This work is never finished. I’ve psycho-analyzed friends and family—as well as people I meet in a general day-to-day occurrence. I’m critical and sometimes cruel, but generally correct. The only way in which I will deal with a regular person is to ‘observe’ them, much as a scientist would in a laboratory—except this is the lab of my mind and the world that I am doing the experiments in.

I’ve been told that I’m a passive manipulator and that I’m generally dangerous (this was from a psychologist who analyzed me when I went to Juvenile hall for nine days when I was fourteen). Not because I was violent or criminal, but because I was so smart. She said that I had to be careful because I could too easily influence the minds of others. I have found this, though experimentation, to be generally true.

I consider myself an old soul in a young body. My insides have experienced things that my outside does not reflect—aside from looking older then your average eighteen year old (an effect of stress, so I’m told).

I’m a bit arrogant, a bit self-critical. I have the highest expectations of myself and I do not allow myself to feel pity for my past situations. I am very happy to be the person that I am today. I consider myself SO very ahead of the game. Where others my age will spend the next few years doing a variety of unmentionable idiocies, I will try to make my mistakes more rational then impulsive. I understand that I am imperfect and subject to all sorts of nastiness, but I will try to avoid it. What the last eighteen years has taught me is enough to fill an entire book. Which, eventually, it will be.

Maggio il vostro amore di luce non penetrare l'oscurità della notte,

-Lady Teigra-

Godsmack
“Vampires”

(Sounds much better then it reads)

No creatures of the night have captured our imagination like vampires.
What explains our enduring fascination with vampires?
What is it about the vampire myth that explains our interest?
Is it the overtones of sexual lust, power and control?
Or is it a fascination with the immortality of the undead.
What dark and hidden parts of our psyche are aroused and captivated by the legends of the undead?
The mystery of the undead will continue to fascinate the living.

I'm not as ugly sad as you.

I'm going to take this moment to remind my... uh, very, very few readers... that I get my titles from whatever song I'm currently listening to. They have nothing whatsoever to do with what I write about... usually. Sometimes it works out in a creepy coincidence sort of way.

Hey! Nothing catastrophic happened today, so I'm going to pluck a subject out of my head and just go with it.

....

I had to take that moment to shuffle through already worn-out topics that I frequently enjoy discussing. Something new, something new....

Ah! Astrology.

Here's a thing; I was watching the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan a few months ago with my father and my friend of the time, Nicki. Nicki is a huge believer in astrology, that the movement of the stars and their pull on our little planet has a lot to do with who you are, if it does not simply define the human being. Carl Sagan was remarking that Astrology had taken on a
reverence in daily life very much like spirituality or religion, and that it was remarkable so many could be fooled by it. He had, as an example, two different news papers; one from New York and one from Los Angeles, I think. He read the horoscope from both papers for the same sign; both of which were not only vague but completely different, though they were on the same day.

My friend Nicki believes that astrology is something of a science, and that the only reason these two papers were so different from one another was that someone was 'interpreting things wrong' or did not know what they were doing at all. I asked Nicki how you could know the difference since it was often those same people that wrote the books on astrology that she was so deep into. Nicki could not answer these questions, or put it to herself to question something that she believed in so much.

I find it very amusing that some people who believe in nothing--are not a part of any organized religion--will still find comfort in an unknown 'voice from the heavens' telling them who they are and what their day will be like. I'm not saying that everyone that believes in astrology is non-religious, but I find a great many are.

Carl Sagan was making a point that astrology had no roots in fact, that it was entirely mythological in context and yet people believe in it very strongly. If you're a Virgo you are not supposed to get along with Libra's. If you're a Dragon beware the Dog . People will believe these things with no evidence, no shred of proof. The only thing they have to go on is that perhaps, at some point, someone 'non compatible' they ended up not getting along with.

I think I've had friends from pretty much every astrological sign. A lot of us have had falling outs, but mainly because we're young and as we grow older find that interests do not remain the same. I'm a Virgo and Nicki is a Libra. We've fought more then any other friendship I've had, but we still remain friends--if shakily. It is not because of our sign that we are often at odds, it is because of our personalities, the way we were raised.

My sign has never described me. I delved deeper and found a rising sign, Pisces, and am still trying to figure out how that is supposed to make much sense at all. I read horoscopes for the occasional good advice; but I read the horoscopes of every sign, not just my own.

We're in an age where religion is declining, yet mythtisism is on the rise. Spirituality is taking the place of the old doctrines. I believe this is the path of evolution that we (the human race) are currently traveling towards.

Hm... on a semi-related note, I had a fact hit me about two months ago that has really irked me. Not the usual minor annoyance.... something really pissed me off. I realized that I'm going to die. Yeah, yeah, I should have known that. But, I mean, this is the context in which I realized my death;

I was standing on the deck of my Uncle's house boat. I was watching someone plant a sapling tree about twenty feet from some twenty-foot pine. I realized that the tree that was currently being planted would probably outlive me by a few hundred years. Suddenly I felt this wave of anger--a fucking tree was going to outlive me. Yes, trees serve a vital part of this ecosystem but--damnit! I'm a sentient, thinking, living being! Why can't I live a few hundred years?

Then later that day I was at the library in Redwood City and looking around at all the books and realized, quite suddenly just as I had with the trees--I'm never going to be able to read all of these books. I know this thought should not have angered me, but it did. A lot more then the tree. I am never going to be able to read all of the books that I want to. Hell, there are people on this world that will read ten times as much as I will in my lifetime--and even they cannot read everything that there is to read in a single city library.

Books are a nearly-sacred thing to me; in fact, they're most definitely sacred. The fact that we have found a way to preserve and pass on our knowledge from generation to generation is more then amazing. I revere books. Then I realized, quite suddenly and quite clearly, that I'd never be able to read them all. And not just them all--I'll never be able to read all the books that I WANT to read--the thousands upon thousands that I would personally enjoy reading or have expressed interest in. Imagine twenty years from now when my list has tripled in size and the original was no in any shape to be read.

I have been in quite a mood these last few months. Not scared, not frightened--because death is inevitable and why waste time worrying about it?--but indignant. Disgusted. I'm going to live a puny human life span or maybe less, pending natural disasters, disease, accidents, etc. I, an intelligent human, am going to live just as long as everyone else.

I suppose I had always held up hope for immortality, or some extended life on account of the life I've lived and the things I know. Some sort of gift from the unknown entities that are floating about--or NOT--as a 'job well done' pat on the back.

I mean--two hundred years would be nice. Really nice. Or a thousand. To be able to devote hundreds of years to study and reading, to just absorb knowledge for a great long time.

I really hope there is some sort of life after death. If there isn't, I'm going to be pissed. Not like I'll know because I'll be dead--but the memory of me will be quite fucking angry.

And because I am who I am, I have to acknowledge that I just DON'T KNOW.

I want to believe what a scientist in physics was saying on some documentary I was watching--that energy does not break down or disappear, that it simply changes, and so reincarnation or another form of life is not that far-fetched... but I don't know if this guy was simply deluding himself as well as others or--what? I don't know.

The thing is; I don't feel like my body. Teigra is in the mind, she lives inside herself and is... is. Teigra is not the flesh that she occupies or the bones or the veins or the organs--I feel like the mind more then the body. Spirit and not flesh. I believe in spirit to a degree, but I wonder if it too can rot and die like the rest of us? Everything comes to an end.

Isn't this, like, what everyone who is anyone has debated throughout history? Why do we waste the time?

I think it's because no matter how much we deny it, we really are afraid of dying. We just distract ourselves and reason with ourselves and hypothesis about what will happen to make the fact of it less frightening.

Maybe.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-

I like the ones that did not mind.

Ugh.

I sent off an e-mail to my mother yesterday re-asking about my things and if she could ship them out to California for me. My e-mail read as follows:

Title: My stuff.

I'm just re-confirming the amount of the shipping. You gave me a figure of a little over $80 for everything except my paintings. I would like the total to ship everything, including the paintings, clothing, the bedding, shoes, books, and everything else that is mine that you have. If you could include the silver goblets and red candlestick holders that Grandori gave me, I'd be much obliged.

----------

And, then, her reply...

----------

I have had Matthew working for me. I think it would be best for you to send payment to him and ask him to ship you your things. He can pick them up and then you wouldn’t have to wait for a weekend when Dave has time to go to UPS and ship it all.

You also wouldn’t have to send emails to me or deal with me at all, which considering your opinion of me would probably be best for all parties.

It tore me apart to hear Dave relay the family’s reports of Eddie avoiding your phone calls. It made me sick inside to think that you were being misled. I told myself again and again to stay out of it, that you were an adult and needed to fight your own battles and learn your own painful lessons. For my concern, for my love and eventual involvement, I was told that you were ‘done with me’. And I hear those words repeated in my head each and every day since. Of all the difficult things I have put up with or heard from you, that was the worst.

Grandpa said, “You still have one daughter” and I just looked at him and shook my head. He can’t understand that it doesn’t matter how much I love Emily, or how much she loves me back. You just threw me away like I was a piece of trash, and that has hurt me so deeply I don’t even have words for it. You blamed me for the actions of a stupid, selfish teenage boy who chose HIS comfort and HIS love long before we interceded and asked for the truth.

I have always loved you Teigra. And I always will.

But like you said, you are ‘done with me’, as far as you are concerned you ‘have no family’. So just call Matthew when you need your stuff and he can make the necessary arrangements. Until your opinion changes, or you decide you do have a mother who has feelings and does give a damn about you, please do not contact me.

----------

By the time I finished reading that e-mail my heart was doing that pounding thing in my chest and all I was seeing was red.

A little explaining necessary?

My mother gave me this journal that she wrote in about me as well as a tin full of letters she wrote to me over the years (dating back to February 1988, 6 1/2 months before I was born). I have not read all of this journal or all of these letters, because every time I do I am absolutely disgusted by them. This is a seriously deluded, selfish woman. Almost every time she describes her feelings for me, it's always how much SHE NEEDS ME, how she wants me, how she couldn't live without me. She also admits, and often, that she's hard to get along with, that she's a "total bitch" (I'M QUOTING), but she never asks for forgiveness. It's almost like she's saying, "Yes, I'm very hard to get along with; I'm impatient, short tempered and generally nasty, but I'm your mother and I need you so deal with it."

What I get from this e-mail is that, yet again, my mother is blaming everyone but herself for what transpires in her life. Hell, I blame myself for a lot of bad things that have happened to me (and now that I'm going to therapy am working through a lot of that). My mother has no friends, no real family aside from the cautious love of her mother and father, and the only time she has anything else is when she knocks herself up and has the blissful love of a child for half a decade before they too realize the monster she truly is.

Alright, I'm ranting a bit at this point, and I apologize. I am trying to be patient and forgiving of this woman, but she drives me absolutely insane! I have decided not to talk to her... pretty much ever at this point... because every time I do it just causes me a great amount of physical and emotional pain.

She says in her e-mail that I "Threw her away like a piece of trash". Well, hell, she threw me out! How does she think that lead me to feel?

Now my mother denies that she threw me out, she says that "I left"--almost as though I had a few packed bags, a travelling cloak and a bonnet on, tearfully waving goodbye.

No, that's not how it happened.

I told her in a slightly heated argument that I hated the house that she had forced me to stay in, the one that I had been molested in. I told her that it drove me insane every night that I was in there, and I wanted nothing but to leave. She accused me of trying to guilt-trip her, that I was lying about not liking the house. I swelled, quite literally, with indignation, said in a low voice that I was sorry she did not believe me, because I was telling the truth. I left the room, went upstairs, got my art supplies together for a class later that night, and on my way out slammed the door.

Out she bursts after me, yelling, "If you want to slam doors then you can just get the hell out of this house! You can leave for all I care!" She was running and yelling and waving her arms a bit, much like she did when I was younger and she would hit me, or kick me, or pull my hair or slam my head into a counter. I freaked a bit. I threw my stuff into the car and got in as quickly as I could, closed and locked the doors. She came up and was standing six inches from my drivers side door, still yelling and pointing her finger. I rolled down the window an inch and screamed out at her, "You're a bitch! You're a filthy fucking whore!" I flipped her the bird, turned on the car, and quickly threw it into reverse as she grabbed a wooden planter (good two feet by one foot) full of dirt and rocks and started swinging it towards my car.

Later that evening, after the motor accident that I got myself into five minutes after that driveway incident (I could not see for the tears in my eyes), David came to see me at my friends work. He said, "You really screwed up this time, you can't come back." He asked for my house keys, told me I could keep the car, and said that my bank account, which was tied to theirs, would be shut down in the morning.

And later my mother has the audacity to say that "I left".

OK, yeah, I drove away, because I was afraid of physical injury, but what? I was supposed to apologize for something that I should not have to apologize about?

I don't hate her, I pity her. I pity that my mother will never change and has never changed. That she is so stuck in her world of self-delusion, that she believes she is right all the time, and that everyone else is wrong. Something that I've always wanted to tell her is that, when there's smoke, there's fire. She has no friends, no family that wants much to do with her, and every relationship she's had has gone down in flames. Her first-born (me) also wants nothing to do with her. I want to tell her; look around. If all those people, every one of us, does not want anything to do with you--do you really think it's us? Our faults, our problems? Have you ever wonder if it might be you? Because if you do--you're right.

I'm starting to write what I figure will me a over fifteen-page letter to my mother. It will be sent after my things are back to me, where she cannot harm them like she often does when she gets angry.

If I could get away with it, I would burn down that house she lives in. I would love to see that place that has caused me so much pain go down in so much fire and smoke and heat. I would love it. I would stand for hours and just watch it burn to the foundations. I wish I could, but I know I cannot. I know it's not the house that has caused me the pain, that it is just a symbol of my pain, and that burning it is not only illegal but... illegal. That is pretty much all that's stopping me.

*le sigh*

I need to go to the doctor and get on some stress meds. Every day my heart beats faster and faster, it feels like it'll burst from my ribs. My chest hurts more now then ever before. I simply cannot afford to go to the doctor right now. Maybe in a few weeks.

Ugh.

I sent my mother a reply to that e-mail. Just one sentence;

If you think that I told you not to be involved with me simply because of Eddie, then you are seriously more self-deluded then I thought.

It's sure to whet her appetite for the letter that is to come. For all the letters that she has sent me over the years, I will finally send her one, final one. It has been a work in progress these last three months in my own head, and now I'm finally committing it to paper.

I don't expect her to change. That would be a miracle, and I don't think I believe in miracles any more.

OK...

That's enough cynicism for today. I'm going to go attack my cat... with love and a squeaky ball toy.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-

Photographs on the stairs.

This is the image I'm now using for my profile. Taken five days ago.

And this is a picture I took about five minutes ago; in the same shirt for continuity purposes. Plus I really like that shirt... it's suede-esque.




Just being slightly narcissitic today. There's a huge mirror in the bathroom and I find myself being all kinds of strange in front of it for long periods of time.

But now that I've finished taking pictures, I'm dressed all in black again. Huzzah.

-Lady Teigra-

EDIT:

Well, I'm not just "slightly narcissitic". I'm totally, like, right there.

I'm trying to clunk out the beginning of my new version of Dark Wings, so I'm in my "writing outfit". It consists of my ankh (which I, actually, never take off), my writing ring, a corset and poets shirt, plus I pretty myself up with makeup to feel all... poofy. I drink tea out of huge mugs and juice out of wine glasses. Incense is lit, and particular music is playing in the background. Of course, I had to take some pictures of myself, because I'm just that self-absorbed.

-Lady Teigra-

With her glasses and all her books

I'm having a very bad morning. I thought that I should come on here and vent a little, perhaps situating myself better to get to work (which I should be doing, as I type).

As a little side note; when I've had a bad day or am feeling crappy, my work really suffers. Hardly a sale, and I just get a headache after a while, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

I just brewed myself a cup of some Twinings Lady Grey and that's helping to calm me down. So here's the dig;

Monday I did not work because I had a splitting migraine from the moment I opened my eyes. I spent the day in a dimly lit bedroom with a washcloth over my eyes, occasionally turning on the telly... but I don't have cable, so Judge Judy and her competitors were all I had to choose from. I ended up eating very little until around nine o' clock in the evening when, sweet relief in site, I scarfed a tuna sandwich.

Tuesday it was to the Community College. My Uncle Dave gave me a ride to and from, but even though we arrived as soon as the financial aide office opened (eleven o' clock), it was four o' clock by the time we arrived back home. The great news is that I'm finally officially enrolled in classes for the fall semester (Spanish 001, History 001B and Intro to Cultural Anthropology). My class fees were waved and I've sent off my FAFSA, which will hopefully award me enough by August 27th to afford my books. If not, there's the local ACCESS program, which helps out poor and first-generation college students (APPLIES) by giving free tutoring, laptop loans, book loans, campus tours (Universities), scholarship help, etc. The ACCESS office is not open again until next Monday, when I will pounce on them. Still, Tuesday I got things done, even though none of those things was WORK.

Wednesday (yesterday), I got two hours of work done, and a fairly good day at that. I made seven sales, which is above average for two hours of work, and my boss said made up for my two day absence. Around noon I left to pick up Vanessa downtown at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library, where my father would hand her off to me until late Friday evening, when her mom will pick her up. I chose Wednesday as the day to get her because it was the first, the day my EBT food stamps re-up. Since at that point I had a can of almonds, an apple, banana, and a head of lettuce to my name, I figured we'd need to go shopping for more food supplies.

Of course, stupidly, I do not check to see that my food stamp balance is above zero before I pick her up.

We get back to the condo come four thirty--thanks to the snails-pace that is the public transit system and the fact its an hour and a half from downtown to Sunnyvale, where I now reside. My feet friggen hurt at this point, since I've spent the last eight days walking at least four miles--sometimes more (Ah, the joys of no transportation). I decide to call my Uncle Dave and see if he's coming down that night so that I can avoid the three mile round-trip to the grocery store. At this point I've identified a sprain in my right ankle and, though not particularly bad, I want to keep off of it. After an hour I get a hold of Uncle Dave and find that he is, indeed, coming down that night.

At this point I check my food stamp balance and find it at... zero.

Of course, it is too late now to call my social worker and find out what is going on. I still have not called him, because I figured that the time that I am now spending typing would be spent working. As it is, as soon as I get off here I will be on the phone to my social worker to find out what is going on.

Still, I decide that I would like to try and see if the automatic system is correct in what it says, or if it is just a glitch. See, my Uncle has shelled out a lot of money for me recently; and thought I'm entirely thankful, I really prefer to stand on my own two feet. Not to mention that my Uncle is going through a messy little divorce and he's about to file for bankruptcy... I just do not want to put any additional financial strain on him. My Uncle has that affliction, you see, where he is too nice of a guy. And nice guys get drowned under their own niceness.

So, of course, when I tell Uncle Dave the news of my EBT balance, he tilts his head from side to side and says, "Well, if there's nothing there, just get what you need to get, and we'll work it out later."

See, I hate that, too, because I already owe in debt to several collection agencies and I would love to pay that off; not to mention that my FAFSA may not come in time to cover my books or the ACCESS program may not have the books I need so I may need to buy them with my own money; that there seem to always be interruptions when it comes to my work time.... so that twenty dollars an hour ends up being less then $200 a week sometimes. It seems that everyone I know right now expects me to not be able to pay for the things that I'm unable to pay for, but some of them make it much worse by trying to shove things off on me... like, babysitting my little sister without compensation or food help, or popping up in the middle of the day and expecting to be entertained.

Not complaining too much, but I'm trying right now, I really am. So many of the adults in my life are expecting me to fail and seem to be almost egging it on. When I manage to barely keep my head above water they pile more social and family obligations on top of me until I'm about to drown again. Still, I understand that many people have to deal with this and in much worse circumstances. After all, my motto is;

Worse things have happened to better people.

Alright, alright, I'm sorry, I just collapsed into babble for a bit there.

So, of course, my EBT is at zero. Still don't know what that is all about. I have the paper that says I will be rewarded $96 on the first of every month in EBT balance, and yet... nothing.

So this morning I wake up, take a shower, and a great bit more then usual hair falls out when I'm trying to comb through the wet hair. This stresses me out, because my hair has become so much thinner from the lack of nutrition and whatnot that was happening when I lived at the shop. My father does not believe in fruits or vegetable, you see. He believes in the almighty power of Cheez-Its and Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts.

Bachelor.

OK, so my hair falling out in great clumps makes me spaz a bit. And then there is my cat....

I love my cat. I cannot help but love him, but he is so damn annoying, especially in the morning. After a long period of me sleeping, all he wants to do is go outside, and he meows constantly. A very high-pitched meow, too, and it does not let up for about an hour and a half. I'm trying to clean the kitchen from last nights pasta, scallops and chocolate chip cookie meal--and he's underfoot, meowing his fool head off.

And then I do the thing that has had me crying for the last forty-five minutes. I reached down and smacked him, right across his cute little cat cheeks. Not like I'd smack a human, but a swift, sharp smack nonetheless.

Of course, this reminds me tremendously of my mother--how I would be doing what I viewed as "nothing" or "normal" and she would just, out of the blue, hit me, kick me, something. She did not know how to control her stress. And I'm realizing that neither do I.

Cats do not deserve to be smacked like I smacked Maxwell. He's the cat that has done the most for me, because he showed up right after I told my mother I had been molested, and he's always been a fabulous therapeutic kitty. Recently, however, he has just gotten on my nerves in a whole new way. I'm wondering if it's not my cat that is getting on my nerves, but just everything that has been happening in the past few months/years.

I know that every person has a breaking point. I think I'm nearing it, or very close to reached it. I'm glad that tomorrow at 2 pm I have my first counseling appointment, because I feel I really need it. But I'm beginning to wonder if I may need something stronger then counseling, as I've found that my mother needs. I'm wondering if I may need some medicating. And I don't want to be on medication, because I know that it messes with your chemistry--and I do not like that idea very much. It's just that I feel if my counseling does not work out very well, I may have to get on some meds. See how it goes. Last time I was on meds I was twelve and I flushed my pills down the toilet every single day after two weeks of crazy mood swings.

I would rather see my cat, whom I love very much, go to another home if I'm to continue to behave this way.

My father kept telling me I was my mother, that I put a "damper on everyone's spirits". My uncle is treating me like I'm some fragile little thing to be shielded from the world as much as possible. I want to tell him that I've already seen much of the world, and there's really no turning back point after what I've gone through and viewed. Everyone else is just... distant. Not there. My mother disowned me completely a few months back and I do not want to see her any more anyway, since there seems nothing but damage at that end. My sister is calling me mean and cruel, I figure she's implementing my father, for making her eat other foods then she's used to (my sister weighs below sixty pounds, 4'7", and is twelve years old). I'm trying to feed her new stuff because she does not eat enough, and I cannot believe that no one else is trying to get her healthier. When she stays with me she eats more then anywhere else. Still she calls me cruel, over and over.

I'm just starting to wonder, because I used to want to tell my mother, "Where there's smoke there's fire"--since she had no friends and no relatives that would speak to her. I find myself in much the same position now, though I have friends and family that speaks to me. Still, how they treat me is making me start to wonder.

Then again, I just think that no one has ever taken the time to actually get to know me. Everyone is running off assumptions and rumors from other people (my mother). Honestly, despite his treating me like a fragile thing, Uncle Dave has taken the most steps to actually figuring out who I am. My father could care less as long as I helped him with his cock-and-bull schemes. Everyone wants something from me my entire life, where as I've sacrificed what I've wanted for them.

God, that sounds really bloody cynical. I just find myself more and more angry these days, and close to tears, and just wishing that I had another life entirely.

When I told people about being molested, they freaked and coddled me and were "so very, very sorry". At the time I had no idea why everyone was making such a big deal out of it, but now I do. That was the only childhood I had. No chance to relive it. I had a very bad hand. An mentally and physically abusive mother, a sexually abusive step father, a negligent father... I mean, geez. That really sucks. I'm finally starting to appreciate it as such.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-

Teenagers scare the living shit outta me.

I never really liked "My Chemical Romance", but I find their song "Teenagers" to be pretty... erm, catchy. I like it.

I realized the other day, when talking to my Uncle David, that I was going to the public school system right around the time that the policies started to change. Columbine happened when I was in middle school--in fact, I was ON my schools "Columbine List"... I was #3. My Uncle was saying how he and a bunch of guys would carry their pocket knives to school, get in fights after class, that sort of thing. That there was not anything gang related or particularly violent about it--just kids fucking around--and when I told him that not only where pocket knives banned but you couldn't even SAY bad things about someone, nonetheless beat them up, he shook his head and remarked on 'How times change'.

I was thinking that perhaps the reason the kids go to such extremes in violence, as we saw in Columbine and a handful of other schools since then, is because our natural, human, aggression is allowed no outlet.

I've always gotten along with boys best of all, because boys don't play games like girls do. Girls are clever, yes, but there is something to a boy, or a man, that is very simple. When guys start hanging out with guys, they 'beat them up' a lot of the time--whether it be verbal or physical. There's always the traded punches, the "Ya' Old Man", "Asshole", "Punk", "Fucker" slung back and forth.

If women say something like that to other women, it generally goes down in flames.

Now, I'm generalizing, of course, but there are some character differences between men and women that I find extremely disquieting. Women are more likely to hurt through an act of manipulation or some "mental blow". Guys are more likely to hut by... "Lets take this outside" or something to the like. Guys don't mess with heads as much as women do; which is why I've hung out with guy friends and have been able to talk and communicate with guys so much easier then with girls.

It has been generally males that have committed the acts of violence that we now associate with school crime. What I'm wondering is if there has just been too much stifling of a mans natural aggression to where, eventually, the man simply explodes.

My gang of "guy friends" used to do something called Backyard Wrestling. They would get up on one of those enormous trampolines and vault at each other, trying to punch and pin someone down until they were at it again.

I feel it is necessary for men to do physical activity of some sort, whether it be in sports, in home improvement, in fights.... or whatever have you. I feel that too many in charge of the rules and law making have made the mistake of thinking women and men too much alike, or of not remembering their own youth in the case of older gentlemen.

Men feel anger in a more physical form. It burns inside of them, makes them want to DO something, makes them want to pummel and whatnot. With women, it festers in the brain and makes them want to do something as well, but it manifests, as I've said, more mental then physical.

Simply put; I feel less of the really BAD type of violence would occur if boys and men were allowed to scuffle and fight as they really want to. A lot of that nature is bottled up throughout the young years until its ready to burst. If you are reading this and you are a woman; imagine feeling anger and frustration in every limb, in every vein, crawling up your spine. You'd want to go out and just beat the crap out of someone. But if you were not allowed to do so, because that natural aggressive action is viewed as “Too Violent/Destructive/A behavioral problem”, what are you going to do? Keep it inside? Until what? You're handed a gun, or a knife, or an opportunity, and you say; 'well, to hell with this, I've kept my rage bottled up too long'.

I'm generalizing. Not all men snap and start shooting people or stabbing people or just being the shit out of whoever manages to pass by. Not all women feel the need to manipulate in order to exact justice or extent hurt.

But I feel we, as a society, need to realize our own nature; and not to deny it. Yes, we are a civilized culture, but civilization denotes that we not delude ourselves to something that we are not. Humans are not perfect, and we need our constructive outlets.

Yes, I feel like schoolyard fights between boys are girls are constructive. I feel that it helps tap that natural aggressive instinct.

And I'm not saying that this would be perfect; I'm not saying that some boys or girls would not be ganged up on or outnumbered; but if it was more 'socially acceptable' to jump in the middle of a brawl, who would miss that opportunity?

This was inspired by two things. One was a Tyra Show episode on transvestites. A girl became a guy by injecting male hormones and made the remark, “...feeling anger more physically then mentally” when asked how the hormones had changed how she felt as a woman. Two was; yesterday at the bus stop I watched a large man in gang colors start hitting on a woman sitting alone on a bus bench. She was obviously uninterested and he kept on, enjoying every moment of it, grinning and whatnot.

Which leads me to a minor rant: What gives men the idea that that is OK? That they can just go up to a woman and start sneering at her and asking her for her number, or asking her out for lunch; and when she says 'no' or gives other indications that she's not interested he just KEEPS ON?? I mean, get a clue. I know these men are generally undereducated and under civilized human beings, but they simply disgust me. You don't go and try to PRESSURE a woman into going on a date with you... and this guy was just so pleased with himself, swaggering away with a big stupid grin on his face.

The thing is, I was also sitting along at the bus station, and as a woman approaching a man to tell him off about hitting on another woman (especially when he was wearing gang colors)... I was afraid of getting shot. But the fact, especially in cities, that this has become such a socially acceptable occurrence is absolutely sickening to me. That everyone passed by this poor woman with some interested glances but no interference. Someone helping out someone else when they're in a situation like that can make all the difference in the world. And maybe you're not as alone as you think during broad daylight with so many people on the street, for surely if you talk loud enough someone else will come up and help you out or whatnot.

But these things have started to really upset me. Several times in the last few months I have been hit on by some repulsive figures, all of which I've threatened in some physical manner; because I've had quite enough of being a victim. Every one of these men has backed off as soon as I pull out my mace, or my little 'pocket knife', because they know I'm not to be fucked with at that point. But these women that go around and are simply trying to GET SOMEWHERE or just take a walk, or just be outside, that are harassed by these bastards... eventually it goes from simple harassment to some other, higher crime.

And the thing is; my pocket knife is illegal. It is illegal for reasons that I can understand, because it is easy to conceal and whatnot, but it is the best protection I have. It is a good blade and it does not show when I wear tight pants. The ultimate defense protection! So many are afraid to use it, however, because of that illegality. Simply put; I'll feign surprise if I ever get caught by a officer of the peace by defending myself or whatever. Especially if I've managed to ward off an otherwise lethal or potentially harmful attack.

I am tired of being the victim, and I'm especially tired of seeing other women LET themselves be a victim.

Meh. Done with that rant.

Yesterday I went up to the community college for the third time this week to fill out the financial aide paperwork and register and whatnot. The financial aide is still going to take some time to sort out.

I'm apparently a 'strange circumstance' because I'm under 24 and not living with my parents. The fact that “one kicked me out and the other is homeless” is what is under review right now. I cannot put down my father as a supporting person because;
A. He has not paid taxes in twenty years, so I cannot provide any tax information
B. He lives in a non-residential neighborhood and does not want to attract any attention to that
C. Half the time I was supporting him

However, there's a good chance that not only will I be able to get my classes paid for, but that I will receive financial support for my books, transportation, food and housing costs as well. From what I can understand, an Independent at my age is quite a strange thing; especially one that is ready and willing to receive a higher education.

I sincerely hope that I can go to class for the fall semester, but if this financial aide stuff does not sort itself out I may be looking at spring, which would kind of bite the big one. College would give me a bigger sense of accomplishment right now; and I'm about ready to get my life in gear and get moving on. I pretty much spent these last thirteen months in California recuperating from numerous losses of financial, family, possessions and friends type; not to mention some sever changes in my diet and my living situation.

Thank god that I'm actually in a more stable place right now. That I have a shower and a kitchen and a fridge 1/3 full of food and a pretty good paying job. My anxiety attacks have gone from about once or twice a day to about once a week or so. Next week I'll be going to a counselor for the first time in a long time. It will help me work out some of these problems I've been having quite hopefully.

Just for the record: I really, really detest my mother right now. I don't think it'll go away anytime soon...

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-

On a volcano's edge...

Alright, alright.

I've sat down... a lot... and thought about what I wrote about earlier today. There's nothing that I said there that I would un-say; I merely wish to say...

I'm in a great mood.

That blurb helped me out, a lot, and though many people may find it morose or cynical or a majority of other depressive names; I find it relieving. I really enjoyed writing it, and reading it, and thinking about it for part of the day. I said it at the beginning of the last entry—it had been a long time since I have written anything, anywhere. I kept looking at 'my little black book'; my paper diary that I keep my utmost thoughts and revelations in, but I couldn't bring myself to pick up the pen.

I've been drinking a bit tonight. My Uncle made a wonderful shrimp and mushroom dish with a white wine sauce. I, uh... made the rice. Of course I don't believe in using a wine in cooking that you would not drink, so I selected at the grocery store a wine that I'm particularly fond of—though don't ask me the name because I never remember names. It's the one with the cyclist on the front. Yes, it's an under $10 bottle (le gasp!), you wine freaks; but we're on a budget here.

...I've always been on a budget.

Still the wine is now sitting nice and warm in my belly, though there is not near enough to make me tipsy, or a little drunk or anything. Just warm and wanting to write a lot. OK, maybe a little tipsy.

I have to keep it under control since I've got work early tomorrow morning. Erm... early for me.

I've spent the day reading Christopher Paolini's 'Eragon', something I've avoided since I hate young published writers with a vengeance. It's an entertaining story, but as I'm only a third of the way through I'll reserve my final judgment... and then watch the movie to see how true it is to the book (though I've heard 'not very').

This is not a book I would have chosen for myself; my little sister forced me into it. Blame her!

... I finished reading Gaston Leroux's “Phantom of the Opera” day before yesterday. It took much longer to read then I expected, but it was pretty good. A few parts gave me goosebumps, which is hard to do since I'm generally calm when it comes to reading. I'm getting more and more into the stories with age, I figure. Next is that book 'Civilization', though I cannot recall what the authors name is and am too hooked at this computer (LAZY) to go and find it.

But today was a good day. I got a well amount of work finished (4.5/hrs=$90!) and tomorrow I'll be heading to the local community college to figure out the financial aide paperwork. I do hope I'll be able to do a part-time school schedule, since I'm not living at home anymore. I think full time would kill me. Scratch that. I KNOW full time would kill me.

Cheerio.

-Lady Teigra-

Diamonds are a girls....

It's been a long time since I sat down to write anything, anywhere.

Sure, I've written some notes—some pages in the newest version of the novel Dark Wings—and generally held a pen in my hand just because I love the feel of it. It's just been a particularly hectic time, emotionally more then anything else, and I've found that there is SO MUCH to write about that I was afraid to start.

One of the things that I'm sure my counselor will advice to me is that 'writing down your problems helps you solve them'. Sometimes I don't need to write about my problems, I simply need to write. Just seeing these words form themselves across the computer screen is soothing in so many ways. I guess that's the mingled gift/curse of one who works with words; that writing is the ultimate release of ones soul—as I've so often quoted—and yet sometimes the soul and the heart and the hand feel so hurt and heavy that the words just do not come.

I feel I've reached a point that, if I prolong my writing stasis for much longer, I will figuratively explode from the inside out if I do not get some things down.
I had a dream this morning in the fifteen minutes between the first assault from my alarm clock and the second. Snooze buttons are a marvelous thing but, as I'm well aware, I'm more prone to dreams in that ¾ asleep, somewhat awake phase. And I have extremely vivid dreams.

The dream was short, but there was Eddie, and he was 'coming home' to my condo. The second bedroom, instead of my office, was his bedroom, with a photon bed like my own. There was a moment when I saw him in the hall upstairs and he saw me of extreme awkwardness, quite realistic. We both eyed each other cautiously, then said 'Hello'. He pulled a bag of marijuana from his backpack and looked at it like 'what's this doing here?', shrugged and went into the second bedroom. I followed him, avidly wondering what he was doing in my home. He was sitting on the photon with his legs stretched out in front of him and I asked, simply to sound casual, 'Do you mind if I smoke with you?'. He shrugged and said, 'Just a bowl'.

Note; I stopped smoking marijuana some three months ago—and quit smoking cigarettes about two months ago.

There was silence and he handed me some funky home-made pipe, which took me a second to figure out before I took a hit. Then, handing it back to him and staring out the little windows into the parking lot and street outside I said, 'Eddie, can we please talk?'. He shrugged again and then looked up at me and asked, 'How are you?'. I laughed and said, 'Oh, just fine. I feel like there's a big hole in my chest and I want to punch you—and you know I'm not a violent person against anyone... except my mom.' As I said this he looked distressed and rolled onto his side, hiding his face. 'What I want to know,' I said, 'Is what Dave (Note: My mothers new husband and Eddie's Uncle) talked to you about. You said he spoke to you and this influenced your decision to break up with me, he told me he talked to you, but not about it. Can't I defend myself, if he said something about me? Can you tell me what it was?'

Then my alarm blasted again, and I forced myself into wakefulness. There was no way I wanted to go back to sleep with that as a preemptive. I wrapped myself up in a green robe, fed my cat, and padded downstairs in bare feet. There I leaned up against a counter and stared into the garden—if a weed-infested patch of dirt is what you'd call a garden—and for twenty minutes let my mind linger on this dream, and cried just a little bit, and decided again, with conviction, that I'm going to stay single for a long time.

I'm afraid if I get into another relationship right now I'm simply too young and too vulnerable to really deal with things. I want to give it a while, though I cannot put a time table on it. A few months, a few years? I don't know. Whatever feels right.

I feel betrayed and I hate feeling that way, because in so many ways it reminds me of how my mother views her old relationships. Not only that, but betrayal is a strong word—period. During my morning think; I concluded that I feel things quite strongly. When I fell in love with Eddie, I really fell for him. I still feel strongly for him, though the feeling is not nearly as clear as it was before, and intermingled with grief and hurt.

If it were up to me, I would simply erase Eddie and I's relationship from that time in our lives and move it into the future, when we're both older and more experienced in 'affairs of the heart'. I kept thinking that this morning; that we were too young to be messing around with each others hearts. Though I honestly wonder now how long Eddie really felt for me. He reassured me that he loved me up until a month before our breakup, and then the words of David somehow, really, set things in motion that were not reversed... I don't know. There's so many unknowns because now I've cut off communication with all of those people. Eddie said both, 'This is a recent feeling' and 'This is a long time coming' in terms of our break-up. Confusing? I think so.

I sent an e-mail to Eddie not a few days after the break-up call. I told him, 'I'm not really angry, I just need time to think about things. Give it a few years and, when you're older and in the world as I am, if you still want to be friends... you know how to contact me.'

The sneaking around really hurt me, though. That there was another girl the entire time that he told me he loved. Yeah, I slept around with some other guys, but there really was nothing but sex there, no love, though there was some affection here and there. I was lonely. While I had no one to comfort and no one to comfort me he was off... fucking Roz. Reading on his MySpace that they 'Rang in the new year quite nicely'... when the New Year was Eddie and I's anniversary. These things really hurt, but I did not tell him, because I didn't want to appear in bittered, I did not want to be the 'tight ass' girlfriend. Now I wish I had let him know how things were affecting me; perhaps we could have come to an end that I would be a little less confused about.

And, above all, Eddie has always had his family so near at hand. Though they have their quirks, they're still his family and they love him. My family is practically nonexistent. I have my father, who is so desperate that he has become manipulative. My mother who, in so many words, is a psychopathic evil manipulative conniving bitch. My grandmother, who's suicidally depressed. My grandfather, who's get-rich-quick schemes have occupied a majority of his time—plus he lives in Panama. My sister, who is too young to be much comfort in things, though I do draw comfort from her. My 'adopted family'--my sisters family—who honestly have their children to worry about more then I and so, as much as they care, they're not... there. Not in the way I want family to be there. My Uncle Dave, he's a good one, but he's dealing with a divorce, a full-time job, a mother in an assisted living facility who is always calling him. Eddie's never had that family. He doesn't know what it's like to be thrown out and mowed down and generally in the gutter. He doesn't know what it means to be OUT ON YOUR OWN.

I have a sister that I barely know because my mother took me away from her. Eddie has shared the same room with his and, even though they annoy him sometimes, they are his family.

He doesn't know. There's no explaining. There is no way I can really do that. Family is important to him while family has done near to nothing for me. My mother may have been an intelligent person, and taught me some things that I still hold true, and my father may be close to me, but he's too entirely self-righteous. I cannot explain these things. There's too much to say and after a while I just seem like a bitter, complaining, angry person. I'm not. I've come to terms with the fact that this is my life.

I had thought, stupidly, that Eddie understood. But I was wrong. I hate being wrong, but it's a fact of life. I learn from it.

I want a family, but I make my own family. I have close friends that I consider family. I'm trying to reach out to a lot of them right now because I feel so lonely. I want my Matthew back, I want the comfort of Jackie, and maybe even that ninny, Casey.

Sometimes the words just go away with you. This isn't really what I had planned to write, though there was no particular planning to this writing. I just wanted to write to get things off my chest and quickly, before I got to work...

What do I expect out my family and my friends? Companionship; the same thing that I ask for in any relationship. I don't want to rely on anyone, I don't want anyone to rely on me. I just want people around that can be together, love each other. Love me. Because one of the things that I've felt very recently that I've never really felt before... well, no, that needs more explaining.

I've always felt unloved, but through the assurances of others I have allowed myself to feel loved. The only time that I have felt loved and really allowed it is in relation to my very best friends; Matthew and Jackie especially. My mother, I was always falling in and out of love with her—she loved me when I acted like the 'perfect daughter'... someone who wasn't me. When I acted like myself, she had big problems with me, hence the getting kicked out—and that was just for standing up for what I believed in. Her second husband, the one who molested me, kept telling me he loved me. That was bullocks. I feel love for Bill, my stepbrother through that marriage and someone who I still consider my brother, though I've had little contact with him recently.

The point is, I feel as alone and unloved now as I've always felt, but never let myself feel for the assurances of others. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really capable of having that pretty, life-long love that everyone talks about. I really thought I had that with Eddie, but through the manipulations of other people—by him LETTING others manipulate him—it was shattered. I cannot trust him again, thereby I cannot love him again.

I don't trust a lot of people and, like I've mentioned before, there is no love without trust. I learned very early in life to depend only on myself. I love me because I trust in me.

This may sound so very cynical, but they are simply observations. It's not that I don't believe love exists, it's that I'm looking for a love STRONG ENOUGH to really work. Everyone is afraid of love. I am not. I feel like I bathe in it every day—that everybody does. Do they realize it? Hardly ever. Love changes, love fades, yet I trust in it because it is very, very real.

I feel I know the kind of love I'm looking for, but it is very special, very abnormal. Nothing like the love that is often offered to me. Even though those who offer may feel it, I do not. Not strong enough. Too weak, too young, too naïve in the ways of the heart. I will not trust myself to these people again, no mater what they promise.

And I'm speaking now of several men—some four in number—that are currently trying to win my affections through confessing their 'undying love'. I don't trust any of them. I don't want any of them. Again, it may sound cynical, but what do they have to offer me? None of them know what they are to do with their lives; none of them can genuinely hear where I'm coming from and respond in kind with knowledge and wisdom of their own. They have fallen for my body, or my words, but not with me.

I've been proposed to a lot. I've rejected many. The one man I really wanted rejected me. I'm a little cynical... but I'm also, I feel, growing stronger.

These words have helped, I feel like that hard knot in my chest has loosened a little. Perhaps I'll write more soon but, as always, no promises.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-

Pick an apple from a cherry tree

Eddie has broken up with me.

Now for some random stuff from my leather book, which I have titled... Untitled.

----------------

01/24/07

Someday, she knows, there will be that start-over point with him. The tension between them was thick enough to walk on. They didn't say anything about it, but they both knew. Silent acknowledgment that their eyes followed others across the room. They smiled at each other, but not so full of adoration as it used to be. The magic was almost gone, the thing that had swept them both off their feet so well. It had seemed eternal; too much of a feeling for it not to be that true love. They'd grown up since then, and felt love eroded by waves of responsibility and reality.

Even in the beds of other men she found no true solace. He didn't know, not in words, but she knew he KNEW. How couldn't he? Dates they had planned weeks in advance she'd break with barely a moments notice. Just because a beautiful man with strong arms held her as she made the phone call, whispering to him, "I love you," though she never felt that tingling sensation any more. She missed it.

What could she say to him? That she loved him more then anything, but didn't feel she was in love anymore. She wanted time to miss him, and to remember. And then she wanted to meet him again as though she had never seen him before in her life. And why not? What was wrong with a beginning; beginnings she loved more then middles or ends. Couldn't this love be always a beginning love? She wished it could be, wanted it to be, in the beginning they had been so very in love.

She couldn't finish his sentences anymore. She didn't know what he thought or felt. Couldn't smile at him as she used to and know that he knew what she meant. He asked her what she was thinking more then anything else. And how often did he just say, "I love you too", instead of saying those three words first? She tried not to let this bother her, but knew it did. She could say whatever she wanted to him, but she could not hide from herself. She was scared of letting him go, that in their separation he'd find someone that really meant something. She knew that there were better women then herself scurrying about. That in all probability he'd find them. She wanted the assurance that he would come back to her. There are no such assurance in this world, she knew. If she let him go, that was what she was truly doing. She could talk until she was blue in the face that they would alway be together, but talk is only talk. She knew that more then anything.

She supposed she was just scared. The saying says, "If you love them, let them go," but what if letting him go, even for this "short" time, hurt her like a wound to the heart? What if she never felt that great tingling sensation again, because she only felt it for him? That he really was the one, no matter who she kissed or who she fucked? Maybe it was him, only him, her soul mate. She did love him after all.

Again she felt she just needed time. Time to miss him, time to fall in love again. Over and over again. Because loving him was like falling into a great sea, where you were swept away, held against your will to the will of the great ocean. Maybe she had just been swept into the doldrums and had to find her way out.

He smiled at her now and told her that he loved her. She felt like crying, but she believed him, and prayed that she was not a fool. A fool for him, a fool for love, a fool in love.

------------

2/18/07

...sometimes there would be fights between them, maybe long periods of silence. Scared images the two of them shared of the other. Loosing them, being hurt by them. "Thank god," they'd both say, "I was worried." Scary in love, frighted at the feeling of it, petrified with the idea of loosing this. Some say they were fools, "Fools, young love is a bright flame, burns quick and dies." They refused to believe in this; renegades and rebels they are. Rebel lovers, a new hope; Proof.

....partners, she thinks, partners in an illegal love. They share magic. She KNOWS this. It's there, she thinks, in his perfect eyes.

His voice touches parts of her never touched before, "I love you," he says, "I've missed this."

They both have. She touches his face and smiles because she remembers how many times she has imagined and dreamed of touching him. She's so happy that he is real. She loves him, says so, says that she wants him; "please kiss me" she whispers. Of course he does, and they both suck in air with gasps when it is over. She feels that this is worthy of poetry and says so. He raises his eyebrows and smiles that smile that makes her melt into a sloppy, giggling, girlish puddle inside. She cannot resist touching him, showing off for him, and kissing him over and over again.

...She wishes to be everything for him. She desires perfection in his eyes. She cannot get over it. He tells her, you worry too much, you know I love you. He grips her arms. She smiles at him and says, "I love you enough for both of us... I know you love me." She, on reflection, wishes she could be unsure about things truthfully because she IS unsure. She knows and understands but still feels fragile. It ashamed her, though she doesn't feel weak, just stubborn in a subtle sort of way.

...on the radio is in her head. She wants to tell him about it, but knows he should hear it, really. She's not good at portraying songs. It's from one of their bands too. "I'm miles from where you are/I lay down on the cold ground and/I pray that something picks me up and/Sets me down in your warm arms." She wants to smile at him and say, "That sounds familiar, doesn't it?" but is frightened of him saying no.

She thinks he looks like a god, a fallen angel, a creature, a deity. He is perfect inside and out, a beauty so strong it pricks her eyes with tears. She is so in love with him right now she cannot think of anything else.

...He tells her, "You are beautiful, so beautiful." She believed him now more then she had in the past. Says , "Thank you, you're pretty pretty yourself." Handsome. Whatever. She felt that handsome doesn't' cut it sometimes, not while she glows with the aftereffects of his touch. Not while her voice is still that hushed, sultry bedroom voice. The one that he loves so much and calls cute.

She kisses him like she does when she wants to remember a kiss, think back on it, and whisper "I love you" to an empty room, while he sleeps miles away and perhaps dreams. The hardest part is coming back to the room after he leaves and there is the scent of him there. Sometimes she will cry because she misses him so much.

She wants to tell him everything, desperately, that he is everything to her. "You are the only thing that makes sense," she would say with confidence, because she knows it to be true.

-----------------

05/16/07

I was walking down the street/
Seeing those people I won't ever meet/
Thinking thoughts irrational/
Just listen to this beat now/
Oh yeeeah... one, two, three, GO/
In a dream within a dream you will find me/
A third eye blazing looks into you/
And a tigers-eye gaze will bring us/
Into this flaming sea of clarity/
Oh yeah/
Baby, I know you cry sometimes/
That you are angry in this lonely world/
And these dreams are meant to comfort you/
But that's one thing dreams'll never do/
You wrap your hand in mine/
You touch me with your lips/
So say a smile, honey/
Cause you think life is such a bitch/
Yeah I know you cry sometimes baby/
Sad and angry in a lonely world/
In a dream within a dream you'll find me/
And no longer be alone/
The the third eye clarify you/
Cleanse the residue the world leaves on you/
Baby I know you're scared I'll penetrate you/
Leave you bleeding on the ground/
I will penetrate you/
To elevate you/
To see your crown of stars upon your head/
Baby you may be angry in this lonely world/
But here we are/
Dreaming...

---------------------

A letter to Eddie. Unreceived or ignored.

05/16/07

I love you. I feel now as though I'm always going to love you. My heart feels heavy with what I told you about today—it seems like all I can talk about is the negative side of things here recently when you and I have spoken. I want you to know that those things are said are not the way I feel about you. I've come to a pretty solid stance with you. I just wanted to reiterate for the purpose of clarity;

I understand that you and I cannot see each other on a regular basis. Since I've moved to California... in fact, since being thrown out... I've had limited communications, little funds, etc. I know that you live a very busy life. You have so many obligations right now; what with work, school, family, friends, relationships... and the fact that you and I are a secret love, well, it doesn't help the stress factor, does it? I know that this relationship has been hard, but for me it has been the most rewarding relationship I have ever been in. I feel like myself when I'm around you, not like I'm playing a part or trying to live up to some strange expectation. I feel like you and I connected on a level that is most important to me—creativity. And you are so creative, quirky, honest, fun... I love so many things about you. I'm a patient person now, a whole lot more patient then I was when we began this relationship. I understand that I want to see you, but I also understand that you can't always get what you want, for the reasons already stated. I do miss you, often and hard, but that doesn't stop me from seeing reality.

The work that I've just recently started through the Internet (I'm going to build an empire—har har) is going to bring me into San Francisco more often. I realize that a full day of freedom is rare for you, so I'm hoping during some of these visits that you can find time to see me. I would like to walk with you and talk with you and touch you, but I will have other reasons for being there.
I've “upgraded” since turning eighteen. In turn of fact, it's happening on a daily basis. The more I live as an adult the more I'm learning about my own mind, and of the people in my life. I have missed a lot of contact with the world, but I've been in what Dad and I now refer to as my “cocooning”, a time to heal and re-determine myself. In short; I've changed. I'm still me, but I'm not exactly the same thing.

So I see these next few months as a new beginning. What has ended was that scared, confused, emotionally scard individual that I was. I'm still all me, with all my memories intact, I've simply learned to live with some of those hard, cold facts that I newly found about my childhood, my parents... all of that disappointment. All of that pent-up rage I never knew I had. I had to let myself feel angry, hurt, depressed for a while. It was not a time I particularly wanted to be around you... because I did not want you to think that was who I was. It was a stage. It was hard, and I know you would have been there for me. But believe me, you were. You were always in my thoughts; you are one of my rocks. During this time I solidly fell in love with you, and fully trust in the love you've shown and feel for me.

Forgive me, love, for all these transgressions. I do love you. I've never stopped loving you. I've missed you terribly and I want nothing else but to see you face and kiss your lips and touch you. Write back to me.

------------------

These things happen. I feel I'm mostly over it already. I don't know. I feel like I've cried enough for him. Nearly two and a half years of constantly missing him, wishing I was closer, and having a hard time with life while I was at it. He says he has run out of patience with me. I feel like I've run out of patience with myself as well.

Everyone told me this would happen. Everyone. I refused to believe it. I told them that he and I would show them, that we would be victorious in the face of all of this backstabbing bullshit everyone was throwing at us. But it is true; I put my faith in someone too young and too vulnerable. It was part my mistake. I'm not very upset about it.

This was the best relationship I've ever been in. It has been full of very happy memories for me that I will continue to hold close to me and cherish. I still care about him very deeply, and I feel that, given the time to lick my wounds, I could become good friends with him again. I don't want to loose his company, at least. He is an intelligent, interesting, strange and fun guy. Why wouldn't I fall in love with him?

I need this time to heal again. To find myself anew, for the 600th time this year.

The sad thing is, I never feel there can be a Tuesday with him now. It's gone. I would never trust him again, now without some new and unforeseeable turn of events, explanation, conversation. What is love without trust?

No matter how much I rationalize and can come to terms with it, though, one thing remains: I hurt. I hurt bad. Worse then I've ever hurt before. But I don't want to cry for him any more, or for us. Like I said... I've cried enough.

It does hurt, though.

-Lady Teigra-