There's trouble afoot

Today, towards the end of my work day, I found a cryptic note on my desk. Now, recent shenanigans going on in the office (like my Twilight cards relocating to the ceiling on an almost daily basis) should have left me immediately concerned. I have to admit, at the time, I was rather enraptured by Robert Pattinson’s distractingly British voice doing the Twilight commentary. By the way – Rob should say coccyx and bouffant all the time. I’m just saying.

Oh, I wasn’t completely oblivious. I gathered the usual suspects and did a couple of internet searches trying to figure out what language the note was written in. No luck. As I started driving home, a nagging suspicion began to build in my stomach. Could the same devious demon who recently held alf hostage be behind the ominous note? If so – what precious item might be missing from my cluttered, mess of a desk?!

Egad - Edward is in trouble!

I sat down for dinner, feverishly intent on figuring out this note cryptogram style. As I worked on it, I got a little more nervous. And then – I realized what the fourth word had to be. Gasp! Someone has taken Edward!

Well, tomorrow, hopefully holds the answers to the following questions:

1) Which Edward?? I’m a scatter-brained Twi-Hard. My desk is littered with Edwards. My money is on my precious, beautiful Twilight Director’s Notebook, but we shall see.

2) Who or what is the ancient one? My first thought: Yoda. Probably wrong considering I don’t think our office has a Yoda. A Boba Fett and a Chewbacca – but no Yoda. A couple of my co-workers suspect fellow co-worker Corey. LoL. If the latter is true, I do have to appreciate the kidnapper’s sense of humor!

3) Who is the culprit?! Retribution will be swiftly delivered with my no-knuckled fist of FURY! We must note that the thief is both dastardly and also must carry around a journal. Hmmmm.

4) What the heck symbol language IS that?!

To be updated…..

Update 3/24/09

Wtf mate?

Numbers seem more likely than letters….

Update #2

It said: Find your path where time stands still. Thanks Audrey, Corey and Crystal!!!

The third clue was on a table under four broken time-zone clocks in our office.

Curiouser and curiouser

Again – no clue.

Update #3

It says Seek the Chosen One for your beloved.

Thanks again to Corey and Crystal. Especially Crystal for figuring out WHICH chosen one we were looking for.  For the record: Harry Potter – IE Jeremy.

My “beloved” notebook is back in my arms!

Here goes, 7 Things you might not have known about me.

1. I Am A Diagnosed Manic-Depressive

Manic depression is characterized by a series of insane highs and extraordinary lows. Maybe it’s why, sometimes, I can’t stop giggling. In my experience, mental disorders are not something most people can understand or, typically, sympathize with unless they’ve been there themselves. How can you blame them? On the outside, depression often looks like a choice. Why dwell on the negative? Get off your ass and do what you need to do.

I didn’t take the little yellow pills. I totally and completely support the pills by the way. There’s no shame in them, none at all. It just wasn’t the avenue I chose. Being the stubborn person I am, I took the seven years dragging yourself over burning hot coals route. Now I look at depression as a disability. Take a paraplegic playing basketball. They can learn how to work with their disability and learn to play. With time, it may even get close to easy, but it will never be as simple as a “normal” person playing basketball.

2. Up Until 2.5 years ago, I Was a High School Drop Out

See above if you want a reason. My High School years are a very misty haze that has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol.

Let me be the first to tell you that being a high school drop out is not the end of the world. Only once did it ever even affect me. Only one job did a background search that covered high school. Not that I’m advocating dropping out. I’m just saying, if life handed you a hurdle and you fell over it during those formative years, it’s not the end of the world. I’d have done just fine the rest of my life without it.

However, it’s a matter of what you want. I did not want to be a high school drop out for the rest of my life. I went to Corona-Norco Adult School. They gave me an acre of rain forest in the form of copied text books. I did the work. I took the tests.

Class of 2006. Proudly.

3. My One and Only Childhood Celebrity Crush Was Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Isn't He Adorable!?

I did not subscribe to Teen Beat or Tiger Bop or whatever the heck those magazines are. I never would have looked at them until I saw JTT for the first time. I’ll never forget it. It was something about the eyes, the longish hair, the lopsided grin.

If I had been in a comic book or a cartoon little tiny hearts would have been undulating around my head.

Beware of teenybopper crushes! Because of this boy I have seen “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, “Tom and Huck”, and “Man of the House” far, far too many times. And, for the record, once was already too many times!

4. My One and Only ADULT Celebrity Crush IS Robert Pattinson

Edible

Maybe it’s an every 13 years thing but it seems my time has come again. Oh. My. Lord. Everyone knows that crushes SUCK. They are ridiculous. They are consuming. They are, well, degrading. And man do you ever feel like an idiot when you’re in the middle of them.

For all of that – crushes on celebrities is 500x worse.

Seriously, I’m in love with this kid. I could go on a Billy Crystal in “When Harry Met Sally” style rant about the tiny things that make me swoon about him. I love how, even when he tries to tame his hair, by the second minute of an interview he has reduced it to a nervous disarray by running his fingers through it. I love his nervous laugh. I love how he literally says the very first thing that comes to his head without thinking about it. I love the way he says baffles. I love that he can sit next to the likes of drop dead gorgeous Heidi Klum on the Tonight Show with millions of people watching and talk about his less than stellar bathing habits.

UGH. This is terrible. And pointless and, oh-my-god the stubble (not pictured) /drool. The boy has reduced me to a 16-year-old valley girl. UGH.

5. I Still Sleep With My Baby Blanket

Actually, I still sleep with A baby blanket is more accurate. My original baby blanket was a blue cotton number with silk edges. I carried it everywhere. I remember when it used to cover me completely. I took it everywhere. It’s name was Blue Blanket. Bluie for short.

Now, when I was about 13 the thing finally breathed its last breath. By that time it was just a mangled piece of bluish cotton with a few tattered shreds of silk attached. At some point, I lost all the pieces. I think that blanket disintegrated.

But I never forgot the feel of the cool silk through my fingers. It was calming to me, like a drag of a cigarette for a smoker. I missed it, like a phantom limb. So, at age 21, when I found another baby blanket of mine – a scratchy, brown and quilt pattern medley with brown silk edges – I named it Blanket, Blankie for short, and I haven’t put it down since.

Hey – it’s better than smoking when you’re stressed isn’t it?

6. I’m a Word-Phile

Nothing gives me more pleasure than words. Take the word debacle for instance. Is that not the most delicious word to say out loud? It is a delightful, delectable and slight roguish word. I like the way it feels in my mouth (and yea, that’s what she said).

7. I Narrate My Life in My Head

Seriously. I always have (she typed with a wry smile playing on her lips). Every once in a while it slips out and I get a few curious stares. But then (she mused with chagrin), I often get curious stares.

And there you have it. Now onto the next victims! Alex Guillen, Zak Nicola, Ali Roblan, Marcelo Erazo come on down! Yea, I know I’m supposed to tag 7 people, but I don’t know 7 people that blog AND haven’t been tagged before so … I owe the Internet gods 3 sacrifices at a later date! :-p

Update: The following soul has been tagged Joanne Fuentes.

Update: And my Jenny

I basically told the lady, who was crazy but very nice, do whatever the hell you want that doesn’t include chemicals, I’m bored. I didn’t know that she was going to torture my face (which is long hand for threading – ouch).

Proof my hair can curl, who knew?

A head you could picture a princess crown on.

How do I flip that? Wtf….

Jesus Vs. Tony – A Humble Comparison

Throughout civilization, extraordinary men have spent their lives making a mark on history. Some of these men were good, some of them were bad, but all of them were special in some way. Without delving into the complications of “morality”, I’d like to share how I am alike and different from one of these extraordinary men. No, this is not a effort to compare my depravities to those of Caligula or the Marquis de Sade. Nor is it a dissertation on my similarities to the maniacally genius qualities of King Henry VIII, Joseph Stalin or Richard “Darth Vader” Cheney. When I wish to find my historical equivalent and measure our qualities against each other, I shoot for the top: Jesus H. Christ. Does that seem arrogant of me? I don’t care. Jesus talked of being the Son of God. That’s why the H. stands for hydrogen and not humility. Or maybe it stands for honesty? I always forget, but either way my point is clear – Jesus and I are so similar its astounding.

I think I should start with the physical resemblance of me and Jesus. It’s probably not surprising to realize that both Jesus and I have a lean, rugged masculinity. First of all, we both can grow a mean beard. In fact, whenever I decide to practice my the cloning of bread and aquatic creatures I always find the “miracle” commands much more authority with a ragged soup-catcher. I don’t happen to have a beard right now because I’m like to change my appearance from time to time to better avoid the authorities – something Jesus should have considered. Besides facial hair, Jesus and I both have what I like to call “Abs of a Savior.” Some might call this malnutrition; the ladies call it sexy. Another physical attribute that always gets a few panties thrown is scarring. Any woman that doesn’t find permanent physical mutilation completely seductive is a liar, and probably communist to boot.

Moving past the superficial, Jesus and I both have a propensity for alcohol. Yes, it’s true that in Jesus’ time there were no water-treatment plants and that drinking wine with water was a good way to make sure some opportunistic parasite didn’t make camp inside his intestines. That is irrelevant. All it proves is that Jesus had a better excuse to drink than I do. Excuses are like feet, everyone has them and no one thinks their’s stink. However, I did take a cue from Jesus and realized talking to large groups of people while inebriated is much more fun than sober. Who among us hasn’t thought, “Tonight I’d like to get totally wasted and start inciting civil unrest from a large pile of dirt?” Jesus was also invited to all the parties for his little water-to-wine magic trick, an ability I’ve found especially hard to reproduce. I tend to get invited because of my status as a non-minor. Either way, we both are able to provide booze and give incendiary, thought-provoking speeches much to the delight of our audience.

Eloquent speeches bring me to the next parallel of me and Jesus – quotability. The greatest figures in history all had very profound and interesting one liners, we are certainly no exception to this rule. However, our quotes tend to follow different themes. One of Big J’s (as I like to call him) most famous quotes is, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” My most popular quote is probably, “There’s no sense in half-assing your way to damnation,” something I thoroughly considered when writing this particular paper. Another pair of contrasting quotes are on the subject of hubris. Jesus said “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” whereas I regularly announce, “I don’t have a God-complex, God has a Me-complex.” The differences are subtle, I’ll admit; but if one looks hard enough they can be found. It’s probably not secret to anyone in the Bible-belt, but Jesus spoke in red. The common misconception is that the texts with Jesus’ words were simply colored red for easy reference, but this is simply not so. He actually talked in red. I talk in color too, but it’s not the passionate shade of vermilion Jesus was known for. My words come out a very sarcastic shade of green. Don’t worry, it’s entirely unnoticeable to your pathetically unaided human brain, but the pigment is there nonetheless.

As I’ve explained, there is no doubt about the similarities between Jesus and me. We’ve both made quite a mark, or blemish as the case may be, on the world. Our physical attributes are simply stunning. “Women want us, men want to be us.” as the saying goes. Combine that attractiveness with our witty repartee and the ease at which we provide (and consume) alcohol and we’re practically twins. Yes, the world became a much more interesting place after the birth of Jesus “Hydrogen” Christ and Tony “That’s not all ego” Amorosa.

So, after living the last 30 minutes of my life, I wondered where my light was. There’s no one online right now, at least no one that I can really talk to. There’s no special invitation in my e-mail, or some happy news arriving just on time. It didn’t seem right. I don’t look upon whatever force is out there as totally benevolent, but I was still surprised at the total lack of concern.

It took me a while to process that the darkness is not encroaching. Rather, it’s on the horizon, looming with an inevitable fierceness, but not here yet. It’s not true that I don’t feel anything. Rather, I feel the expectation of what’s to come.

My mother just told me that my grandfather has Alzheimer’s. The first thing I felt was a minor annoyance, followed by guilt. Annoyance because I know the difficult road ahead, and I know that – the disease aside – he never would have made it easier for us. He hasn’t so far, has he? Of course, guilt followed soon on the heels of that thought. What kind of a monster thinks that about her own grandfather?

Yet what choice do I have at this point? The somewhat detached relationship I have with my grandfather was much more his choice than mine – than any of ours. Realistically and logically, what is he but an obligation? No, we’ll never be cruel, but how much more than dutiful can we be?

My mother, a diabetic for over a decade now, is working two jobs – both of them with an extraordinary high stress level. For the first time the diabetes has become unmanageable, and the doctor wants her to go on insulin. That idea is pushing my mother over the edge. She hates needles. But there’s no doubting that her health is declining. She hurts all the time.

Teetering so recently on the edge of my own problems, I don’t really understand how I’m going to be strong enough for this. My family – I feel as if we’re all pinwheeling, arms flailing, trying desperately to remain upright. But if we’re all so unsteady we’ll only end up knocking each other over. How can I be a rock with the consistency of sand? But really, what are the options here?

I don’t know if I can be as strong as I’ll need to be. I don’t know if i can spread myself as thin as I need to be spread. Time, the only constant, will tell what the darkness will bring, and what light will be in the eye of the storm.

And it felt exactly like coming home.

Coconino Forest is the biggest ponderosa pine forest in the world. I love the ponderosas. I opened the window and it smelled better than any candle I’ve ever owned: damp earth from a rainy day, countless flowers and bushes, the thick scent of pine that overshadowed almost everything else. I remembered with very sudden clarity the stickiness of the sap from the trees on my fingers from playing in the forest, and the sharp thorns of the pine cones.

Flagstaff itself was an interesting experience. Almost a decade of growth left part of the town horribly unfamaliar and yet completely the same. It was more crowded than I remembered, with more shops and more chains along Main Street. But I still picked out some of our old haunts. We had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, at the base of Mt. Elden, the only mountain I’ve ever climbed.

After lunch we drove to Sedona. Sedona is a town like no other. It’s steeped in both the beauty of the high desert and the trees and steep rocksides of the Oak Creek Canyon. The road down into the canyon is a steep, twisting, 2 lane highway that would be terrifying under some circumstances. I should know. I was in a van once that spun on the black ice, ending up mere inches from the sheer cliffs. The creek itself, usually winding along the road, further down the cliffs, was pretty dry from the creek I remembered.

Favorite quotes:

Me: (totally forgetting about the river you cross to get to Arizona) Hey, what river is THAT?

Mom: (without a pause) The Amazon.

At the wonderful Italian restaurant that has occasionally caused cravings for the last 9 years.

Mom: They use such high quality pepperoni here.

Me: That’s what she said!

Cathedral rock in Sedona, AZ. It was evening, and overcast. The DEPTH of the red in the rock just can’t be captured correctly on camera, but maybe this at least captures some of the beauty.

The water from Montezuma’s well cuts beneath the rock and emerges right here, beside a path where the Sinagua indians used the run off as a means of irrigation. The water here is naturally warm and very clean. I used to play in this little creeklet as a child and I had to stop myself from playing in it again today!

Montezuma’s well from the top. You can’t see it from these pictures but there are ancient Sinagua ruins carved into the cliffs here. How amazing is that? It was so quiet here… it’s not far from the freeway yet you couldn’t hear a single car. The silence, as they say, was deafning. It was a great experience, I’ll write more later.

“I ain’t looking for anything from you. I’m just feeling kind of truthsome right now.”

When I fell for you originally, it was just a school girl crush; cute but annoying…to me anyway. It was the humor that did it, the clever play with words, even sounds. I love the spontaneity and utter hilarity of the way you arrange your words. Whatever I’m expecting to come out of your mouth is never close to what does. Wit rolls off your tongue so effortlessly, as natural as breathing and sharp and deadly as a well kept samurai sword. Such quick banter that I only wish I could keep up. I might try, but usually I’m too busy laughing. I do love to laugh.

With time my little girl crush faded, replaced with a deepening friendship and a kindred spirit I thought I’d never find. I don’t always have what one might call conventional ideas. The problem with convention is that it’s so widely accepted, people, even the movers and shakers, don’t think to revise, analyze or challenge it. I do, to extremes. Even though a few have at least tried to understand, no one has, not until I met you. Not only do you understand my thinking, but your own often goes just one step further. It is not often you meet someone who can debate and discuss any topic, reexamine it from all possible angles and then invent a few that no one ever has before. Most people only think to ask why I care so much. Finding you is like the infinite joy of an immigrant finally finding someone that understands the nuances of her language, someone with whom they can communicate with freely, deeply and easily.

Your mind is beautiful. You can flow freely from explaining physics to quoting myths. I love that you’ve never stopped learning, that you always thirst for more. You are the person I want to be when I grow up, the person I might have become if I hadn’t gotten so tired, always consuming knowledge. You are the only person I know who I can honestly say you could do anything, be anything and be great at it. I can’t imagine a time when I would get sick of your stories, so to speak. I love your passion for movies, books and of course, music. It’s another rarity to find someone who gets lost in the meaning of music, and movies, deciphering the verbal (and visual) symbols, the meaning between notes. And on top of it, when it comes to music, you also hear what the instruments are saying.

It began to occur to me that I adore you. It began to occur to me that you were fascinating, that I found myself thinking of things you’d said and replaying them in my mind the same way I watch movies and read books, over and over again to remember the nuances. I acknowledged a long time ago that I loved you, but for me love is so broad a term. I love all my close friends, as few as they are, and all differently. But what I feel for you became more intense. And that’s when it started to scare me.

And I fought it. Oh good lord how I fought it.

Then I remembered the only constant about love. Love is a gift, not a choice, and it’s non-returnable. Whatever else can be said of love, and all things about love are true, there is only that which true regardless of any other factors. It exists, and I cannot erase it.

So I may as well enjoy it.

And I do. Just your presence makes my day a little brighter. It doesn’t matter if I was enjoying myself or just getting by, when I see your name pop up on AIM or my phone play your song, I smile. It’s a broad, goofy smile.

I appreciate the fact that people might pass you every day, and they will never know, cannot possibly comprehend that they’ve just passed by a fascinating, remarkable human being, and they never even noticed. I noticed. I know, and as corny as it may sound, my life feels fuller because of it.

Maybe none of this is news to you, and I certainly am not trying to change things, nor do I expect any sort of reply. I just think that life’s too short, and when someone means something to you they should know it in no uncertain terms. When people asked “What do you want in a man?” I was describing you, only I never knew it. You are the man I will measure my future partners against.

They have a lot to live up to.

With Mark I saw the darkness to him, the raging storm of pulsating black clouds, roaring thunder and razor sharp, searing hot bolts of lightning. I knew loving him would consume me, toss me about helpless like a rag doll and spit me out the other side into a clear blue sky, leaving nothing behind but scars I carried only on my heart. I knew, and yet against all better judgment I fell. On most days he still feels like my other half – our souls cut seamlessly into the same shape, he just black where I am white. He is like the monsoons of my youth – terrifying, but ultimately beautiful, and fleeting. I never wanted to keep him, but his beauty haunts the edges of my visions with each loud noise and black cloud.

Mark was torn and broken like a mirror shattered into a billion pieces, sticking to your skin and bringing up tiny pinpricks of blood even as the jagged edges reflected back a kaleidescope vision you couldn’t help but be fascinated by.

It was not the kind of love I would have chosen, and it is both a blessing, to have experienced it, and a curse to be stuck with it. I believe in many lives and that I have lived many lifetimes. Our paths have crossed before and will cross again. Of this I have no doubt, no question.

Mark in music.

Used to you

Ani DiFranco

i’m still here because
i’ve got nothing else to do
you’re an asshole
but i’m getting used to you
i like the fact that
you talk incessantly
i got a thing for assholes
who tell good stories

i think that drinking
is the only thing that you do right
you’re gonna self-destruct
i think that’s what i like
you like me so you try and make me
feel like shit
i think it’s kind of funny yeah
i kind of enjoy it

if you’re gonna do it, overdo it
that’s how you know you’re alive
go ahead, take yourself a coma nap
take a puddle dive

you said, this is my bedroom window
you said, this is my view
you said, lie down here with me
and see the things that i do
like you were trying to tell me something
about the way you live
like you would give me something
if you had something to give

and for all your talk
you don’t say much that’s real
i think i know more than you
about the way that you feel
i understand your anger
and your apathy
i think if i was you,
you’re who i’d be

i’m still here
’cause i got nothing else to do
you’re an asshole but
i’m getting used to you
i could love you, yeah
i’ve entertained the thought
but i could never like you
so i guess i’d better not

In retrospect my relationship with them began an uneasy struggle of giving love freely never to have it given in return.

It’s only in books and fairy tales that love flows automatically from a parent to a child. I believe, in their way, all parents love their children at a basic level. They want to protect them, provide for them. They wish a better life for them. In all these ways, my parents loved me.

Dealing with a person is an entirely different matter. I was loud, opinionated and disrespectful. I still am, truth be told. It’s a somewhat ironic twist of fate that it was them who made me that way. They raised me to think for myself, voice my opinions and to know who was deserving of my respect. They simply forgot to point out that their guidelines should not apply to them.

My father I never had a chance with once I grew out of those stages where my defiance was cute. That didn’t stop me from trying. That never stopped me from caring either. I might not have respected him but I did love him, and like any child I craved his affection. When all else failed I begged and screamed for it. I drove myself to the brink of darkness and madness in the name of that love. To put it simply.

Despite the fact that I work hard at everything I do, how many decisions I’ve made as a dutiful daughter, I remain a black sheep in my mother’s eye. Logically, she knows I’m more steadfast than my brother, less prone to real trouble, more driven, all these things. But despite all the traits she admires in me, it’s the loud, angry ones she can’t forgive. I can’t say that she really likes me. Truthfully, I return the favor.

When I realized that they were both people with their own failings and that my self worth should not be wrapped around their every judgment, I swore that I was worth loving. I’ve loved two men since then, beautiful souls that have left their mark. I’ll be damned if “they” weren’t right, and despite my best intentions I have given love freely to people who could not love me, freely, in return.