What Makes a Friend??

I sat down in front of my Facebook page, and honestly thought that I was going to be able to sum this question up in just a handful of lines, to somehow or another come down with some form of a "big truth."Maybe it is somewhat arrogant on my part to sit here and think that I will be able to come out with something like that. But you know what? I will take a label like arrogant, quite honestly. At least the arrogant woman aims high in life, right? And that that really counts for something to me. Maybe I am wrong here, but at least the arrogant woman aims high in life, I think. Even if you fall short of your goal, at least you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you tried, and trying, in my opinion, beats the hell out of just sitting back and wishing you had done something instead of nothing.So, here we go.

WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES A FRIEND?

I honestly had thought that this would be a pretty easy, straightforward answer for this question, but I have found that it is anything but. There is just so much to this, that I find my best approach is to make a list of the things which make a good friend. Hopefully (and let's all cross out fingers and our toes!) I won't babble on and on for too terribly long

HONESTY--First and foremost. If I am being an asshole, then a true friend will tell me so. If I am wrong and out of line, then they will have to trouble letting me know the fact. Otherwise, how can I ever know? It is kind of like my fly being open......if you don't tell me, I'll never know.

GOOD TIMES AND BAD--I have found that a true friendship, that kind of deep bond that can form between two people, in a lot of ways is like a marriage, of sorts. It will not always be about fun and games. Sooner or later, the shit is going to hit the fan for one or the other, and it is up to you to be there for your friend. My very good friend just lost his mother very suddenly. Between this and a whole bundle of family shit, he and his wife, easily my two dearest friends on the planet, are just all kinds of sideways with shit going on. So I set about making them some food. What began as a simple thing of baked ziti ended up being a half dozen different dishes which likely could have fed half the city of Denver! The point? It was all freezable food, and they will not have to live on take-out food for some time to come. They will have some good, home-cooked comfort food to carry them over, and one less thing to have to concern themselves about. Why? Why did I do this? Simple: so that they will know that someone is thinking of them, and wants to help in any way they can.

HUMOR--No matter how bad a day might be, a real friend will be the one you can count on to at least find a couple of laughs with.

MONEY--I am a little odd when it comes to money. It is simple: all of my life I never, ever gave a damn about money. I always need it, just like everyone else does, but where some people get on their knees and worship the almighty buck, I just view it as a tool. One thing I hate, really hate, is to go out to dinner with someone and then sit and itemize the check when it comes. No, I just want to take the bill, say $50, add a tip, say $10 for easy math, and split it, $30 a piece. Problem solved. You are short this week? Fine, I will cover you this week, you just pick it up next time around. Again, problem solved. People who are too hung up about money are generally not the people with who I claim friendship.

DIFFERENCES--Some of the closest, tightest bonds I have formed with people and been with individuals with whom I had major differences. Religion, race, beliefs, whatever. Each person I meet like this will teach me something, and I will walk away from each encounter a richer woman for it, for my store of knowledge will be that much larger for the experience. I remember a friend of mine Alan, a Muslim fellow from Syria. Our friendship went before and after 9/11, and when others distanced themselves from Alan after the fact, I made it my business to have lunch with him once a week because the man who was Alan did not change after those demons flew planes into the buildings. He was still the guy that loved a good strong cup of coffee, who found the game of baseball utterly baffling, and whose word was solid as a rock.

MY WORD--You can take everything from me. My money, my property, my car, even the clothes on my back (something you really do not want to see happen, but I digress). But my word in just that: my word. If I tell you I will be at such and such a place, or will do such and such a thing, then I want you to go to bed secure in the knowledge that this given thing is going to go down solid.. All my life, my word was good, and I hope to never lose that quality.HELP--A friend will lend a hand when you ask for it. Without bitching and moaning about it. They will do so quietly and thoroughly, as if they were doing it for themselves.

Now, I have listed a number of things here today which, in my opinion, are the building blocks upon which a friendship is made.

Your friend is your soul's mirror
Your friend is your second soul and third eye.

Centennial Peaks and Whatnot

Okay, so here goes yet another blog. Well I suppose that this one is more of a journal. Let's see a couple weeks ago I was having such a horrible day and my couselor at school sent the police to pick me up. They then transported me to the St. Anthony's emergency room. There they had done a mental evaluation on me deciding that I was a danger to myself and others. So they sent me into the psych holding center where I spent four more hours to myself in a small white room with nothing in it besides myself and a bed. There was a small intercom that had a constant "white noise" (such as the static on a television makes). Oh it drove me insane. I began throwing myself around and crying. (I really wanted to go home) The ambulance came to transport me to Centennial Peaks, a mental/psych ward, in Louisville. (I had no idea there was a louisville in colorado) I arrived there at about eight fourty p.m and they did a bunch of paper work along with stripping me of my clothing to do a full body check for injuries. They found the cuts I self inflicted on my left arm along with all of the scars from previous self mutilation. I also had to get twenty seven stitches below the left side of my ribs. (A huge gash that I told them I had done to myself with a kitchen knife the night before. I actually didn't do it to myself). A while after they had giben me hospital scrubs I was to wear for a period of at least twentyfour hours until I completed a huge packet of useless questions and information. (I completed it the next morning though) I got to meet my room mate... Davina... she was boulimic and there because she had tried to commit suicide by drinking Raid. But don't get me wrong... she was wonderful. She was the closest person I had there. Dear sweet Davina. God I love her. We exchanged phone numbers and emails in secret, making sure to see eachother again. Or at least keep in touch. My time is Centennial Peaks was rather horrible.. they romoved all my piercings. Not allowed to wear make up or have our own shampoo and/or conditioner with staff in fear that we would eat it. I was never alone, always being watched by staff. Even while showering or using the bathroom. I really hated it. I wasn't aloud to wear my shoes or anything with strings on them. We ate three times a day. The food for the most part was disgusting. I couldn't see outside, completely oblivious as to the time of day. I soon made a few other friends there. One of which being Jake. Oh he was wonderfull too. One night I was crying horribly so I stuck pillows under my blankets to make it seem I was still in my room sleeping as I snuck across the hall into his room. As I cried he held me and stroked my hair while I breathed in shaky breaths and trembled with my head against his chest. Wow he was so warm. I could hear the sweet sound of his heart pound into the hollow of my ear. thum thump... I just needed to be held, which truthfully I think that's all any of the patients there needed. That was the only physical contact I had the whole entire time (We too exchanged phone numbers).
I realize I have not told you why I was there. It was for severe depression, mild bi-polar, anxiety, self mutilation, and a slight case of anorexia. They put me on an anti-depressant called prozac and up'd the dose when I had an out burst of tears and threw/kicked over tables and chairs as I screamed and swung at a staff member. I won't forget him. His name was Nick. I made friends with about everyone there and exchanged numbers with most of them. So here I am at school now. How can I say this?? I feel.... feel disconnected from myself and all my friends and peers. I feel awkward even being outside. I think I got rather anti-social and I don't want to talk to anyone or even be touched. Not even a hand to my shoulder. Alot of my friends must think I'm being a real bitch. I kept moving away from them when they sit by me and refuse their hugs. I can't even bring myself to answer or respond to what they say. I have failed to do any of my class work or even come up with appropriate responses to my teachers. They probably know what happened and think I'm a freak. The day before I went to the hospital I had permenently broken up with Wayne (the father of my dear sweet son, Damien). I figured he'd be happier without me and won't be miserable anymore so he can move on with his life without me. He doesn't seem to be rejecting it anyway. The twentyfourth would have been our one year and eight month anniversary... So I've decided. This sucks.

Weak & Powerless

So, yesterday I came to a conclusion that I am just weak. Not just in body but in my soul and my mind. I lack the will power to leave the people in my life that just cause me to go insane or batter and bruise me. I only left one person that did such things to me, and that would be my mother. But right now, I have quite a few other people like that.

I wish I had the will power to pull away.

Mommy Dearest

So, todays entry isn't that insight full, I've been meaning to wright this bit for a while now.. I just havn't come to do so until now. My mother has been pissing me off. She makes me angry to the very depths of my soul. I can't stand how much controll over my emotions that she has. Though I do not let her see it, I have all these feelings of hate harboring inside me. I just want to scream and yell and make my anger known. I was thinking about her last night, and this is what I came up with to say to her:

Shut up.

Just shut up.

I don't really care what you have to say anymore.

And I don't really think you've ever given a damn about what I had to say.

So if you'd kindly step back, shut the hell up and plant a bullet in your skull, that'd be splendid.

Please refrain from bleeding on the carpet. It has just been cleaned.

But otherwise, have fun dying. You sack of shit.

But as you probably figured, I will never say such a thing to her [even if she's said and done much worse to me]. That would just be putting myself on the lowest level. I don't know what I want to tell her... that there was too harsh. But it makes my feelings known. I don't know. She just isn't the best person in my life, never has been, and never will be.

Please Don't

Now, I am not one to complain overly much here, but today, I think I am going to get a few things off of my chest, from the mildly irritating to that which goes right up my ass sideways.Let’s have at it:

· TAGGING--Please don’t tag me. I never respond or participate. Mostly for the same reason that I always ignored chain letters which evolved into chain e-mails. All I will do is piss off the people I pass it on to, and waste a bunch of my time.

· COMMENT DEMANDING—This is just so unforgivably childish, really. Pissing and moaning that someone faved your work and didn’t write some flowery words for you. Excuse me, but could you do yourself and everyone else around here a favor and just grow the fuck up? Someone took the time to actually look at what you made (say thank you) and add it to their favorites, or specific gallery, as the case might be (say thank you again!). You are not entitled to the trifecta, and shame on you for being such a little brat about it.

· WARPING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE—As a native English speaker, I am intensely embarrassed when I see people from Europe or Asia or South America or anywhere else include a disclaimer in their signature apologizing for their shaky command of English, and then see some idiot from America using text-ese for their communication, or worse. Here is a fucking news flash: MEH is not a frigging word. It is "me" or "my". You don’t look cool, you look fucking illiterate. And to all of those who try, I say thank you for actually making the effort to communicate in English. I wish the Google translator offered me Polish or Romanian, I would use it. I hesitate with Russian languages only because I do not recognize the alphabet at all, and can’t be sure if I am typing actual words. Sorry for that. And to anyone else: U, 2, and 4 are not words. Use the whole word, please.

· TIME—Someone will get mad at me for this (as if no one else did already!). I don’t care, really, how long something took you, unless it is more than a year, and you have made a real and serious commitment in your life to it. Why? Because the amount of time spent has no effect on the quality of the art, I feel. Now, before you all go apeshit at me, let me qualify that statement. There are hundreds, thousands of deviants out here who could spend an hour with a pen and paper, and draw a picture. I could spend a month doing the same thing, and it not be anywhere near as good as the hour-long job. But I spent more time on it. That still don’t make it art!

· COWARDICE—Look, I don’t have a thin skin (and Bo, one word from you and I'll kick you right in the nuts! ). When I post a photo, it is up there for public consumption, good bad or indifferent. I know all about that. But I am referring to these cowardly imbeciles who shit all over someone’s work and their person in general, just because they are protected by the infinite bravery of anonymity. God, these guys can make me ashamed to have a penis sometimes [just kidding I don't have a penis]! Ladies, on behalf of the entire penis-carrying population, I apologize. Most of these guys are virgins at 35 anyways.

· DRAMA—There is nothing worse than a public pissing match. Reaslly, have some dignity and take it elsewhere. I am here to see some art and my friends, not for a floor show.

Well, I guess that’s a good start for now. Hope I didn’t upset too many people today.

People Change

This has been a learning week, one where I found myself face to face with realities I never wanted to have to face up to. Normally, I would save this for one of my "What I’ve Learned" but this is more than I can fit into a few glibly packaged words or lines, so here is what I’ve learned this week:

Now, to begin, I claim no form of expertise on human relationships or anything of the sort. I just kind of cruise through my own life, try not to fuck up anyone else’s too badly (we’ve talked about this), and hopefully have a little bit of fun and a few laughs along the way.

But I’ve been around for a while now, and I’ve done a few things and been to a few places. I have picked some stuff up along the way, I would like to think. Funny thing is, none of it really prepared me for this.

People change. We all know that. Am I the same person i was a long time ago? or even last month? Not at all. I am changing all of the time, and so are most of you. Yeah, sure, some folk are quite happy to live indolently on their couch and never change or do anything, but I hope to never be one of them.

But sometimes people do more than change. Sometimes they go away altogether, and get replaced by someone you don’t even know. Sure, this new person looks awfully familiar, but they are someone else. The best parts have been replaced with things you don’t know, and don’t want to know. The person you knew is gone.

And that’s just a cast-iron bitch of a thing to have to face up to. It really is. And you will do anything you can not to face up to it. For the sake of how much you care for this person, you will let your self-respect take second place, again and again and again. Because you are holding out for the notion that your person might come back.

And that is the very worst part of it, because every now and then, you see a glimpse of that person, a shadow or a ghost of who they used to be. You will here it is a turn of phrase, in a laugh, in the sudden easy flow of a conversation, and BOOM doesn’t your heart just flower with hope all over again, at the idea that maybe he or she is still in there, and if you hold out a little bit longer, try a little bit harder, you might be able to bring them out.

But they are just gone, and you will get your heart broken over and over and over again by trying, and every single time the heartbreak is fresh and bloody and fucking horrible, like the very first time it ever happened.

Or you can endure the one massive heartbreak of finally having to turn away and move on, and just god-damn get on with your life. And sure, the next asshole who tells you that time will heal all wounds is within a hare’s breath of getting a good kick in the balls from you, but I guess that sooner or later, it proves to be true.I sure do hope it does, anyways.

The Presidential Elections

Unlike previous election years, when there was never any real question of who was getting the job as President of the United States, this is a bunch of possibilities grouped together in a very diverse collection.That does not make them any less of a bunch of assholes, but what the hell, nothing ever does!

Actually, that’s not fair. I think Obama (and am I the only one who thinks he would be pretty cool if he just had a single name, like Bono or Cher? Obama…….who the hell else is going to have that name? Drop the Barack, and be the first single name candidate!) has some real decent ideals and hopes for this country, made even more engaging and charming by his youth and lack of tenure in DC. That doesn’t make me dread him being elected any less, though. We’ll come back to that in a bit.

The Democratic Party has three viable candidates. Well, two and a half, I guess. John Edwards just doesn’t count, but I think he will make someone a fine running mate. Putting him aside, we have a black man and a woman who want to make history. Well, history in this country, at least. Because America is still under the old-boy network, isn’t it?

And all of the old-boys are WASPs.WASP, for those who do not know, stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Catholics are out, mackerel-snapping bastards that we are. Why, you ask? Pretty simple rational, really. It’s the big reason the Klan has such good fun torching crosses: because Roman Catholicism has its roots and leadership in Italy (well, the Vatican, to be exact, but you know what I mean), and not America. I am unsure where Orthodox Catholics have their leadership. If anyone knows, do please tell. Add to that the fact that the Catholic Church, in this country, is a church of minorities. Think about that for just a second. Where do you see a lot of Catholics? Boston, New York, Chicago, southern Texas, and Los Angeles. And who is there? The Irish, Italian, Latin and Polish. Not a whole lot of good old-boys named Duffy, Rondinelli, Silva, or Wojika. Generally speaking, if your name ends in a vowel, you are out of the old boy’s club.

Even so, We have Hillary and we have Obama. Let’s begin with Hillary.I want to make it very clear, right up front, that I think it is high time we had a woman in the White House, sitting in the center seat. We are way behind the rest of the world in this. Think about something for just a second: Pakistan had a wonderful woman as Prime Minister, and we still haven’t. Anyone see something amiss here?That being said, while I would like to see a woman, I would not like to see this woman. I don’t like Hillary. Never did. The whole business she had with secret files on Republicans which she refused to hand over during her husband’s term bothers me. A lot. Something else that sticks with me too: when George W. made his first State of the Union address after 9/11, I recall sitting with a friend of mine watching it, and as W. spoke his piece, the camera flashed to Hillary, and showed her saying something nasty to the person next to her, like "Listen to this asshole". I found that disrespectful not only to the speaker, but to the country as a whole. Stuff like that is hard to shake, you know.
Also, with Hillary, if she were to be elected, she would be forever under the shadow of her husband’s presidency, whether good or bad. I will be the first person in the world to say that a lot of things that take place within a four year period are beyond the President’s control. The economy, for example. It is a living, breathing thing, with movements much like a pendulum. We swing good, and we swing bad, and it will do whatever it will do. Big business and outside influence has more effect on the economy than a President does.

Example: The auto industry. Oil is going at a sinful price right now, and who takes a beating? You and I, that’s who. But it is not just you and I. The auto industry gets killed. Domestic manufacturers long ago lost the sedan business. Toyota and Honda own those segments now. A Taurus or an Impala will never compete to a Camry or Accord. No getting away from the fact. So they refocused on the truck and SUV market. Dodge still owns the minivans, likely always will, but Ford and Chevy are no longer players. But they build trucks. However, as gas gets more expensive, demand for these brutes dwindles. What happens from there? It is a domino effect, and here is how it goes:
Ford will start closing plants, because they just don’t need so damn many F150’s sitting at the freight yards, because the dealers have stopped ordering them. But what happens when you close a plant? All of those workers are out of a job. Let’s use a number like 1000 workers. Now, remember this: the majority of the parts put into those vehicles come from outside vendors, and now they will start laying off workers. See where this is going? And all of those workers stop going to the malls and other such retail areas to spend money, and it spreads even further. So when you read about GM laying off 13,000 workers, take that number, and multiply it by at least five. That’s how many are losing jobs.

The point to all of this? If the economy goes all to shit under Hillary, it will set a woman’s chance back by decades, because she will be viewed as having only gotten the job through her husband’s name, and it is her fault it all went bad. If a woman is to be President, then let her come up through the ranks on her own, of her own unquestionable merit, and do the job to the best of her ability.

Now to Obama. I like him, let me be clear on this. I think he has some dandy ideas and ideals, and I think he is young enough to want to make some real change in this country. But here is what scares the shit out of me regarding Obama: We don’t need the Taliban or Al Qaida to provide us with murderous nuts. We can make plenty of our own high quality, full blown fucking whack-jobs right here, thank you very much. And anyone in the Secret Service will tell you that anyone can kill anyone if they want to badly enough and do not care about the consequences to themselves. I am deeply frightened by the very real potential of some idiot with a white sheet in his trunk putting a bullet to Obama, and setting this country back 100 years.

That is Hillary and Obama personally, but take a moment to look at them professionally. Neither has been a governor, and I firmly believe that should be a job requirement, way beyond this bullshit about a candidate must be born in this country to run for president. A governor is doing the President’s job, albeit on a much smaller scale, but it should be a requirement. I will make an exception in the case of Rudy Guilliani, since he was mayor of NYC, a city bigger than some states, but otherwise, you should pass this test before moving on to the White House.

Let’s move on to the Republicans. You have Rudy, Mitt, Mike, and John. Fred isn’t going anywhere, and I think even he knows it. If we take John out of the mix, which I think is fair to say anyway at this point. That leaves us with Rudy, Mitt, and Mike.

I like Rudy. I’ve said this before. He did big things in NYC. Go down 42nd Street, you know, The Deuce, and it is amazingly cleaned up. Like a lot of the rest of the city. But most of all, we have seen Rudy in a bad situation, and seen how handled himself. And his city. Yes, of course, the proper thing for the President that day was to be up in the air with a squad of F-16s protecting him. I would never question that fact, but Rudy, as opposed to George Pitacki, the governor of New York at the time, was right down there in the thick of it al, at risk to his own self, trying to hold his city together. I happen to be of the idea that this should count for something.

So on to Mitt and Mike. I think Mitt Romney is an elitist, stuck up prick of a human being, and much worse than that, he is a piss poor representative leader. A governor should represent the interests of his constituency, right? Well, think of this: Massachusetts has the highest per capita gay and lesbian population of any state in the Union (it was Time or Newsweek I read that in), yet Mitt Romney did everything he could to prevent gay marriage from becoming a reality. Sorry Mitt, but you have to stuff your own agenda up your ass and go with the people who elected you to represent them.

And this leaves us with Mike. Mike Huckabee. Governor and ordained minister.Mike is the most terrifying motherfucker I have ever seen run for president. Why? Because he want to "Take this nation back for Christ." That statement alone should have disqualified him from running, because he more or less told the American people that the whole idea, you know, that little notion of separating Church and State, is going to get pissed right out the window. And that, my good friends and neighbors, is the beginning of a theocracy. And what happens in a theocracy? If you ain’t one of the in-crowd, then you are in some trouble. Here is what makes it even more scary. The man is an Evangelical Born Again minister. Never mind the religious aspect of it all, but you know the son of a bitch can work a crowd, and make himself not only likeable, but eventually sensible in his ideas.