Peaks and Valleys (and Rum and Coke)

I lit all the candles I own and am relaxing with a rum and coke, not a very exciting drink but a true classic. Listening to my iPod--the playlist entitled "Thinkin Music." No TV. Just me, my dog, my drink, my music. It's kind of nice. It's been so long since I just allowed myself to unwind a bit and think. I've unwound but by watching TV and zoning out, not thinking.

My life is full of peaks and valleys. I have emotional peaks and valleys, which come from my depression. I tend not to feel just normal; I feel either nearly ecstatic and giggly (which often leads people to wonder if I'm drunk) or--more often--withdrawn and depressed, at the bottom of my own personal pit of emotional hell. I've battled depression since I was in high school but it was always relatively manageable until a little over a year ago. You know, when my boyfriend of over a decade left me and my mom was dying of cancer and I was still in a job I hated and had no friends. Then.

But ever since I started taking my happy pills things have been much better. I never took pills before because I worried about them causing me to not feel at all, or at least to feel very little, but at the point where I was last year--crying everywhere when I wasn't home, just sitting there crying at work, in the car, at the store, everywhere (never at home because I had to keep up appearances for my dying mother who had to depend on me)--and with my mother (and my family) depending on me to get her through things, I decided I'd try anything to get me through the day. So when my therapist suggested the happy pills, I said sure.

Now I'm afraid to stop taking my happy pills. I do still feel with them but the peaks and valleys of my emotions aren't so far apart, and when sadness does hit, it doesn't turn into a long bout of depression. If this is what normal is, the way most people feel, I don't ever want to go back. I don't ever want to have the valley of depression be a short step off a tall, tall cliff again. The gentle slopes are so much nicer.

So those peaks and valleys are better now--not gone, just better.

But I also live my life by peaks and valleys of involvement. I am either doing nothing in my life or doing fifteen different things at once. Take right now. It's a fifteen different things period. I work three jobs and go to school full time and take care of my mother when she's sick and share custody of my niece and have a social life. Two months ago, it was a valley. I was on break from school, wasn't working my graduate assistantship, didn't tend bar since my sister was home. Didn't have my new fabulous job as DIrector of Operations for a political campaign. I did nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Well, except for sleep with a couple of guys.

So here I am on a peak of activity and realizing I'm a bit overextended and am probably getting too old for this shit and wondering why it is that I must live my life in extremes. I'm in a relationship with a capital R or else I'm sleeping around and afraid to date anyone seriously; I work no jobs or three. I have no friends or fifty.

I got my emotions on a gentler slope of peaks and valleys; now I have to get the rest of my life on that gentler slope. Hmm. I think I shall make myself another rum and coke and think on this a bit more. And listen to Jimmy Buffett.

Fricking Bill Gates. A Post Summary.

Fricking Firefox! I had a nearly complete post and it encountered a fricking fatal error and had to fricking close and wanted to know if I wanted to send a fricking report to Microsoft and I said NO! Fuck Bill Fricking Gates! I am so going out to buy a Mac tomorrow morning.

No, not just because of the Firefox thing (which may or may not be Bill Gates's fault [and yes Gates's is the correct possessive of Gates, so long as you are referring to a single Gates as the possessor] but I don't care. I'm blaming it on him anyway because he is an evil software-stealing monopolist!). I am impulsive but not that impulsive.

Did you like the use of the double parentheses there? Nice, huh?

Well anyway, I'll shorthand my original post:

I'm Blanche from The Golden Girls and that may or may not be a backhanded compliment.

For those of you that don't know, my mom has cancer. She has a new "spot" which is oncologist jargon for "we don't know what the hell it is but it might or might not be cancerous so let's cover ourselves by calling it a spot."

My sisters and father suck and don't help out with anything and when I stopped doing stuff so they'd have to help they . . . just didn't. So now no one is and that means I will have to start again.

My brother and his wife are total fricking assholes that treat my mother like complete shit despite the fact that she is terminally ill because they are complete burnouts who live with my grandmother for $100 per month which they only sometimes pay.

My mom and I share a weird custody of my niece (their daughter) that is at their permission because the child welfare system sucks and they would run away with her before we could complete a court appeal for custody. So we have an uneasy truce with these people who I would rather just cut out of my (and the rest of my family's and anyone I know's) life.

The end.

P.S. If I had a "Tina is currently feeling" mood indicator like Dan does, it would say pissed off. (In case you couldn't tell.)

Is a Cheater Always a Cheater?

Dan posted something that's been sticking in my head because it's sort of the other side of a situation I found myself in years ago. It's about when a man (or anyone) cheats and whether he deserves forgiveness. Read it.

I forgave someone that cheated once. I figured, (and this is before I ever saw this episode of King of Queens where Carrie and Doug say the same thing) that every relationship has one big mistake. And this was it. I told him if he ever cheated again, that was the end. He had one shot to make it better. He didn't cheat again. For six years. Then he did. Then things ended.

I've heard many times (often from women) the phrase, "Once a cheater, always a cheater." I don't buy it. Even after what happened with the Big X (for those of you slow in catching up, read Parts I, II, III, and IV), I don't buy it. I guess what it comes down to is whether you believe in . . . (are you ready? Cuz this is deep!) . . . the redemption of the human soul.

Do you believe that someone convicted of a crime can be rehabilitated? (Let's hold aside child molesters and serial killers and the like for now.) Do you think that someone can do something that breaks the law, be placed in the correctional system (again, let's assume the best circumstances re: rehabilitative services that are offered), and come out fixed? Can someone who has ever committed a crime (for the purposes of this post we'll say up to the level of robbery and even possibly murder) change and be a better person who will not commit crime again? Do you think that someone who has been convicted of, say, drunk driving can realize the horrible mistakes they have made and atone for them?

I do.

I know not everyone does, but I do. Okay, so the Big X didn't. But I still believe that if a drunk driver or a bank robber can rehabilitate, that a cheater can too. That's not to say that all will. But if a cheater realizes their mistakes and feels the guilt about it, and wants to be a better person, I think they can.

What will happen if a future boyfriend cheats? Would I give him another chance? Well, to answer that completely honestly, I'd have to be able to see myself actually with a man in a real relationship again, which I'm not doing yet. But in theory, my answer will be maybe. I'd have to use my gut about how badly he wanted to change and how strong I thought his conviction could be, but if all that was good enough, yes. I would give him a second chance. But I'd have to be sure.

Where I think I went wrong with the Big X was that I was never really sure. That's why I felt the need to check up on him from the time he originally cheated on me to a few weeks after we broke up when I found out he had been cheating on me for that last month.

I will never again be someone who checks up. That's why next time I need to be sure.

National Procrastination Week: I'm One Week Late!

So last week was National Procrastination Week (thanks to Jerry for the heads-up), a week that celebrates what I am all about, and here I am writing about it a week late, which would be totally acceptable if the reason I was late in this post had been procrastination, but it was just the opposite! The fact that I am writing about National Procrastination Week a week late because I was just too busy to write about it last week is simply unforgivable. I may have to redesign my occupation in my profile if this keeps up.

All last week I planned a major event for the campaign I am working on. The event took place yesterday and was a huge success, covered by all the local news outlets and written about in national political blogs. Of particular interest to me was a blog about the musical selection, which I spent a great deal of time working on. The whole entry, written by a music exec (this guy does this for a living!), was glowing, but here's a great quote:

"I don't know about you, but I'd sure as hell rather have someone . . . who can groove to Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe, Bob Marley, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Sponge Bob and... THE RAMONES than some uptight, out-of-touch, reactionary relic who thinks demonizing young people and pop culture is a way to inspire fear and fear-based support (ala Bush) in parents concerned about cultural trends that have moved faster than they have."

Also this morning I received several emails and phone calls, including one from the candidate that confirmed that yes, it's true: I rock! So professionally I'm feeling pretty good about myself but personally I lost a little balance in the last week or so. I mean, a major feature of my personality is my procrastination skill. I cannot lose that ability just because of a silly thing like a career! So tonight I made this pledge to myself: I am going to--no matter what is going on--allow myself at least one hour a day of pure procrastination.

Every evening when I get home from work or school from now on, I'm going to pour a glass of wine, or shake up a martini, or pop open a beer (seeing a theme here?) and relax while I write a blog entry. Following that, I will . . . do nothing. I will do nothing but waste time until that hour is up. If possible (like tonight) I will waste two hours. I know I am a busy woman these days but can I really be too busy to drink and procrastinate? I mean, ok. If the napping has to go, so be it. But the drinking and procrastinating must continue!

So here I am, celebrating National Procrastination Week one week late, and while my reasons for being late on celebrating may not be in the true spirit of procrastination, at least my way of celebrating is. So what if I end up sleeping 5 or 4 hours a night instead of 6? Who needs sleep anyway? Procrastination is so much more important.

Old Man in a Dress

This is the oldest transvestite I've ever seen. The picture doesn't do him justice but what do you want me to do? I was trying not to be TOO obvious.