Figuring...

I may have figured out part of what's got me so ... weird.

I am a workaholic. I just am. I love what I do and I am damn good at it. Recently, though, I passed the second (and hardest) part of the three part process to become a real player in my field. It's getting better, but my main certification is still considered , let's be honest, the red-headed stepchild of the industry.

Anyway, this next one solidifies my standing in the field. It guarantees me a place. It means I can virtually pick my city. The industry is staffed at 60% of need right now. That's only going to get worse as the need grows with chumpy baby boomers going all diabetic with their hedonistic ways. (That's not a slam. It's the truth.) Not to mention bad choices in other areas of life i.e. shoes and all that.

My point?

I passed that fucking oh-so-terribly-difficult test. My God, I have never seen a test like that one. Oy. A bitch, it was. But I passed. I was giddy about it, too.

And if I get off my ass and get that video done maybe, just maybe, I can have the letters I set out after ten years ago. And, here's the rub, I can have them for 75 bucks. No extensive college degree. No internship. No massive debt. Seventy. Five. Dollars. As a practitioner in good standing with the other certifying agency. The one that requires blood, sweat and tears as payment. And let's not forget one bankruptcy, one failed relationship, one small business start up attempt and too much weight gain from stress. Oh, and a relocation. Twice.

Let's not assume that video is easy. It isn't. The work is, yes. My practical skills are very good. But the process is still a bitch. Not the bigger bitch. But still a bitch.

And I am feeling like a loser for not just getting it done. With no concept of the passage of time taken into account, even. I seem to almost be putting it off.

Why?

Because those letters, that particular set of letters.... those are the ones I've always wanted. I just... I wanted to earn them, is all.

So I'll get this video done. And I may just make the cut off to be grandfathered in to the bigger system. And I will take them if that is the case.

But I seriously doubt that I'll use them. They won't be mine.

Better

I'm feeling much better today. Not my best, mind you. But better.

Weekends sometimes kill me. Add to that the angsty feelings I've had about my job. I work, now, for a corporate monster and my main boss kinda makes me feel like a number. I had thought that I would work for this company forever. With the most practitioners of any company, it is the most stable and can offer the most. Oy. We'll see.

Note to self: must get video done so as to acquire new letters and a raise.

And there is so much other stuff. Is Chicago even my last move? I like it here, yes. But do I love it? Will I?

*sigh* Too much. Just too much to consider tonight. Everyone is in the conference room and they're all talking at once.

music: Hurricane Season ~ Billy Pilgrim

At the edge of the mariner's map it's written: beyond this place lie monsters.

Shutdown

My head has been really quiet this weekend. I knew it was coming, I think. Still, it just feels like wasted time. At the very least, I wish I could write. I got nothing.

I am sleeping a lot. Who says you can't bank it? I hope to feel at least rested for the week coming.

In which I meet with G in a small town in Nevada. I am still not at all certain how she will respond to me. I've maybe lost her completely with this honesty.

I feel everything from a distance. I have this far away feeling of depression; of despair. I know it's madness. Makes no difference, though, that it isn't "mine." For now, at least, I've been pushed aside a bit to let them have this. My control of the body is less at times like this. Oh, I can still drive and talk and maintain the look of sanity in polite company. I am just quieter than people know me to be. My personality not so large. And in time by myself, I become nearly catatonic. I'll find myself having been sitting still for long stretches without having moved or thought or done a thing.

All in all, it is just so quiet inside. The thing that animates me is gone silent. King Kong sits, motor running, with no one at the controls.

In Other News...

An email tonight let me know that I will be picking 40 up at the airport in March. A whole weekend and I am thrilled. I cannot wait to see her in my space. See her messing with my Scot. Interacting with Ab.

And waking by my side.

Damn. It's a good life.

---

In still other news, your World Travelin' Nomy will be flying in to Columbus to see Fancy Pant's next show. The Hot Potter will also be showing. (Nods at The Hot Potter's first mention in the most famous of blogs.) Apparently, the space is awesome. A few other artists, if I heard Fancy correctly. Maybe Fancy will grace us with a wee note on yonder blog to clarify?

Sing it with me folks, "Fancy don't let me dowwwwwn..."

And the big coup is that I only paid 40 bucks each way. Still need to get me an air miles card, I think.

Mmmm. Nomy said 40.....

*wink*

The Hard Truth

Ah the glory of the hard truth posted online in a public format.

I spoke with G today. G who knew of my trip to Seattle and the why. G who knew the size of the thing I have for her. G who knew of 40. I called to compliment her on a fantastic article. We spoke briefly and she asked of Seattle just as we were hanging up. I said it went well, but felt that there was something more to her thoughts.

An email from her mentioned it again. And so tonight, the hard truth. The difficult part of partaking in relationships of this variety, I guess. The honesty. My favorite thing but not at all easily introduced.

I called and we chatted like we always do. She mentioned Seattle. And I said that she was more than welcome to ask me anything about anything. Wondered if she knew that. She wasn't sure she knew it. She got quiet. Said something about the way the universe goes full circle sometimes. Didn't elaborate.

In the end, she said that if it didn't change the way I felt about her that she really didn't want to know. And that is fine, of course; it doesn't.

But then she mentioned having tried the dating in different states thing and that she didn't like it; that it could never go anywhere. That she had recently come into thoughts or interactions with two people who, I guess, made this interaction with me stand out in the way the universe will sometimes do. I reiterated her place, her vitality in my life. That I want her in it.

We left it with laughter and light chatter about our upcoming meeting. Talked of wine and sashimi. All with the undercurrent of melancholy that I've come to know and recognize as G thinking. Thinking, but not ready to disclose. Uncertain, maybe, that she should.

I don't know. That sums it up: I don't know.

Oddly, she and I have grazed over the surface of poly stuff in the past. Neither really touching it, but I think those two people she mentioned played in to the conversation. She is so aware of how the universe works for her. It is one of the ways that we completely mesh.

And I wonder how it will go. I wonder of this fear I have that I will lose her completely. And how it comes on the heels of the deepest calm I've known.

I've gotten to her. I know that I have. I don't think she will withdraw completely. And maybe if I can find the right words or the right combination of words to express all this to her without chasing her off...

I don't know.

*Sigh*

This will not be long.

I've just gotten home from Seattle and meeting that girl. 40. She blows my mind.

Still.

Her affect on me is every bit as calming and safe as I had hoped. Moreso, maybe.

And my head as well. Apparently at one point someone else came out and said, "I am so glad I could come out and spend some time with you." Amazing. Amazing that it happened. Amazing that she caught it for what it was. Amazing that she thought to tell me. She said I looked different and that she knew that it wasn't "me."

We had an amazing time. And already I count the days...

BLOGGER BIT!!

*&^ $%)(*& %#$#@ !!!

Damnit! Damnitdamnitdamnit!

If this damn blogger eats my posts onemoretime!

Why I.... I'll.... oooooooo why I oughtta...!

Crap!

Ok. So It's Not 40 Below!

But it is still really freakin' cold!

Listen, I am warm exactly twice a day. On my way to work and on my way home. I get in The Little Focus That Could and crank the heat up to roughly 600 and am finally warm to my bones.

I am not a cold person. I always kept my place cool in Nashville. Hell, I kept every place before it cool. But I. Am. Cold. To my fuckin bones, I am cold.

And it has everything to do with slumlords and broken heating units and nearly nothing at all to do with living in Chicago. My apartment is Thermostat Central for my building. Oddly, everyone else in the building is too hot. Go fuckin figure. My place, on the top floor and in the corner with the wind, apparently, is registering 68 degrees. Slumlord says the law requires he give me 61, minimum. But you should know that 68 doesn't stand a chance against 1 degree with a wind chilled -13!

Work is no better. Heater's broken in the patient area and my office. Great. So today I layered up, wore my thickest lab coat, a scarf and two pairs of gloves! At work! See, my bones are never warm enough long enough to hold in some heat, it would seem.

And here's the thing. I am tired of being cold all the time. I have been sick for F I V E weeks, now. My toes cannot handle even luke warm water because there is apparently no longer blood in them that is warm.

Ugh.

I just want to be warm. Cozy, even. Just for one night. I come home and strip to change (very quickly or else something might freeze!) into flannel pj bottoms, thick t-neck and my thickest hoodie. And then crawl under a down comforter. And still I am chilled.

I think I might never be warm again.

I think I might just be sick all winter.

And I think you should watch this space for my complaining of the heat this summer as I have no A/C.

HAR!

Emotional Vampire

This from a few days ago. We've discussed it; argued it out. Found out that we were both, oddly, trying to protect me. Phtt.

1.13.5

Ok. I’m scared. Not of the meeting or of loving that girl. It’s the old fight or flight in me. Having my perceptions of all this questioned by my insides.

Or… maybe it is that I am truly feeling something. I mean, I know that I am. Fuck it. I’m not going to try and explain my head. You read this, deal. It’s going to come out chunky.

Fight or flight. Cut your losses. Go before you get hurt. All those old arguments. And I don’t want them. I don’t. But on the day when those old fears creeped in -after heavy and uneasy conversations last night- …… I don’t know. I just feel like the plug is about to be pulled on me. It doesn’t seem to matter much that I know that is untrue.

And I am smart enough to know that this reaction in me is due entirely to the things I am feeling and their magnitude. I know that. But you know what I have to say about intellectual knowing and old demons. Intellect rarely stands a chance.

Did I think myself immune from this massive feeling of vulnerability just because I have granted myself freedom and autonomy?

My usual response is to shut down, nearly. To, at the very least, be somewhat aloof. To actively not call. To actively not write. Fuck. I hate feeling like I need to be coddled. Because being coddled from being read for it just pisses me off; it feels patronizing.

Here’s the thing. I want the intensity. It’s the only way I can truly feel. No lie. Look at what it takes to make me laugh hard. Or to feel pain. Things in my world must be intense. And beginnings are intense. I just had hoped, maybe, that they could stay in that area. I am wrong, I’m sure. Is this why I flit around the way I do? Not an emotional vampire but … well. Maybe this actually does make me an emotional vampire.

Great. I needed to go in the direction of kicking myself while down.

I had to take a xanax. Nope. Wanted to. I like this feeling much and it accomplishes two things in me. It slows me down, hopefully enough to work through this angst without starting a fight or vomiting. And it also takes away the immediacy of the … fear. God damnit, it is fear.

You know what this is? Need. It’s fucking need. Not a need to be validated or told that I am loved. Not a need to be the one and only. Just… raw need. That’s all. Need generally breaks me. And this is what I am tonight. And I cannot get what need requires tonight. And it will be the hardest part of being involved with 40. She affects me so very deeply, see. And she is 3546 miles away. I will not be able to lay down my cape and rest my head on her lap when need comes for me. Will not be able to kiss her lips when she requires it of no one but me.

Need. And now I’ve added a glass of wine.

You know, it just got too damn big for little ol me to contain.

Here’s the thing. I am out there with this girl. She could really hurt me. Deeply. And that caused a nasty reaction. And knowing this may not stop the temporary downward spiral.

Transcending

You know, it seems as if all my relationships are shifting; becoming more open and honest. My interactions all seem slightly more raw, but also more real all of a sudden. I like it but do feel exposed and ... well, like the edges are frayed.

Anyway. I passed the second (and most difficult) part of the three part exam. Only a video left. A huge raise and esteem await upon completion of the video.

And those things are nice.

But mostly it is the culmination of a dream. A completion of a thing I set out to do. That bit thrills me the most.

More later, maybe.

Happiness is a Fax

I'll mention it more later but:

I PASSED!!

May I present to you, Nomy, the newly certified (almost all the way) orthotist!

Undone

I want to post something. To keep this thing updated, to stay bare for this space. But so much of what I have written lately is just too raw for this public forum. My introspection of late so filled with new discoveries and raw images. I am changing again. Madness in its new form.

That's what madness is for me these days I think. A peeling back of layers to find the raw thing beneath so as to nuture it and make it whole. God, I am loving this journey. I really am. Self-discovery was never so sweet. Never filled me with such power and worth. But these days that is all I know.

Anyway. A little piece of sushi from my brain a day or so ago. Do with it what you will.

---


How is it that this can be happening? This woman who asks nothing of me can have whatever she wishes. My chest is heaving and aching with need. To be strong for her, to take her over invisible edges, all the while being … torn wide open, laid bare and weak by my need and by the rawness of her touch and response to me. Driving her. Holding her up. Filling her. Without my cloak. Without superman’s cape. Just a girl. Broken. Weak. Damaged.

And exactly as she wants me.

It’s too big, this thing. It’s so much bigger than me, to think of myself at my lowest common denominator and that being just the way she wants me. Being wanted without the guises that I project, she wants the parts of me that still bleed. The parts that seethe with an empty, powerless rage.

She wants me undone. She promises that which I crave. She is, quite possibly, intimacy so raw it breaks me.

Rumination

A lot of my old writings are regaining new meaning. This is one.


Foot falls strike hard pavement as my steps bring me no closer. Walking with a surety that sometimes escapes me, I cannot increase the distance from my thoughts. I am haunted. Every step screams a need I cannot name. Every wisp of hair on my face brushed away by other hands. The breeze that shivers me might be her breath.

As I walk along, I pull my collar higher. I gather myself around me. I continue on. Stirred as I am to things I fear. Struck hard in the gut by a mood that could move mountains by sheer force of will.

Her words turn and spin in my head and I feel taller somehow. My steps fall as if the whole world might hear the music in my head, a cadence created by her laughter. A heart somehow lighter with uncertain possibilities.

The wind blows and finds me where I cower, shielding myself from its bite. I curl into myself some more and breathe a long, slow sigh. Any passer by might see the grin I press into my scarf. Smoke curling slowly from my lips, hand lingering near still to my mouth, I stretch myself tall; thoughtfully contemplating the shifts in this life. I stamp out the thing, thinking it my fear, and continue on. Curiously lighter somehow for all this uncertainty.

Pensive

I have taken the Nyquil again tonight. I feel as if the thing might finally be passing (knock on something) but my voice is still gone.

I get kind of weird when my voice is gone. More directly, when I can't sing. It kills me. I never realize just how big a thing simple singing is to me until it is gone. And oh, how I enjoy its return. My voice comes back slowly, all full of grossgrain quality, and you nearly cannot shut me up.

It is wrong, I suppose, to be so enamoured of one's own voice. But there it is. I am humble and absent of ego on most every other front. But I do have an amazing voice. 'Course, you should know that it took a lot of years in therapy to be able to say it without qualifying it in some demeaning way. So there. Even that addendum shows that therapy wasn't all that successful.

And so I am quiet and pensive tonight. Was somewhat playful earlier but that has passed. I've not tried to jump in and see what exactly is stirring below the surface.

Quite probably it is the possibility of my liking this girl and having that be ok. Even from this distance. Even with the poly assumptions in place.

Yes, I said poly. Recall, even though it is a public forum, basically, it is still my journal. Being brave enough to venture in to read means being brave enough to stomach what you find herein.

It is a not new thought process for me. Not a lot of information out there that is palatable to me, though. But, truly, can you be taught to love? Yes, I have dreamed of finding "the one." Haven't we all? Perhaps with me it is my head. My needs and wants so varied and diverse. Discussing the path of love I've known one night with a woman I said, "I think it is that I can't love just one." "Exactly", she said.

I don't know. I rarely know how I will feel or be on the morrow. All I know for now is that I am smitten in two directions. They conflict in me not at all. Both have been on dates recently and even that has not bothered me. I feel shorted not in the least. They both continue to advance towards me and I find room for them both.

In the end, this is all a picture of me moving more towards myself. A better understanding of me. I'll keep a very close watch on my emotions and feelings.

It just seems that I have been moving in this direction for quite some time.

Nyquil and A Beer Chaser, Please

Still. Fighting. This. Cold.

I have this hacking cough still and today I awoke without even the hint of a voice. Your roaring tiger has been reduced to a whispering lily. I thought of leaving the lily bit off because some of you might deem it quite a nickname for one who coins weird nicknames. But on it stays due to the mood that has wracked me for days: I want my head on the lap of 40-gallon girl. (grin)

Now, the 40-gallon bit might not stay. But I'll settle for it now because her essence is being somewhat resistant to the art of the nic. It'll come. And this one drives her mad and that is good enough for now. (huge grin)

Fancy Pants thinks the whole distance thing I have going with two different girls is fine but telling. Says I maybe use it as a sort of safety net. Phtt, I say. It isn't like I'm not putting myself out there round here. I am.

I've just decided to be a bit more free with my expectations of loving. Glitter Girl has wormed her way back into my thoughts in the larger sense. As in, down below I mentioned taking myself out of the running with her. Well, watch me run again. And there is 40-Gal.

And I am finding that there is ample space in my heart for both and the swelling feelings they both create in me.

In other news, I live in Chicago. And in Chicago it is snowing quite a lot. Thank God I caved on the parking. My street is bare and those cars linger somewhere. But your smart Nomy has a space all to herself. (taps temple) Smaaarrrt girl. And tomorrow I get to wear my new big boots. Ahh, sweet simple bliss.

As the segue is perfect, I'll tell you about bliss. It's all wrapped up in a long conversation with a girl who sighs in my ear with the sweetest voice I know. Ah, yes. Sweet bliss, I am smitten.

A Mood Dark And Foul

1.2.05

I woke this morning in a mood dark and foul. Not bad, not mean. My head roiling with thought and words that I am certain will not come, I was figuratively tucked into a ball inside myself all day. I oddly have a tendency to walk much taller on days like this. As if I carry this weight in my mind with such pride, this cross I bear. I like it this way.

As per the nearly usual, there was a girl on my mind. Not one I’ve mentioned here. God, this thing is getting such readership. The cat is out of the bag now, and I maybe should censor myself at least on occasion. This one has me tugging at myself quite often. This one makes me wonder why I spend time in thought elsewhere and on other girls. This one makes me want to be better than I am, more fully me. This one reminds me how I long for the freedom of honesty without obligation. And that is so not the right word. The simplicity of honesty.

And obligation does fit in there somehow. Mayhap I can find the words.

We are trained somehow to think that if we love it is to be loved in return. Never is it love for its own sake. Never is it permissible to make someone aware of their affect on you without them feeling some sort of obligation. Love, emotion, caring. All should be freer of stricture than that. All should be freeing. But we are too possessive and clingy of our emotions. If it isn’t reciprocated we feel cheated.

And that misses the point.

And it isn’t only love. It can be wow I really dig you.