This is an ode to the Myspace stalker, be it male, female, or somewhere in between. There are two kinds I have run across in my time here in social networking(nutworking?) paradise. 1. The obsessive suitor/ex suitor, or friend's dumped boyfriend/girlfriend. This is the nut who checks your profile multiple times per day, trying to catch you in the midst of flirting with someone else, writing comments on said page of ex girlfriend,(ahem)and otherwise being a voyeuristic freak. I don't mind if you look a few times, but thirty times a day is a little much. Obsession is not healthy. These people are fun to mess with. I have messed with them. Please remind me not to pick on the crazies. They can't help it. 2. The Bunny Boiler This is the female counterpart. This is the insecure girlfriend of the guy that just requested to be your friend. Got an email from one of these this morning. Cute. No, I do not want your Wrangler wearing, goat-roping "stud". These are the same women who look like they want to punch me when I am dancing at a venue and their man is there. Try developing confidence honey. Then you won't have to worry about attracting a womanizing jerk with a wandering eye. I've got better things to do than chase your "man"- trust me. Just cause I have red hair doesn't mean I'm Jolene. Or Jezebel. But if you push me I will call your ass out, and publicly humiliate you with my words. I was given the nickname "The Incinerator" for a reason... Smile! God loves you!

So shortly after I moved into my new house, I started noticing a few things.
My house is old, very. I am also coming to the conclusion that it is haunted by a benevolent spirit/spirits. My mom, myself, and my daughter have heard whispers in the living room area. Nothing very loud or disturbing, but there. Most of the activity is centered there, and it is also everyones favorite room, which leads me to believe I have nothing to fear. They are just people, after all. It freaked my mom out a little bit, but she says she's not afraid, just startled. It makes me even more curious about my house's history. I need to do some research. Time to head to the library!!

I had the final walk-through at my new house tonight. My mom and aunt came as well as my friend Sara, my new neighbor. Everyone loves the house, including me and I cannot wait to move in over the next two days.I am feeling very maudlin. There are so many memories that were made in my old house. As i pack up the last of my dishes and wash the last load of clothes, I am also remembering my daughter39s first steps and first birthday party. My marriage was made and broken under these eaves. My stepkids played volleyball in the yard, and rode their bikes up and down the street.Moving on is hard. You have to learn how to let go of the comfortable and familiar and leap onto the sometimes slippery crags of a mountain of change. Anyone who knows me well has seen that I have changed this year. I39m more quiet, more moody. I tend to be more angry and less patient. These are things I39m working on. The new year, and now the new house, are ways for me to test my footing and see how well I can do. I am confident and excited. This last couple months has been much happier for me, and while I sometimes feel guilty about that, I realize that surviving and thriving ate not sins. Life does carry on. It must.

It's coming together finally. I have my closing date, my stuff is mostly packed, and I am looking at paint chips and furniture. I can't wait to hit the flea markets and antique shops. I have been sketching ideas for restoration, and have plans for making my new house into a neo-gothic-colonial revival showplace. I know it will take time, I'm on a budget, but I plan on taking some free home depot workshops and enlisting the help of my willing friends. Hopefully I will become a bestselling author at some point in the next few years and won't have to worry about financing this Victorian fantasy of mine... Right now I'm just glad to be moving before the difficult dates come. I need something happy to busy myself with. I think painting and decorating are just the ticket...

Remind me never to sell a house again. This has been the most exhausting week of my life! After I did all the hard work of putting my house on the market, now I have more work to do. My buyers can't seem to make up their mind what they want. The entire deal may fall through because of a mold issue. I may not get my house. After I got my daughter's hopes up, I may have to disappoint them. I am beyond stressed, frustrated, and scared about how much all of this is going to cost me. What started out as a happy thing for me to look forward to is now turning into a monster. You know, buyers have so much power. It's annoying. I'm not being nearly as picky with my sellers. I don't have a live-in handyman to fix stuff when it goes wrong. I have to hire it done or rely on the charity of friends or family. I know I'm whining, but this isn't easy. All I want is to move on with my life and start over. Why does it have to be so freaking hard?

As many of you know, my father's health has been deteriorating fairly rapidly this past year. His dementia has worsened to the point that we as a family, as well as his doctors, had to make the difficult decision to put him into long-term care. He has lived with me for the past two and a half years, and I am thankful for the time we've had. It helped me to come to terms with the fact that, at 86 years of age, a good amount of time on this earth, my dad will not always be here.

He's dying. Alzheimers has no cure. It could be months from now, years, perhaps. But in any event, the Dad I love is leaving. It is a long and painful goodbye. He has lashed out at me countless times, the words no less harsh than if they were said by a sane person, but buffered by the fact that he knows not what he does. His paranoia and mistrust are deep, and this has confirmed his suspicions. Yes, we are all working together. Yes, we are trying to take away his rights. Because we can no longer trust his judgment.

He told me of his plans to escape and drive to Tennessee the other day, where none of us would find him. This kind of thing terrifies me. To think of him dying, alone and lost, getting into a car accident, possibly injuring or killing innocent people.  Instead of enjoying his Thanksgiving day with us, he spent the afternoon plotting ways of escaping and being angrily silent. We are his enemies, in his eyes. No longer the loving family that cares and adores him.

I had a very frank conversation with Avery the other day. One that she is probably too young to understand, but I needed to say. I told her "Please, when I am old, and can no longer care for myself, do the right thing and put me into a nursing home. Promise me you won't feel guilty."

Because guilt is the foremost feeling I have. I know why. I know the doctors will not allow Dad home without 24 hour supervision, but it is still hard to forgive myself. I always told myself I would take care of my parents. It just never occured to me how profoundly affecting living with Alzheimers is. I haven't had a decent nights sleep in years. Dad would sundown and wander. The breaking point was when he started doing unsafe things. Cooking in the middle of the night. Leaving burners on. Running a space heater too close to the bed.

So Avery's well-being came into play. I knew it would be time soon. And my sisters did as well. Both of them are in the medical field, and knew exactly what would happen. I was naive enough to think that Dad's moments of lucidity were hopeful. Those moments are few and far between now. 

I will always rememeber my proud,  loving, stubborn father for the way he was. I am holding the tender memories close. As he lashes out at me and everyone he loves, I realize that my father is still there, somewhere. And I will see him again, not in this life, but in the next.

 

I am selling my house, obviously. It is rebelling in subtle ways. Today, I attempted to find a paint color to match the trim I painted two years ago. They change paint colors for fun, and in keeping with trends! Apparently.  I brought home several paint swatches, matched it up perfectly. Apparently I am color blind, because my garage doors are now pumpkin orange. And my trim is not. Strike one!

I am trying for the elusive curb appeal.  Getting people to want to go into your house is the first goal, according to my realtor. So, I really need someone to rake leaves for me. Cause they are burying the path to the door. Volunteers??

Sunday, overly ambitious and manic as I am right now, I decided to climb up on my roof and touch up the paint on the eaves. I got stuck. Talk about a cat on a roof. I was moving my extension ladder to go up to the upper level of my house, and it came unlocked and the fly portion came off into my hand. It was not long enough to reach. So, for 10 minutes, I am banging my ladder half on the roof, trying to get my half-deaf father's attention. My daughter finally hears me and alerts Poppy to the fact that I am stranded. He comes out, and says to me "Can't you get down?"

Of course I could have gotten down! I love banging my ladder on top of the roof and screaming "dad" for recreation. Don't we all??

I have been researching how to "stage" my house on the internet, and clearing all my clutter. The goal is to make your house look bigger by reducing crap.There are things in my house which have not seen the light of day for nine years. It's time for Goodwill!

I rented a POD. One of my least favorite words. Pod. But it is nifty. I can move all my junk into the pod, and have them pick it up and move it elsewhere. So I am downsizing furniture and junk. Into the pod. If it doesn't fit into the pod, it is going away. Pretty succinct.

I have too many damn books. Go figure.

I went through a pathetic cookbook collecting phase at one point in my life. I have over a hundred cookbooks. I shit you not. If you want some, feel free to come over and burrow. It's sick.

So I am moving to the point of painting every surface in my house, and then my pets, and then myself. Everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint! I am also getting new carpet. Yes. It is very necessary.

According to the staging advice, the goal is to make your rooms look like a picture out of "House Beautiful". So random fuzzy throws, a book on the back of the toilet. Candles. And fruit that just Happens to be sitting out on your coffee table. Has anyone tried to stage a house with an OCD 4 year old? She keeps moving shit.

It will all be worth it if I get my Victorian lady. She needs to keep waiting. Cause the Brady Bunch ranch can't sell fast enough!

 

 

 

Remember the movie, when Diane Lane, newly divorced, despondent, and totally needing a reason to go on, finds her perfect Italian Villa? Remember the look on her face when she touches the wilted grape vine and it dawns on her that she MUST, she MUST have this house?? Probably not, because I am a nerd and you are not nearly as weird as I.

I have had my Diane Lane moment.

I was out trick or treating with Sara the other night, in her adorable North Springfield neighborhood.  I had no idea I wanted to buy a house right now. No intention of selling my own. We turn the corner, and there it was. Lit up like Christmas, the perfect amount of gingerbread, big old wide-open porch, two-story colonial. Cheap enough to turn my head.

Have you ever had a house speak to you? Like your own little conversation? I was drawn to the house like Ryan Gosling was drawn to Rachael McAdams in the Notebook. It was a magnetic pull which captured my heart. I could see Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my daughter growing up under the welcoming eves. It exudes warmth, light and love.

But I am a skeptic. Could I afford it? What if my present house doesn't sell? Am I going to be carjacked and held hostage by transients? But like many other things in my life, I just know this is meant to be. It is.

I took my dad and Ave around to four different houses today, trying to be practical, trying to be thrifty, trying to be unenamored enough with said dreamhouse to make an objective decision. Two of the houses needed too much work. One had pigeons roosting in the attic! The other was even more beautiful but creeped me out. Bad feeling. I'm sensitive, k? All Victorian, all downtown, all the houses, in one form or another- I have wanted.

My dad, without my prompting, as soon as we walked up to Dreamhouse, just starts smiling. We go in. Light streams in the windows, gleams off the fir floors, the tray ceilings just begging for a Christmas tree to rest under them. A kitchen that I cannot wait to cook in.

And this feeling of "Home". It feels like home. And Ave feels it too. She goes running through the house, squealing, testing out the acoustics of a 92 year old house. I see and feel all the love that has been under this roof. All the children who have been born, old people who have died here, happy spirits who have left their fingerprints under the refurbished plaster walls and the branches of the trees. This is what I have wanted. If there are ghosts, they are good ones. I look forward to their pranks.

My old house never really felt like home. I rushed the gun on buying it, it was the only house we looked at. It was cheap, I did that right, a foreclosure that I will make money on when I sell. But there are so many memories, both good and bad that I will be glad to leave behind. I hope to celebrate the new year, full of promise, hope, and love - in the new home that I hope to sign my name to in the next few weeks....

I can't wait for you to see it.

 

 

 

So what do you get when you mix a whole retro aesthetic with turn of the century engineering, a love of goggles, and zeppelins? Oh, and various dangly bits of machinery and some killer beats? Like  if Captain Jack Sparrow, were to don a top hat, and the Black Pearl to become airborne...

Steampunk!

I am IN LOVE with this aesthetic, this music, this THING!!!

I love Things.

It reminds me of "Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang," "Mary Poppins", and etc. Great bands like Modest Mouse, Abney Park, Vermillion Lies, and the Dresden Dolls are all supplying the soundtrack to a growing subculture which is the perfect mix of vintage aesthetic, punk aesthetic, and fin de siecle goth.

This has been working into my periphery for about a year or so, because it is engulfing bellydance, and our whole postmodern longing for simpler times, more elegant times, more romance. If you are interested, take a look at this vid from one of my favorite bands, Abney Park...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXtEVaTr6F0

 

So, I did it. I didn't fall on my ass. People liked it. I had a costume malfunction that jangles my OCD nerves, but anyway...

Hips Noir was an amazing experience. We have so many beautiful, talented dancers in our area.  I felt very honored to be a part of this wonderful show.

Ground Xero was a great stage, great venue. The place was packed, standing room only. Zivah and The Red Moon Tribe gave an outstanding performance, I had chills. It was the perfect mix of tradition and fusion. And I really had a blast.

And then I got sick.

About ten minutes or so after I danced, I began to feel queasy, and headache-y. It culminated in me being sick all night and all day today. I think it was the stress of the past week catching up, the HUGE release that this emotionally charged choreography allowed me, and just being tired in general. In any event, I missed the workshop. I am even sicker about that. I feel like the bad dancer who shirks her responsibility, and it was such great classes that I missed.  But I am sure all the other dancers would have been grateful had they seen how sick I was. No germ sharing.

Anyway, I can't say how thankful I was to be given the opportunity to stretch my limits and think out of the box. I got interviewed for ShimmyCast by Anala Rabari, and you can listen to me if you are bored. You get to hear me slur the word "steampunk!" Yay.

I love being a dancer. Love it.