MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

If You Think You're Going Insane, You're Probably Not

At least that's what I've heard...and on the few occasions in my
life when I truly thought I was losing it, I would comfort myself
with that thought. "Well, I am afraid I'm going nuts, so I must not
be going nuts." Ha. Who knows if it's true. I feel guilty by reason
of insanity lately, that's for sure.

So I've been trying to stay on an even keel, as they say.
But everything's catching up with me, and fast. One week
from this very moment, hopefully I'll be asleep in bed,
and I'll take The Wretched Exam a few hours later, and come
home, and collapse. I am hitting the wall. My mind simply cannot
take in any more information. I have so much to do in the next
few days though. You know, study, clean the house, get my hair
done, get car washed, shop, study more, cry, watch world fall
apart on TV, complete top secret activities, listen to the voices in
my head, hahahaha...I *am* kidding...about that last part.

I should be looking forward more to the Church shows than I am
now. Sadly but oh so predictably the gift that just keeps on giving,
my FM has flared up really badly. I'm very tired again, despite
massive amounts of vitamins and sleep, sleep, sleep. Lots of pain,
causing me to take more Aleve than I'd like to. What gets me through
this is knowing this happened last time before the other two exams
and I physically started feeling better after they were over. It's
amazing what the mind can do to the body.

Ironically the show I'm looking forward to the most is the Friday night
show...the one before the exam. I'm excited to see Sandy again. I've been
thinking about Cathy a lot. I miss her. I feel so sad about what happened
to our friendship and yet I essentially ended it. I believed it was something
that had to be done...but that doesn't mean you stop missing a person
or caring about them. People keep asking me, do you think you will see
her? I don't know. If she's on Seance, or is on Steve's blog, I can't tell. She's
gone very incognito. I know she wouldn't contact me. I'm not even sure
she's still following the Church anymore. God knows I stopped for a few
years. Now I'm caught up in the madness and I kind of just want my life
back, haha. As boring and predictable as it can be.

Although I will say, thanks to Steve's Blog (#24 on our Hit Charts today)
I've 'met' some really fantastic people. I've actually met Sandy in person,
and look forward to spending at least a few hours with her....a true
Church fan. I'm bringing Gena, but she's not really familiar with their
music. She just knows them through me. Maybe that's part of why I
miss Cathy. It's so fun going to a show and watching and listening to a band
with another die-hard fan. Anyway, back to 'meeting' people. Veleska is
an absolute doll, and we've discovered in so many ways we share the same
brain! Her letters could've been written by me. She is great - I can't say
enough nice things about her.

And naturally Catz and Eek, my other two partners in crime...what can I
say? I'm excited they're going on a road trip together, and I hope someday
I will have the chance to meet them in person....they're both fabulous,
intelligent, funny ladies. I guess we're not girls anymore, huh? I always want
to call my friends girls. Well, what the hell. Girls, chicks, ladies, women...
women just sounds so...old! My mom is a woman. LOL! You never feel as
old as you are...ain't that the truth. I seem to only do this with women.

You'll never hear me refer to my dear friend Thomas as a 'boy' - nope,
he's a man. A gentlman, in fact. I think of him often these days, as he
takes NYC by storm. I miss him too...it's my fault though for not being
able to squeeze in a trip to the big Apple to see him this summer.

So I'm gonna get back in bed...Zoe has taken my spot as usual. I'll
pick up her little dishrag, sleepy body and move it over and she'll
meow, annoyed that mommy wants to sleep in mommy's spot...
and hopefully this time I can fall asleep without visions of atoms and
plants and planets and laws of physics and math theorems floating in my head...not to mention so many other things.

It's kind of sad to wish this week away because of the CSET...then
I'm wishing away the good stuff too. So I won't. I'll be good. I want
to try and live in the moment...like my wonderful 6 year olds taught
me. So easy for them...so hard for those of us who've accumulated so
many moments...we either live in the future or the past and forget
the only thing we have...now.

I don't know why - I mean beyond the obvious reason that the
shows fall right before my exam. but I'm kind of annoyed that
the Church have chosen California for their first shows. Why
does that bug me? Who knows. That very first show should be
interesting...I can't imagine getting off a plane from Australia,
and doing a show a day or two later. The jetlag is such a bitch.
I don't know if your body can ever get used to it? I've not traveled
enough to know. I know when I came back from Europe last year
I was off for at least a week. Circadian rhythms...delicate stuff.
Well, hopefully all will go well, I'm sure we'll get the lowdown
if there's a showdown...and once there was at a Church show in
Santa Barbara...but that's another story...one I really don't care
to remember at all.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Forty Miles of Hell and No End in Sight

"We will have peace with the Arabs when they love
their children more than they hate us."

- Golda Meir, Founder and Former Prime Minister of Israel


Dear Golda,
Hello from 2006. It has been 28 years since
you left this planet, left your beloved Israel.
Oh don't worry, it's still here...indeed, not much
has changed I'm sorry to report.

I always loved the above quote - you were indeed
a wise, wise leader in many ways. I've always wondered
though...in your heart of hearts...in the deepest, darkest
hours of any doubts you may have had...did you ever
dare harbour the thought that perhaps this idea, this great
sentiment went both ways? That you, Israel, would have
peace with the Arabs when YOU loved your children more than you
hated the Arabs?

I am not a Jew, nor an Arab, so what do I know about
these things. I am a human being though, and what I know
is that in the year of your death, 1978, Lebanon existed in
a state of civil war for 12 years. Since your death there have
been more bombings, more killings, more terrorist acts, and
we are a much sadder world for all of it. What I do know is the history
of your people. Perhaps not as well as you, but I am somewhat
a student of history and I know, I know. Why the Jews? Did you
ever wonder that? Because they are the chosen ones? Why have
the Jews been persecuted since the dawn of time? The place you called
home is still rife with tanks and missiles. It was once a defenceless
desert, a land the Greeks called Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers.
The Cradle of Civilization. The place once thought to be the Garden
of Eden. Oh but if it was ever paradise between the Tigris and
Euphrates, it has become the very antithesis of that now. I know
about the cruelty of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the Temple.
I know about Emperor Titus and the bringing of the spoils of
Jerusalem back to Rome. The Crusades have been burned into
my mind and of course, the story of Moses and Pharaoh. And the one man who
took all of humanity's ills upon himself, a Jew, who died on the cross
for what we did, what we will not do, what we held, what we let go,
what we found, what we've lost.

Your people wandered the vast desert, this I know. Lost, tired and hungry.
And then, the horror of all horrors, the Holocaust. Six million
Jews. We have seen it, we have read of it, we have been taught
to never, ever forget. And yet I know we cannot really know
what the nightmare was really like. I can stare at the gaunt,
haunted faces at Auschwitz, with dead eyes and skeletal frames,
and I know I can never even begin to imagine that kind of Hell.
I do not know what it is like to be persecuted for being who I am.
For my religion, for my ethnicity, for the colour of my skin, for
who I am. I do not know.

I do not know what it is like to not have a country, a home.
For as much as I despise what my government is doing now,
I was born into a country that not only existed, but exists still
as some kind of bizarre superpower. I have always had a home,
a geographical and psychological idenity of sorts. I am an American,
whatever that means, for better or worse. It has little to do with
ethnicity or background or religion. It is more a state of mind, an idea.
But I know who I am, I know where I've come from, where my people came from and I know I have a place called home. I never had to suffer the
wretched indignity of being displaced from my home; I never had to
wear a mark on my clothing identifying myself. I was never torn from
my mother's arms and forced on a sweltering train bound for Hell.
I was never raped, starved, beaten, separated from all whom I loved
dearly. I was never torn asunder from the only home I ever knew.
I was never forced to work in the icy snow until my hands bled, to
sleep on hard, cold wood with lice and vermin and the stench of death
my most familiar companions. I was never forced to stand and fear
for my life on a daily basis; to beg God for mercy, to deny God, to curse
God, to have numbers burned into my skin until the day my earthly
body shut down and my soul crept off this mortal coil.

I know that your people never really did have a home. I don't
pretend to understand why that is. This tragedy in the Middle East has
perplexed me for 39 years; I suppose I could live to be 100
years old and still not understand all of its complexities and
contradictions. It is a battleground that has perhaps seen more
blood than any other place on earth. For I know that once upon
a time, a people called the Sumerians created what we call
civilization between those two rivers. And they created words,
and wheels, and ships and monarchies and societies and cities and
yet they fell to another group of people, the Akkadians. And like
dominoes the land would see the rise and fall of so many peoples;
the Akkadians giving way to the great Babylonian Empire, and
Hammurabi with his ingenius law code. Even Babylon fell to the
cruel and paranoid Assyrians, who lusted for power that took them
so long to obtain. But despite their citadels and defences, the Babylonians
rose again. The Tigris and Euphrates must have run red; rivers
running blood red with the deaths of so many innocents...for what?
Land. Resources. Dominance. Power. Lust. Greed. Religion.
Unable to overcome their lizard brains, they slaughtered each other
and your people too with blades of copper and silver and drank toasts
in cups of repousse gold. They built great cities out of azure blue bricks
and gateways of grandeur; hanging gardens for homesick wives and
towers so high they crumbled under the weight of men's pride.

After the war, the mantra. Never again. Never again.
The work camps, the gas chambers, the destroyed cities
and homes and decimated families...the piles of broken bones
and stench of the crematorium. Never again. The world understood.
It turned away for far too long but in its shame and regret, it
whispered as well, "Never again will these people suffer this
nightmare, this hell."

And three years after the end of the war, Israel was born.
But it was a cruel birth; it was necessary but it was more than the
birth of one nation. It was also the death of another. The story of
Solomon and the two women who both claimed to be the mother
of one baby, had a somewhat happy ending. Threatening to cut
the baby in half, Solomon discovered the real mother, who stepped
forward to save her child. The baby was spared; it wasn't divided in
two. For if it was, what then? Both women would suffer, and moreso
the real mother.

That is how I see the birth of Israel. Israel came about in 1948 by
splitting the land of the Palestinians in two. And death has been the
result of that birth ever since. Death and destruction. The Palestinians
were forced from their homes, stripped of their possessions, or forced
to leave with whatever they could carry with them. These people had
lives, and families, and a history there. And yet one day, it was decided
by other governments, that they should leave. I cannot imagine that
horror. And so the war began. The Palestinians would not give up
their land, their history, their pride easily. Never. Never. Never.
It is a familiar word, no? The Israelis were more powerful. So many
Palestinians reduced to nothing; so many dead, so many ending up
living in refugee camps. Why? What for? A displaced people. This was
their holocaust. Did you ever wonder what that must have felt like?
Does the story sound familiar?

Out of the horror, grief. Unimaginable grief. What are these people
fighting for? Land. Resources. Religion. Pride. Dignity. What is
rightfully theirs. But who is right? And so, some years, a battle of
inches. And some a battle of miles. Some, as in 1967, a battle of days.
And mothers buried their children in graves dug from the same soil.
And children wept over dead parents with the same salty tears.
Out of the bitterness and the rage grew hatred. Hatred so strong, so
unbelievable, so insane it became terrorism. All conscience has been
lost. All reason, disappeared. Now there is nothing left but the fervent
desire of the annihilation of your beloved country.

Do you see it? Do you Golda? Can you see what has happened?
The very thing that happened to the Jews....Israel and the world
was guilty of doing to the Palestinians. There is more than one tragic
story to be told here. Israel's fully justified mantra of "Never again" has
turned however, into a war mentality. The fear has been replaced
by hatred as powerful as that of the Arabs. And now, here we are
in the year 2006, and the hatred continues to grow.

Please, let me update you on the current situation. This week,
Israel has begun what might turn out to be the worst conflict
the Middle East has ever seen. The terrorist group Hezbollah
supposedly kidnapped two Israeli soldiers; a terrible act to be
sure. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, I know. I do not
support terrorist organisations. Israel's response was swift
and merciless. Hezebollah, which plays a role in Lebanon's
government, would not get away with this. And so Israel rolled
out the tanks, the war planes, the long-range missiles. Instruments
of death my country no doubt helped to procure for them, if
they were not given to them by America outright.

And war has all but been declared on not only Hezbollah but
on Lebanon, and sadly, its innocent citizens. Airports runways
have been blown up. Naval blockades have formed. Fuel depots
burn in the night. Defence Ministries explode. The Beirut-Damascus
highway burns with hellfire. It's only 40 miles. It's a small
geographical conflict. For now. Israel accused Hezbollah of sending
missiles into its country. Missiles hit Haifa - the farthest missiles
have gone yet. Are you impressed? Missiles are going
places never dreamt of in your lifetime! Suburbs in Lebanon are
being targeted; but to be fair, Israeli planes dropped leaflets and
told people to get out. To leave their homes, their lives behind.
And so we see them. In cars, on foot, carrying children and all
they can in old suitcases. And we see the ambulances. And hear the
sirens. And see rivers of blood running through the streets.

Television pundits are bantering the words World War III
around with nary a care. Because you see, we've got a few other
problems. Iran wants to make nuclear weapons. North Korea is
shooting off missiles into the Sea of Japan. I wouldn't even begin
to know how to explain September 11th to you.

I am not a Jew. I am not an Arab. I am a human being who sees
hatred so fierce that I fear no peace will ever truly exist in your
country, or the countries around Israel. Golda, neither the Jews
nor the Arabs love their children enough. You have all chosen hatred
of each other over love of your children, and of a future for those
children. You have condemned them, and perhaps all of us in the end
to a Hell that mere words cannot describe. Never foret, never forget.
What was it Golda, that we are never to forget? Hatred? For the cycle
has been born and when it dies, I fear we will all die with it.

So the world goes round as it always has and the lesson of the day
seems clear: love is not strong enough; hatred reigns supreme.
This is what is, in 2006. And what will come, remains to be seen.

Photo Credit: CNN - Fuel tanks burn at Beirut International Airport

We Are All The Children of Stardust

Yesterday was a sad day. I spent all of it inside
both my house and my head. I slept, and desperately
tried to memorise mathematical formulas in order
to jump through the next hoop that will be placed
before me.

In the news, the announcment that Syd Barrett died. What a life.
To have influenced so many; I wondered where did he go?
Did he know he was going? And where is he now?
Floating amongst the asteroids and comets and supernovas?

Terrorists blew up commuter trains in Mumbai, India.
Almost 200 people died and it is virtually incomprehensible
to imagine the horror and the nightmare of the scene
when you are thousands of miles away, living in another
country, another city, another place inside your head.

I do not know this world anymore and yet I thought once
I did. We cursed the Cold War, but as many have said now,
at least we knew the rules. It was an imperfect insanity,
marked by futile wars and thousands of deaths. Yet there
were perimeters, even alongside the blight of communism and
the bitter sadness of Vietnam, the heavy threat of mutually
assured destruction and Star Wars. Little did we know that
mutually assured destruction was indeed our saving grace.
The USSR did not want to be obliterated anymore than we did.
And so we lived. And down came the wall, in 1989, in Berlin,
and we all witnessed what we thought then was a glorious
moment in history. When did it end? Did it ever really begin?
Have we merely traded one set of fears for another? What
is the sum of all fears? Is this my life now, and for all the years
to come?

My heart is heavy, and I am scared. It is not as if terrorism
is new; indeed I can recall terrorist acts from my childhood in
the 1970's. But the rules of the game have changed. The USSR
disappeared and with it, some frail cobweb of connection that
held the misery and fear together. Internal wars and rebels and
grievances have turned Russia into a frightening, failing democracy.

It seems as well we can look back and fool ourselves into believing
everything was OK before September 11th. Intellectually we know
it wasn't. Europe and other continents and countries had been living
with the hideous blight of terrorism for decades. It was the shock
and scale and magnitude of the attacks on - gasp - American soil
that shook us awake from our dreams of immunity, our fantasies and
necessary illusions of safety. And we woke up, some of us literally and
figuratively, and we knew: there was never any safe place. There is
nowhere to run and hide. The boogeymen are not on the other side
of the world; they are here, they are there - they are everywhere.
None of us will probably ever forget where we were when we heard
the news - my mother woke me very early that Tuesday morning;
in time to see the Twin Towers fall, collapse into ash, dust, and vapourized
nothingness.

My mother, the queen of hyperbole, for once was not exaggerating
when she said our country was under attack. I knew, as sure as I'd
known anything in my entire existence, that the world had irrevocably
changed that beautiful Indian summer day. And then, the carefully
constructed nightmares of Afghanistan and Iraq. The mind cannot
fully fathom the grief, the agony, the lives destroyed forever by such
futile and senseless self-serving political strategies. The rules of
engagement no longer apply. The soldiers, over three years in, are going slightly
mad. They are living in a constant state of hypervigilance which
has pushed many to allegedly commit horrific crimes - rape and murder
and torture. If you are around madness long enough, you become
the madness. If you are living with monsters, one day you will
become the monster.

July 11, 2006, Mumbai, India. How many lives were destroyed on
those trains? March of 2004, Madrid. July of 2005, London. Mind
the gap. Mind the men and women who do care a whit about life;
who seem to long for death in their sick, twisted war. A war on....
what exactly? Ah, there's the rub. Tis there where the rules have
changed, and the players as well. They are everywhere now. They
are sitting in our junior colleges. They are sitting in caves in the
Middle East. They are insurgents in the deserts, hiding bewteen the
Tigris and Euphrates. They are walking amongst the businessmen
of Mumbai, and the commuters of London. My friend Catz and I
spoke today of what they want. What indeed? The Palestinians want
their homeland back. Can we blame them? The Israelis want a home
and for the world to never forget what happened to them. Yes, it
is understandable. The others - they all want something different,
and in the end, it's probably all the same. Some of them, like the
President of Iran, want the absolute annihilation of Israel. Osama
wants the annihilation of the West. al-Zarqawi didn't even discriminate
anymore - everyone and everything was a target. Men, women,
children. Christians, Jews and Muslims. He beheaded human beings
as if they were tiny ants he stepped on with glee. He is gone now,
but what does it matter in the end? A million others will take his
place. The madness has no end. It cannot be contained.

North Korea is hell-bent on obtaining nuclear technology. Kim
Jong Il taunts the world by firing off impotent missiles. Perhaps
now they will all fall and sink to the bottom of the sea, but he
knows the psychological effect it will have on the world. The board
game positions shift. We send a missile destroyer to Japan. There
doesn't seem to be any diplomacy, for how do you appease a
madman whose country and government remain a mystery?
India fires off wayward missiles; India and Pakistan live on the
precarious bit of peace gained over two long years, and now, and
now...Mumbai.

Ireland, Indonesia, England, India, Spain, Russia, America,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Italy, Scotland, Africa, the Philippines...is there
any continent or country that will not be touched by terrorism?
And the wall came down, but alas, it was not freedom that
was born, but a world unknown to us as before. The Cold War years
were a comfort zone and we didn't even know it.

I am in a way, glad I do not have children. Yes, the world has
always been a place where control is a mere illusion. My mother
was born two weeks before World War II. I was born during the
heaviest battles of the Vietnam war. But there has been a sea
change, and it is an ominous one at that. The tides have turned,
the waters are pitch black, still at some times, wildly turbulent
at others. There are no predictable tides, the man on the moon
smiles wanly down at us, as if to say, "I'm so sorry, I cannot control
any of this anymore."

We live on edge, on bizarre terror alerts, we live at the edge of
a beautiful spiral disk called the Milky Way, and we know we also
live on the edge of a steep precipice. Will we fall? How long and far
do we go with our lives before the terror starts encroaching upon
our freedoms? Last fall I insisted on riding the Tube. I would not
be undone in London by hate-filled terrorists. We road the shaky,
old rails, and it was like some kind of victory. We survived.
In New York I insist on riding the subways; a day after I arrived
in 2004 NYC was put on a high terror alert. I would not be dismayed
or discouraged. Fuck them, I said. Fuck their insanity, their threats,
their madness. It is easy to say when you still feel that invisible and
yet slightly comforting illusion; the cloak of comfort that envelops
you and tells you 'oh yes it is happening but certainly it could not
happen again, so soon.'

But it is happening. Over and over and over. And it will happen again.
And my fear, our fear, the collective fear that lives inside all of us,
whether we want to admit it or not, is that someday, one day, something
is going to happen that is going to make September 11, 2001 look
like child's play. What then? Will will even be here to contemplate
it? I never thought this would happen in my lifetime. I never thought
I'd live in a world so hopelessly caught in a tangled web of torture and terror.
There are no rules, the culprits are everywhere, hiding in the very
threads of this loosely woven fabric of madness; and they are nowhere -
they are ghosts, corpses among the corpses, voices and images on
shaky recorders and video cameras and they will never, ever be
easily be caught, killed or deterred. When death itself does not
deter a man or woman from his or her quest to kill and destroy,
what alternatives do those we seek peace have? When men are not
afraid to plow themselves into buildings in jets at 500 miles an hour....what then?

So we live with our fears, and we try to keep them at bay, and
we make macabre jokes, and we know, we finally know that
the laughing sadness that now owns our souls is not going away.

Photo: Our home, the Milky Way, in all its sad beauty.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

It's All Good

Isn't it? I mean, as long as we're all still alive
and healthy and kicking and breathing? Yes my
dear fans and fiends, ha!, kidding. I mean my dear
friends, all 2 or 3 of you ; )....I have my head on
straight again. I went a bit over the bend on the weekend
but I've reeled myself back in. No test is worth the
#1 thing to me, and that's my health, which is currently
in the toilet. I've been sleeping poorly, dreaming of
babies made out of vegetables (only Eek will truly, truly
understand this), eating sporadically and not well,
not taking my vitamins and haven't done a yoga pose
in weeks. So...I'm tired beyond description and in lots
o' pain. Bad, bad, me. So I'm listening to my body now,
and letting it do what it needs to do, whether that be sleep,
eat or what. My body wanted orange juice today, which to me,
was my body screaming, "For God's sake woman, eat something
that has some nutritional value!" I must ignore my body when
it wants to go buy more manuka honey though - that stuff is
loco expensive, and I've taken a real liking to it now. Addictive!

My tutor came today - he's only coming one more time.
He's so optimistic, I find him funny. I think he thinks I may
pass this test, and who knows - maybe I will! I'll study the best
I can, and I will let it go. I've got a LOT to do at the end of this week
and beginning of next week for the shows, and that has to take
precedence. Here's how I'm letting go - I'm not sure I spelled
that word right - precedence - but I'm not even going to use
spell-check or the dictionary. Let a word sit there spelled wrong.
And the world will still spin on its axis, which is, I might add,
tilted 23 degrees to the perpendicular, which is why we have
seasons! Isn't it lovely? Now due to the Coriolis effect, the winds
blow right in the Northern Hemisphere, where I live, under a high
pressure system, and they blow left in the Southern Hemisphere,
where SK and Sue C live (and a few others!), under a low pressure system.

So next time you're enjoying the fall colours on the trees,
or wondering how long this bloody summer heat will last,
or freezing your little tush off in the snow, remember, it's all
due to 23 degrees, and naturally it all depends on where you
live as to what season we're in. I still think people in Australia
live backwards, season-wise. Have they always thought
that about us? Hee. Which is why I find it fascinating that SK blogs about his
freezing kitchen, whilst I blast the A/C with the 100 degree
temperatures here. See, I've learned some science. Just don't
get me started on isotopes.

So I turn on CNN today and I hear India's shootin'
missiles off. INDIA? I can't keep up. I thought it was North
Korea that was shooting wayward (thank God) missiles off
right and left and right. The Sea of Japan thanks you, Kim
Jong Il-Fucking Maniac, for polluting it with your impotent
missiles. And yet thank god they don't have the technology.
So what in Pete's sake is India doing? What is it, National Shoot
Off Your Missile Month? Can't these guys go back to jerking
off the old-fashioned way? (all pardons to my more sensitive
readers).

Seriousy, it's kind of scary when the US sends a missile destroyer
for permanent deployment to Japan. We laugh...until we don't.
Or as my mom said, "Life goes on...until Kim Il-Jong decides it
doesn't." And China! Well, they're going nuclear too - you know, running
out of fuel and all that. So we must enjoy each moment, I suppose
because we do not know what the future will bring. It is becoming
an exceedingly frightening time to be alive. Who the hell decided
to split that first atom in the first place? Ugh!

I also apologize to my humble readers for the amount of times
I used the "F" word in my last blog. No, not Marty's 'f' word - that
would be 'fun' and I'm wasn't having too much of that. The
shall we say, traditional 'f' word. Joycie and my own mum aren't
even reading my blog, but a girl shouldn't end up sounding like
she's in a Quentin Tarantino film.

And now....the most important news for last.
Keith Richards has announced he's ready to tour.
Did anyone ever doubt it for a minute? My grandma and
Keith Richards: two immortal human beings.
At least my grandma isn't climbing trees.

Only a bit over a week until....THE CHURCH!!!!!

Photo: The boys of summer (well, our summer)

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Breakdown

Well, I'm not even sure this is going to post correctly
as apparently something is fucked up with my blog. I
thought it might have to do with something in regards to
the last blog, so I deleted it. I don't know how my blog looks
now to other people. It looks fine to me, but obviously
something's wrong.

I think I finally cracked today. I'd been studying science so
long and so hard my brain literally hurt. Even though I know
your brain can't hurt; I swear mine did. I promised my tutor
Mike I'd take a practice CSET math test and I did this morning
and fucked it up in more ways than I can count. Granted I was
tired (what else is new), anxious, totally froze up when I realized
I didn't even know how to go about the first question. I blew so
many - I would've failed and the test is less than two weeks away.

There's a lot riding on this test - mainly my ability to student
teach in January. I need to do that to continue forward and make
money. I don't have endless amounts of money. I just paid a bunch
of medical bills, my tuition, credit cards, cell phone...Jesus it adds
up. I've never been so frazzled and out of it. I am really scared.
This is not like me. I am usually very organized, on top of everything,
I remember everything, and conduct my life in a pretty
responsible manner.

I've always prided myself on being on top of EVERYTHING.
I am nothing if not organized, responsible and conscientious.
Yes, I am a perfectionist and over the years I've learned to let that
go, but it's hard. Even with FMS I am a type A personality.

I realized, with complete horror and shock (I am a bit of a drama
queen) that I completely forgot to pay my estimated taxes in June.
I pay taxes four times a year on the interest I get from the modest
inheritance I received from my father. The week the taxes were due
was the week my friend had surgery, the week I went to meet Anderson Cooper, the week my kids graduated, and the last day of school. In ten years, I have NEVER forgotten to pay my taxes.
I know it's not the end of the world - hell, I'm sure the penalty
won't be that huge, but it was like an indictment of how disorganized
and scrambled my brain has become. I couldn't even blame that
goof on the test.

I had a miserable day today. Gena took me out, we had lunch
and I know I was a lousy companion. I'd just essentially failed my
math test and I've spent hundreds of dollars on this tutor. I am NOT
a stupid person. I have a master's degree, I had almost a 4.0 in
grad school, I have a fairly decent IQ. I just cannot comprehend
math. And apparently I'm missing science questions I should be
getting too. The problem with these fucking tests is that they
expect you to study and know EVERYTHING - and it's impossible.
I have an excellent memory and I have an amazing amount of
knowledge in my head, but it never seems to be enough.

I've been very emotional, crying at the drop of a hat. I've noticed
when I type letters my words are screwed up. My spelling is totally
off. I can't seem to form sentences when I speak. My house is a mess.
I started stuttering last night talking to my mom - I've never
stutterd in my life. I'm tired constantly. I'm in pain all the time -
I'm sure it's do to the mental stress I'm under.

I know this isn't a life or death situation; it just would be so
easier for me if I pass this now, rather than have to take it again
in September when school is started and I have four classes to go
to.

The thing that scared me the most, is I am so preoccupied,
I almost caused an accident driving with my friend in the car.
She said she was going to drive until my test was over. It's fine
with me. I am struggling with myself to just let go of this - all
I ever wanted to do was matter a little bit in this world - to make
the world a better place. I love teaching. Why is it so hard? I've
proven I'm a good college teacher and I'm excellent with little
kids. They're screaming for good teachers - here I am you fuckers!

Tonight G and I saw Pirates - wow. I'm exhausted from seeing it.
It was fun,and Johnny Depp was naturally delicious - but there was
SO much action in it that I think it was a bit much. It ended exactly
as if there is a sequel coming...and of course we know there is.

Today G and went to Whole Foods. I shelled out and bought some
Manuka Honey. Damn, that IS expensive. I tasted it tonight. I am so
used to the clover honey I get that the manuka honey tasted slightly
bitter to me...but I think it's good and it'll grow on me. I've got to
make it last, haha. Whole Foods is introducing a huge new line of
vegan foods - they looked good. I know I couldn't go vegan. But I was
reading one of their vegetarian magazines and I am seriously
considering going vegetarian. Long before I listend to Steve Kilbey
ramble on about the horrors of meat, I have been conflicted when
eating meat. I might start to gradually phase meat out of my life and see how I do. Its' funny, G was busy buying something and I stood in
front of all the beers looking at the. I don't normally drink beer but
I somehow wanted to get really plastered. The guy at Whole Foods
said, "Can I help you?" and I said, "Yeah, I wanna get drunk." I
don't think he knew what to make of that! He kind of laughed. He
said "Well if I can help you with any specific brands, let me know."
Yeah, how about something herbal?

Steve, lovely soul that he is, actually answered many of our questions,including mine. I loved his answer. He is a good guy -
learning to be nice. Funny, I've been so nice my whole life I
think I've let people run right over me. I don't need to learn
to be nice. But we're all here for different lessons. I need to learn
to let go and let God.

I absolutely refuse to have my Church week ruined by this test.
By next Monday, I want the bulk of my studying done. I will not study on Friday, the day before the test. Sadly I might
have to leave that show early - it figures the show is in
Anaheim and I'm in Simi Valley. I need a few
hours of sleep before the test.

This is an introduction to all my new blogger friends to how
anal retentive and perfectionistic I am, haha. I just want to give
myself a break. I feel so much pressure, and all, the pressure
is coming from within me. It's been this way my whole life. It's
a miserable way to live. I haven't pursued a new goal for so long
that I haven't had to feel any pressure. I was in a comfort zone
and I've pushed myself out of that zone. It's a bitch.

Tomorrow I plan to study math, slowly, and learn what I screwed
up on. Monday Mike is coming and then he is not coming until the
Thursday before the test. I figure at that point, I'll either sink or
swim as they say.

I can't believe I just spent $3000 on bills, tuition, parking passes, etc.

I'm praying to the Gods, whatever might be up there, to let me
get my head on straight. A stupid test isn't worth my health, it
isn't worth getting my friend and I killed in the car. I look forward
to next Monday, when I plan to essentially let it go and concentrate
on the Church activities. I feel like I deserve to enjoy myself and have a good time.

Life is short, this shit isn't worth it. Mostly I think I am worried about finances. I NEED to go back to work and start bringing in
money again, instead of all money going OUT.

Time for bed. Bless those poor souls in that Russian air crash.
I am well aware that my problems really don't amount to a hill
of beans in this crazy world. I hope the crash doesn't scare Steve.
I swear once, I spent years flying and every single time I would fly,
I kid you not, right before I flew there would be a major air disaster.
That did not help my fear of flying, to say the least.

So much pain, and grief and sorrow. Usually I am really good
at getting perspective on things. Hopefully I will be better.
And hopefully this blog looks normal. If not, please tell me.