We Can Be Kings, You And I…

(We are the stars up in the sky… We light the darkness, you and I…)

It’s starting to get COLD where I am.  Like… wearing a hoodie and jeans in the house kind of cold.  Luckily, the gas company is coming over on Wednesday to do a pressure check and relight the gas heater so I can start using it for the fall/winter.

And my mother… lord, my mother… she just moved to Alabama in August to take care of my grandparents, and she just recently bought my grandpa a walker so he can move around a bit more safely and freely.  She said he likes it, but he’s going to fight her all the way when she starts having him get out and walk for exercise to strengthen his legs again.  But last week she said, “We can’t have him do it right now… it’s still in the 80’s here.”

My response?  “Your biggest problem right now is that it’s still too HOT there in October?  Screw you.”  We both laughed.

(We are the strong, and though we fall, we fought for love… we risked it all…)

As much as I hate living in Indiana… I love the Autumn season.  It’s definitely my favourite.  When my parents were still up north here, we used to do bonfires almost every weekend, whether we hosted them or attended them.  It was like a trek around the city every weekend for a couple months, one night here, another night there… just hanging out around the bonfire, talking, and pretending that none of us had to go to work on Monday.  Also, we’d all have campers out at a local campground, and if it wasn’t supposed to get too cold at night, we’d all go camping instead… build the campfire every night, stay up until stupid hours of the morning talk about everything and nothing all at once…

We had a pretty sweet set-up… a couple of the campers next to each other, and one a little farther down the way in either direction.  Each camper had at least one golf cart… and occasionally they would participate in the “golf cart parade” where campers decorate their golf carts and ride around the campground every Friday and Saturday night, throwing candy to the kids who would come out of their campers/tents to watch.  My grandmother used to joke about how she wanted to put her candy in the freezer and aim at the children… but it was all in good fun.  My grandmother is actually pretty awesome.

A couple years ago, grandma and grandpa stopped making trips from Alabama back up here for the summer… grandpa’s eyes were getting too bad to drive, and grandma couldn’t do the whole 12 hour trip herself.  The camping tradition survived for awhile… but this season, with mom and my step-dad being in Alabama as well… camping seems to have died down.

I really miss the bonfires.

(We light up the sky…)

Being in a bit of a nostalgic mood for these bonfires, I was ecstatic when CottonCandy Teardrop, blog manager for Gizza Creations, passed me this wonderful top and pants from Gizza to sorta see what I could do with it.  I knew instantly of a Truth Hair that I could put with it… one that I’ve wanted an excuse to buy for awhile!  I’ve lightened my skin tone in an effort to be more appropriate to the season colors I like to wear a little more often, after taking MVW Academy’s 103 class with MeiMei Shiu and finally understanding this season chart a little better.  But as the eyebrows on my lighter skin don’t match the tone of red hair I normally wear, I’m a bit more ginger.  Which works with the freckles.  I’m letting it grow on me and seeing how I like it.  So far, so good.

Aside from the length of the pants (I’m more of a jeans girl, in RL), this is definitely something very reminiscent of what I would wear to one of these bonfires… warm pants… nice sturdy shoes… a comfortable sweater… and a scarf if I was cold.  Not a lot of jewelry… not a lot of makeup.  None of us really cared what the other looked like.

Hell, on New Year’s Day… snow or not… we’d all wake up at 6 and 7 in the morning and go have a New Years bonfire.  Coffee and Tea… doughnuts… it was just a fun time to get together and freeze our asses off.

I was, indeed, the youngest of those who consistently hung out with my parents friends… I just happened to enjoy their company more than I enjoyed the company of people my age.  People I graduated high school with are all getting serious about their relationships… getting married… having children… and at the moment, with my relationship being long distance (even if it is only a couple hours away), being around all that isn’t really my cup of tea.  My parents friends were usually already married, and had been for quite some time… it was less discouraging to see them.

In fact, it gave me hope in my future.

(Sorry for all the RL nostalgia.  I think I’m just still adjusting to being truly on my own, with my mother being 12 hours away and my father having passed away.  It’s nice to remember the good times.  And this outfit brought back all those happy memories.)

(Never shine so bright…)

*~* We Can Be Kings, You And I *~*

Shape: MINE
Skin: Cleo (Artic; Clean Version) – Glam Affair
Eyes: Eyescream Eyes (Deep Green) – Slink
Hair: Winter (gingers pack; with color change scarf) – Truth Hair
Eyeliner: Liner Pack 1 (Liner 3 bold) – DAMNED Bodyshop
Sweater: Let Loose Sweater (Green) – Gizza
Pants: Let Loose Pants (Green) – Gizza
Armwarmers (under sweater sleeves): Armwarmer (small; from Nana Classic outfit) – Severed Garden
Boots: Boots (from Josie outfit, in Olive) – Severed Garden
Hands: Avatar Enhancement Hand (Elegant I) – Slink
Ears (not shown): Simple Ears Hutuu (Unisex) – Mandala 
Headband: Hair Circlet (from Nana Classic outfit) – Severed Garden
Monroe Piercing: Diamond Monroe Piercing – envi
Pose & Leaves Prop: Into The Wind (single pose) – Magnifique

Blogging Tune:

It’s Where My Demons Hide…

(When you feel my heat, look into my eyes…)

I’m extremely disappointed that this Christmas, and then about a month later on my birthday, that my dad won’t call me.

This really shouldn’t disappoint me, because my father hasn’t call me on the phone for Christmas, my birthday, Thanksgiving, any major holiday really, since I was thirteen years old.  After a decade of missed phone calls and excuses of, “Well, I didn’t know if you’d be busy or not, and I didn’t want to interrupt anything your mother had planned,” you’d think I’d be used to not hearing from my father by now.

I think it’s the fact that he’s not around anymore that makes this feel so much worse.  It actually hurts.

While before I would just be mad at him… and roll my eyes as he gave me excuses about interrupting… and spending nights bitching with my mother about how, busy or not, I’m not so heartless that I wouldn’t take 5 minutes to talk to my father on Christmas… or my birthday…. and now it’s like… where is all of that time that we both thought we had?  Where is the ability to make up for all of that?  Where is the time that I’m supposed to be less busy and he’s supposed to feel comfortable enough to actually call me and let me know he gives a damn?

And I can’t even be mad at him.  I mean… how could I?  Sit here and be mad at my dad for dying?

But I am mad.  Not at him… but I’m mad.  So mad.

He might’ve been a really shitty role model… and he may be where I got my temper… and the half of my genes that are responsible for my being bipolar.  He may be the source of a lot of my trust issues.  He may have made up some horrible stories about my mother to try and force me to pick sides in their divorce.  He may not have really been there too much… but he was still my dad.

Was being the keyword, I guess.

(I want to hide the truith; I want to shelter you…)

Nine times out of ten, the more I smile to your face and act like nothing’s wrong… the more I’m suffering from something on the inside.  And while some people might deem it an insult that I’m “hiding” something from them… view it as a compliment.  I don’t want to burden you with my shit.  I care about you enough to want to shelter you from it.

And yes, I realize I’m such a hypocrite… because I very much value transparency… and I’d really like those that I care about the most to be transparent with me.  Call me a hypocrite if you’d like… I’m human.  And I never claimed to be perfect.

And I certainly never claimed to have it all together.  I know I don’t.  I’m a fucking mess, really.

How in the hell can people be so strong?  I really don’t understand… someone enlighten me, please.

Like… it’s only been 2 months since dad died… almost 3… and it still hurts just as much as it did the day I got the phone call.  The best part?  I got the call the day after he died… after he’d been in the hospital for a week.

It took them that long to find my phone number.  That’s how far away he kept everyone from him.  He listed his PHYSICAL THERAPIST as his emergency contact.

Talk about a blow to your self-esteem.

And somehow I feel like it’s my fault… at least partly.  I gave up.  I got sick of being the only one to try… the only one enough to care to reach out only to not receive any effort back.  I got sick of him ending conversations with, “Let’s not make it another 14 months before we talk again…” (because he always kept impeccable count of how long it had been… but didn’t bother to do anything about it…) only for him to NOT call for those next 14 months.  I got sick of feeling like I was conducting a one-sided relationship… like I was trying to force a bond with a man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.  So I gave up.  I told myself that he would eventually see… he’d eventually hate the feeling of having pushed everyone away and he’d make it right…

Then he died.

And I got to be the one on the phone with my aunt, his sister, a woman I’ve only met once in my life… while she cried and told me how he pushed her away too.  She told me about developing cancer…. and how she wasn’t even sure he knew that, because he stopped talking to her.  How he approached her AT THEIR MOTHER’S FUNERAL and said that after all was said and done with the funeral, he was done with her.

And she’d never done anything wrong…

(It’s where my demons hide…)

I never knew my two cousins… only met them once… at that same funeral.  My only real memory is of one of them… and it’s of sitting on the basement floor of my dad’s house, playing barbies.  That’s it.  Not really a fond memory, but not a negative one.  Not much of a memory at all.

That whole side of my family is so disjointed… well… ok… it’s mostly gone now… but when everyone was around, it was so disjointed.  I just don’t understand.

And I don’t understand where all this pain keeps coming from… where all these tears keep coming from… why the wound remains fresh and everyday I wake up and face his death all over again.  It’s like just the act of waking up is just like getting that call all over again.  I can’t breathe… everything I should’ve said and should’ve done comes back to me… and I just want to roll over and go back to sleep.  But I can’t.

I didn’t even know he had heart disease, you know?  I knew he had emphysema… and it didn’t shock me when he told me.  He’d smoked as long as I could remember… so the development just felt natural.  But the surgeon that called me after dad’s friend told me he died… told me that something was wrong with his heart after one of his lungs collapsed… that he’d had a stint put in recently… and that he had been due for another one in late August.  I didn’t even know he had heart disease.  Hell, I didn’t even know that WASN’T the first time his lung had collapsed.

And then the doctors wanted an autopsy because they found masses in his lungs they wanted to look at?  You mean to tell me he could’ve had cancer too?!  I just couldn’t handle it.  I told them that I wasn’t responsible for their medical curiosities and declined the autopsy.  It was just too much.

It still is too much.

I still wake up every day and it’s like I lose him all over again.

Can someone please tell me when I’m going to be able to breathe again?

(Don’t get too close; it’s dark inside…)

*~* It’s Where My Demons Hide *~*

Shape: MINE!
Skin: Cleo (Artic; Makeup 11) – Glam Affair
Eyes: Lovers eyes (Storm) – theSkinnery  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hair: Hearts Don’t Breakeven – Exile  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Makeup: Birds of a Feather – Madrid Solo
Outfit (Tank Top Dress & Tutu): TUTU (Cake) – Gizza
Boots: Thigh Boots (mesh) – HOC Industries  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hands: Avatar Enhancement Hand (Elegant 1) – Slink  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Ears: Simple Ears Hutuu (Unisex) – Mandala  *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Ear Studs: Hana Diamond Earrings – Eshi Otawara
Ring: Hana (Innocent White) Ring – Eshi Otawara
Monroe Piercing: Diamond Monroe Piercing – envi
Necklace: Amarcord Diamond Necklace – Donna Flora
Poses: from the Classic set – PosESioN

Blogging Tune:

It’s Hard to See the Pain Behind the Mask…

(A statue stands in a shaded place…)

First of all… thank you all for bearing with me while I get back into this slowly but surely.  It’s hard to find continual inspiration like I used to… before, I had all this inspiration but taking and editing the photos from my crappy computer was such a complicated process I just didn’t want to do it.  Now, I have the good computer that can take the photos and make editing them easy… but my inspiration is just… meh.

I know I haven’t given you all the post that I promised about why I was gone for so long… and for that, I apologize.  It’s been an interesting summer.  It’s like… everyone I’m graduating with for dance class on Sunday (see what I did there?) just had the summer from hell.  I was sick, I was changing jobs… and on the 1st of August, I lost my father in RL to emphysema, heart disease, and the doctors thought he might’ve had cancer as well.  They found masses on his lungs… but I declined the autopsy.  I just… couldn’t deal with it after the fact, you know?  He was a sick man… he passed away.  That much alone was devastating enough.  I couldn’t bear the idea of the other information I might find out via an autopsy.

So it’s just been a slow process coming back into everything… RL work is still changing, but I start training for a new job on October 14th.  It might be part-time, but it’s NOT seasonal… which was, like, a shock to me.  Around the holiday season, it’s so hard to find permanent jobs here in the U.S.  Most are just hiring seasonal work through January or so, but I managed to snag a part-time ‘full status’ position in a call center.  It will be an interesting experience, I’m sure.  But it’s a job.  That’s what’s important.

I still miss my dad every day.  And actually it really only hit me a few days ago that he’s actually dead.  I was going to the store… or something else equally random… and when I pulled back into my driveway, I just sat there for a few minutes and cried.  It was almost like I’d JUST figured out my dad died.  It had just sunken in fully all the way.  And it hurt… it really hurt.

So I’m still going through some stuff.  Thank you for bearing with me.

(In a world that she can’t rise above…)

Now, on to what I wanted to write about.  I got SO inspired today when I found these eyes… I’m hoping to use this blog as my Catskillz “under 150L” assignment as well… since everything else was in my inventory… and I spent 1L on the eyes.  (*Bats eyelashes* Does it work Bonie?  Please?)

Anyway… I got so inspired when I saw these eyes on Marketplace… they looked blind.  And I’d always wanted to do this artistic sorta blind angel statue styling… ever since I got these wings from Glam Affair.  I don’t know why I wanted it to be a BLIND angel… but it worked.  And with the sorta modern/urban/street casual look of LivGlam’s outfit… I just… fell so in love.  I really did.  Unconventional as a styling as it was, I fell in love with it… and so I’m really hoping the pictures do it justice, and the topic that I’d like to approach today doesn’t muddle the beauty of what I styled and the song I chose for it.

I don’t want to talk tonight about blindness, so much as I want to talk about “selective seeing”.  In a way, some people walk through life with their eyes open wide… only to certain things.  They are selectively blind when it comes to their own errors, their own wrongdoings… and they can’t see the egg on their face when they really screw up and make a fool out of themselves.  They just keep asserting how right they are and how wrong anyone else is that sees things differently.  They are “selectively blind” to how things really are.

I’m not innocent of selective blindness and selective sight.  I’ve been there.  Many times.  6 months ago or so I LIVED in a CONSTANT state of selective blindness.  And what’s worse?  I had, like, NO mental filter.  So not only did I see things the wrong way, I had NO issues telling anyone just exactly what I thought of how screwed up their view was… even if they were completely right and I was the one seeing things the wrong way.

I was selectively blind.

(But her dreams give her wings, and she flies to a place where she’s loved…)

Selective blindness can make us REALLY look like assholes sometimes.  Take this evening, for example.

I’m sitting in a discussion, minding my own business, really.  Listening to the comments made, making a few of my own… just doing the general “participation” thing that I like to do in my community every so often.  We were speaking about protocols… as a particular community member was having problems ‘writing’ protocols in his relationship.  We spent about half the discussion speaking about that and before we finished out on comments that were pertaining to that topic, a new question was posed: “Do slaves submit?”

It has always been my understanding and my personal belief that yes, slaves submit, even if they are in a service-based, non-romantic relationship.  They submit to their service.  They submit to their obedience.  And for me, this has been to my detriment at inconvenient times in my life.  When I’m pissed… no, it’s not a problem at all.  Lol.  I will speak my mind and speak it very clearly, and often not listen to others.  But that’s the bi-polar lack of control of my emotions coming out of me.  When I’m calm… if I have an opinion… and I’m being constantly interrupted while speaking, or I’m being told I’m wrong… and the person I’m speaking with is of a stronger personality than I am, I’m likely to just sit there, hush, and listen.  I may still disagree, but I won’t voice that disagreement.  I won’t stand up for myself, really.  Not in a calm situation.  I can be very meek and mild, much to some peoples’ surprise… and it is very much a detriment to me.

I really had no way to properly explain that point… as it’s not the easiest thing for people to wrap their heads around.  And I was searching through experiences in my life that I could use as an example or an analogy.  Analogies and examples are what I survive on.  I’m thoroughly convinced I couldn’t effectively communicate without them.  Because I can’t articulate my thoughts as eloquently as I’d like to, most of the time.

While I’m thinking about how I’m going to explain my particular weakness in this obedience, I’m waiting for my turn in the queue.  A Dominant in the room had a comment, then the Dominant who posed the original question had a follow-up question, and then I had a comment.  While the follow-up question was being posed, the previous Dominant jumped in with what seemed to be just a small comment.  No harm, no foul.  I continued to listen and mentally wrack my brain for examples.  However, the more the previous Dominant spoke, the more it turned into full fledged comment.  Instead of placing a “c” in local chat to hop into the queue and answer the question, the Dominant had stepped in front of my place “in line”, so to speak, and had taken over.  I admit to feeling a bit walked all over, a bit stepped on.  But did I say anything?  Not at first.  The community leader presiding over the discussion had not felt the need to step in yet, and so the situation was under control and it was not my place to really speak up.  Even if I felt overlooked.  It wasn’t until a fellow attender of the discussion posed a question about the speaking queue in local did I feel like I even had the strength to stand up and say something as well.

And there I had my example.  I pretensed my comment saying that I was NOT in ANY way, shape, or form trying to call anyone out or state my opinion in a negative or angry way.  And I apologized in advance if anyone would take it that way.  I then went on to explain that I submit to my obedience, even when it become a detriment to me, and I used that situation as an example.  When I felt overlooked and stepped on, I didn’t stick up for myself… not until someone else said something.  It was like I needed to know it was “ok” to stand up for myself before I did.  And it was embarrassing to admit that weakness in myself to my community… but it’s normally such a supportive community that I felt I could do so.

Later, my partner tells me that that Dominant is in His IMs, accusing me of having “topped” him during the discussion.  For those non-D/s readers that I have… “topping” is what Dominants do with their submissives, what Masters do with Their slaves.  It’s inflicting that Dominance over them.  So my BIGGEST question in all this insane drama that has ensued because this particular Dominant got butt-hurt over a comment that I made… if I was “Topping” Him… what was I trying to make Him do, exactly?  What was the Will of mine that I was trying to impose on Him?  To accuse me of Topping is accusing me of trying to command… get Him to obey what I say… get Him to submit to my will… so what exactly was I trying to get Him to do?

Selective blindness.  He still refuses to see that in breaking the etiquette of the discussion and trampling over the speaking queue to make his point to the Dominant who posed His follow-up question… that He was the only one doing anything inappropriate.

Selective blindness sucks… and can really make people look bad.

(A name is written on a polished rock; a broken heart that the world forgot…)

*~* It’s Hard to See the Pain Behind the Mask… *~*

Shape: MINE!
Skin: Cleo (America; Makeup 11) – Glam Affair
Eyes: Dolly Eyes (Blind) – ~*By Snow*~
Hair: Claudette (Jellyfish) – Wasabi Pills *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Makeup: Margot Makeup 02 – Glam Affair (release from previous Cosmetic Fair; cannot find in store)
Eyeliner: Liner 3 (thin) – DAMNED Bodyshop
Jacket/Shirt: Hey Soul Sister – LivGlam (bought at Rock Your Rack)  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Jeans: Skinny NX Pants – Nerdmonkey  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Heels: Grace Sandals (Black Patent) – Gos Boutique  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Hands: Avatar Enhancement Hand (Elegant 1) – Slink  *~*rigged mesh*~*
Ears: Steking Ears – Mandala  *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Ring: Roho (Silver; Grey Stone) – Maxi Gossamer  *~*non-rigged mesh*~*
Collar: Wylder’s Collar – Wild Ice (not sold; handmade by my partner)
Wings: Essential Wings (Teal) – Glam Affair
Poses: Various from the “Fierce” set – *PosESioN* (full set currently on sale for L$100; limited time!)

Blogging Tune: