Discounted · Therapy

Interesting question. 
I'd have to say being overly generous which in turn leads me to be overly gullible.

I believe that there are ghosts among the living. I haven't seen one with my own eyes. My experience was beyond visual. 

I was probably 23 at the time and had visited my parents for a weekend at their house near Nashville. A lot of my creature comforts had been moved from my room there to my apartment about 15 miles from their house. There was a tv in the room with no cable, sheets that were scratchy and unfamiliar and a tall halogen lamp near my "big girl" bed I had slept in for the past 12 years. 

I can't remember the exact hour it was but it was late. I crawled into bed armed with a book pulled from the many choices on my mother's shelves. I was preparing to read until I fell asleep. Not long after I had crawled into the bed and blanketed myself with the 150 thread-count sheets, I started to hear what sounded like footsteps crunching on carpet. I thought that maybe my parent's dog had pushed her way through the door. I looked up at the door and it was closed. Being perplexed for a moment, I sat there waiting to hear the noise again. After I dismissed the issue and continued to read my book, I heard the footsteps again. I began to get unnerved by the deafening sound of quiet footsteps coming towards me. 

I turned the dial on the lamp to burn it out and laid down quickly. I rolled over and pulled the covers up to my chin and closed my eyes. I keenly remember thinking that if I closed my eyes and ignored whatever it was, I would deny it any energy and thus starve this thing out of my room. I felt the footsteps get closer to the edge of my bed then stop. I felt something crawl onto my bed and then I heard and felt a whisper so close to my ear I swear to you I could feel the moisture of breath. The whisper, in a man's voice, said "Well hello there Michelle". My breathing was rapid as I flung the covers off and twisted the lamp dial to the on position. The aura of the lamp quickly lit the room. I sat up and stayed awake for a long time.

The lamp stayed on 'til morning.

"I'm just chasing time again..."

I love puzzles. Given a rainy day and a wide open table, I can speculate on a million little pieces and slowly form a picture. Usually, it's a nature scene or a poster or even a little puppy dog laying on green grass with a swath of blue sky overhead. The funny thing, sometimes with puzzles, is that every so often there is a piece that matches so close to the space it's supposed to fill that you find yourself jamming and cramming that piece in until the edges fray and the layers of pressed cardboard turn into a miniature fan; sprawled out as evidence of your mistaken judgement on what should fit and, to be so blatantly clear, on every reason why it doesn't fit. 

  Mostly, I sing to the carefully chosen playlist I placed on my iPod. Other than that, I curse worse than a sailor at the people who do not seem to know how to drive. I guess that officially makes me an Atlanta driver because most of the people I shout and shake my fist at are from other states. I see their being from another state as no excuse due to our illustrious city's widely known propensity for traffic jams. 

Sometimes, I use my car time to prepare for my day (my drive to work takes about 30 min or so). Other times, I'll replay conversations over again in my head that I'd wished had gone better for whatever reason. 

Sometimes I'll pretend I'm someone else instead of the same ol' me. People driving by don't know who I am (unless of course they recognize me from somewhere). I could be anyone driving in a Saturn shoe.

I've been mulling this entry for about a week...I have so much to say on this yet not enough to fill the space I think it deserves. 
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I, like most people in Atlanta and maybe nationwide, have watched this story unfold into the unthinkable this week. I don't know if others have watched with the same anxiety as I but the sordid facts have come to light in a way that feels like slow motion. I've watched the facts be reported on the news and heard radio stations give their attention to discussing the details over and over again in gratuitous fashion. I am disgusted and heartbroken all at once about this woman that I have never met, never known and will never meet. Meredith Hope Emerson is dead.

My first reaction was frustration and anger. Frustration that we live in a world where this happens and anger that she went alone. Frustration that she was trusting enough to entertain contact and conversation with this man; this odd looking man. A man who looks strange enough on tv alone to make me feel cold and eerie inside. Anger that her martial arts training and active lifestyle were not enough to help her escape her attacker and anger that all of this resides as proof that we as women aren't as independent as we'd like to think. 

I've mentioned several times the challenge I've had lately with faith, religion and a sense of spiritualism. My feelings on a greater being out there ebb and flow as I watch different events transpire and even as I watch people's reactions to those events. This event is no different. My thoughts drift to inquire, "where was God" when she was suffering? Was his essence hovering above her as she was being tortured and raped for three days? Was the holy spirit covering her like a blanket when this disturbed messenger of Evil was murdering her?

The last time I was this affected by the death of a stranger was at the start of the Iraq debacle a couple of years ago when numerous contractors and civilians were being kidnapped only to have their faces, their sullen and sunken faces appear several weeks later on a videotape confessing to a crime they had nothing to do with. Specifically, one such tape of Nick Berg surfaced and I regret ever watching the clip of video. I still get acid in my stomach and a sour taste in my mouth just thinking about it. If you don't remember Nick Berg, he was a young civilian contractor who went to Iraq to "help rebuild" and make some great sum of money doing so. He was beheaded, like Meredith. He his head was taken off his body on video and it was nothing like those violent horror movies that seek to leave their audiences in shock and awe. It was brutal. It was barbaric. It was unconscionable. 

So, I'm angry. I'm independently angry. I feel unprotected and anxious about where I go and question the strangers that seem to talk to me when entering a grocery store. I have but 5 or 6 more years of increased wisdom than she did and I still know to recognize that feeling inside when something just ain't right. 

I wish peace for her family and friends. To know how she passed from life into death must be torturous. I also wish peace to my sisters in life. I wish to make it ok to walk independently without that cavernous feeling of being unprotected.

I have double jointed elbows. Hooray. I guess I could become a regular ol Carnie now, couldn't I?

I've not posted anything of personal substance lately because I've been busy with stuff that happens when living life...the day to day episodes of brilliant nothingness.

The biggest event; I moved last week to a new apartment.

You are a Social Liberal (63% permissive) and an... Economic Moderate (43% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist (43e/63s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

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Ok, I totally don't feel like a Democrat which explains the Centrist label.

MARTA - Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.

'Nuff said.

Or as Lewis Black called it "the subway to nowhere"...

While I believe in a lot of things, it's funny that these two quotes popped in my head when I saw this topic -

Annie Savoy: I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

Crash Davis: Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.

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And that is why I love the movie Bull Durham....

"I love your nose" - are you flippin kidding me?

Hmmm....
Fav Book - All time Fav would be 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac and Fav book that I've been slowly chipping away at 'A History of God'.

Fav Movie - I haven't seen anything recent to list as a "favorite" so I'll go with two all time favs - 'What Dreams May Come' and 'Cool Hand Luke'.

Fav CD - While I don't buy CDs much at all anymore...I have downloaded multiple songs from 'Nolita Fairytale' by Vanessa Carlton. I'm not a huge fan but the songs have great lyrical play on words.

 Fav: Sandra Bullock

Despise: It's a three way tie between Britany Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Leslie Fram is a bouche and I miss Toucher, Jimmy and Wally. This was my welcoming committee when I first moved to Atlanta from Nashville oh so many moons ago. I was listening to the current Morning X on my way into work this morning and am dumber for having sat through just 15 minutes of this audible diarrhea. 

Leslie kept making background comments that were so random that you know she was just hoping to have her wet toilet paper of a comment stick to something. 

So now I hear that Toucher and Crash Clark are on a morning show in Boston. What a loss. 

I promptly switched to 96.1 where there is NO wacky morning show. Just music and some traffic reports. There's something to be said for entertaining your listeners by playing music rather than stretching your self-indulged funny bone to reach an epic level of mindless dribble. 

Two things before I forget - 
I ate a brussel sprout last night to indulge my friend's cooking of roasted veggies for our dinner last night. I was not amused by the brussel sprout which tells me my tastes on that particular vegetable have not matured or changed. 

Also - I came across the 1986 movie Troll yesterday. It stars the kid who played Atreyu from Neverending Story as Harry Potter, Jr!!!!!!!!!! I feel jipped by JK Rowling.