CaveSlayer from Beer Bad

Which Buffy Alter Ego Are You?
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Don’t make cave slayer unhappy…

You operate on your base desires. Want. Take. Have. You like to keep your life simple, and you don’t like being denied.

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Main Entry: as·cet·ic
Pronunciation: &-’se-tik, a-
Variant(s): also as·cet·i·cal /-ti-k&l/
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek askEtikos, literally, laborious, from askEtEs one that exercises, hermit, from askein to work, exercise
1 : practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline
2 : austere in appearance, manner, or attitude
synonym see SEVERE

I am on the verge of serious self-denial. It’s already begun in some ways, but it’s only going to get more severe.

Choices I have made are changing my life. I have more choices to make, and I don’t think what I will choose is going to make things easier.

Oh, so very much less indulgence. Less time for frivolity. Less leisure. Less ease.

I’m going to have to work for everything I want, now. Everything I achieve will be completely my own. I cannot, in good conscience, take things that may be offered to me. I will not depend on others.

I’m going to live my life in increasing honesty. With every step in this direction I can already feel more free.

It’s simple, but not at all easy.

So I will embrace a new asceticism. It means giving up habits I’ve had for years. It means adjusting to a new situation and lifestyle. It means less of the luxuries I love so much.

It’s worth it. I can take nothing for granted. But it’s worth it. It has become worth it to me.

The clock is ticking, and I’m not getting any younger.

It’s no longer enough to just seize the day. It’s time to inhabit the day in every aspect, to be entirely present, to utilize every moment, to make the most of every experience. In order to do this I will give up distractions. I will focus on what is truly important to me. Minor amusements, mindless pastimes, and useless distractions will be abandoned.

Asceticism, of a sort, and a path to my own truth, a symptom of circumstance, but my choice entirely.

I want this book.

Honestly… trying to ban it? Did any of these people ever read the REAL Grimm’s Fairy Tales?

You are a Cabaret Belly Dancer! You’re what people
think of when they hear the words “belly
dancer” — the beaded bra and belt, the
nightclub routine, the doumbek and the zills.
Equally at home in a restaurant or at a hafla,
your routine is a crowd-pleaser no matter who’s
watching! Keep shimmying!

What Kind of Belly Dancer are You?
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There’s something seriously wrong when one leaves town for a day or two, and then one dreads coming home.

I’m just sayin’.

Not just the kids.

Me.

I am, officially, a student.

And the first thing that comes to mind in all of this:

Student loans are scary! Yikes! It’s expensive to be a student! And…and… I have EIGHT years to save up for my munchkin to go to college.

I’m in trouble.

Beyond that, I’m still dealing with the sneaking suspicion that I am absolutely ridiculous for returning to school, and thereafter, hopefully, the work force at my age. Then again, if my ‘placement’ testing is any indication, I STILL have an advantage over a lot of the people who will be attending school with me.

So I’m going to a ‘business college’. It’s faster, and I won’t have to take classes like ‘art appreciation’ in order to get my little A.A. degree. I’m going to take Information Technology courses with an emphasis in Network Systems Administration.

Ah yes. The guidance counselor smilingly referred to it as such: “You’re going to be a techy.”

So many thousands of dollars in loans later, and a complete wardrobe revamp (the school requires business attire… something I haven’t owned for ten years)… plus a little attention to and retention of the necessary skills I’m supposed to be learning, I’ll supposedly be able to get a job.

Yay. Now I just have to get through the approximately 15 months of classes and training. At least somewhere along the line I’ll possibly have the chance for a part-time job while I’m finishing.

More debt, so I can relieve debt… seems upside-down, but it’ll work out.

It had better.

Wish me luck.

(At least I get to go shopping and buy funky-Joy work clothes. heeeeehehehe… I wonder just how far I can push that ‘business dress code’…)

I have been purging.

I’ve entered a strange period where I need to purge. I’m sloughing off all the things that aren’t important to me. I’m not keeping what has no meaning. I’m removing things from my life that serve no purpose. Right now… the purge is limited to things. Life’s going to get REALLY interesting when I move beyond things and start purging people and situations.

I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it. For now, I’m reducing the amount of physical baggage dragging me down in life. The emotional baggage is going to be a LOT harder to shuck.

Enough of that.

In my purge I found some things that I haven’t really had the time or inclination to look through for a few years. When my grandmother died a few years ago I rescued an old fruitcake tin with what looked like old gradeschool valentines and papers in it. I never took the time to really go through what was in there. I don’t think I wanted to be more reminded of the life that had just ended. I didn’t want to think of her, so recently departed, as a happy little schoolgirl trading paper hearts with her classmates. But I kept these things, in an attempt to preserve just that person. It was just a collection of old paper, but I wanted to keep it; a connection to the woman I would never speak to again. Memories, even those that are not our own, are the talismans by which we keep those we love alive.

Today I held that tin in my hands and knew I finally had to explore it. As I expected, I found myself reading the quaint verses of 80 years ago:

Love’s Token

Ah, what is love?
A pretty thing
As sweet unto
a shepherd
as a king.

To my Valentine

My dreams at night are all of you,
Your face and form divine,
And if dreams come true
As they sometimes do,
You’ll be my Valentine.

Sweet. Precious. Intricate illustrations, embossed gold surrounding winged cherubs, baskets of flowers, garden arches illustrated with blooming vines, pastoral scenes with shy shepherdesses, delicate crepe fold-outs to create a three dimensional wonder. Some have moving heads so the can swivel from side to side, making it appear that the eyes move… They’re all so much more ‘thoughtful’ in message and in manufacture than modern cards.

I can imagine 10-year-olds exchanging these. I’m sure the sentiments were about as superficial and unfathomable then as they are to 10-year-olds of today.

I loved finding that these were not only Valentines given to my grandmother, but also some given to my grandfather.

I didn’t know him well. I was about 4 when he died. I remember only that he loved me, very much. I remember that because I recall the feeling I had whenever he was near. Nothing in life has ever matched that feeling because it was unique to him. I adored him. I would dream of him in all the years to come… remembering that caring and safety I always felt when I sat on his knee, in his arms. It’s a comfort that can’t be compared to any other, and I’ve only come close once or twice.

So I’m delighted.

I have these little paper treasures that connect me to a time long before I was born; a time long before my parents were born; a time, even, before my grandparents married, or thought of one another in that context.

They don’t REALLY tell me anything about them as people… but I still have a sense of ‘time’ when I sort through these little cards. They aren’t all Valentine greetings. Some are from Easter, others from Thanksgiving or Christmas. One thick orange and black silhouette of a witch is from Halloween so long past. Some dates I’ve found on them are 1926, or December 20, 1920 but I’m sure some of these are older than that. One little Easter card is in the form of a chick-shaped booklet that has a short story within, and it’s addressed to my grandmother and her brother. I wonder if perhaps their other two siblings hadn’t even been born yet when it was given.

Dig…dig…dig… down in the bottom of this tin is a collection of handwritten pages. They’re letters. Pages jumbled together, they are a series of missives written by my grandmother in early fall of 1944 to her younger sister. Gran was caring for her sister’s son, along with my dad, while the sister was in the last stages of pregnancy with her second child. I’m not sure how far away they lived, but it was far enough. They communicated mostly by letter, it appears. My great-grandmother was ill… I’m not sure what her ailment was, but surgery was mentioned. There are brief references to people missing in action in the war…

The letters are about mundane things. New pants for the little boys (who would have been about 6 years old, give or take), Glen’s (my grandfather) new tractor on which the boys love to climb and play, knitting advice… Such simple news, but in reading it over 60 years later, I feel the warmth and loving intention of sharing within every word.

One letter details a “day of pleasure” spent by my Grandmother and Grandfather away from the children. The boys were separately visiting relatives that lived nearby for overnight stays… and the couple took the long drive to Fresno for a day together. Eating lunch out, going to a movie, a little window shopping, an early supper at another restaurant, and then the extravagance of another movie… I could feel how spoiled and decadent she felt in even writing of the day. It clearly meant a great deal to her. I can imagine her protesting (she would have) that they should make the long drive home, and my grandfather saying that they might as well make an evening of it and see another film… after all, they might not have another chance for a long while.

It makes me think of how precious every moment with those you love can be. That was a time when everything had so much value. Things were rationed. New clothes, machinery, even Kleenex, were not taken for granted. People weren’t taken for granted. Friends and family were away at war, and news was often weeks old before it was received.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems to me that there was an immediacy and truth in living at that time that is missing in this time.

Or maybe it’s just MY life that’s missing it.

I want to feel that certainty of place and purpose, of love and life and family, of meaning, that I feel from these letters.

I don’t have it. One way or another, though, I’m going to achieve it. Somehow. I need to live honestly, first of all with myself.

First the purge. Every day can be an ending or a beginning. I need to understand I can make it one, or the other, or even both… and I need to learn how to be wise in making those decisions.

God help me.

Tsunami last winter… Genocide in Darfur… Famine in Niger… New Orleans destroyed…

It’s enough to make ANYone despair. We, as a society, are watching with jaded eyes as cultures are destroyed by man and nature. Some of us are doing something. Most of us are doing nothing.

Why?

Some of us want to but don’t know what to do. Others think “I have enough trouble making enough money to fill the tank on my SUV”…

Decades. These sorts of things have been happening for DECADES!

What happened in Germany before and during WWII? What has happened in so many other countries around the world throughout the past century?

I’m not sure what my point is. I know the U.S. (or any other government) cannot, and should not, wade in single-handedly and try military and government means to halt atrocities and sorrows. It’s been tried, repeatedly, and I think we all know how well it THAT has worked.

So what’s the answer?

You. Me.

One does what one can. Organize if you can. Collect if you can. Donate if you can. Contribute if you can. If nothing else…TALK about what you see, read, hear. Raise awareness, write letters to your congressman, to your local newspaper…

Be informed. Seek facts, learn details. Know.

Knowledge is power.

Oh. And love your neighbor. Take care of one another. If we don’t, who will? FEMA certainly doesn’t seem able to do it.

Let’s take responsibility for ourselves, and our brothers and sister of the human race. “Official” entities cannot do it effectively. We have to do it ourselves.

Tsunamis, famines, wars, hurricanes… these will not stop. What we CAN stop, or at least relieve, is suffering. Open your eyes. Wake up. Be mindful. Be aware.

One person can make a difference. Act. Do SOMEthing. Place positive intention into the mix. If nothing else, you may stir someone else to something bigger, better, more helpful.

So get on it.

No… I hate it when I can’t sleep and I have nothing to keep my mind occupied except tail-chasing thoughts that lead nowhere.

The dark of the night is a wonderful time. It’s quiet, and peaceful. No one demands anything. Usually it is blissful. Not so now.

Tonight I’m demanding of myself to no avail but frustration.

Could have, should have, would have, shouldn’t have….

Can I, will I, SHOULD I, must I?

And if I don’t?

Constant second-guessing of self.

It’s because of the eyes that look on me… eyes that say “not enough”, or “not right”.

I REALLY don’t want to see those eyes. I can’t content myself with it anymore.

I have no patience.