pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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DILDOS, FRIENDSHIPS, AND OTHER AFFIRMATIONS

297.

I know exactly what she means.

We also talked about the deep funks that I have gotten caught in lately and my ongoing frustration with my bad cash flow. Basically, I�ve given up hope of saving enough to fly cross-country to visit Filmgrrl this year unless I can find a lot more contract work. (Hell, I�ve given up hoping I�ll have enough money to avoid Ramen!)

I know I�m in a better place (heart- and hope-wise) than I was this time last year, but I still feel a void inside that, maybe, ending a ten-year marriage the way we ended it just brands onto you. My heart certainly doesn�t hurt as acutely as it did right after the break-up and I haven�t returned to that suicidal place that I�ve only been to twice (and hope to never visit again), but I do still have moments when I miss the Ginger more than I even thought possible. Or maybe I miss what we had�or what I believed we had, what we represented in this person who finally managed to trust someone�more than I miss the Ginger herself. I�m never sure.

My father�s paralysis trait has been appearing in me of late. I get paralyzed by fiscal or bureaucratic or health difficulties and can't take that first step toward resolving them. Why can�t I just make the hard decisions, make a realistic plan, and execute the damn thing?

I can�t afford therapy, so I guess I�m just going to have to figure out how to break this cycle on my own.

Here�s another example of my paralysis (with apologies to long-time Diaryland readers who have heard this before): I discovered in (I think) November 2004 that I could not get a new vehicle registration sticker because Washington DC recently entered their unpaid parking tickets into a database and I turned up with one from 1989. This triggered DC to contact SC (my state of residency at the time) which triggered SCDMV to block changes to my DMV status in the new national database.

Ironically, this is the exact type of project that I have been trying to convince state employees to implement�one that uses existing technology to share information and avoid task duplication in fiscally lean times�but I didn�t realize such an improvement would catch up with me!

In the name of honesty I will admit that I knew all about this unpaid traffic ticket. See, Tree moved down here in October 1989 (after bringing another woman down here to check it out in case I wouldn�t move with her) and I stayed in DC just long enough to get the signatures required to make my graduation official. Then, right before I moved down here, DC notified me that they were going to boot my car if I didn't pay this unpaid ticket, so I thought ha ha suckers no you aren�t, and then I drove down here and changed my residency/got a new tag. And then I mailed their notice back to them and informed them that I was never returning to return to their godforsaken city and I was never paying that traffic ticket.

Oh the arrogance of youth.

Now, seventeen years and many gray hairs later, I was forced to pay the stupid ticket. Then I sent my receipt and a $100 penalty fee to SC DMV but, instead of cashing the check, they said DC, not I, had to deliver the receipt.

Have you ever negotiated your way through DC bureaucracy and all those I-could-give-less-than-a-shit city employees who hate their jobs? Well, I spent the better part of six months trying to do just that�begging by phone and email and snail mail for this receipt, but to no a avail. Then the date arrived when I would have to pay a late fee for an outdated registration and inspection sticker regardless of when I completed the process, so I basically threw my hands in the air and decided to wait till I got caught while seeing just how long I could get away with driving my unregistered car.

The answer is a damn long time, if you religiously turn onto a side street the second you see a cop car.

Maybe I should just crawl to DC on my bloody knees and give Marion Barry a bribery blowjob, since my honest efforts to get a simple piece of paper have proved so ineffective. Then, if he gets caught, he can just yell �Bitch set me up!� like he did when I lived there eons ago.

�

So it�s Sunday night/early Monday morning now and I wish I hadn�t opened my mail because now I realize that I have to pay another $300 that I didn�t budget for. This means that I am going to be very poor for the rest of this month. Sigh.

Meanwhile I found a book of affirmations tonight and think these may be good to send to Tree and Filmgrr (although Ted Loder clearly needs a grammar lesson and I�ve never believed we really need anyone other than ourselves to empower us):

Empower me
to be a bold participant,
rather than a timid saint in waiting,
in the difficult ordinariness of now;
to exercise the authority of honesty;
rather than to defer to power,
or deceive to get it;
to influence someone for justice,
rather than impress anyone for gain;
and, by grace, to find treasures
of joy, of friendship, of peace
hidden in the fields of the daily
you give me to plow.
�Ted Loder

and

May my feet rest firmly on the ground
May my head touch the sky
May I see clearly
May I have the capacity to listen
May I be free to touch
May my words be true
May my heart and mind be open
May my hands be empty to fill the need
May my arms be open to others
May my gifts be revealed to me
So I may return that which has been given
Completing the great circle.�
�the Terma Collective

�

Meanwhile, I discovered Susie Bright�s webpage today (yippee! She IS still around) and plan to explore it now. (And oooo she has a book featuring various fucking machines.)

READING: affirmations and old bills

1:23 a.m. - 2006-02-20

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