Mantramine

Boys Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Yes, I know, of course boys blog... but they blog about recovery or politics, right? They don't wax poetic about nothing in general, or their kids and/or marriage like me, do they?

Well, I didn't think so. I'm not sure why I thought this, perhaps because a part of me is just an arrogant small minded chick who puts all men in the category of 'likely assholeitis,' and while assholitises may journal about their shitty behaviour, they don't blog?- unless it's all political and loud and shit; or, their like my recovery friends who blog about recovery, right!?

So, imagine my surprise when I was over at Redneck Mommy's, apparently enjoying 'wiener week,' and I (one sided) met dude daddy/family bloggers.

What the fuck? I said as I sat back and smiled.

It's not that I think their balls and penises are tucked firmly between and behind their legs because they blog about their families and relationships... not at all (although, that image may have come to mind but I am used to living with egomaniacs, so... that's not saying much), I was thoroughly pleased to read they're more than manly accounts of life on their side of the blog. How fun!

You can check them out here, here, here, and here.

Now, I have to say I feel a little awkward liking (and linking) these people... because you're, like, normal? I have this (I think, rational) feeling that they will come here and say:

Huh? Husbands an opiate (sounds so much nicer than heroin) addict? Pssh, later....

So to make myself feel like less of mobile home resident (aka trailer trash trainspotting den mother) I give you, and anyone else new to the block, these famous and articulate heroin users:

John Belushi
David Bowie
William S. Burroughs
Miles Davis
Thomas De Quincy
Robert Downey Jr.
Ben Franklin
Jerry Garcia
Billie Holiday
Love
Bella Lugosi
Charlie Parker
Edgar Allan Poe
Elvis Presley
Keith Richards
James Taylor
Whoopi Goldberg
My Husband

To name a few....

So, yes, my husband has 'used heroin,' and yes, his recovery is good fodder, and no... I am not a mommy blogger, and yes I am insecure as hell that people wont like me, and yes, I'm aware that that is unattractive. And.. yes, I am protective of my recovering heroin addict, and no... I am not a codependent. *Ugh!*

I just fucking love the truth, and that's it. Who knows, I 'm sure a few of them have a skeleton or two in their closets.

It's weird you know, it seems after a year of concentrating on recovery blogging, I am now stepping out and getting naked in a whole new neighbourhood. I know though, that if they laugh at me, you guys have got my back, right?

If we have to, we'll have a rumble...

Black Heart Down: Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Originally, I had just wanted to do one post about my husbands Black Heart dis-ease, but then he really pissed me off and I had to spew off my filth about him pissing me off. So, here I am now trying to remember what the original Black Heart dis-ease post was going to be....

The Doogie Howser music is playing in mind as I watch my cursor blink; I know there was a great lesson learned somewhere.

Let's see, the same day my husband slipped naked in the shower, making a noise that made me envision (once I knew he was okay) flying arms, legs, and naked appendages, scrambling in hilarity, he said this to me as we lay cuddle bummed in bed:

"So, you think you're pretty cute with your assholeitis...?"

I smiled, "Oh, so you read that did you?"

He didn't get mad, he made a huff laugh, taking himself in stride.

I wonder if he finds some comfort in the fact that it seems he is not alone in his assholeitis, as the comments on that post suggest, 99.9% men have some level of arrogant assholeitis (and, it seems, 1% of women have been studied and found to retaliate with fused knees syndrome) and also succumb to black heart dis-ease flare-ups. I'm not sure if he read those comments to know that he is sooo not alone; although, I am quiet sure he hadn't read them at the time he had came home for lunch that same day, announcing that he is going to start keeping a journal about these flare ups, these medical anomalies.

Hindsight is interesting on this one. In this specific event there was no yelling, no fight, just his look of incredulous loathing of my, apparently, dithering nonesenery, and my response of I'm not talking to you for the next few hours or until you say sorry (or come home announcing that you are going to keep a journal of your poor cognitive behaviour) and I'm folding your laundry roughly! HMPH!

There is no denying that my fine specimen of husband is aware of his arrogant assholeitis... and as mentioned before, that is the first step. He keeps me rooting for him, his quiet cheerleader cheering for his flowering soul, by recognizing his short falls and doing everything he can, short of taking medicine.

He really wants to cure himself first, before taking his medicine, because he's a man, and he don't need no stink'n medicine!

Medicine is for weak people.

So he keeps patching every crack in his spirituality with duct tape, man tape, real man medicine; it looks like shit and is barely holding.

And I keep making sure I know where the tape is pre black heart episode, until the day I've had enough. I keep warning him that "one day, I may not know where the tape is!"

and he keeps calling my bluff, because deep down he's a little boy who's terrified to give up all those pieces of tape, those things he thinks make him who he is. Who will he be if takes off all that tape?

Well, I guess he'll just be some naked guy who falls down now and then, and that's not so bad.

Hell, he's already done it once and survived.

Black Heart (part one?)

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:55:00 +0000

My husband has a heart infection; because I am a doctor of the soul, I can see this as clearly the naked eye can see a storm brewing.

He's sick. He is coping with this sickness and has been for years, and, in the beginning, his coping methods served him well - they enabled him to attract the finest of wives who will attend to his every need, not because he asked or demanded but because he seemed to require it along with his coping skills and because he seemed to appreciate it.

Slowly over time however, it seemed he stopped putting so much effort into his coping skills and began to let me 'pre-cope" for him. Soon, he came to depend on my pre-coping. Behind every great man, there is a woman, pre-coping. I should stand proud, right?

Alas... I cannot pre-cope when there is an infection in the room. It's hereditary this infection, it's the same arrogant assholeitis his grandfather had. I have a keen eye for arrogant assholeitis, the way it dilates the pupils so they clearly state "are you still fucking talking?"

This dilating of the pupils (also known as Jerktavitis) is a clear sign that arrogant assholitis has flared up and entered into the heart - blackening it with its ooze.

Arrogant assholeitis flare ups of this magnitude force the infected to passive aggressively demand people in his vicinity to pre-cope at the highest levels (run, scurry, do more better), and then call them all assholes for doing it, shaming the pre-coper for making them feel so pathetic.

Pre-copers must be very careful not to offend the infected like I did this morning (and then promptly received an eye lashing followed by an exaggeration of my stupidity...)

Scene:

Early this morning. Sound of husband falling in the shower. Pre- coper runs to the bathroom concerned)

Pre- coper: What was that? Did you fall?

Assholeitis : (smiling at self) Yeah...

Pre- coper: Oh my god, are you okay? [once]

Assholeitis: (still smiling at self) Yeah, I just thought there was a bath mat there and then there wasn't so I when went to get out I stopped suddenly and then slipped... and fell.

Pre- coper: Holy shit, are you okay? [twice...]

Assholeitis narrows eyes (jerktavitis) and looks with disdain at pre-coper

Assholeitis: (annoyed) Yeah...

Pre- coper: (defense shield raised) Well you don't have to look at me like that.

Assholeitis: Well, don't ask me 10 fucking times if I am okay.

Pre-coper looks unbelievably at assholeitis and thinks #$%^&#$*!, closers bathroom door and walks away.

end scene.

So, we see clearly here that the pre-coper has crossed the line by forgetting that she has already asked if the arrogant assholitis is 'okay.' Asking twice only draws further attention to the failure of the assholeitis to remain standing (thus avoid falling sillily and naked in the bath, stupid ass).

The pre-coper has also failed to realize that such further attention to the event makes her look and sound like the infected's grandmother (facilitator, blamed genome of original arrogant assholitis outbreak).

Such grandmother sitings induce the black heart infection flair up causing 'all hell to break loose' in the pre-coper, which is not a pretty site. What makes this such a colossal hell breaking is that I fail to be a sweet and timid pre-coper;in fact, the things is, I AM NOT YOUR FUCKING GRANDMOTHER.

I am the pre-coper that will help you when and as you help yourself. I am the pre-coper that will put up with so much and then tell you to TAKE YOUR FUCKING ASSHOLE MEDICINE.

Unfortunately, arrogant assholitiss with black heart flare up skews the cognitive awareness aspects of the brain so that the infected can be heard to say things such as, "I will take my medicine when I get better. I am too sick to take medicine right now..."

thus leaving the pre-coper back at square one: roughly folding his laundry (that'll show him).

M'Dance Bag

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:44:00 +0000

I have talked before about Hooker Purses, specifically... my Hooker Purse. I came to the realization the other day that I have another purse, well a bag is more like it, my dance bag.

I found out that I have this dance bag when I began my indoctrination into my new "I Don't Know" philosophy.

When I first began practicing I don't know I would hold an image in my mind's eye of me sitting or standing with my hands held up to the universe, and with all my heart and soul I would repeat to myself "I don't know."

As in: I don't know what to do, I don't know what I want, I don't know why I am here... all from a calm state of acceptance, an understanding that I really don't know what the universe has in store for me or what it would like from me.

I have these talents, somewhat. A bunch of different things (outside of sculpture and writing) that I tend to have a innate ability to do or see. I have not found a way to use these things in my life professionally, nor do I think I want to. However, there they are, in my dance bag.

Like a myriad of different dance styles, my dance bag is full of all these different assets. some of them I may not like to do, but I do them well nonetheless.

While I don't knowing the other day, holding my hands open to the universe, I found this bag suddenly suspended between my hands. My talents, my abilities, my offerings... my dance bag; open to the universe.

"I don't know which one you would like Universe, but they all are yours to choose from. I am your humble vessel."

I don't know who I am. I don't want to know who I am anymore. I want to be free of who I am. I just want to I am and that's it.

I am going to continue to do things I need and want to do, like survive well and responsibly (whatever that means), but beyond that? I don't know. I would like to give some of what I have back to world at large, but have not found the right port hole as of yet, and I'm going to stop looking so hard... because I really don't know where and what it is.

In the meantime, I have this dance bag full of stuff and lord knows... I love to dance.

64, 662...

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Words. I have written 64, 662 words. I am giving myself a hearty pat on the back. I love words. Words are fantastic, you can throw them, kick them, kiss them, fuck them, hug them, ignore them, or just hang out with them, and I have amassed 64 thousand and change of them.

I love those words. I am a little sick of what they all say when they're in order, but I love them individually. When I started Project: Finish it I didn't care how many words it was, as long as it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I still feel the same way, it is the only way I have been able to get this far. I haven't made myself live up to any goal other than a beginning, middle, and end.

These words that I have amassed are all about passion; I needed passion in my life, so I decided to write it in. With all these passionate words around me, my body is feeling ripe and sore. It is almost as if every word I have placed on that paper has been making love to it's own square inch of my soul, sucking and fucking me, an imaginative orgy, never ending... seductive and exhausting. My mind, heart, and vagina are panting (and it's not even porn).

I am getting closer to the end of this project and I find myself a little... confused. I have written three beginnings prior to this but never an ending, and I am in unfamiliar territory. This is the place where that passion really kicks in high gear, where people start freakin' out, their hearts explode with the intensity of angry elephants, shit hits the fan, and maybe... maybe love wins out over passion in the end: sweaty, hot, plain and simple, love (I know, awe...right? Shut up and fuck you).

It is explosive in me, and I have to say I feel like triathlon runner that is on the final leg, gearing up for the final run.

I have to shake it out, loosen up, do the hokey pokey and shit... it's time.

Repeat After Me

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:55:00 +0000

Out loud now...

One smart fellow, he felt smart.

Two smart fellows, the both felt smart.

Three smart fellows, they all felt smart!

Now say it three times, fast.

(ps: the links are back... woo hoo. If you're missing, please let me know)

Shut. The Fuck. Up

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Ladies, ladies, ladies... stupid, silly, young ladies.

I love you, I was you once, I think your cute when you think you're like, new age feminist...? and stuff. But, this kinda shit has got to stop.

You are so playing into the hand of the penis driven male, your placid ignorance is embarrassing.

I'm not saying it's not nice to kiss a girl. I'm saying it's really fucking stupid when you do it front of all the guys and then say "I don't do this for guys, I do it for me cause it's hot" whilst pushing out your boobies and rubbing your nipples with your finger tip.

That's like saying you stand on stage and pour buckets of cold water on your white t-shirt for yourself because you're over heated, not because you're hawt...

And then you think we don't know that you're a silly little girl; that we see you as empowered (girl, pu lease).

Look, if you really enjoy kissing girls then great, fine, shut the fuck up about it; however, you ~~should~~ might want to know that as soon as you start hyper seductively kissing a girl, we all know you are not doing it for you, so save your fucking breath already. blah bla blah bla blah.

IT'S BORING NOW.

I think it's great that you own your sexuality, I think it's fucking fantastic that you can embrace this aspect of your womanliness; now, if you could just take those two things and mix it with some self respect... then I think you will truly enjoy kissing a girl, for real, if that is what you want.

I know that deep down a lot of our youth is being pressured to compete with the Internet porn stars, I get that, even if you wont or can't admit to it. I know this this man's creepy wet dream even looks kinda like fun, like this guy's just giving girls that are already being wild a place to explore it more (gees, what a nice guy, a real snag); but, come on now, you know it deep down, it's not...

in the end I guarantee you it will be as entertaining as giving a stranger a blow job.

'cause that's what you pretty much just did. Now, stop it.

Love always,

Dear "Bob..."

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:41:00 +0000

Enough already. You have to stop visiting my dreams.

I know, I know...

I know I made a teenage love story out of you and I, but I am a romanticist of the highest order! It's not really my fault. I loved you from the second time I saw you. Then, after spending almost every class with you, (English, math, socials) sitting together, playing stupid 'sos' games, hanging out with you at lunch, sneaking out of class to go have a smokes together... gawd! You teased my inner geek, my inner ugly duckling, by making me feel like I would, hands down, be your girlfriend if you didn't already have one....

And then. Then there was that time that you and I were skipping out, again, hanging out like two old friends, walking around the quiet school, ducking teachers and principals and laughing, that we snuck into the empty gym, planning to cut through and out the back door. Like an omen of some sort, that basket ball, that one lone basket ball, sat there in the middle of the empty gym, coyly batting it's eyelashes at us both, play me...? it said.

Now, by the time I was thirteen I had read ever single teenage romance novel, the ones about the homely girls that blossom emotionally and physically and win the unattainable heartthrob in then end. This basket ball, you and me, an empty gym...? This is it my heart told me. This is fucking it; it's my romance novel come true.

You looked at me and raised an eye brow in challenge and I hid my shaking hands and nodded; playing the tough guy I said, "I'll kick your ass."

You laughed, took my challenge, and off we went. One on one in an empty gym, our bodies colliding with each other, our hands touching (oh my god... our hands touching). It was like electric shocks every time you brushed me. I waited for the moment we would fall down together, tripping on one another, landing together... and, finding ourselves so close, we would kiss.

It. felt. so. close. but no cigar.

The closest I got to kissing you in those years was that day you ,me, and my other friend were smoking a 'j' in the park. You asked in that non committal way you have, "You ever had a super toke?" My heart exploded:

1) no, I had never had a super toke (the act of one person putting the dube backwards in their mouth and blowing the toke into your mouth- your lips being in almost kissing position to do this) .

2) OMG, be that close to your lips? Ohmafuckinggod.

I swore at that moment (where our lips barely and almost touched) that the only thing standing between our soul mated-ness was your faithfulness to your girlfriend. We (almost) kissed that day, you were so close, the electricity was undeniable. I knew that you loved me and I loved you. Forever. One day, we would would be. I even wrote poem upon poem about this shit. I new with out a shadow of a doubt that you would be my husband and I would be your wife. Sigh....

untill that day that I did actually sleep with you, and it was like... Huh? What the fuck is this?Why does it feel like my younger brother is ejaculating on top of me?

High school was a bust, he was with his girlfriend the whole time. I of course met my first love (another bust, but a sickly sweet, full of non-codependency shit, bust) as well, and it wasn't until I was 21 that we would make our move. He had been off traveling the world, we kept in touch her e and there, he would write me from Thailand, well, send me postcards - these only fed my pounding knowledge that we would be together. The dreams had begun, he would come to me in my dreams and these dreams would have this powerful realism that was almost scary. It would feel as though we had spoken, he on his side of the world and me in mine.

After one of these dreams, it happened. He had returned home and I ran into him. After a sufficient amount of coy banter, he came back to my house.

There was build up as we looked at one another. We were grown ups now, grown ups that knew what they wanted, grown ups with nothing in their way. We smiled and came closer to each other. The kiss was awkward at first, we had both been waiting for it for so long. Our lips met and it was everything I ever hoped and dreamed. His lips were soft and full, his mouth warm. Alas! Fireworks went, confetti exploded...

it was great. My life had begun. Hallelujah.

and then the record player needle stopped and scratched its way off the Boston song playing in my mind ( More than a feeling..., oh and yeah)

Now maybe it was because I hadn't written this love story in my mind any further than the celebratory kiss at the end (it was a teenage love story after all, not porn) that made the rest of this so wrong. His hand up my top, my pants coming off.... no, my body screamed, this isn't right. Why isn't this right? Something is wrong.

Every time I had relations with that man child, I felt like I was fucking my brother. wrong.wrong. wrong. I tell you.

However, like a good and fucked up codependent, I never said a thing. Time took care of itself; like any thing left to rot in the sun, we ended.

Now, 'Bob'..., if that is your real name, we both know that it was not meant to be. You yourself just stopped calling me, I was crushed at your choice of exit (as I thought we were friends) but, buddy... I knew it was going to happen. You weren't everything I had made you out to be, you drank instant coffee with coffeemate for fucksakes; imagine my horror in finding this out? I couldn't be with you. I don't know what happened, I heard rumors that you hooked up with some old girlfriend or something, I just never heard from you again, you stopped calling or returning my calls. You dumped me hard, dumped me before I could let you go.

Now, almost twenty-fucking- years later you still come to my dreams. You are like some type of willnot from a different lifetime, hanging on to me. Still, after all these years, when I see you in mind it is as if I have seen you in life, like you are talking to me. What the fuck do you want?

'Bob'? We need to end this. Whatever it is that is still between us in that dream state needs to reveal itself. You are not my soul mate, I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. So I ask you, who are you and what the fuck do you want?

Yours, every so frustrated but still, truly,

Monday Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:40:00 +0000

I've been struggling; have you noticed? I've been trying to switch up some some of my blogs appearance, trying to take advantage of some of the nifty shit that's out there (tabbed blogger template @#%$&^$er); alas, I am not a blogger template goddess (yet).

I've lost all my links and am much too annoyed at this to take the time and put them back just yet.

I would like to take this time to ask a favor of you, the reader. While I will be there, updating my links soon, if you have not seen your place up there and are a regular reader, please let me know and I will amend my terrible blog snob ways.

I've also been being a good little worker on Project: Finish It. I've been busy. Very good.

I also told my husband, in passing, where I felt his fissures were and what he needs to do to correct issues impeding our marriage (like meditate and read The Power of Now). I also told him how I often think that I will leave him before he truly realizes the importance of what I am saying...

He said he heard me - in passing. It's how we roll in the beginnings of the ends of segments of our lives. The segments that threaten to break us, but that we always seem to survive, breathless and smiling.

We'll see.

Project: Get a Life (in TRW) is still progressing. My Rocky is training (eye of the tiger...), my Buddha is accepting, and I am willing. What more could a girl ask for?

I am moving along, swimming in my pool, enjoying blistering hot sleepless nights (sort of).

and that's about it.

easy Monday morning.

Get Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:48:00 +0000

I went to my brother-in-law's one year cake last night. I went to it without my husband (because he hadn't slept the night before, had taken ten melatonin, and then worked himself up into such a lather about it through out the day that by the time he got home - he was crazy).

Maybe there was some validity to what he was feeling, the extend to which he was feeling it, but I could not feel it, see, or find it.

What I did feel was how, on the turn of a dime, I can be held hostage to his thoughts and behaviour.

I am so close to saying that he is, at times like this, a big fat baby... but that would be mean.

So (and instead), I went to his brother's cake, his brother's home group NA meeting (a meeting I had not been to before, didn't even know where it was). I walked in at the half way point to this strange room filled with people that intimidate the hell out of me because I'm sure they're thinking how fresh, pretty, and unbeaten I look - how unaddicted I look. Ug they say, look at the normie....what is she doing here?

Thankfully, I made eye contact with the brother(s) and quickly made my way into obscurity. The one year cake was for my husbands half brother, the very youngest of a blended family. This guy was a frenzied coke addict who almost let his son freeze to death in below 15 weather because he was too fucked up and high to realize his one year old had walked outside. They had to peel the baby (in a diaper only) off the snow he was frozen too.

Anyways, it was his cake, Jay's cake. I sat there watching my husband's brothers, hermistake and Jay, and I can't tell you what I felt. They feel like my brothers too. Jay thanked me in front of the whole meeting for forever changing him, for teaching him that he is not his mind or his addict. Jay also thanked his brother, my husband, and I thought, really?

I hate how my husband can be with Jay, so judgemental and arrogant. My husband talks (spews) more than he listens... but, still, Jay was able to see past that and take what he needed. My husband never really gives Jay full credit, works up a lather about how spoilt Jay is (and I'm not disagreeing) and how ridiculous Jay is. But, what I see? Jay is the only one who really listens, who sits in front of any teacher and says keep talking until I understand, he is the only one humble enough to understand that he doesn't know.

My husband stomps around the house with his I KNOW shoes. DON'T TELL ME, I KNOW!

Really? You know? I don't know; how the fuck do you know?

ME KNOW BECAUSE ME KNOW! ROAR. OUT OF MY WAY. STOMP STOMP.

So, I am at this meeting, seeing my life in my brother-in-laws, both the positive and the negative. I am at this meeting to support my B-I-L, but I am also there because there was no way I was going to stay home with that 'poor little bunny' of mine.

Before I left (ran from) the house, he had woken up from his attempt to go to bed early and was downstairs with me, "I feel like I'm dying!" he said with his angry earnest face, quietly shouting at me. "My body feels like it is shutting down, like my liver is shutting down, and I'm dying," he holds his hands up in that defeated way, as in that's it.

"Well, if that's the case then let's go to the clinic now."

He says his famous, "I can't... I'm too tired. I'll go tomorrow or Saturday" and he never does.

"If what you are saying is true, than you have to make it a priority!" I'm not taking this shit anymore, if you are broken, FIX YOURSELF.

"I will" he says, and then notes to self... "maybe I'm just feeling this way because of only sleeping for three hours a night FOR SIX MONTHS!"

Or thinks I, you feel like this because you have grown a black spot of hate and sickness in your heart and it makes everything you are powerless over A HUNDRED TIMES WORSE and me- a HOSTAGE OF IT. ASSHOLE.

I came home later to a quieter husband, a returned to normal humbler husband. I said to him this:

You know what baby?

What?

You need to get busy livin' or get busy die'n...

I know, I know....

I know 'you know,' but I don't think y o u k n o w. I don't like feeling like I do when you do this. I don't like being nervous in my home. I will not live like this forever....

I know, he says deeply and honestly.

Again, I say, I don't know if you get the full scope of this though (because, this... what we are doing, is a certain history repeating itself. I've known this for some time now, and I don't know how to impress to you how dire this is. I hear myself saying some of the same things she said to me the year before she left your brother).

I love you, but you really have to get busy.

This just in: Mantra Sheds the Should

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Ambiguity. Should is not a good word, it's a bad word. I don't want to have to should anything. I hear it all the time. You should, I should. Why just this morning, after a fitful night of no sleep for my lovely husband, I told him that he still should take the vitamin pills I have him on, even though the ten he took last night didn't seem to help.

You're not supposed to take ten melatonin (butt fuck). You should still continue taking the regular amount... I shouted after his grumpy highness this morning, and then I felt dirty.

He should do whatever the fuck he thinks he should do - that's what he should do. I want nothing to do with it.

I bitch because people use my brain (kids and husband) with their 'where's this, where's that? I can't find, blah blah blah.' I tell them to stop using my brain, and then in the same breath, I tell them how they should stop using my brain.

Bossy Bessy. Then I get fire in my belly when someone says to me, 'You should... yadda yadda yadda.' ('specially, my mom. he he, sorry mom.)

It is my mission to not use the word should. I'm breaking up with Should. Should leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I am replacing Should with I don't know, for example: I don't know what you should do, or what I should do. I will do this, I will do that; but, what I should do? I don't know.

And if someone says to me, 'you should do such and such,' I am just going to say 'I don't know you, bye bye now.

I'm done with should. Should also leaves me with a stake in any event. I can hear phrases like, 'See, you should have done what I told you and you shouldn't have taken ten melatonin...,' and that seems like a shitty place to be' all tsk tsk tsk.

I don't want that much of someone else that I can rightfully say what they should or should not have done.

And I dislike the ambiguity of should. Were I to say to myself, "I should go write now" it seems so sluggish. By saying 'I should' have I not already committed to the fact that I don't want to, so now I have to go do something I don't want to do? Rude....

Were I to say, "I'm going to go write now" I would just get up and do that or not. No guilt because I am not doing something I should be doing. Should is a mind fuck. Simple.

Get out there and stop the should people! It's a disease.

I Can't Get No...

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:19:00 +0000

You probably winced at the sight of a new mantra post, will it be all about her quitting again? That's boring.

Well, good news... it's not all about my cranky quitterness, I think.

Although, I was having some strange dream last night where I kept reminding myself that I should do a post about how my hands felt just like two balloons. But (seriously) now that dream is gone, and I (really) can't put my finger on it....

I do remember that it ended with an array of former boyfriends, one having really taken a turn for the better; I found myself look'n at him with that hey baby, how you doin?... kinda eye.

I also remember riding a horse. Wierd.

My husband doesn't know it, but he has a date with me later. He'd better be wearing his bat suit with utility belt, he's gonna need it.

I feel like I'm doing a sexually fueled brake stand...and that's all I've got to say about that.

Hmm, Mantra t-shirt for the winner of below post? What's my middle name?Interesting....

We'll See

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:18:00 +0000

I thought I was out of patches yesterday and was going to try and go without; then I found one from a previous run of quitting. I decided to slap it on as I felt the vice grip that is the lack of nicotine present itself in my brain.

I waited for it's sweet goodness to calm my blood down, but it didn't. It wasn't working well, and as the days before this proved, it would take hours and hours for me to even out on the patch.

Fuck it. I decided. I ripped the damn thing off. I want this shit out of me.

Nicotine is pissing me off.

So, yesterday was a little yucky but totally do able. I hoping today, also with no patch, is just that much better.

I'm getting all these lessons around being present. The minute I step ahead of myself my smoking nerve gets hit and my body gets filled with shit vibes, making me want to start barking at the neighbours while running from one side of the yard to the other - spit flying.

I've got to go zen in my head; remind myself to go zen about every ten minutes. Clear everything, something like a spiritual concussion grenade, and try and wake up fresh, repeating to myself that I don't know what today will bring.

The other interesting medicine is that in order to complete my task I must do what makes me feel good. Hah! If cooking dinner is truly pissing me off, it is my medicine to calmly announce "I'm not eating, I'm going to bed to read. I bid you adieu...." and I don't look back. It's good shit, better than Advil.

Thank you so much for all you comments too, it was just... really nice. You guys should, like, do that all the time.

It's time for me to go and be a good little writer now. Commitment is my middle name now; which is nice 'cause I hated my old one which sounded like a female body part if said fast (no, it wasn't mulva).

Hazard a guess if you like... it could be fun.

Maybe you can...Kiss My Ass?

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:38:00 +0000

"When you're detoxing, does your whole body feel like it's vibrating with annoyedness?" I asked him.

"Huh?"

I repeat the question, he thinks about it... "Yes."

I am stunned (every time I quit) that my body is so attached to nicotine, that it emotionally sweats for the want of it. I can only imagine the horrors my husband has endured through opiate withdrawal. Fuck.

I remember watching him go through it the first time, cold turkeyish (which means, 'or so I thought'). He still went to work everyday, and everyday he got home he took up residence in our then downstairs TV room. He would lay beside the wood stove and smoke cigarette after cigarette (he smoked then, not now). I would go down to look in on him and I would see the sweat, the cold sweat with shivers. His legs would be uncontrollably shaking, vibrating.

Now, I'm not one to stroke an addicts head and say "oh, poor little bunny" ( I will stay with him for years upon years, but I wont be pretty about it) but seeing him then, god - it was awful. I helped him. I rubbed his legs for him even though it did nothing for longer than the second my hand was on him. I was shocked at the level of suffering he was enduring. It was no longer a matter of "suffer asshole, you did this to yourself" which it had been up until I saw him. It became a matter of him just being a human, and me being a human watching a human suffer.

I can't believe sometimes that he has come through what he has come through. I can't believe he continued to work through the Pegatron treatment, that he got up and went out and did math and shit and nobody got electrocuted. I can't believe what he is able to do, to accomplish. Of course, he should have been a bigger man than he was and TOOK SOME FUCKING TIME OFF but, addicts - all or nothing.

I'm not trying to blow smoke up is ass and I could just give him a hummer if I was looking for something from him (however, bling bling would be nice if your reading. thanks cuddle-bum). It's just, as I sit here moaning and being a pain in the ass in general... from quitting smoking (cigarettes, not even crack), I can't even begin to think of trying to give up opiates or going on Pegatron (I would link to some info on Pegatron for those that may be new to the show, but I'm too fucking bitchy. In a nut shell, it's a type or level of chemo therapy and treats Hepatitis C).

I know... you wonder why give a good for nothin addict props? Why not? He beats the crap out of me in the 'take your medicine' department. Oh, and he happens to be a real boy too, and shit happens; there by grace of god go I and shit, right? Don't get smart with me.

I know that if I ever ventured into an opiate addiction (T3's, oxy contin, morphine, percocet, vicodin, or worse... heroin! Gasp! That was a joke intended for those high class heroin addicts; kisses to you), I'd be sunk. This cigarette bullshit humbles me every time (apparently and obviously, not enough though... but that was, like, yesterday's post or something, no?).

Anyways, long story short... have you hugged your recovering addict today? Everybody's got at least one, get to it.

Oh, and... by the by? who the fucks gonna hug me with all my bitch prickles? Somebody should. Bastards.

Okay, I'm totally done being insane in front of the world. Good night (fuckers). I'm kidding! Gawd. I love you man(s)....

(ps: lurkers... COMMENTS ARE HUGS TOO! I'm just sayin').

I Patch: I am I am

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:24:00 +0000

I like that I find my nicotine patches everywhere, it means I never quit quitting. It's a start, I suppose. There is a patch permanently stuck to the inside of my dryer, I have found them stuck to my couch, my bedroom floor (a popular place as I have to rip them off in the middle of the night) and, most fun, I found one stuck to bottom of my dogs paw (wonder if he was, like, trippin' out and stuff).

I quit so often; I wonder when it will all stop. I am not fairing well in the mornings. I am quite restless. An insatiable desire consumes these phantom tentacles I seem to have grown. These tentacles swoon around, looking to affix themselves to anything or anyone remotely similar to nicotine or satisfaction. If you came within my radius and you were smoking or exuding contentment, one of my tentacles would smack onto your face, absorbing your smoking sensations, not your cigarette, as well as suck the life out of you. When I was done, I would push you away, discard you for being the weak little thing that you are.

This feeling dissipates by about 2 in the afternoon. That's when people can feel free to speak again and not be scowled at. It's a shame for the cat that he demands to be fed at 7:30 am. It's not that I am not awake, it's that I don't like him then - him or anyone. They suck.

I am trying to breathe. In and out. I am trying to let this all pass through me. It's very hard. It feels as though these feelings are me; they're not though, they're just feelings. Moments that pass if I let them.

I suppose it's a good exercise in conjunction with my new found "I don't knowisms."

I've done this to myself, again. There must be a lesson here that I refuse to pick up; something about my will I can only imagine.

I don't know anything but in a way that is right not to know (that is, not in a self defecating way).

I have to wake up every morning and say, "I don't know anything," because I am a blank slate with phantom tentacles that will dissipate over time.

I am only right here, right now.

My best friend (Eckhart Tolle for any newbies) said that we should not ask what life can give us but what we can give life...

so, life... I have all these things in my body, heart, soul, and mind - they are like a garden I have grown and am growing, and they are yours for whatever purpose you find; flowers in a vase or food for thought. I am your humble vegetable and/or mineral.

I don't know what else to do but tend this garden, and oddly enough... I think that's what I am supposed to know - right now.

I am a combustion of thoughts and feelings, detoxing from cigarettes and reality. I am I am.

I patch and breathe.

No - Pretty Woman in the Wizard of Oz

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:00:00 +0000

I cried. I balled when I heard the word 'no,' which is silly really, because I knew the chances were greater that the answer would be 'no.' It is just that my hope was so great, greater than I even realized; that's what broke my heart. My application for some creative training denied.

It's like that scene from Pretty Woman where she tries to go shopping (albeit, in hooker gear) but no one will help her, she comes back to the hotel upset and says to the manager "I have all this (fistfuls of money) and I don't know what do to with it."

Now, I'm not in my hooker gear (today anyways) and I don't have fistfuls of money, but I feel like I have all these attributes and skills and I don't know what to do with them, and... nobody will help me.

They (employment retraining helper people) say helpful things like, 'well, what would you like to do?'

'I would like to do this...'

'Mmmm, no. What else would you like to do?'

'Mmmm, I. don't. fucking. know. bitch.'

So, with this bad news at hand I did what any respectable, intelligent woman would do: I dried my tears and went to get my cards (tarot) read. That's right!

I went to my witchy poo store and asked the cards, 'I have all this, what am I supposed to do?'

My answer seemed to be straight out of The Wizard of Oz. My witchy poo lady essentially looked at me and said, 'click your heels three times and say...'

apparently, I'm already doing it. What's lacking is my commitment to it. I've been doing it all along but sidetracking myself with the endless search for a piece of paper that says "This is what Mantra does."

My Great and Powerful Oz lady told me that my trust and faith in myself was as good as any piece of paper. With trust and faith I would find that I had the means to achieve my goals, hopes , and dreams... even if it is just a little bit. Trust and faith where and are my ruby reds.

Now, don't fret. I don't actually base the whole of my life on a card reading, I just find a lot of comfort in the witchy poo lady, and I like it when she strokes my fourth dimensional self. The knower seems to make not knowing a more comfortable place. A right place to be.

That no I got was a good no. It was a clean no; a productive no. It was a no that reminded me that I don't know anything about what life may or may not have in store for me. All I can do is continue to try different things and hope that I will find the square hole that matches my square peg.

Until such time, I need to think about committing myself to the work that is right in front of me, the work that doesn't pay (yet), the work that I tell myself I'm not allowed to do unless I have a day job. I have to have faith and trust, jump in, and hope I land softly sometime soon.

Really, the truth is I got so busy living in my manifested world, so excited about my ability to manifest that I wasn't actually manifesting anymore... I was day dreaming.

Thanks for all your words of encouragement (and faxes sent to myself in the future). I've got my Rocky gear on and I am going to Let Go and Let God (for fuck sakes already).

Yes, this is the rest of your life calling....

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:46:00 +0000

And the answer is...

NO...you don't have one.

sucks.

Hello...? Is this the rest of my life calling?

noreply@blogger.com (Mantramine) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:09:00 +0000

Maybe, just maybe, today is the day? Maybe they will call today?

I will be sure to let you know the moment they say "yes." If, however, the answer is "no," well then, I let you know sometime later; "no" not being nearly as exciting, yes?