.

Well of course I'd have a stomachache now. I saw it coming but I did it anyway. I didn't "fold box into platform" when I stuck my dinner in the microwave. The strangest thing ever. I had already ripped open the box and removed the contents, only to discover that you're not supposed to rip THAT box. No, this box is supposed to be folded into a "platform" upon which you place your thing (I still don't know what it was that I just ate) (I didn't buy it). You're supposed to follow this diagram and fold all the edges backwards and make a little table. But I had already torn the box, so I put the dinner back inside and stuck it in for the required 3 minutes. It was cold in some places but I ate it anyway. Now my stomach hurts. It was a WAIT I'll go read the box. Alright. It was a Flatbread Melts Chicken Ranch Club.

Nobody ever told me I'd have to know Oragami in order to eat. Same for those dinners that aim to control your thoughts by giving too many instructions, like the ones that say, "peel back plastic cover over beans, cut slit over entree, remove cover from apples,", but they don't stop there, it goes on to say, "after 2.5 minutes, stop, rotate, remove cover altogether, stir", then return to oven. I don't play that way. No matter what the directions say, like 3 minutes on medium and 4 minutes on high, it doesn't matter. I just look at whatever numbers are there, add them, and that's that. That's how long my dinner stays in, on whatever setting the oven is already on. I do not have an overflowing abundant supply of extra brain cells to dedicate to solving math problems in the kitchen. When I'm hungry, that's it, I need to eat, no time for dillydallying. I will not be ordered around by the Lean Cusine or Healthy Choice people.

What cracks me up is when I hear the phrase "your relationship with food." I didn't know it went that deep. What am I missing? All I know is, it's a burden. To feed something that's dying. Why do we spend so much time trying to keep our bodies going, when it's our souls that are eternal, but the food the soul needs is so elusive and hard to come by? And even when you find it, you still starve yourself? For example, I haven't prayed in about 48 hours. I'm already slipping. Getting hungry. And the Lean Cusine thing only tricks me into thinking I am fed for the day. SEE? Why don't you open your eyes and wake up for crying out loud. You're probably starving at this very minute. You think you want pizza, but what you really need is to pray. This is ridiculous.







I'm very average today. Actually I'm below average. I actually slipped and fell today, which hasn't happened since I was pregnant 17 years ago. It happened due to my slippery bathtub. I've been conditioning my hair alot lately with olive oil and coconut oil to compensate for it's length. I chopped it all off recently and it's ugly, so by making it smooth and supple I feel better.

So I fell into the bathtub when I was getting in, it was extra slippery today, and for a minute I was just stunned, it took me a second to realize what just happened. Then I started laughing. I wonder what the people below me think. They're a normal little family and both parents work, but sometimes one of them is home (cause I can hear them), and I wonder if they wonder why someone is always home up here. I bet they think there's something wrong with me.

About those people, I always know when they're coming home, cause I hear the kid screaming, and the mom has to shout, GET IN HERE!! ...as in, the kid doesn't want to come home? He's only 2 years old! How can a 2 year old not want to come home?

So about me falling today, I was thinking, IS THIS A SIGN????

So I started examining my life on many different layers and levels. I think I'm good for now. Oh! Wait! I just remembered. A tiny black spider was on the computer last night.

I have so much to say. Even though I'm done telling my experiences. See now I'm noticing new things about it all, and new twists and turns. My life is a puzzle, a matrix, a labrynth. I'm lost in a dream.

Speaking of being lost, I think that's why I love to blog so much. It gives me a connection, even if it's to strangers, folks I'll never meet (nor do I want to)... I think I'm much better at this than I am real-life connections. I don't know why. And I also have no idea why people read the stupid things I say more than the important things.












Suspicious.


That's how I've always been. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing everything I was told. And then I got to where everything was untrue until proven true. Now I go out of my way to sniff out a lie. Looking back, I see a few instances where my trust was compromised, I think that's what got the ball rolling.

When I was little, my friend Michelle & I would have "dance contests" in my room. We'd put on a disco album and then proceed to break it down right there, on the golden shag carpet of my room, and we'd critique the other and offer appropriate praise and correction. It was fun, but a very serious thing. 1977 was the year of High Disco, and if one could not master the Hustle, one was a loser indeed. I was 8 years old but I already had the dancing skills of a pro.

My mom would practically BEG to sit in on one of our sessions, but she was not allowed into my room. I shut the door and taped a "do not enter" sign on it. I even went out of my way to inform her ahead of time, "Mommy, Michelle & I are going to have a dance contest, please do not come in." She politely nodded her head but I always knew she was dying to watch. I kept my eye on her.

Sure enough, my suspicions came true. One day, in the middle of a contest, I was tearing it up, when I saw it. I saw, from the corner of my eye, a HAND on my closet door. No body, just a HAND. I reached over and flung open my closet and THERE SHE WAS, my MOTHER. Watching! I was FURIOUS. She had betrayed me. She started apologizing profusely, saying it was the only way she could see one of our contests. I glanced over at Michelle, who was laughing. She had been in on it! The whole thing was pre-arranged! A set-up! A plot! I was framed. I was betrayed. I was humiliated.



During that same time, I was at Michelle's house, a house that had 4 really cute boys there. 4 brothers, that's what she had. All older than us, all with bell-bottom jeans and feathered long hair. It was all too much. Those boys were it, and it was a real treat to be in their presence. The youngest brother David was just a year older, and I had a terrible crush on him. One day, as I walked up on to the front porch to visit Michelle, David was sitting there with his friend and they were laughing. There was a small lamp beside them, and it was plugged in. I heard the friend whisper something, then David said to me, "Hey Amy, come here! Come touch this lamp, right here..." More laughing from them. I thought maybe it was warm? All I knew was, it was David talking. He could have asked me to jump into traffic and I might have. So I go over to the lamp and touch the spot that they pointed to, and then proceeded to receive the shock of my lifetime, it zapped my finger and my hand and ran up my arm. I jumped back and screamed. The boys laughed. I acted like it was nothing, but when I got home I cried. How could David have done that to me?



And then there was my other neighbor, Jonathan. They moved from Oak Cliff and had a home built in Red Oak, and we went over there to see how it was coming along. Jonathan grabbed a piece of pink fuzzy stuff and said, "Hey Amy, this is the softest stuff in the world, let me see your arm...." So I held out my arm, and he rubbed this pink fuzzy stuff into my arm. It was fiberglass. Yes, my trust for boys was seriously downgraded several points that day. I was starting to see a pattern.



By the time I was 11 years old, I had the whole world all figured out. By this time, I knew to be on the lookout for all things tricky and shady. I was still in Catholic school, and it was now time for Confirmation. That's when all the 5th graders basically sign their soul over. We had been preparing for it for months, learning all about the procedure. You picked a patron saint for the thing. This alone creeped me out. I was supposed to select a dead person to accompany me in a church ceremony, to float by my side as I promised the Catholic church that I would be a member forever and ever? Everyone in my family was confirmed, all my aunts and uncles and grandparents and my big sister. This church and school was like a family thing, it was St. Elizabeth's in Oak Cliff. All my dad's family had gone there too, back in the day, in fact my grandfather was one of the main engineers in designing the school. It was a big deal. Yay Catholic! So anyway, the time had come to get confirmed. But I had questions and nobody seemed to be able to give me a straight answer: Why is this necessary? What exactly am I promising? What does this mean?

Come to find out, when you are confirmed, you are saying, "I am committing myself to the Catholic church, for life."

So one day, just weeks before the ceremony, I decided that I would NOT in fact promise ANYBODY my perpetual attendance, ANYWHERE. I saw right through it. This was a building, a man-made institution. This was not a pure representation of MY God. This I knew. I still didn't know God at all, but I knew He was not what these folks portrayed Him to be. And to think I'd been there all my life, AND attended the school there, going to Mass every Friday AND Sunday. And they still were not able to lure me into the machine. Ha!

So I announced to my teacher that I was not going to get confirmed. She advised that I go home and tell my parents. So I go home and announce to my parents that I have decided not to get confirmed. My parents looked at each other. I think they didn't care so much, it was more like, what will the grandparents think? Or say?

I don't know how it was all worked out, nor do I care. All I know is, I didn't do it. I was the only 5th grader that year not to be confirmed. It was a non-issue to me. I just made up my mind, and that was that.



You just have to be on the lookout for tricks and schemes in this world. Don't dance without first checking the closet, don't touch a lamp that's situated between two laughing boys, not everything that looks soft IS soft and by all means don't find out whether or not it's really soft by rubbing it into your skin, and last but not least ALWAYS keep an eye out for false doctrine and make no promises to anyone.



I am against the world with all my heart and that will never change.



love, A.