Dirty Laundry

If you have the cojones to challenge someone in a court of law, make sure that you don't mind other people taking a gander at your dirty underwear and smelly holey socks.

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All of your secrets are going to leak out

and become

part of the public record.

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****

Someone challenged my estranged husband in court and tried to use a small tidbit of information from this blog to question his character. It was a perfect quote (even though the witness did not mention the blog at all - she said she heard it from him first hand...I don't think so.... I know where it came from). The stupid thing is that the proceedings were tape recorded and her perjury is now part of the public record!

With her testimony, part of it centering on someone she never met (my career aspirations, my marital status, my physical health, and my educational status), she revealed quite a bit of dysfunction within her organization and, well, even herself.

Goodness.....

Next time, she should call me as a witness rather than embarrass herself.

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Mind you, they won't call me as a witness. It is an issue that has nothing to do with me, yet they keep invoking my name. I complained, as a citizen, about a city practice. This led to the harassment of my estranged spouse (after a city employee in the legal department threatened to embarrass him if I took my complaint further. Funny, my complaint had nothing to do with him but a City HR procedure that made little sense).

It's not a pretty picture. Now, they've given me more to complain about. No one at the city is answering my letters (but members of the legal department will call and demand information about my estranged spouse or they'll visit the house unannounced and stuff paperwork in the mailbox). I feel harassed. The woman that came to my house yesterday told me that there was no one that I could file a formal complaint with about the behavior of her supervisor.

Really??? That's not true: there is always a bored reporter somewhere just dying for a scoop. Do they want me to take it that far?

Trust me, if I have to open my mouth

I'm going to make it count.

Really, it's best for these people if I need not speak. The more they harass people, the more documentation they give and the more information that one can mail to the regulatory agencies which oversee them and share with people who may be interested in the issues surrounding the original complaint.

Some people are not very smart.

On another note, I know that many female bloggers are silenced due to bullying (or sexual threats - I don't get too many of those, it usually stops when I ask the pervert what is missing in his life - is it love? happiness?, or the ability to achieve and maintain an erection?)

I just want to end by sharing that I will not stop blogging. There is no reason to be bullied into keeping quiet as I've got nothing to hide. To tell the truth, the people with this organization may need to learn to keep their mouths shut and behave in a less suspicious fashion if they want to keep their own secrets.

Maybe, though, I should thank them for reading my boring blog.

Thanks....

I guess...

Maybe, I'll get to read about them in the

papers some day!

Edit 4/19/09: the harassment continues... but I am too uncomfortable to share the experience I had with the city in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, there are other avenues to take care of this issue.

An Honest Heathen

I never did give anybody hell.

I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

~Harry S. Truman

 

Look Around...Love Abounds...

You can shed tears that she is gone,

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her only that she is gone,

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

~ David Harkins

Tear Down That Wall...

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

~Kahlil Gibran

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah

I spend a fair amount of time at Metaphysical fairs and shops. My step-father was Cherokee and those are the best places to buy stones, herbs, and the miscellany things that remind me of my childhood.

I meet the most interesting people at those venues. Several months ago, I met a woman selling a substance that she said could bring my true love to me for only ten bucks. I was intrigued to say the least.

They say that women marry their fathers. I did. My husband has a Pagan - Wiccan belief system. At this point in our relationship, things were bad. After sixteen years, we were estranged and had separate bedrooms on different floors in the house. In my mind, things could only get better.

I really thought that I had nothing to lose by buying the tiny package. I never thought it possible that my spouse was not my true love. Besides, I figured that I'd get my $10.00 worth if I told him it would bring us closer and I could get my home office back. I couldn't possibly lose, I thought, because his religious beliefs would cause the placebo effect to kick in.

A true love spell should work simply because he was conditioned to believe that it would. Right?

I had to try.

Upon arriving home, I gingerly removed the ribbon from the red velvet bag to find a vial of sand and carefully written instructions. I was to purchase a plain pink votive candle and sprinkle a bit of sand on it every night for seven nights and let the candle burn for seven minutes. On the final night, I was to let it burn completely out.

It further stated that my dreams would reveal my true love and he would visit me within a full moon cycle. Oh yes, clues as to the man's identity would show up in the remnants of the candle.

Cool...Whatever...Okay...

I didn't take her very seriously as I had my own agenda.

I made a big deal out of the spell kit at home. For a few months, I paraded the candle around my spouse. I told him that it was a lust spell that would make him as busy as he was in his early twenties. Oooh, la...la... I promised him the moon. I promised him the stars. I would've promised him anything he wanted at that point.

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All right, that is not the whole truth. I'll admit to being a real brat, too. My spouse was informed that the spell invoked a Goddess that would make me feel compelled to grant his deepest desires should he trim the rose bushes in her honor and recycle his soda cans as not to ruin the Earth Mother's domain.

Oh, the wondrous power of suggestion...
can backfire if you abuse it.

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To make it seem like a bigger deal, I decided to begin to burn the candle down on a Pagan holiday. I chose June 21, the Summer Solstice.

Well, my experiment didn't go very well. A hailstorm hacked he rose bushes to bits. The recycling is still my responsibility. We still have our rooms. We're still troubled and lonely.

Only this time, things are more confusing than ever. Within a period of six weeks, things got weirder and every time I turned around I discovered something new and disturbing about my relationship. I can't talk to anyone about it, because frankly, I still don't understand what is going on. Oh, well....sometimes, it's best not to know.

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A little mystery can be a good thing, maybe...somehow...hmmm...

On the bright side, I have this very interesting candle remnant that burned in the shape of a pink heart. Burned inside the heart, is he word "OM".

(No, I didn't alter the photo to sharpen the image...I'm not very good with Photoshop).

OM...that must be my true love.

The good girl side of my psyche, the one that got me through a religious college, thinks that it is a message from God reminding me to love all of creation: I should appreciate everything ever created and love every soul that I meet. Everything and everyone is connected in a harmonious universal oneness.

Get those tuning forks out....in A everybody........

OMMMMMMMMMMMM

The bad girl side of my psyche, thinks that "OM" must be the nickname of my true love.

I can just hear myself saying things in a child-like tattle-tale voice, like...

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"OMMM, you're going to get in trouble if you leave that company party early just to play doctor with me!"

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Hey, an old lady can fantasize can't she....?

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One things is for certain, the Universe never fails to amuse me.

God must have a wicked sense of humor.

***

P.S. I'm going to keep that candle in my office to remind me to love everyone...if anyone wants to take a gander at it, let me know. I'll show you.

****

Edit 10/5/08 - Oh, crap... Maybe there is something to this love spell business. Maybe it really does work. I've been reflecting upon the spooky coincidences that have occurred in my life since late June.

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I guess it's time to go to church, now, and repent before my soul ends up on fire. Darn it...perhaps my nickname should be OMMMM....as in....OMMMM, you shouldn't cast spells that you don't understand. Or maybe, just maybe, the Good Lord shot me a warning about messing with his divine plan!

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OMMMM S!

Live and Learn!

It's Your Song, My Friend...

Your song still needs a chorus

I know you'll figure it out

The rising of the verses

A change of key will let you out--

~David Byrne and Brian Eno

Strange Overtones

***

You hold they key, you've been holding it in all along. When we mumble and are afraid to shout our needs and desires to the world, our song sounds flat.

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Remember, my friend, to open your mouth wide and use your voice to sing your truth. Sometimes it helps to raise your arms over your head and reach for what you want, too.

That's a good way for finding one's own true voice.

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Remember, too, that it is not selfish to tell the world who you are and what you want.

It's liberating.

Besides, watching you get what you need will give permission to others to do the same.

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P.S. "I'll harmonize" if it helps you reach for the stars. Someone once did that for me over 20 years ago and, trust me, that grove never went "out of fashion."

Forbidden Friendships and Pyromaniacs

We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us.

~Francois Rabelais

***

I just saw my former high school on the news. It appears that someone set a fire in one of the secluded stairwells. I'm sure the lil' turkey who set that fire wasn't the first to feel heat in those things.

I sure did.

Ahhh, memories.

I don't remember as much as I should about my not so glorious teenage years. I'll blame my age. I do have my diary that details tales of things that I rarely admit to doing.

Yes, I'm gonna burn that thing, eventually.

But I do remember a friend who used to meet me in the oddest of places (hidden stairwells, under the bleachers, empty hallways, and various nooks and crannies around the school).

His name was Curtis.  Curtis was hot, adorable, and black. He put me in mind of Alexander O'Neal and I was smitten from the start. The only thing I really remember is he the way he jumped when he saw me and tried to act all suave as I approached.

I enjoyed his company. He made me laugh. He was handsome, thoughtful, and fun. He was like a boyfriend should be, interesting with an intriguing body.

My relatives were incredibly racist and my Step-Father threatened to have him killed. In my 15 year old mind, that threat was credible. His family was just as un-supportive, they didn't want him with a white girlfriend either. I'm not even going to mention what some of our friends said.

We had many reasons to keep things under wraps and hidden which, over time, gave us ample opportunity to explore the school's less used spaces.

We couldn't tell our friends that we were seeing each other. That led to hurt feelings and, well, the end of our relationship - before it really ever began.

The human toll of racism in the form of lost friendships, lost ideas, lost opportunities,

and lost potentials is incalculable.

To tell the truth, when I toured my high school last year I lingered in the stairwells and remembered the ebony hottie that helped me heat them up.

Okay, he wasn't the only handsome guy I thought about but I'll keep that one to myself. I'll just say that, sometimes, the fires that burn the hottest are those we never fully explore.

Anyhow, if one is going to set fire to a building, don't use matches or a lighter. There are much better ways of setting things aflame.


Disclaimer for High School Kids: I guess I should state that as fun as romance is, uh, it is best to refrain from such activities at public schools given the current environment of surveillance and zero tolerance polices. It's a different world now.