Clearly, I’ve Been Remiss

I was relating to Jesser just this past Friday, as we happily consumed alcohol at his weekly get-together, the hilarity of the Rockobama anecdote. Jesser replied, “Yes, and it apparently was the only thing that’s been worth blogging about since.”

Actually, there is much to write about. The problem with not posting is that once I want to begin to post again there are so many disparate things swimming about that I can’t figure out a cohesive post. Thus, I now officially throw cohesiveness out the window and give you a choppy update.

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Lately I feel like I should not speak to people. Do you ever observe yourself during or immediately after a conversation and think, “I am an idiot. I should not be allowed to speak to others. That person must think I am a complete nut case.” I talk too fast, I say too much, I fail to be politically correct in situations where I think I should have, I give too much information, I am too loud, etc, etc. I’m fairly sure this is in my head, yet I cannot shake the sensation after nearly every conversation I have that I have made some terrible mistake.

A month or so ago, a woman whose child goes to school with the Smallest of Fries called. This woman is nice enough, but needy. I have tried to avoid being “too” close, but I have sympathy for her as a single mother, a position I held for some years and which I really wasn’t very good at. On the phone, I realized I had started absolutely yammering on and on, as if this were my BFF and I had spent a season in solitary. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me–I’m not interested in having more than what we have at this point, I don’t want a new phone buddy (I hate the phone!) yet, there I was, rambling on. “Shut up, ” I was telling myself, “Shut the hell up already, you sound desperate.”

At Jesser’s I find myself drawn into conversations where my opinion on something is asked and I give it, then later think I have said too much, drawn my position too strongly, lacked diplomacy. I wonder if I am wrong to think that I am safe to simply say how I feel about whatever the issue is, or if I simply say too much or talk for too long or shouldn’t have said anything other than a politely neutral non-opinion.

At the market where I hawk my wares, I have a new neighbor/vendor who is someone I find I like very much. This weekend we realized that we share similar taste in fiction, and discussed our favorite fantasy authors, comic books, etc. I mentioned my love of Charles de Lint, and how much of his work that I have read was part of the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies that I collect. I said that I really enjoy those books, but that I no longer read the horror stories. That led to explaining why, and as I finished what seemed like the vomiting up of how my best friend was murdered, I thought, “Shit. That was WAY too much information, Genni. Shut up.” I wasn’t sure–who doesn’t look shocked to hear that such a thing has happened? How would I feel if she told me something similar? I wouldn’t be offended, I would be sad for that person, I wouldn’t think they were weird or needy for explaining something that happened to them. But I left consumed with worry that she might think I was weird, or needy, or strange.

Conversations with people I am closer to also seem strewn with hidden mines, and I am sure that I am stepping on them throughout. I hang up the phone or leave a conversation thinking, “I should have said that instead, or, that was stupid, crap, that wasn’t what I meant, either, geez, they must think I’ve lost it.” I suspect that this comes from work I am doing on relationships, on re-defining myself. I am typically a person who keeps their opinion to themselves and doesn’t presume to judge. Now I am trying to find a balance where I don’t feel I am repressed, so perhaps that’s why I am nervous about what I say and declare in conversation. It’s hard to free myself from the yoke that others impose on me, and the sensation of free-fall is disorienting.

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Saturday, July 12, was the anniversary of when sgt. gennimcmahon and I met and began this love affair that has lasted for twelve years. In the strange date coincidence that has been a big part of our relationship, it also would have been John Kuca Jr.’s 40th birthday. I note that and add that I have no idea what it means that I note it, except that it reminds me of the tremendous tragedy that is such a part of my life now. I am still so angry at how easily he manipulated me and others around him, and shocked by how close I was to what happened while not realizing it until it was too late. I don’t ask myself why I didn’t see it because I understand that part, but I do wonder and wonder why didn’t -Ray tell me how bad things were with him? Why was she so determined to keep the state of her marriage a secret? And why from me? Of course I am sure that even if she had to pretend to the rest of the world, she didn’t need to pretend to me. Yet I also know that had she intimated what her reality was truly like, I would have been most likely to have acted–it would have forced a decision that she clearly wasn’t able to face.

And then the other side of that day–twelve years with sgt gennimcmahon. I marvel at such a length of time, and that I am still quite interested in him, in where our lives will go together, in what we will have made in another twelve years’ time. My first marriage lasted less than two years, my longest relationships prior lasted for fractured four year periods. I will never be one of those who claim a perfect marriage, or suggest that true love means everything is easy. People are damn annoying and it’s hard to live with them. But it’s like anything that is really hard work in that it’s got the biggest rewards for staying the course.

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Yesterday, July 13, my father would have been 63 years old. He died exactly 8 1/2 years ago on January 13, 2000 (on sgt gennimcmahon’s birthday—see what I mean about weird dates with us?). I wonder what he would think this year? His father died, and I did not attend his funeral or feel any deep need to reconnect with that side of my family. There is so much he has missed, and so many times that I have missed him. My decision to leave real estate nearly three years ago came about after attending a little craft fair and realizing that my dad would’ve been much happier had he followed his creative muse. Coupled with the fact that when he finally did determine and pursue what he really wanted to do (be a nurse, he was a people person) it turned out he only had a few years left to live, I decided that life is too short to waste in a job that you hate. So here I am, hawking the wares at craft fairs and the like, and I know my dad would love that. He is still a presence, even if he is also gone.

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That catches us up for the most part. I am trying to list bags everyday on etsy, so visit my shop if you are in need of a little fun to carry about. I am on a deadline for naked raku that will be part of the very first show in a new gallery in Ipswitch, Boston, and my neck is killing me from bending over pottery for two hours every evening. I’m definitely doing what I want to do—I spend all day each day being creative, and my only regret is that I can’t work faster and more. Sgt. gennimcmahon and I are talking about committing to this house we hate and remodeling with the goal of making it either saleable or worth living in within two or so years. It’s hard to even clean a house that grates on my nerves at every turn, and once the diaster next door moved in, we sort of went into a state of shock. We’ve decided that we will outlast Crae Z. and her madness, and if we make this house nice enough, we might even get to where we don’t notice her. Think “secure compound” or “fortress” or “Yes, those are real alligators in the moat, so fuck off.”

Catching Up

A friend emailed me today and said, “I usually keep in touch by reading your blog but as I’m sure you know you haven’t been blogging much of late.” She also told me that while her second child is not quite one year old, she’s expecting her third, to which I gave my standard blessing, Better You Than Me, Sister.

It’s true, I haven’t been blogging. I can’t come up with anything comprehensive, and I’ve been busy, so I just let it go for a bit. Today, however, I have a mild cold and little ambition, so I’ll just give you a catch-all of what’s been up in my corner.

Most of my web search hits continue to be those seeking information about John, Luray and Ruby Kuca. A few have come through “Luray Hodder Kuca murdered”, a few just looking up Ruby–which seems terribly sad. I realized today that close relatives of John’s have likely been here  as well, which I expected (although I don’t think it’s fair to characterize what’s been said here as cruel. It’s the truth). I don’t blame anyone in John’s family for the decisions he made. I know that had he called his brothers or his mother and told them what he planned, they would have moved heaven and earth to stop it from happening and to help him. We all regret that he didn’t ask for help. We all, regardless of whose family or friend we were, would have done everything possible to help.

I’ve witnessed such unfortunate behavior and hurtfulness over belongings that I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to have some sort of Viking-style funeral that includes piling every single thing I ever owned on the burning boat with me*. Seriously. It seems that everyone suspects everyone else of being utterly nefarious, when in reality I think we are all just in terrible pain, and wanting to cling to those scraps of our beloved friends that are left. There is so much anger that it threatens to block out grieving entirely, which is exactly the state of being that kept John from being able to deal with what was happening to his wife and their child. Anger is dangerous stuff when used to avoid pain.

Were I to sit down and list every problem in life, macro and micro, I would be able to trace it back to the battle for control. We all want to have control of the world, that’s why John did what he did, that’s why those folks gather and chat casually about other people’s tragedies, that’s why marriages struggle and teenaged children rebel. It’s why we have religion, laws and superstition. It’s all a desperate attempt to deny reality, which is that there isn’t anything that we really have control over. Ultimately, John lost control at the point at which he believed he was taking it.

The sadness, pain and bitterness that he left is just part of an endless loop of the tragedy of life the we’re all caught up in. I don’t know how any of us will go one without our loved ones, or why we or they have to suffer. I don’t know why life goes on and we find ourselves laughing or celebrating or experiencing joy in the wake of loss, but it does. My father has been dead for nearly eight years, and occasionally I feel guilty for all the joy that has occurred in his absence. But I didn’t design the system. In the same way, I already feel guilty when I tell someone something I would have previously emailed to Ray, or when I smile or laugh or forget for a moment that she is gone. It’s just the way of things, and I have to try to accept that I can’t control it and take it as it comes, good moments and bad.

As we go along in life, we collect things–loves, losses, moments of triumph and defeat. I carry my losses, as we all do, as I go through life. So, even as I grieve Ray and Ruby and John, I am not static.

I continue as the Tattooed Gypsy Sewing Teacher, and continue to love it. I’ve been offered an avenue by which I might become certified to teach in my artistic field, which might give me my own classroom space and a place in the regular curriculum instead of the after school program, which would possibly allow me to give up that cartload of eight sewing machines that I haul across hell and back. It’s a whole lot of maybe, but several of my students were beside themselves at the prospect, which certainly left my ego smiling. My class just finished their first sewing project, Pants Class, and if you know anything about teenagers you know how difficult it is to get them to break loose of their “cool.” I had three kids so thrilled with their flannel jammie pants that they wore them home from class. We had catwalking and hooting and hollering, and one dad was so thrilled for his son he kissed and hugged him right there in class.

Pants. Your ticket to joy.

My sister and I and Ernesto Frijoles took our twenty feet of folk art and handbags to our first big(ger) event, and while I now have the aforementioned cold and a sunburn, I am also $1200 richer, which feels pretty damned good. Now we double up and get ready for a much bigger show (and half as much booth space) in a month. Soon all you’ll hear at my house is the endless loop of my iPod Nano (who thought 1 GB wasn’t enough?) and the sewing machine humming along. I’ll try to take pictures of my production this time, too.

Oh, and we have a mouse problem, no cats and lazy ass dogs that show more interest in the peanut butter on the traps than the mouse shit under the stove.

Such is life as it goes on.

*Confidential note to K and MS–I’m not talking about you, or me. I think we have pure motives and have behaved well and morally, with legal rights to do so. The other flim-flam is just smoke and mirrors.