:onland://online/journal/november/

06 - november - 2001 - tuesday

[ John Burroughs ] :
"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts
I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all
the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see."

[ Queens, Blankets, Reading and Rings ]

I found a website that sounds fantastic for losers in my no-writing position. It�s a site that runs from November 1 through November 30. You have until midnight of 11/30 to write 50,000 words, which equals a 200 page novel! The deadline was October 29. Naturally, one course of action would be to pretend I am listed on this fun site, and pretend that I still have a chance to reach the goal. But alas, I live not in fairy-lands.

I finally posted a disclaimer. After reading not only a million other journal disclaimers and wondering what the big fuss was about, I realized myself that it was quite necessary to have one. I don't enjoy the thought of censoring my journal entries to spare the feelings of others, but must admit that for the next couple of days, I'll probably be doing just that. I must just get boring enough to force some readers to give up. Granted, I could save any possible offensive feelings I have for my more private, no-way-in-the-world-you�ll-ever-see-it journal at home, but I find that online journaling is far better. Typing gets you going and writing only makes your hand hurt. Besides, I�m making blankets here. I can�t be wasting valuable hand action on writiing my feelings in a separate journal cause I don�t want to hear crying from people who should have realized that a journal is still a journal no matter in what form it is written.

Don�t people understand the point of journaling? It is not to start fights or �stick it to you.� It�s to express to an anonymous audience the various degrees of life I experience. Even in paper journals, there is some audience out there to which a journaler is writing. But the idea is that it is for people you don't know because you're dead. Or even if you do know them, you're still dead. Anonymity is still there, in a fashion. Something about anonymous readers makes life and its problems easier to live with. However, I should have realized sooner that allowing people I know access to the journal would cause problems. They don�t understand that just because it�s online means they can freely discuss things with me that I write about. To me, it is still like snooping. I don�t need to know that they read it (so STOP READING THE DAMNED THING). I�m sure many of you journalers have, at one time or other, experienced the same problems. Unfortunately, as I�ve been told, it�s a risk one takes with onymous journals.

On to better things: I got my book on Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots. I need to buy it. I prefer to own my own books than borrow them from the library. Perhaps it�s a pride thing. I tend to buy used books that only pile beside my bed, but I don�t read until a year or two later. A time will come when I�ll actually stop that ridiculous habit and read the books before buying more, thereby saving myself a good $100 dollars.

I am a reading fanatic. I love reading books and can�t imagine anything more fulfilling to do with any amount of free time. Riding in the car to get to the store? I�ll read. Standing in line at the grocery store? I�ll read. I�m happy to do it anywhere. In fact, I love it so much that when I do go to some event (like the football game I went to in September), I bring my book along just in case there�s a free moment and I can read a book. The Queens book I�m currently reading is Two Queens in One Isle, by Alison Plowden. A true sign that you�re growing up is when your reading tastes take a sudden turn from great fiction to great nonfiction. I love reading something that not only interests and intrigues me, but is completely different than my norm. I love what branching out feels like. I�m hoping I can find the book on half.com.

My sister and I are planning to see each other at Christmas (as if �christmas� is a place and not a holiday). Which is good, because that means she can pick a blanket. My current Christmas present plan is to make as many afghans as possible before Christmas, put them all in non-descript, yet identical boxes, line them up, and say, �Okay. Pick!� This means a lot of crocheting on my part, however, because my family is so large: I have two brothers and four sisters, then there�s my mother (I live with this portion my family; er, rather, I lived with them until I graduated high school). Total, however, I have three brothers and five sister and two mothers. I can�t possibly make ten blankets though. So . . . we�ll see how it works out. Considering that I already made one sister a blanket and she kinda leaves it in the hallway collecting dust--she might be left out of the loop. She already has one, afterall. And one mother is using the blanket I made for her as a doggie bed, so she�s out as well (they were both good blankets too; they were also gifts, so they can use them how they please, it just still kinda stinks for me). I made one brother a blanket as well, which he uses, but it�s also about ten feet long. Oops. I thought about making a new one for him, but when I�m pressed for time, that�s a no-go. That leaves me with seven blankets to make. I have one finished. Hmmmm...

I recently bought a claddaugh ring from someone on E-bay. They kind of have special meaning to me, but not in a traditional sense. I�m not irish, though my sisters and brothers are (all of them--I�m the odd one out in my family). They are special because left in my memory is a claddaugh ring as my first piece of jewelry. Now, that could mean that I have a good memory, or it could mean that I simply don�t remember any other piece prior to getting the ring. Or, that I just didn�t like the other jewelry. I lost the first ring outside a church. I was playing in the grass with friends. I was probably even playing hide-and-go-seek with my ring. Either way, I spent an hour on my knees, kicking up grasstains, while searching for the ring. At the time, I was afraid my mother would get mad at me. A sterling silver claddaugh ring costs about $6.00 nowadays and probably thenadays as well, but I was still afraid she�d sold her soul to get it for me. Now, however, I feel a deeper sorrow about losing it. A little �too much� some would say in that emotion-description, but still accurate. There are some things that don�t seem important. Little things should never affect more or as much as other more �important� events. Yet this was important to me. Someday I�ll figure it out.

I got another claddaugh ring when I was twelve or thirteen, again from my mother (I think). I loved this ring. One time when I was getting the mail, my ring got caught and bent in a crazy way so that I couldn�t get it off my finger. See, the house I was living in at the time was right beside a road (speed limit 35, which means people went about 55 considering it was in the boonies). The box was one of those that stood on a post and stuck out like a big old fat hand, saying �gimme!� I would stand slightly behind it to get the mail, reach in and then rush down the small ditch-like hill to my yard and front door. Well, one day on such a snatch, my finger trailed along the inside of the mailbox and around to the edge. My ring caught on something. It felt like my finger was being pulled off.

My woodshop teacher eventually smoothed it out by putting it around a dowel and hammering with a small, soft hatchet-like thing. There�s a name for the tool, but I can�t ... ah! mallet. That�s it.

I was a track runner in high school. I started out doing the mile and the 800, but coach saw me perform better in the 400. And I did (fastest time was 62 seconds). But I had a bit of a complex. I couldn�t run with anything on: no rings, earrings, necklaces. I didn�t even like having my hair, which was long at the time. So I would get my cousin to french braid it as tightly as possible and as close to my head as possible so that I wouldn�t even know it was there. If I had the guts, I would have shaved it, but track wasn�t all that important to me. Well, at divisions in the tenth grade, I put my ring in my shoe and went out to run. My shoes were in the same place, but the ring was gone. Again, I lost something in the grass. It�s very possible at a busy event like that that I either picked up my shoes without realizing my ring was still in them and caused them to fall, or someone tripped over the shoes and then kaputt. Gone. Oh well.

I haven�t had a claddaugh ring since. Until now. Woo hoo!

I think they�ve always been special to me because my mom gave it to me. I�m a little sentimental about it. I miss my mom, but I still don�t want to talk to her. She�s . . . not herself. I don�t know what to do about it. I�m having dilemmas and if I don�t do something soon, I�ll regret it. After all, to quote myself when I was angry with relatives for denying my mother a visit, �AIDS doesn�t make appointments. You can�t wait.� And here I am . . . writing about Queen Elizabeth and claddagh rings. The queens weren't even Irish! . . . Honestly, I think I just don't know if I can control myself and not criticize my mother. If I see my youngest sister lr and criticize her or tell her she has to do things differently if she wants to be happy and safe, that would be criticizing my mother, because my mother encourages her to do as she does. At the moment, I feel my mother needs somebody she knows will rely on her, that is lr. Yet my mother doesn't realize the damage being caused. To make it more difficult, lr needs someone to take care of her to feel good. That's my mom. It's so difficult and messed up and angry-making, that for now, I'm preferring to ignore it. A dangerous thing to do, but one I can't help.

beam me up, scotty

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