Big Blue Couch

Last Saturday, Chaz and I were at his place watching movies. One of the ones we watched was “American Beauty” with Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening.

But, it’s not the dysfunctional family that Spacey, Bening, and Thora Birch (as their daughter, Jane) portray that’s the main thrust of this film. It’s the message.

Nothing is what it appears on the outside. There’s always something deeper that no one but a few people catch the first time.

One of the characters was a young man in his late teens who made movies with a handheld camera of what other people think are weird subjects. He had a beat down mother and a fanatical ex Marine father who expected his son to be everything he (the father) was not. Whatever that was. The kid, Ricky, also had a very lucrative pot business on the side that his father had no idea about.

One day, he showed Jane some of his movies, and one was of a plastic bag floating around in a cyclonic mass of air. His narrative describes the action in part

…this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.

Just then, I got it. I’ve been like that my whole life. Seeing things beyond what is presented. I’ve always seen things in color, clarity, and notice little things that other people just can’t or won’t see. Like my ability to see beyond a path in a painting where it leaves the frame. Where does the path lead? Then I let my imagination take over, run riot, come up with possibilities that even the artist hadn’t thought of.

Yes, I get it. All the beauty and the ugly in this world. The most beautiful things can be so ugly (like a beautiful woman with an unpleasant demeanor), and conversely, the ugliest things can be so beautiful.

Beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. You just have to choose what you want to see.

That’s all from where I sit on the Big blue Couch.

This Friday, I’ll be getting my Associate’s degree.

Last month, I met an amazing man.

Three years ago, I met my best friend.

Six years ago, I thought I was in love.

I’ve learned so much in the last 6 years. I don’t allow people to rule my emotions so much. I don’t let people use me until I outlast my usefulness, only to be cast aside. I don’t care what other people think about what I do, what I think, what I look like, or who I spend time with.

All those years wasted. And for what?

I like who I am and what I’ve become. I don’t have a ton of friends, but the ones I do have I treasure.

And that’s how life is supposed to be.

Except for one thing.

I’d love to get another radio job. I don’t care if it’s on the air or behind the scenes. I just want to work in radio where I live, and not have to move to another state. Right now, I need to stay where I am.

It’s where all the fun is.

That’s all from where I sit on the Big Blue Couch.

(I posted this on my other blog.)

I managed to sleep through the storms last night, but I had the weirdest recurring dream.

It’s trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what it is.

The dream is always the same. There’s me, then there’s these two guys. One guy is apparently well off and can do things at the drop of a hat if he chooses to. He always mentions that he paid for my over the top wedding (which in reality I didn’t have) and has a close friendship with a woman who, in the dream is supposed to be my mother, but my mother is NOTHING like this woman is. She’s shallow, cares about what people think, has little regard for my feelings or anyone else’s (my God, she’s Hyacinth Bucket, um “Bookay”!).

Then there’s this other guy, who likes me for me, would do anything for me, and is trying to get me away from Hyacinth, er, “Mom” and her “friend” with all the money. But somehow, he always is one step behind the “dastardly duo”.

Mr. Fancy Ass and Hyacinth have flown me to India (why there? Beats me!). I thought I was going to Australia, so when I hear that we’re landing in India, I, of course, freak out. And, of course, Mr. Fancy Ass is there to meet me. I protest that I’m supposed to meet Mr. Nice Guy in Sydney. Mr. Fancy Ass says that Mother (aka Hyacinth) wanted me to come to India to soak up the local culture, which in my mind has me thinking that she’s trying to set me up with some rich Indian dude, and I so don’t want that.

Fancy Ass has given me money (a debit card with an astronomical amount of money on it), so I slip away from his watchful eyes, somehow get back to the airport and book a flight to Sydney. By the time Fancy Ass figures out what I’ve done, I’m long gone.

Nice Guy meets me in Sydney, and we go to the American Embassy and state that I’ve been taken out of the US against my will (because I knew I had a plane ticket to Sydney when I got on the flight that eventually went to India). I tell an embassy official the story, how my ticket was switched, and how this rich friend of my mother’s, at her request, spirited me off to someplace I had no intention of going. Since I am an adult, they embassy official takes my story elsewhere to get me some help.

While all this is going on, Mother Dearest shows up in Australia. She doesn’t want me to be with Nice Guy for some reason, but wants me to be with Fancy Ass (turns out he’s the one with the hots for me). She doesn’t know where in Australia I am until Interpol arrests her for kidnapping and other charges.

Nice Guy and I escape Australia and head back to the USA, where I take over all of Fancy Ass’ wealth.

(I said this was a weird dream, didn’t I?)

My question is, what the hell does it mean?! I’ve had it more than once recently. And, no, I haven’t been smoking, drinking, or injecting anything funny.

Maybe I’m just tired of all the uncertainty in my life as of late.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

I was thinking about death today.

Now, before someone gets all weird and pulls a Heather Locklear false alarm 911 call on me, I was not, repeat NOT, thinking about my own death… though I probably should update my will one of these fine days.

I was thinking about what happens after you die. On the other blog, someone looked up my post about the death of blind Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey earlier this month, and that got me thinking…

The blind see in Heaven. The deaf hear. The mute speak. The infirm, the paralysed, the crippled walk. The insane become sane. The elderly become young again. You want to be 35 again? Ask and ye shall receive. The young stay young.

Of course, I have no idea if any of this is true. I certainly hope it is. I’ll just have to wait those 40 or 50 years to find out for myself. But, isn’t that a great thought?

Since Heaven is perfect, why shouldn’t everyone in Heaven be perfect?

I’d finally be thin!

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I’m 44 years old.

Shouldn’t I have gone thru menopause by now?

Because I don’t think I can go thru up to 8 more years of monthly hell. It’s not like I can have any more children. I took care of that years ago. So what’s the point? So I can have sex without worrying about getting pregnant?

Right, like there’s a lot of that going on in my life at present.

Would I be trading in one set of problems (having periods, cramps, mood swings, etc.) for another (hot flashes, lack of lubrication, taking hormones)?

I don’t want to take estrogen. Because that usually means Premarin, and I’m not taking anything made of the urine of pregnant horses.  There are alternatives out there. I just have to find them.

I’ve been taking Estroven (an over the counter alternative) and calcium supplements since I turned 40. And I just started taking a multivitamin every other day. I know that’s not enough, so I’ll have to see doctor about that soon… when I have time.

I know a lot of women my age who are now going thru menopause. Why am I so lucky to still be menstruating? Isn’t 33 years (with time off for good behavior, um…I mean–to have four children) long enough?

Oh. Lucky. Me.

Not.

Watch, I’ll go thru “the change” and bitch and moan about that. That would be just like me.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

(crossposted from here) 

When I was home with the flu, I had a lot of time to think about things that weren’t related to school and homework. Those things were not on my flu-addled mind during those three days I was out of class… but, this was: Would my life have been different if I never had a weight problem?

I’d like to take the easy way out and say no, that I’m still the same person regardless of what it says on the scale. But, after thinking about it, I think now that my life would have been different, though I have no idea how it would have been different.

Because I’m considered by most standards as being overweight, do people treat me differently, or do they tend to look at me like anyone else, where my personality, my human-ness, and my feelings are measured?

If I had always been thin, for example, would life for me have been easier, or more difficult?

I really don’t know, because I’ve never been what is considered “thin”. I’ve always been curvy and voluptuous. In high school, when I was relatively thin (compared to now), I was still called fat because I didn’t look like the thin, popular girls as far as to what my body looked like.

I think I would have been well endowed (can’t fight heredity, it seems), and for some men, that’s all they care about. And the curvyness of my physique is because of heredity as well. It’s something I can’t help, sorry.

However, there are weight issues on both sides of my family… my maternal grandmother, all 4′ 10″ of her, was overweight most of my life until she passed away in 1989. My paternal aunt is also overweight, and again, for most of my life. She’ll be 90 years old in August. Heart disease doesn’t really run in my family, though diabetes does (my grandmother mentioned above was diagnosed with it late in life).

It’s taken a long time for me to accept who I am, and what I look like. I’ve gotten to the point in my life that I like who I am, what I look like for the most part, and that makes me happy. Could I stand to lose weight? Of course. I know that carrying all this excess is hard on my joints and other parts of my body. But, as I’ve said before in other posts, and out in the “real” world, I’m not going to kill myself trying to lose weight to meet society’s definition of “thin” or “sexy”. I’m going to just be Stef, and if “they” can’t handle me as I am, then tough. If I change, it will be because of me, because I want to, not because someone wants to “change” me (my ex tried that, and it didn’t work).

This is me, ladies and gentlemen… deal with it.

I have people who like me and love me just the way I am. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

The brick wall I hit when this month started was called coming down with the flu.

Though I didn’t actually get sick with the flu until February 12th, I think I had been exposed to the virus long before that. That, I think, explains a lot of the out of sorts feelings I’d been having.

The flu is running rampant around here. It’s almost insane the way everyone seems to be getting it, even if they’ve had the most recent flu shot. We now know that the flu shot does NOT cover this strain of the flu.

I hadn’t had the flu in about 4 years, and this took me totally by surprise!

I am not at my best when I’m sick, and this made it worse. I was an emotional mess up until I actually got sick. Now that I’ve more or less recovered from it, I’m feeling a whole lot better physically and mentally.

It’s weird how that works. I’ve had colds and not felt this out of sorts. Then again, colds are not the flu.

At least this isn’t 1989… the last time I was really, really sick with first a cold, then the flu, then it all turned into walking pneumonia with me being one day away from being admitted to the hospital. I never want to be that sick ever again.

But, that’s a story for another day.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch

–MorelaterZ–

(I think)

February———–>Stef

February—–>Stef

February–>Stef

February->Stef

FebruaryStef

FebruarSytef

Okay, okay… what I was trying to illustrate above was that I hit a brick wall called February.

Move along… nothing to see here.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

Olga?

Martha?

Penelope?

Hester?

I know it’s a name that’s not really all that common anymore. Geez! This is gonna bug the bejeezus outta me!

Why does Penelope stick out though? I don’t think that’s it.

Ardith?

Helen?

Uh, oh…

Edith?

Margaret?

Arrrrgh! (and no, that’s not a name! LOL)

Maybe I can take comfort in the fact that she doesn’t remember my name either?

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–

A gal from the American Government class I took last summer saw me at WalMart yesterday and we got to chit chatting. Turns out that she is setting up a Philosophy Club at school and invited me to join. I said that I would like to and she said she’d email me some info to my school email address.

I remembered her in particular because when the summer session began last summer, she was about two weeks away from giving birth to her fourth child. The only thing I couldn’t remember was her name.

Her name is unusual now, but was popular in another generation. I thought maybe it was Alexis, but that’s not it. Then I thought it was Athena, but that’s the name of the baby girl she had while in this class (and managed to keep up with the classwork during the two weeks she was out).

Naomi? No…

Heidi? No.

It just kills me that I can’t remember, because it’s there on the tip of my tongue. I guess I’ll just have to wait for her email in the next couple of weeks.

I usually don’t have trouble remembering people’s names. But I think because I’ve seen so many people during the year I’ve been at Rose State, that names and faces don’t get a chance to sink in.

But there are others I do remember: Krystal (she was in both my English Comp classes); Kyle (English Comp I); Kalea (various broadcasting classes, and my summer math class until she decided to transfer to Oklahoma City Community College); Steve (the same Government class as the gal whose name I don’t remember); Anthony (History of Life and Photo II)…

But it’s going to bug me until I remember it.

That’s all from the Big Blue Couch.

–MorelaterZ–