The words are jumbled, stilted.

You wear pointy heels and your ringtone is Journey.

Almost a whisper.

Reading too much sauce, I ache.

Far too uncomfortable with the man holding a turkey sandwich, I smile and walk away. That feeling that someone is staring at your ass? Yeah.

I’ve sat here, the screen taunting me for days. Too scared to write what I want to – the words never forming.

I’ve become a shell. One that is likely to crack at any moment.

I wear the smile, I make the jokes… I play the role. I know my place. And I know it well. I wear it like a jacket, keeping everyone around me safe and cozy. Never changing, always there, just being Amy.

You’re just Amy, and that makes this easy, he said as he gave me a 6% raise.

Just Amy. What does that even mean? Do these people that I see every day really even know me?

It’s all becoming overwhelming and I wonder what a panic attack feels like. Better yet, I wonder what I’m supposed to feel like in these moments, these tiny moments that are practically insignificant to most.

Suddenly, choosing a birthday card for my dad was the most important task in the world, and those damn Hallmark aisles, with their goddamn mood lighting, didn’t have one that said the right words. The words that I should’ve said the day I left the hospital. The words I should’ve been saying my whole life.  I threw the stack down, on the verge of losing my sanity in the middle of Wal Mart and walked out.

With a mother fucking smile at the lady at the door. Even a you too when she wished me a good day.

I never said a word about it. Never told anyone that the constricting in my chest, right where my heart belongs, scared the shit out of me.

Why didn’t Hallmark just make a stupid card that said “I hope you don’t think I’m a shitty daughter. I know you were strung out and in jail for a good portion of my life, but the efforts that you’ve made over the last 10 years have meant the world to me. I know that you would go to the ends of the earth for me, and I love you with all my heart. Please don’t leave me.”

Instead, there’s pictures of dad’s with their daughters on their shoulders walking down the beach. Because you know? Everyone that buys cards are Norman fucking Rockwell paintings.

A minor thing. A crack in the shell, though.

I’ve been too scared to call to check on him.

I’ve been relying on what others have been telling me.

Is that the right way to do it? Probably not. I can’t stand the thought of calling and listening to the stinging, hollow words that I heard that first day. I can’t do it.

He called me, sobbing. Big, heavy, heaving sobs and I could practically see the alligator tears coming through the phone.

Trying to find a corner in the department store to hide, I asked over and over. Please, what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong. In those few seconds of nothing but sobs, I mentally prepared my luggage, mentally balanced my checkbook to prepare for the drive or flight back to the sprawling city of Spokane.

She told me what I said to you. I hope that someday you can forgive me.

Crack.

Nothing to forgive, I mumbled as I ran my finger along a stainless steel blender. I just love you. I want you to be ok. I want for this nightmare to be over. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I couldn’t say I love you enough.

I had to leave the store, the kick ass pair of boots forgotten in between mixers and coffee makers.

I can’t get enough angsty music. Bonnie Raitt, Edwin McCain… I just want it all to be mellow, mellow, mellow. I want to smoke some pot, drink a beer and fucking forget. But I don’t.

The cracks continue – the petition for a child support increase from that fucking cuntface. Buying the business. Filling out forms. Dentists.

It’s overwhelming.

Dinner with the in laws tonight. Always a good time. They want out. Want to retire. We’re ready, they said. I’ll change the accounts on Monday. You’ll make more money than you are now. You have the tools you need to succeed.

I’m not in control of anything. Never before have I realized what a maniacal control freak I am. Until these little moments. Everything is jumbled and spiraling and spinning and twisting.

Look at me, all angsty and emo and wah wah wah.

This isn’t a poem. I don’t know what it is. It’s the mess that’s in my brain. Trying to reconcile my feelings.

I haven’t cried in weeks. Tempted to watch Beaches just so I can let it out. But I don’t.

I’m a masochistic, control freak.

The wedding that will never be. When? they all ask. When when when when when. I feel like its a race. As if the answer is important to some ultimate goal that they all need to achieve.

He knows. I have one condition. It costs very little, and takes a few minutes of his time. Yet, he hasn’t. I won’t wait around forever.

Crackcrackcrack every time they ask.

Can’t focus, can’t sleep. Just toss and turn and do shit work all day and struggle through homework at night, or put it off until the very last day and start all over again.

Care to unjumble me?

Tangled legs. Tangled sheets. Tangled hair.

Serenity.

The gentle breeze, the sound of the distant freeway, the dog softly snoring.

Clarity.

****

We walked into the room, knowing that it wasn’t good, but not prepared for the barrage of totally insane words that were to be hurled at us within a matter of minutes.

“Ah, don’t tell me you’re in on it to.”

“Love you Dad. How you feeling?”

“Like shit. I’m going to fucking kill the next mother fucker that comes in here.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Dad.”

“I’m not being fucking dramatic. What the fuck are you doing here? WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

“Well, Dad, I drove fifteen hundred miles because I’m worried about you. I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“LEAVE THEN!”

And so it went. For the longest five minutes of my life, I endured the most awful words ever spoken to me, from my own flesh and blood – my father – who thought I was in on some conspiracy to get him into trouble.

I lost it in the hallway outside of his room. My brother had warned me. Hell, he  hadn’t even stayed for a whole day, had left before any of the rest of the family even arrived on that beautiful day in Washington. He warned me. Told me to get some rest, maybe go see him in the morning. But I didn’t drive for twenty hours, over fifteen hundred miles, to sit in the EconoLodge at the airport all night worrying about my dad. So, I went. Jeff at my side, being the rock that he is. I lasted five whole minutes in the room, and had to walk out. I backed up against the gray wall and slid down, hugging my knees to my chest, the tears falling to the sterile floor.

It reeked in that hospital. Like formaldehyde. Like a high school science project gone awry. And old people. The unmistakable stench of the elderly.

As I sat there, completely and utterly at a loss as to what to do, I knew that my Dad was gone. That wasn’t my Dad in there. Sure, he was still the 6′5″, 300 pound, long haired, tattooed biker dude, but he wasn’t the big softie that everyone knew and loved. I could hear him yelling at Jeff, something crazy about speeding tickets and child molesters. I could hear the sounds of flesh on metal, the sounds of the rickety hospital bed being smashed, over and over.

Jeff walked out, told me to calm down, that it wasn’t my Dad.

I knew that.

And for all I knew, I’d never get him back.

The next day, we had a diagnosis. Long words I couldn’t, and still can’t, spell. The doctor talked to us like we were idiots, which we were. Alcoholic dementia. Cirrhosis. Kidney and liver not functioning. Brain swelling. Pressure causing the hallucinations.

He was so drugged out that day, that we didn’t stay long.

The next day he was back to his old self. Laughing, talking, reminiscing.

We left that day.

Two days later, he was moved to a different hospital. To the psychiatric wing.

Five days later, he was home.

****

He’s not getting better. He can’t be miraculously healed. As much as I would like, I can’t spend the rest of his life in Washington.

I’d give anything to know what the future holds. Will he be around to walk me down the aisle? Will he see his grandchildren? Will he ever move back to California, like he promised?

The breeze hits my bare shoulders as I settle down into the comforter, the dogs wrapped around my legs. It brings peace. These little beings that just want to be near you.

For now, everything is tangled. Like our legs, like our sheets, like our hair.

Tangled.

Serenity.

When Jeff and I first moved in together, we went to the local animal shelter to look at animals. I had no intention of adopting an animal that day, and there actually weren’t any that caught my eye. Jeff, however, fell in love with a scrawny, haggard looking cat named “Tweetie”, who wouldn’t shut up when we walked up to her cage. All the way home, all night long, all Jeff talked about was this cat. He was smitten with her. Even though I was adamantly against cats at the time, I made the decision to go back the next day while Jeff was working, and adopt Tweetie.

When Jeff got home from work that night, Tweetie and I were laying on couch – her sprawled out on my tummy. We’d been hanging out together for a few hours, hours that included a hellacious trip to PetSmart (her papers should’ve come with a warning – something along the lines of “Hey asshole! I don’t like to be held!”) and cuddling on the couch, and I was already in love with her.

We decided quickly that Tweetie was NOT a good name for her, and after mulling some names over, she was dubbed Roxy Aloha. A nod to Jeff’s love for surfing and Hawaiian culture, Roxy quickly became our baby. It was rough at first – she’s the pickest cat in the world, and it took us forever to figure out what kind of food she liked. After a couple of baths and some good meals, she fattened up and became our chunky monkey. It didn’t take her long to wiggle her way right into our hearts.

At her first check up with the vet, they informed us that she was 8 or 9 years old – an old girl, really. We weren’t worried, though. She got a clean bill of health that day, and we took her home and continued to allow her to wrap us around her little paw.

Those that don’t know should understand that our animals aren’t just our animals. They are members of our family, our kids, really, and we treat them as such. I’ve never understood people that could just give animals away, or dump them off somewhere.

We had Roxy for about three years when we decided to get a puppy. Roxy and Indy HATED each other at first, and I cried for two days, worried I was going to have to get rid of my new baby if Roxy didn’t come around. She eventually did, though, and the two became two peas in a pod, sleeping together, cleaning each other and playing together.

There were bumps along the way. About a year ago, Roxy developed a wierd looking mole over her left eye, which turned out to be a malignant tumor. We had it removed, and were told that the surgery was successful.

A couple of months ago, she started acting differently. While she no doubt loved me, she was always a Daddy’s girl, and usually slept curled up next to Jeff. She started sleeping on my pillow, though, and I thought it was odd. She started dropping a lot of weight, and our chunky monkey quickly became skin and bones. She wasn’t eating, she was having trouble jumping on the bed. Where she was once aggressive for attention, she became gentle, never overbearing like she usually was.

A week and half ago, I made the decision to take her into the vet to find out what was going on. She had started sleeping in odd places – in the closet, next to the litter box and in the hallway. I took her the vet on Friday, and they told me that she was extremely dehydrated. They kept her to run some blood tests and some fluids, and I took her home Friday night. She seemed to be a new cat – walking around the back yard, drinking water, eating a couple of treats. I was hopeful that whatever was wrong with her was easily treatable.

Saturday morning she was sleeping by the side of the bed, another odd place for her. I had a missed call on my phone from the vet with her test results, so I called back. I knew it was bad when the receiptionist told me that the doctor needed to call me back about a couple of things.

Jeff went to go find her, and a couple of minutes later he called to me.

He told me that Roxy couldn’t walk.

He brought her outside and I watched him try to get her to walk around the yard a little. She’d take a couple of steps and fall over, breaking my heart into a million little pieces each time it would happen.

While watching her, the doctor called back and told me the news. While all of the tests weren’t back, some were, and she was in complete kidney failure. As I listened to the vet tell me the news, Jeff picked her up and took her back into the bedroom to lay down with her. I asked the doctor what he would do. He said he would put her to sleep, that efforts to treat her would be futile.

The walk down the hallway to the bedroom was a long one. I laid down on the bed next to Jeff, Roxy sprawled across his tummy, just like that first day. Her nose was bleeding, her breathing labored. It was then that we made a difficult decision. That call back to the vet was the hardest one I’ve ever had to make.

Aloha in Hawaiian means “Hello”, “I Love You” and “Goodbye”. Last Saturday, Aloha came full circle. I miss my baby girl.

When we were in the Dirty South, we attended the wedding of Jeff’s niece (we’ll call her “J”) to her lovely fiance (we’ll call him “P”)in Maryland. A few weeks before the wedding, Jeff’s mom asked me if I would be so kind as to photograph the wedding, since J wasn’t planning on hiring a photographer. I had to politely decline, because you guys, I am NOT a photographer, and taking the place of someone who, you know, does this for a LIVING was not my idea of a good time. Did I mention that it was only the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF J AND P’S LIFE?!

I then promptly ran out and bought Nikon D60 for Dummies (which I did not pay the Amazon price for), thinking I had six weeks before the wedding – plenty of time to become a professional photographer.

And then, life got in the way and I didn’t even make it halfway through the book. In fact, I don’t think I even touched my camera during those six weeks before we enjoyed the most trying, divorce-inducing travel experience ever (post is in my drafts!). And to be honest, I didn’t even really think about it much – I figured that by then J and P would have hired a photographer, but packed my camera anyway, for some candids.

When we got to the rehearsal, word got around to me that they had hired a friend who was a photographer in New York, and he would be up the day of the wedding. I was off the hook.

The morning of the wedding, I grabbed my camera, hoping to take a few shots of the family all together, when Jeff told me to follow the photographer around and take whatever shots he was taking.

What?

I did NOT follow the PROFESSIONAL AROUND AND STEAL HIS VISION. I did, however, take over 500 pictures that night, most of which I’ve yet to go through, a month later.

Later on that night, somewhere between the shots of tequila and drinking champagne out of the bottle, I was introduced to the photographers from J’Adore Love Photography. I was drunk, making a fool of myself (as were they), and amazingly, I got some pretty good advice. Some of the pictures on their site are amazing, and I hope to one day have the vision or whatever to produce pictures that are of that quality.

The photographers ended up driving us back to the hotel, and somewhere in the midst of all the cheek kisses and “Great meeting you!”’s, I think I promised to email them a portfolio.

Um? I don’t have a portfolio. In fact, what is this portfolio you people speak of?

So, this whole post is my chicken shit way of linking to them, and hoping they have Google Analytics or something and run across this.

/shameless plug

(I also wanted to share my favorite pictures with you guys!)

I picked up Twilight to read on the plane ride to South Carolina, not because I was interested, but because it was long and had big print (so intelligent, right?). I ended up sleeping on the trip, and didn’t even pick up the book. I completely forgot about it for a few days. When we all piled into the car to drive to Maryland, I was so bored and cramped into the world’s smallest Jeep Cherokee that I picked it up. Three hours later, at a pit stop, I looked up from the book and said, “Oh my gosh! He can’t read her thoughts!”, all breathless like and shit.

You guys? I seriously need a Twilight intervention. I finished the first book before we got back home, read the second one in less than a day, the third in two days… and the final one? Well, I drug it out for about a week because I KNEW I was going to be sad when it was over!

And then there’s the part where I’ve watched the movie, and have plotted to purchase it for my future viewing pleasure. When the movie first came out (uh, like 10 years ago? [Ok, not quite, but it's been awhile!]), I couldn’t understand all the brou-ha-ha surrounding Robert Pattinson (who plays Edward… oh, Edward), because I just didn’t think he was that good looking. After I read the books and saw the movie, though?

C’mon! How cute is he?!

I’m ashamed and embarassed to admit how ridiculously wrapped up in this story I am. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not amazing literature along the lines of some famous classic author I can’t think of right now, but it’s a classic, gut-wrenching LOVE STORY.

And I kinda want a vampire in my life, but shhh! Don’t tell anyone!

Jeff and I made it to South Carolina, after a super crazy chain of events that found us running through the Dulles airport to catch our connecting flight which was already closed up and ready for takeoff. You guys, they LITERALLY opened the door and let us on, and we became “those people” that everyone stared at.

I’m not going to say that the adventure left us unscathed. Let’s just say that it was a VERY good thing that Jeff and I weren’t sitting next to eachother during that connecting flight. I’ll post the whole crazy comedy of errors later, including how I threw Jeff’s boarding pass at him and told him that if he wasn’t back when the flight boarded, I was leaving without him and how our luggage didn’t make it to our final destination.

ANYWAY, we are currently in South Carolina, staying on a hide-a-bed in Jeff’s brother’s living room, our clothes strewn everywhere. They have four kids, and this is just me, but if someone were staying at MY house, the kids would be sleeping on the couch, and the guests would be in a bedroom, but WHATTHEFUCKEVER.

That’s Jeff’s brother Eric, and his lovely wife Wandi. They’ve been good to us, despite the whole SLEEPING IN THE LIVING ROOM thing. They’re pretty damn cute, right?

It is so ridiculously hot here, that I can barely breathe, and any worry about gaining weight while on vacation (I have literally eaten anything fried I can get my hands on) is gone, because I HAVE to be sweating it all out. Seriously. Sweating like a whore in church, I am.

Yesterday was the first day we’ve been out sightseeing, and I took a few pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Tomorrow, all TEN of us pile into two cars and head up to Baltimore for the big wedding we’re here for. I’m sure they’ll be wonderful stories about how well we all got along on the TEN HOUR DRIVE.

XOXO

Jeff and I are leaving for vacation on Friday, and we won’t see the Little Monster for two weeks. Somewhere in the midst of his usual weekend visit, I got the bright idea to buy a slip ‘n slide for our own backyard entertainment. I bought it pretty late on Saturday night, and Sunday morning I woke up to the sounds of a screaming four year old and knees hitting plastic. I grabbed some coffee and looked out the kitchen window to see this:

After watching him run and jump on his knees for awhile, I told Jeff that he needed to show him how to “properly” do it. Jeff wasn’t having it, so I put on a bathing suit and wobbled my fat ass out there to show the kid how it’s done.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing like a slip ‘n slide to make you feel old.

I was able to make several successful runs, much to the dismay of my body today.

After I popped the “wave rider” blow up thingie (oh, yes, I did), Jeff pulled out our ridiculously sad little pool, and commenced “Operation: Soak the kid until he’s blue in the face!”

We determined, upon looking back at these pictures, that we really need to invest in one of those above ground pool thingies. However, the thought of spending $400 on something makes me hyperventilate a little.

Maybe next summer?

Sometimes I feel like Facebook is a virus. A few weeks ago I received a friend request from my brother, and eventually my brother’s wife. I thought it was cool – I get to see pictures of my niece and nephews on a regular basis, and I don’t have to do anything! Score one for the lazy team. I was pretty excited about this new development, because I hardly ever see any of them, so getting to see the kids grow up, even if in pictures only, was pretty cool.

Until it depressed me.

My brother and his little family live no more than 15 minutes away from me. Jeff is a contractor for my brother and sees him on a regular basis, and is even doing work on my brother’s house. A house that I’ve been to twice. In the five or so years they’ve lived in this area. My niece and my nephews know Jeff by name, but probably wouldn’t know who I was if I was standing right in front of them.

My brother and I have never been particularly close – we have the same dad, but different moms and didn’t grow up together – but there’s always been a distant line of communication between the two of us. Until my brother got married.

Don’t get me wrong. My sister in law is fantastic. She’s sweet, gorgeous, a size 0 after three kids, and is the super mommy I hope to be someday. When my brother married her, though, it was as though his “old” family didn’t exist anymore. He was adopted by his step dad when he was a kid, and his step dad and mom’s families, as well as his new wife’s family, were suddenly his main focus, and no one on my side of the family heard from him much. Not even my grandmother heard from him, the grandmother who spent a good portion of his childhood raising him, while his mom and my dad did whatever crazy thing the kids were doing those days.

It makes me sad to see those pictures of the kids; what a happy little family they are. It makes me sad that the only contact I have with my niece and nephews is through a social networking site.

Their youngest, my sweet little niece Ella, is the same age as the Little Monster, and I think that the two of them should know each other. I want for them to be close. I want them to have the relationships with family that I never had.

My grandmother’s side of the family had a reunion this past weekend, and it was widely thought that my brother and his family were going to be there. They didn’t show, though, and it really bummed me out. This is the family that was there for him growing up, the family that provided an anchor for him during a tumultuous childhood.

I got a message on Facebook shortly after I got home from the reunion.

How was the reunion? Drive was too much for the kids”

It’s just disappointing that a website is my main form of communication with someone that I share a bond with – one that can never be broken. And it hurts my heart that that is what its come down to. Because ultimately? You only have your family.

J asks me a lot about having kids.

I am always hesitant and say things like, “Yeah right, old man.” or “We’ll have kids on the 5th. Of never.”

I think I am so hesitant because I am not sure that I even want kids, let alone soon. Also? I’m really, really selfish. I like to sleep in. I like to go where I want to go, when I want to go. I like coffee. I’m just starting to feel like I have my body back.

How do I know when the right time is? How do I know that I’m ready? Will there be something that just clicks for me? Will a giant light shine over the baby section at Macy’s while strains of The Messiah pipe through the speakers?