Monthly Archive for June, 2006

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Smoke Screen to the blogger of Charming

Published on June 27, 2006 in For the Record and Soapbox. 2 Comments

Smoke Screen on the Journal Charming, Just Charming

I left a comment on a journal about flag burning and how the reader believes it to be a smoke screen. I left the beginning of a comment but when I realized it was going to be so long I decided to post my comment here so as not to leave a whole dang on book on his journal.

Before I start with the rest of my comment let me say this: My opinions seem to be as strong as yours. I hope you see these comments for what they are, questions and observations with some judgment thrown in. I do not intend to make this a slam against you because this subject has come up in my private life again and again. I appreciate a good thinker and you seem to be just that which is why I didn’t feel too intimidated to leave a comment with an opposing view. Enough of the disclaimer.

You say that the govt worrying about flag burning is a smoke screen and that there are bigger issues to address. The comment I left was: I have to wonder how on earth “they” came up with the number of “illegals” in the country. If they know how many are in the country why did “they” wait for it to get so large before calling it a problem? And how do you count someone that doesn’t register themselves? And how do you count the taxes lost if you don’t know the exact number of people not registering and paying taxes. If they know the number then they know where they are so why is it just now after they somehow counted the unregistered illegals that they publicize the problem? What good timing they have, eh? Right in the middle of a costly war that most do not support the government now makes a big issue of those who have crossed the borders illegally. They site that they are a drain on the economy but how do you know just how much “they” are draining if you don’t really know the exact number of “them?” I’m confused about why now this is a problem that has to be addressed with such fervor and urgency. I believe this in itself is a smoke screen to draw attention away from this war.

This is where my comment continues: The truth is, the US is it’s worst enemy. Yes there are a heck of a lot of people that hate the US but as a citizen of this country I can see clearly that our worst enemy is not over seas and is not wearing a ” head towel” or speaking a foreign language. We hurt ourselves by being so arrogant and being so bullheaded and willing to overlook social crimes committed by registered citizens. You are correct, there are larger issues at stake than the burning of the flag. There are many more issues such as protecting children, preventing sexual violence and prosecuting it to the fullest and keeping track of predators who seek out victims. There are issues such as gender equality or the lack thereof, issues of privacy, of global warming, of cruelty to animals and other acts against the earth and those who live on it. What good is a flag if there are no relatively safe, healthy, well fed, housed and educated people to stand under it?


If you want to talk about how illegal it is for “them” to be here then we have to stop and think about all of the other illegal things that go on that you and I do not benefit from. Although people say that these “illegals” drain the economy those same people benefit from the “illegals” every time they buy fresh produce from a grocery store or every time they go to a restaurant that has an immigrant doing a job others feel they are too good to do. We benefit from the fact that such desperate people will take very little money and live under horrible conditions. When was the last time you benefitted from a corrupt politician? When was the last time you benefitted from the thief next door or others that have been considered to practice illegal behaviors? I do not mean to say that illegal immigrants are criminals. I’m just saying that if one chooses to view them this way they have to ask themselves if they have ever benefitted almost daily by other illegal activities the way they do with illegal immigrants.

I keep hearing about how “they” are taking our jobs but I hear little about how companies will take their business to Mexico or India for the sole purpose of hiring desperate people who will not complain about not having medical insurance or workers compensation or lunch breaks and all the things that we demand here. As a matter of fact we joke about little Chinese kids making Wal-mart products and we joke about other hardships that third world countries face. Is that funny, that a small child would work so hard to send the US a shirt, a trinket, a doll so they can have a few dollars to eat with? It is obvious to me that it is corporate America that is taking jobs away from “us” and targeting people who have nothing to loose by taking a job for considerably less than the legal minimum wage. These people take these jobs for the same reasons American’s work, for their family, for a home, food and basic needs. So I have to ask again, why now is this such a huge issue and something I hear about daily? Is this not also a smoke screen? Why isn’t anyone totally focusing on how much Bush has to gain from this war? Why isn’t everyone and their brother upset that Bush has ties with oil and that he himself probably shits oil? Why isn’t anyone passing laws to keep the V.P from capitalizing on Katrina with his own companies doing a lot of the clean up work? These issues get overlooked when words like, “our way of life is threatened” and “American jobs are being taken.” If you use words and phrases to make a person feel that they are immediately threatened then you can get them to look away from the illegal and immoral acts of the speaker.


The US was built on dishonesty and illegal activities wasn’t it? Heck, we live on land that was stolen. We put those people on reservations and we celebrate every single year some false idea of thankfulness when in reality we are celebrating the theft of the land we live on. Heck, don’t get me started on slavery, on rounding up the Japanese during World War II or about the fact that it hasn’t even been a hundred years that every citizen no matter race or gender can vote without harm coming to them or their family. This country was built and exists because of acts of injustice but those acts get pushed under the carpet and “forgotten” or replaced with words like, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” I do not mean to sound like I hate this country or anything and I don’t intend to suggest that we become a lawless country. I’m just saying that if you blow away all the smoke it will become clear that the biggest issues in the US are US born.

Ps. I saw the word cackleberry on a comment you left at another journal. I wanted to know what it meant so I looked it up. It’s an egg. And heck, there’s a whole urban dictionary out there to explain words like cackleberry, chavs and other words that I never knew existed. Thanks for the new word. I had fun looking it up.
With much respect,

Austin’s August

Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters

Published on June 26, 2006 in For the Record, Letters Home, Medical and Soapbox. 2 Comments

Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters -Monday, June 26, 2006-10:05 pm
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Note: I’d been saying I was going to write this entry for weeks but then I ran across a journal today where a woman said she wasn’t given the knowledge to care for herself as an adult. She wasn’t taught to balance a checkbook or anything like that. Once I read that I figured I’d go ahead and write this then do a backtrack to her. I can’t remember the link for the life of me. So, if she reads this then could you leave a comment so I can post your link. Sorry ’bout that.

I was doing missionary work in the Mennonite and Amish part of Indiana. It was only a 4 day tour and the group and I talked to a lot of people. It was quite nice. The funny thing is, before the group of 15 black people showed up we had to inform the police that we were coming. There were not a lot of black people in the area, to show up in a group of 15 unannounced would have really been a bad idea. As I said, the trip went well but half way through I started itching terribly. This horrible vaginal itch lasted the entire trip and for 6 days total before I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Back at home I went to the ER and told the doctor that I feared I had AIDS. He put me in a room where I clutched my Bible and thought of how I would tell my mother that her Christian daughter contracted HIV or AIDS. When the doc did the exam I cried uncontrollably. I had flashbacks but when he asked if I was okay I said I was. I cried so hard and so deep that he didn’t want to let me go home. The result of the exam was that I had a yeast infection. He had to explain what a yeast infection is to a twenty year old woman. When I left I was happy that I didn’t have an STD but angry that I lacked the information to understand what my body does.

Continue reading ‘Mother’s Talk To Your Daughters’

Gratitude Monday: Mismatch Socks

Published on June 26, 2006 in For the Record and Gratitude Journal. 3 Comments

Gratitude: being thankful, having the desire or reason to thank somebody, to value something of quality, to understand the importance, meaning and significance of something.

Gratitude Monday: a loose rendering of gratitude, a list or just a few words to show appreciation for or recognition for big and small accomplishments.

Subject: Mismatch Socks

I’m one of the few people that actually enjoys doing laundry. An old friend said she liked seeing them swirl around in soapy water because when the clothes came out and she put them on it was like getting a new clean start. I personally don’t stand and watch the water swirl but I understood her point. Sometimes we look to anything to make us not feel so dirty inside.

I love the fresh Downy smell right out of the dryer. Warm blankets and clean sheets every Monday evening has been a ritual of mine for years. Not every part of laundry is pleasant for me. Washing and matching socks is tedious work that often requires Valium and several packs of cigarettes. The whole process is a dreadful fiasco that must be done or I’ll really be upset walking around with athletes foot and what not. Okay so, putting the load in I’m fine. After taking the load out of the dryer true tension begins. I’ve got all these socks that look very similar to one another. The slight differences are in length and rounded toes or squared toes but other than that they appear to be the same. This makes matching them difficult. I’ll spend what feels like hours trying to match socks. Just when I’m ready to chuck the whole thing I find a match. I’m thrilled, “Well, maybe I wont give up now. I’ll keep trying to match them.” Another hour seems to go by slowly without a match. I’ve hit a low, cursing inside, slamming square toes and rounded toes on the floor when suddenly I’ve got a match. I think to myself, I can do this. It wont take that much longer. Another hour goes by without a match. I’m pissed, then I find a match, another long wait with irritation increasing then I find a match. Over and over again I do this. It’s a frikin’ emotional roller coaster. When I finally abandon this debacle I’ve got 5 matches and 300 socks left without a match. I shake my head because I now believe that there really is a sock gnome that comes to take these nearly identical socks so that Aussie’s blood pressure can raise to the roof, come back down filled with hope then have those hopes dashes again. This gnome is a cruel something-something that visits every single time I do socks. After going through all of this imagine the expression of revolt when I pull the very last clean pair of socks out of the drawer. Damn! Damn! Damn! Stupid gnome! It’s a visit I do not look forward to.


How does the subject of mismatched socks find itself on a Gratitude Monday journal entry? Because there was a time when I did not have all that I needed. There was a time when I was homeless that socks seemed like a luxury, something that only happened when Christmas rolled around and housed people passed out mittens, socks and scarves. The way I worded that sounds rather ungrateful. I suppose there is an air of bitterness and resentment towards those who only think of the homeless when a certain day rolls around. Nevertheless, I needed those socks and thanked them for passing them out. There is a lot of bitterness that homeless people have because of how they are treated by the housed. There was a time in this city that the homeless were not considered citizens. People didn’t look you in the eye for fear that you’d ask them for something. When they did look at you it was with pity. Sometimes they would throw money at Mr. Austin and myself and keep on walking. I can not remember a time when anyone handed me a dollar bill. People usually threw it all waddled up so that it would travel to where they wanted it to go without them having to pick it up and hand it to us. Homelessness is a devastating blow to the ego. It can break the spirit in no time and break it so that repair is hard or impossible.

It is easy to take for granted the things you have until you no longer have them. Something as simple as a clean pair of socks, a clean pair of underclothes, a hair brush and basic household items like Kleenex can easily be seen as “basic” until you’re waiting for someone to come around and pass them out once a year.

Today, I have a home. I have food, shelter, clothing and a good support system. Now, when I don’t eat it’s because I choose not to eat. Now, if I don’t have clean clothing it’s because I simply didn’t load the washer. It is a warm comforting feeling to have the things and the people I need. So even though this stupid something-something gnome steals my nearly identical socks I am grateful every single time I slip them on.

Austin’s August

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Still Struggling

Published on June 24, 2006 in Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dreams and Mental Health. 1 Comment

Saturday, June 24, 2006-5:10 pm EST – Still Struggling

I hurt right now. Something that has never really happened before happened last night/this morning. I was making bread and a teenager inside wasn’t happy with the tap water that I was using. She urged me to dump it and refill it but I wouldn’t. She told me she hated me. Just before I added the water to the egg an older one, I think Adam, said, “Just hang on, she has time to fix this.” I dumped it in with the egg and stirred. There was a sinking feeling, a sadness like we’d lost each other or that there was some sort of major difficulty inside that hasn’t come up before. No one has ever said, “I hate you” to any of us before. It was totally out of the blue.

The major division lately is the issue of moving. Some of us want to move and others of us definitely do not want to move. Because we can’t walk around acting like we don’t have a beef with someone we finally brought up the short rent check to Barney. During that conversation I said to him, “I don’t want to move. Tell me what we can do to make this situation work.” He said nothing. I told him what I needed him to do was clean up after himself and to either mow the yard or supply a working lawn mower. I told him I want air and I want heat. Well, I’ve had air and he’s been cleaning like a fool. I walked into the kitchen and was like, OMG! He cleaned the counters, his table, the fridge, and swept the dining room floor. Sheshh, I was floored! We want to get a fridge or something and put it back in our area and go out there as little as possible. They want to sleep during the day when he’s home and do our life stuff in the late evening and morning when he’s sleeping. That isn’t going to work because we have to be up for the sunlight. It also doesn’t work for Captain because we can’t go out in the yard in the pitch black and play ball with him or take him on a walk. I should do that today since I’m feeling so down. It’ll do me some good.

Some are worried that we will get back together with Sg. Some want to get back together with Sg. It’s too complicated. Yesterday when she hugged me for an extended period of time she said, “We have such a special friendship.” I said, “Yes we do.” I added, “And lets not ruin it by trying to date again.” She said, “Okay” but she still held on longer. I will admit that I, Joan, still have feelings for her and I think she knows that. I think she’s confused because she knows but she also knows that if we actually get back together it’ll have to go through Morton and that may or may not happen. It’s up to him because that is a huge decision. The first time didn’t work because of her emotional state and then of course taking my $5 without asking me first. I think we want, especially Morton wants to see who she is without Monkey Boy in the picture. Will she be more assertive? Will she think for herself? Will she be a doormat for everyone? Will she speak her mind and tell me when I get on her nerves? Will she allow herself some sort of mental and emotional freedom? And you know what? It’s going to take some time to be able to tell. I’ve only known her in the presence of Monkey Boy.This is one of those things where I’m going, “Don’t do it Aussie. Don’t do it.”


I’ve been rather self-destructive lately, refusing to eat or sleep. And the depersonalization is just crazy too. Every time I put my hand to my face it freaks me out because I don’t recognize it as my own. I know when my stress level is off the scales when I start seeing stuff out of the corner of my eye. It’s like seeing something run across the floor that isn’t there. And my skin is crawling so I know that this is a symptom of being way too stressed.

After I read a poem from Champagne Tea I’m logging off the PC, shutting it down actually to encourage myself to get some sunlight while we still have it and to get some things done in the house.

I may not send any private emails today cause I don’t know if I would even be able to say anything. Sometimes I struggle to say something because I forget who the people are. The other day I realized that I’d forgotten to go to Cat’s blog. I was like, what the heck was that about? I’ve forgotten to go to my favorite virtual garden. I don’t really like know those people but in private email with those I actually should know it’s like I have to struggle to remember who they are. I don’t like faking it so I’d rather say nothing until someone comes back that knows who they are as individuals and not email addresses.

Okay, PC off, coffee pot on, medication down and the pet walk is on.

Maureen with Joan of Arc for Morton’s Pride

Pissed big time

Published on June 23, 2006 in For the Record. 1 Comment

PC issues big time. the journal looks different on Firefox than on Explorer. Explorer wont let me download anything at all and when I try and correct the stupid crap on this journal from Explorer it wont let me do it. Hell, if this posts I'll be surprised.

Arggh!!! It's my computer and not WordPress but man it's irritating. Argggh!!!!!

They’ll Come In Droves

Published on June 22, 2006 in For the Record. 3 Comments

My house is clean right now but you let me slack off for a few days and people will start coming in droves. Nobody ever comes over when the house is clean. Nope, they have to show up unannounced when I've let Cap's hair build up on the floor and left cig butts laying here and there, cranium crushed sody pop cans hanging out on the TV trays and what no, smelly socks hanging from the ceiling fan..that's when distant relatives i never even knew I had will show up. I would be one of those people that have a TV crew show up and I answer the door in an old blue robe with fluffy red slippers and curlers in her hair. Nope, Ed McMan couldnt show up two days earlier when I had my hair all done and dressed like a real person. You let me slack off and people from the past appear or friends just show up like I was expecting them or something. How am I supposed to be a good hostess like that? Well Mr. McMan you better enjoy the half eaten ho-ho's and ding dong's I left three days ago on top of the crust filled pizza box cause right now we don't have any clean dishes unless you consider a pup licked plate, clean. You wanna a ho-ho Ed? What 'bout you Aunt Fanny, if that's your real name.


Phone Call To The Therapist

Published on June 22, 2006 in Dissociative Identity Disorder, For the Record, Mental Health, Pets, Therapy and Therapy Assignments. 1 Comment

clicking the pic will take you to the page A Kitten's PrayerFor some reason I never thought about calling Dr.B with all this mess going on in my head. Today I called him and he said to do something fun.

I had some new pics of the kitten Bella so I wrote a little story about her huge eyes with their shocked looked.

If you click the image you can see the full prayer. In the menu bar at the top is the name of her little corner. A Kitten’s Prayer.

It’s been a quiet day here, not to much to report. I’ve still been rather dissociative and I’m still isolating to an extent but I feel better than I did yesterday Evening.

In my true confusion with time and dates I got my therapy appointment mixed up. I thought the appointment was tomorrow but it’s not until the 29th. I’m sad to say that I may not be with him long. He does not have the time to see another patient. One might ask why he accepted another one. He said that is how the practice is set up and that he isnt able to do his own scheduling. I realize that the company he works for sets these rules and not him. I just wish I could see him more because I know this guy could be helpful. He’s already been helpful. I like to be able to tell people when I’ve found a good therapist because a lot of therapy stories are horror stories. This one is not. So, it makes me a little sad that I will have to hook up with someone else. I wont stop seeing him until I do find someone with more time and where the company doesnt tell you to bulk up clients then restrict you to how many appointments you can set up at a time. We can set up 2 at a time. The appointment that I go to counts as one so the next appointment may be 3 weeks down the line because of how the company sets its policy for scheduling. I’ll be keeping my new pdoc though. I like him. He’s pretty cool.

Improvements (difference between years ago and now)

  • Despite being depressed and messed up I’ve kept up my showers. I shower daily.
  • Despite hating the meds I’ve taken them daily.
  • I open the curtains to let the sun in so as not to sit in the dark all day.
  • I have not cut today.

Shit that’s still not good (little difference between years ago and now)

  • I’m not eating.
  • I still give in to isolating.
  • I still give in to cutting.

New stuff that’s come up (some good, some not so good)

  • I dont bounce back as quickly as before.
  • I feel hopeless more than before.
  • I like when Sg hugs me. I usually shy away from touch.
  • I realized that I prefer the roommate type living just not the one I have right now. :-) . I always thought I would rather live alone but through all Barney’s crap I did realize that I like having a roommate. Perhaps I had just forgotten cause I’ve had them before.
  • I beat myself up a little more than before.
  • I can leave the house for longer periods of time without too much anxiety.
  • I’m noticing new interests such as Nascar and Golf, stuff I said I’d never, ever enjoy. I love tennis and soccer still. Football, basketball, baseball and crap like that are still things I dont care about. There would have to be some sort of surgical alteration to make me enjoy watching that.

My sense of humor is still in tact.
It’s almost midnight and I have yet to eat. I should grab a bite of something.
Aussie