HE LOVES YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

I have no regrets or apologies for my online shenanigans over the past 2 years. Today it occured to me: this is what I enjoy. Writing. Also, I have a burden to tell people how much God loves us all. I have a very early memory. So early that you might not believe this. But I have a memory of before I was even conceived. I've always had this inside of me, even as a child, I remember standing in heaven, on the "edge", that's how I sensed it. I was standing near the "exit", it was to my right. I stood facing God, or an angel, or Jesus. I can't remember the face or what the appearance was, I just know, it was love, and there was light everywhere, and He stood there before me, and said, "Tell them how much I love them."

So I tell you how much He loves you in the only way I know how~ I tell how He showed His love to me, throughout my existence so far on this earth. I leave some things unsaid, hoping my voice will speak the loudest with the things I leave untouched. Know what I'm saying?

No?


Ok well I want to change the subject anyway. I'm sitting here this morning drinking my tea, fully aware of how the thought of God, and God's love for us, and images of Jesus ready to embrace you with a big fat loving hug can annoy the living daylights out of folks. How do I know? From personal experience with other people, listening to their reactions and hearing how they describe their annoyance with Christianity. One person I know has said, "Just the thought of Jesus makes me bristle with discomfort. I don't want anything to do with it."

He also said that when Jesus is mentioned, he feels himself glazing over and his brain shuts down.

So I know and I'm aware of how uncomfortable my blog title is for some people to see. That's why it's there.

I had to get used to His love. I had to receive it, and believe it. I had to learn to get comfortable with love, and closeness, and intimacy, after coming from my family, where affection was a foreign word- humor took it's place- and after screwing up so many times, and learning to accept forgiveness.

I never mentioned this one: several years ago, I had a dream, I was in my old room again, and Jesus sat on my bed, like He did in the one where He spoke of restoring my heart.

In this one, I sat beside Him, and He hugged me tight, and I could feel a real love. It was protective and loving and sincere. It was also foreign. A new experience, a new feeling, but at the same time, I recognized it. I was at home in that hug.

As He hugged me, I heard Him say to me:

"This is how the love of a man should feel."


When I woke up from that dream I got the feeling that someone out there had been praying for me.

I have never known that kind of love in real life, but I do know, He loves us SO MUCH, and I'm going to keep reminding you until the cows come home.




...I went to the thrift store a couple of weeks ago and bought a big box, I think it's a military box, it has old stickers on it, one says JFK and one says 1969, it's dark green and it makes me feel mean.

I dumped all my stash bags out and sorted thru it all: beans and rice and seasonings in one pile, personal care items in another pile, herbs and vitamins in yet another. I loaded up the beans and rice and gave it all to my brother in law.

So now I'm down to just having things to keep myself clean, and some herbs.

And I loaded up

wait

I'm confusing myself, I have five different thoughts going on at one time here.

Ok, I loaded up the things I wanted to keep in my military box, and I'm using it as a table. The things I gave to my brother in law got loaded up in HIS military box, it says OLD GOAT on it. That's creepy.

I changed my mind about having food and water. I would rather not have that burden on myself. The only way I would feel ok about it is if I knew everyone else did too. I don't want to spend my time wrestling with ethical issues in order to keep my belly full if my neighbors are down to eating their cat.

My old home videos of Leah from when she was little went into yet another pile, for transfer over to dvd, one by one, so that I can systematically load them up on here somehow, someway, thus, embarking on a whole new way to torment people, both strangers and friends alike.



I spent the day in the sun with my kid. Lunch at IHOP, then to the lake. We sat on the rocks and talked, then we talked about the water, and how it wasn't too cold, and next thing you know, we're in. We laughed the whole time. Then we went on a dollar store shopping spree, complete with gnarly hair and wet clothes. We both splurged. Leah inspected my purchases and grabbed something off the counter right before they could ring it up, took it away, then came back with something else. As it turns out, she was putting the hair gel back on the shelf that I selected and replaced it with some kind of mousse. I didn't ask her why, I trust her. Once we got in the car she turned to me and told me, Mommy, you have to stop buying Black people hair products. You are not Black. Their hair is different.

She leaves for college in August. We sat and talked in the car for a long time. Our hug goodbye today lasted several minutes. Our eyes were filled with tears. I kissed her forehead and said God bless you, Daughter. That's what I've done ever since she was little.


The first thing I ever lost

I was four years old, and we were vacationing in Galveston. Before we got to the beach, we pulled into a bait shop. My dad is big on crabs. He can stand there in the sun all day long, reeling in crabs on some line rigged to a stick in the sand.

So we were making the usual bait shop stop, where my dad got his stuff and we girls got candy. But I remember this day. On this stop, I did not choose candy. Instead, I brought a sand toy to the counter. It was a plastic turtle, but it was really a bucket and a shovel and a sand castle mold, all packed away neatly into the turtle. I fell in love with it and spent the whole trip on the beach, creating sand castles, shoveling sand, sifting sand, putting seashells into the turtle, creating waterways and channels that allowed sea water to occasionally come up and surround my castles like a moat. I love the beach with all my heart and soul.

So after a few days, we packed up our things into the old white camper, and headed back up to Dallas. Everything was packed. Everything, except...


except my sand turtle kit.

I started crying and wailing the second it occured to me. My parents were startled and asked what was wrong, and I remember not being able to get the words out between my cries. Finally I managed to get it out, that my turtle was still on the beach, alone in the sand, and could we turn around and go get it? I wanted it, Daddy can you turn around?

The answer was no. We weren't even out of Galveston yet, I didn't understand.

I was quiet the whole way home. I remember closing my eyes and seeing my turtle on the beach. I thought about some other child playing with it. I thought about the turtle missing me as much as I was missing it.

By the time we got back home, I had thoroughly wrestled with and accepted my loss. It was ok.

But I can still see it, sitting there under the hot Texas sun, wondering where I am.

I wonder who found it.

I was thinking about this today, then I started thinking about my very first experience with pain.

It was during the same time period. We were vacationing at Lake of the Pines, in East Texas. I was walking beside my mom and dad and older sister along a trail that was literally covered in pine needles. It was winter. The sky was blue and the cold air blended with the sunshine made me feel so happy. I remember as we all walked along, I just got this gust of joy and took off and started running. I just ran. As fast as I could go, down the path littered with pine needles. It didn't last long. Within seconds I was on my face, and my hands were on fire with pain. I laid there crying until my parents caught up with me. They looked at my hands. Pine needles were embedded in them, all over. They started pulling out the ones they could, then brought me back to the camper for a painful session with the tweezers. The next morning my hands were swollen red, and I learned what "pus" was that day. It was painful. My hands were oozing. I was infected with pine juice.

We had to go home and I had to go to the doctor. Somehow I recovered from my run-in with the pine needles.

So these two memories are my first experiences with pain, and loss.

What are yours?




That's my current goal. Just to stay afloat on this sea of uncertainty. For once in my life, we're all on the same sea. Lots of us are on the same boat. Hey, there's plenty of room for you here on my boat. I've been sailing this thing for as long as I can remember. Here, I'll move over, come sit down and put your foot in the water. Go ahead and take your shoes off. You know, the ones you used to wear to that hi-falutin' job at the office above the bank.

I go barefoot all the time, both in real life and metaphorically speaking. I have recurring dreams of wearing beautiful dresses, yet I'm always barefoot underneath. It's my happy secret. I have no Life Shoes to wear. I have no set way. I have no plan, either. All I want to do is stay afloat.

There's a neighbor down the street who's taken to renting out rooms. When I heard about this, I was like, finally. It's happening.

That's right up my alley. Currently, I'm a Room Renter. I plan on doing this for quite some time. I'm happy this way. When I was at my mom's apartment I thought I wanted to get all better and reclaim my old life and my old way, I thought that equalled personal success. But there's nothing successful about having no money left over after you've paid the rent. I choose to live even more simple than I did before. I don't need my own home to feel good about myself. In fact, I've discovered, being a paying tennant makes me feel like a real asset.

Nevermind the fact that my current landlord is my brother in law. So what. It's still a fair and solid deal we worked out. I pay each week and buy my own food. Period. I'm happy as a clam with this arrangement. I'm thinking about opening my mind a little and taking it a step further and renting out a room from a total stranger. I don't know why I want to do this. Maybe it's a psychological thing, seeing as how I've been hanging around my family for a couple years now. I'm sort of tired of them.

So anyway. I just want to share with you how peaceful it can truly be once you make peace with the fact that you are stinking broke. Broke is all in how you perceive it. Nobody is REALLY broke. If I can earn a predictable income, anybody can. If I can afford weekly rent someplace, anyone can. There's a solution for everyone. So what if they're kicking you out of your own home, as we speak. "Home" is such a broad term. It's so much more than where you rest your head at night.



I sometimes think that maybe God gave me a soft voice so that the things I sometimes have to say won't give me a heart attack. All this used to frighten me. I can't imagine how I'd come across if I were some big towering burly man who stood on a pulpit and shook his finger around. Or even a savvy chick who found a way to cash in on all this, or at the very least, cash in on my blog. But no. God made me small, soft, and afraid of my own words. He also rigged me to where I can only properly process something by writing it out and sharing it. The joke's on me, I know.

My daughter is now exiting the public school system. Even if I would have been able to home school her, or send her through private school, I would have chosen public schools.

I remember a friend of mine when Leah was little. She had the luxury to be able to home school her children. I respected what she was doing, but I knew, it was her personal choice and not so much the right thing for my own kid. One day this friend was telling me about her new neighbors. She said, "Yeah, they're alright. They do public school, but they're good people."

Yep.

And my own daughter was in kindergarten when she said it, at her beloved elementary school in DeSoto.



Good morning!


I've already said this before, but I woke up this morning wanting to say it again.


...don't put me back under the Law.

Back in the mid-90's, a friend of mine had a mother in law who
was veering away from Christianity and getting all into Jewish
traditions, Hebrew studies & what-not.
Good stuff to learn about, for sure. Biblical history is fascinating.
But she was starting to go overboard. Having Sabbath dinners,
observing Jewish holidays, etc.
She's not Jewish.

I was invited to her home once for "Bible study". Turned out to
be more of a Torah study. I sat there and listened to her. She
said this was a "grass roots movement", that when Christ
returns, the temple procedures/animal sacrifices, etc will be re-
instated. I guess she wanted to get a head start or something.

Christians going back under the Law.

Does it make them feel holy and righteous? Her son, who was a
friend, was also starting to get into it. He said to me one time
when I asked him about it, "Look at it this way, are you going to
worship the Father, or the sacrifice? Jesus was the sacrifice."
I stared at him in disbelief. And these were people that we had
met at church. A small, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, pure and
simple congregation. And now he was standing there, insulting
Christ.

He also quoted the passage where Jesus says, "Do not think
that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come
to abolish, but to fulfill." The friend then said that this meant,
Jesus came to live out the Law and promote it and that we
should too.

Not so! I shot back at him and said that he was twisting
Scripture. The first part is true, because the Law was still in
effect while Jesus lived, because He had not yet been sacrificed!
Then I said to him, "Fulfill means to complete. Jesus Christ
COMPLETED the Law."
And then I said, if God were to speak to you right now on this
topic, He might say something like this:
"Look at this BEAUTIFUL thing I have done. Look at what I have
COMPLETED. From start to finish."

It's true. The Law is still God's Law. It is just as true
today as it was then. BUT~ Jesus has taken the place for us. His
death cancels our sin and what we owe. God knew from the very
beginning that it was impossible for a human being to follow it
perfectly.

Jesus came to LIVE OUT and COMPLETE the Law. It is finished.
The rules have not changed. Our punishment has. We are
absolved through the shedding of His blood. He is the Lamb
without spot or blemish.



...don't denomination me.

Recently a friend & I went to this church to see a speaker. We both
wondered aloud what kind of church it was. I grabbed a bulletin,
and saw what kind of church we were in. My friend asked if that was
bad, I said, no, they're just off.

I got into it, explaining the
whole thing, and she kept going "sshhhh!"
I have a tendency to get a little bit worked up sometimes.

We ended up getting up & leaving, before the thing even began.
And we laughed the whole way back. It spawned the best
conversation ever, we talked about all things false and untrue
(my fave topic) and she had some really good points. We were
talking about salvation, how you can really tell what a church is
made of by finding out what they believe about it. Is it faith, or
works? She said, how greedy is it when people strive to earn
their salvation. I didn't get what she meant. She said, if it were
based on works, then people would have their own selves in
mind when they serve God, their own salvation, and their eye
would be on the reward in heaven. I never looked at it like that
before. She's right.

We were both brought up Catholic. Need I say more?

This is
what I was reading today:

Matthew 23:4~12
And they tie up heavy loads, and lay them on men's shoulders;
but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much
as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for
they broaden their phylacteries, and lengthen the tassels of their
garments. And they love the place of honor at banquets, and the
chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the
market places, and being called by men Rabbi. But do not be
called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your
Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called leaders; for
One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you
shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself shall be
humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
And this is Jesus Himself talking! How cool is that! He's all, get
off your high horse. Those called to leadership positions need to
do so in humility and reverence to God, and with no shady
motives.

I will not go to a church where the leaders exalt themselves as
kings. I will not go to a church where I am told to confess my sin
to another human being. I will not honor or pray to the mother
of our Lord. It appears that Mary was very humble. Very
little is mentioned about her. Even the angels in heaven refuse
to be honored, why then do we attempt to pray to or give honor
to a human?

So many denominations. Clubs for Christians, that's what they
are.

Give me His Word, and His Word alone. Give me a church that
says, ok, this is who we are. We love God, we believe and read
His Word. Come on in, let's worship Him together. Brother Zeke
will be doing the reading today, and Sister Eunice has a story to
tell. Claude! Get up here with your banjo, let's jam!
...or something like that.

Ephesians 2:8~9
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no
one should boast.

We serve Him because we love Him, and it's the right thing to
do. But salvation is an entire different thing. Thank God! This is
why ANYONE can come to Him, no matter where you're at in life.
He loves us all SO MUCH! In this cold dark messed up world, how
can you not want to receive His love? It's the only thing that will
never let you down, and it's big, and it's warm, and comforting,
and it's REAL. Don't tell me His grace isn't sufficient. I lived it.

I owe Him my life.



~*~

Ok so, that being said, this morning I woke up with the Satanic motto thing on my mind. What do you call it? A mantra? Whatever it is that they say to themselves all the time.

It is: "Do What Thou Wilt."

Their saying thing has educated me even more on my own faith. Thanks, Satan people.

If that's what the Horned One wants us to think, then the flipside is true with the Holy One.

But not to be confused with man-made religion.

When I feel myself getting all cattywompus and off balance, I'll ask Jesus in prayer, "please touch my head and align me, Lord. Please give me an alignment."

A balanced path, a fine-tune walk is what I aim for. Freedom, within His will. Boldness, within humility. Being the goofy soul He created me to be, within maturity and grace.

It's a beautiful day. I'm only on my first cup of tea, but I woke up a refreshed woman. I conked out hard due my little brain being so terribly overworked over the past few days. But today will be fun. My kid & I are going to spend it together. She's graduating high school in a couple weeks. I don't know how I'm going to survive the ceremony. I'll probably collapse. I can't believe she's all grown.

At least I have my betta. My little finned friend who needs me.



In '94 or '95, DeSoto held it's festival thing called Toad Holler Hoot. Yes. Yes, I know. I think they named it that because back in the day, there was an old school there called Toad Holler. Or something along those lines. So they named the town festival after it.

There was going to be pony rides, face painting, a bounce house. Three-legged sack races, raffles, corn dogs...

You know how those things go. All I know is, just the thought of that kind of thing makes me tired. I'd rather sit on the beach in the sun.

So we were living at my ex-husband's family's place. His grandmother was really involved in all sorts of town things, she took pictures for the newspaper and organized things and stuff.

At the Toad Holler festival that year, one of the events was going to be a Cow Pattie Toss.

Yup.

There were cows on the property where we lived. These cows, it was decided, were to be the contributors to this event.

And guess who the collector of the patties was.

All I know is, one day the grandmother came at me with some plastic bags, and told me what was going on. I politely obliged. I was living under her roof.

So Leah and I took our bags and headed for the pasture. We spent the afternoon searching for, and carefully collecting, cow dung. The stiffest things, they are. Round, and they look almost braided. It's weird. They were dried out at least, so the smell wasn't too bad. We collected all we could, careful not to break them.

I did not go to the festival.

I assume the happy townfolk enjoyed the fruits of my labors.

I never really claimed DeSoto as my own, although I moved there when I was 11. Oak Cliff will always and forever be my hood, and my true home.

I remember my last day at my house in Oak Cliff. It was built in 1907 (or 1903, I can't remember) and what stood out the most in my mind about it was the big fat white round columns that supported the front porch. On my last day there, I stood on the porch and wrapped my arms around one. I was hugging my house goodbye. I cried that day. It was the only home I had ever known.

To this day, in my mind, it's still the only place that was my real home. Nothing else counts, except for maybe the house we moved to in DeSoto, but that was where the chaos began. Home, to me, is so much more than where you live. It's also a place in my head.

This blog is going downhill. Sorry.



I constructed it in the fall of '88. It was an assignment in my design class at community college. We were told to "make a box".

Yes.

I can't tell you how hard and how fast the wheels starting turning in my head when I heard that. No other instructions were given. What a delight. Art instructors are beautiful and understanding people.

The first thing I did was spend some time in my dad's garage. I found a box. See the thing was, not to MAKE a box, but to start with a box, and do something with it. So I found a big sturdy cardboard box. I dumped it's previous contents on out onto the garage floor, turned it rightside up, and sat down and stared at it for a while.

After getting a feel for what I wanted to do, I got to work.

First, I duct taped the whole thing up tight, to where you couldn't see any flaps sticking up. Then I exacto'd a window in the center of one side. I painted the whole thing white, then threw sand from my little sister and brother's sandbox on it, for texture.

Next, I mounted it on four bamboo rods, which were actually two of my dad's fishing poles (or "canes" as he called them) broken in half. I didn't ask him. So now, it stood about 3 feet off the ground.

I stood back and sat down and stared at what I was creating. It was looking good. Now it was time for the scene, the things I wanted to place inside, so that when you looked in through the window, you'd see something really interesting. I filled the bottom with dirt, sprayed down with glue fixative. Then I stole the pirhanna out of my little brother's room, it was a real one, all dried up and preserved somehow. I ran fishing line through it and strung it up so that it hung from the top. I then cut the black leather strap off of my Twilight Zone watch, and laid the face of the watch in the dirt, sort of leaning over. Last but not least: I went to the craft store, in search of the final touch. I walked the aisles in hopes of finding the perfect item to complete my project. Nothing suited me, nothing fit the mood. That is, until I found myself down the bridal aisle.

Of all places, this is where I found what I was looking for, but didn't know it: a cake decoration, the little plastic bride and groom, standing together, that goes atop a wedding cake.

I stood the plastic couple up inside, right under the pirhanna, and beside the Twilight Zone watch, that I made sure was all wound up and with a new battery, so one could hear it ticking , if they listened closely. I was satisfied. It was a masterpiece. It said so much. It was eerie, and deep. It had a spiritual feel to it.

I brought it to class, and all of us students got to set up our boxes out in the hallway, for an "art show". The instructor went and inspected each of them, one by one, and when he came to mine, he stood still for a long time, quiet, just staring at it. He asked me what it represented. I told him I didn't know, but it had to do with danger, and waiting. The thin bamboo legs made me think of no real solid ground, and the watch gave me a sense of folded and stretched out time. Do you know what I mean? Can you look back on your years and view it all in a lump, events and phases all folded up together, and then zoom way out, and think

nevermind


He liked it. He asked if he could keep it.


My little brother noticed his pirhanna missing. I do feel bad about that. But it was fair, seeing as how he undid the lid to the lava lamp I bestowed upon him, it was like my heritage, and I asked him to take good care of it, but instead he somehow got the top off and played with all the goo inside and ruined it.


It came from a garage sale down the street. It stood about four feet tall and was made out of plastic. A penguin it was, white and blue. It's tummy opened up to reveal two shelves inside. I think it was originally a part of somebody's pretend kitchen set or something. I loved it.

I guess I was about 7 or 8 when I got it. I remember the day I put it in my room. I sat there on my golden shag carpet and stared it down. I felt a strange new feeling well up inside me: independence.

Yes. I began to feel like a grown up before I even put anything inside of it. I sat there on my floor and stared at the empty shelves, imagining how the items I chose from the real kitchen would look inside of my Penguin Refridgerator.

I waited until after dinner, then made my move. Bread and cookies, peanut butter and jelly. Boxed raisins. An apple, maybe.

I decided on that day that I was only going to eat in my own room from that point on. I was a free agent.

But not for long. My mother discovered the missing food the next day and made me put it all back. But I remembered the feeling of having my own food, and my own appliance.

To this day I feel like my own hero when I have these things. In some ways, I never grew up. I used to think some of my former boyfriends were true showcases of arrested development, but the older I get, the more I realize how many things in life I continue to view through a child's eyes. I don't mean to. It just happens.

I still sit on the floor each morning to get ready, like I did when I was in high school. My makeup and hair things sit in little ceramic containers that surround the big mirror that stands in the corner. I've always done that, you can move around that way. My mom sits at her vanity dresser that she's had since she was a teen, I guess it makes her feel special or something, but I can't bring myself to sit still for an hour each morning.

I still like sleeping on the floor. I still find myself intimidated by money, making big and important purchases, and big tall men. I'm almost 40. I don't see myself changing anytime soon. I think I might be permanently seared into the same mindset I had when I was 18.

Actually come to think of it, that could very much be the case with me, psychologically, all things considered. But that's another blog.


Was it '88? or '87?

I think it was '87. Yes. Yes it was. I was not yet 18. I was working at a pizza place. (not the one where I thought a pineapple pizza only had one chunk of pineapple on it, because one chunk weighed the right amount for one topping on a large pizza, according to the scale, and the Diabolical Chart on the wall that I was told NEVER TO STRAY FROM NO MATTER WHAT, and once said pizza came out of the oven, it was promptly spotted by the angry little managerial woman operating the other end with the big spatula thing, scooped up, and thrown into trash, while I was informed: G-D- AMY, IF I HAVE TO THROW AWAY ONE MORE PIZZA BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU'RE FIRED...)

No, it was a different pizza place. I quit the other one on my own, no need to stand around much longer and wait to be fired. That woman hated me. On the first day, she walked up to me, grabbed the edge of my Rolling Stones concert shirt that I had paid good money for, shook her head and said, What makes you think you can dress like this up here? You have no sleeves.

No, I didn't have sleeves. But nobody told me otherwise. So again, it wasn't that pizza place. It was this one, where I was told to hokey.

It was my first day. I was nervous. I was already struggling with my usual mental block that quickly formed upon learning the new registers, so my mind was already compromised when he said it.

The manager. A married man whose young wife would come up, hauling her kids along, and sit down and eat with him each day. I always observed them. I wondered, is he making her do this? Or is he deep down embarrassed that she's here?

We never bothered my dad at work. We stayed in our world while he went to his.

Other families have been fascinating me for as long as I can remember.

But back to the hokey. The manager was leaving for the night, and told me, You did a good job today Amy. All I need you to do before leaving is hokey. See you in the morning.

I stood there, nodded and smiled.

I thought I knew what he meant. I assumed "hokey" was pizza-place language for "hurry", or "put a little spring in your step!"

Isn't that what it sounds like?

So I was proud of myself that night as I closed the shop with a few other people, the kitchen guys did their thing and I did mine. I hokeyed really well. I got everything done quickly. I straightened the chairs, wiped down the tables, you name it, I at least looked at it.

I left that night thinking, I "hokeyed".

Well, as it turns out, "hokey" is not slang for anything. Come to find out, it's a real thing. A hokey is that little hand broom thing that looks like a vaccuum that somebody forgot to finish building. I found all this out the next day when I got there. The first thing the manager said to me was, "Amy, do you remember what I asked you to do before leaving last night?" I said yes, and smiled.

I remember this conversation. I remember the look on his face when I stood there and smiled. His eyebrows went up and he looked half annoyed/half quizzical. He said, "Well.... why didn't you do it?"

I told him I did, and I did it well. I told him I hokeyed.

He looked down on the floor, in both directions, and all around. He told me that he could tell with his own eyes that I did not hokey.

I wondered how he knew whether or not I hurried as I was cleaning. And I began to wonder, how can this matter? This went on for a minute or two. A big misunderstanding began to form like storm clouds, like it always did, while I was on the clock somewhere.

I have a whole string of these types of things in my memory bank, believe me.

So we went back and forth, me stating that I did in fact hokey, and he thinking me to be a liar, as he could plainly see that his shop had not been hokeyed.

The frustration to this conversation mounted until the once pleasant manager shook his head and said to me, "AMY- COME WITH ME."

I followed him down the hallway and watched as he opened up a little closet door. He impatiently reached inside and grabbed a little gray pole and pulled it out. He slammed this contraption down in front of me. He said, "THIS" (making sweeping movements with it) ... "THIS IS A HOKEY. "


I was shocked. The clouds cleared, and I realized at once the misunderstanding. I began to laugh uncontrollably and had to cross my legs and hold my tummy so I wouldn't pee my pants.

The manager did not laugh. I was beet red and did not regain my composure for the rest of the day. Actually I ended up quitting the next day.

I know this probably isn't that funny. But it's early and I'm not even done with my first cup of tea. I had to get up way early just so my brain would be functioning on time this morning, I have to be at work early. So this is how I'm coping.

I'm not comfortable with the toilets these days. I miss the days where I could decide for myself when to flush. I don't like the whole, "I'm not flushing till you get up" thing. This really puts a damper on public restroom etiquette. And I sure don't like the feel of it, watching me. It's listening to me and feeling me.

It senses me.

I do not want the machines in my life to be intuitive. This is creepy. Like the microwave at my mother's apartment. It will not stop beeping until you come retrieve your cooked food. That thing had me trained like a puppy when I was living there. What's more, it told me to enjoy my meal. I'll enjoy my meal on my own terms, Microwave. Just shut up and cook my food.

My current enemy is the washing machine here. It refuses to release it's lid latch for several minutes AFTER it's done. It taunts me with it's steely grip on my freshly washed clothes. I hear the cycle finish, the spinning stops, the lights go off. I'm needing my clothes, I have to get ready. But the lid won't budge. Like the toilet, it's programmed to decide for me when the right time should be. I don't have time for this.

My car is not an appliance, but it also likes to engage me in battles for dominance: each morning, upon starting it up, it makes a painful wailing screeching sound that can probably be heard for miles around. It sounds as if it's undergoing an excorcism when I get in. Maybe it is.

I'm in a bad mood.


How many of these have I started out with, "when I was a stay-at-home mom"? Well, here's just one more.

We lived at my husband's family's place. The "yard" was actually lots of acres, but there was a treeline sort of way back from the house, it created somewhat of a yard. We pretty much stayed in front of the trees. Even my dog Jemma stayed within the boundaries that I showed her. When we first moved there, we looked into getting an electronic fence thing that would shock her, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. And nobody wanted to put a real fence up, it would be too much. So I just looked at Jemma one day and told her, Come with me, stay by my side, I'm going to show you where you can go, and where you can't go. I really said that to her. Then I asked God to tell her what I said, in Dog Speak.

So we walked the perimeter of the place, front and back, and she stayed right by my side, occasionally looking up at me with such joy. She loved it there, she could run. As we walked, each time she stepped over the border that I decided in my mind, I said, NO!, and she put her ears back and quickly returned to my side.

Not once did my dog disobey me while we lived there. I could even open the door, front or back, and let her out on her own. I trusted her. She did her thing, snooped around, and came back to me.

But that's not what I got on to talk about. I'm trying to sleep, actually, but I can't. I'm thinking of the stepping stone path I made in that yard one time.

It was the summer of '96. I was frustrated. I remember feeling waves of anxiety come over me for no reason during that time, I was sensing something coming. I had no idea we'd be divorcing soon, but I sensed that time slowing down and coming to an end. I also sensed a storm brewing. I began to feel like a caged lion. Sometimes I would walk outside down by the treeline, just to feel like I went somewhere.

I got an idea. I began to create a walking trail that weaved in and out of the trees, just outside of the view from the patio. One could not be seen on my trail. I planted flowers alongside it here & there, ordering different varieties from mail order places. Then I started buying those round stepping stones, one by one. They were expensive to me, and it's not like I had any money to spare, but I did it anyway. I'd just get one here and one there, with leftover grocery store money each week. Actually there wasn't any leftover grocery store money. I just made sure there was.

By the end of the summer I had a real live walking trail, it started at one end of the yard, weaved its way in and out of the trees, old fruit trees that used to be an orchard at one time. My trail spanned quite some distance, but it never really went anywhere. The trees were in an arch- so my trail slowly led back up to the house.

Even though I felt independent and free and psuedo-adventurous when walking my woodsy trail, I always ended up back home.

Those stones are on my mind tonight. The more I say, the closer I feel to home. My clusters of words are like stepping stones.

I'm still not home, nor do I know where home is. In my real life, I still have no home of my own. Currently I'm sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of the bedroom I'm renting. My clothes sit on a shelving unit that serves as a dresser. I brought nothing with me.

Not even my curio cabinet. But only because it wouldn't fit in my car.


So, this is obviously something I should not bring up, and what a perfect day to do so. I just ate a cookie. My brain is happy. I ate said cookie to carry me through the next ten minutes.

The year was 2000. I was with someone who brought out the surly beast in me, and I don't mean that in a good way. Our relationship was milk carton material. That's not to say I would've been the one missing, either.

One night in particular hails in my Great Hall of Memories as the lowest of them all. We were on & off again for a few years, but on this night, or rather, upon waking the next morning, it dawned on me that we should probably be permanently off.

We had rented another cheap motel room and spent the evening and night drinking cheap liquor and playing cards. Yes. In our own little private chaotic world, that's what we did. On this night, I had a bit too much to drink, I sure did. Way too much. As in, a whole bottle of his bad stuff. Jack Daniel's? Something like that. As the night wore on, I got sick, and had to keep making trips to the bathroom to throw up. I'd get up, barf in potty, then swagger on back to his side. This went on and on until finally, like on my fifth trip in there, he hollered out, WHY DON'T YOU JUST SLEEP ON THE FLOOR, MAKE IT EASIER ON YOURSELF.

I was too drunk to realize that he was kidding. I honestly thought that was good advice. I remember this. Things get seared into my mind like you wouldn't believe, and even in this state, I recall standing there over the toilet, looking at the dirty motel bathroom floor. I knelt down, then laid down. I gently rested my head against the base of the toilet, closed my eyes, and that's all I remember.

I awoke to vomit in my hair and a foul odor that hovered over me. Shame is what I felt.

A few years before, in '98 or so, I remember crying to God in prayer, calling out to Him, saying, MY GOD, MY GOD, I AM RAVAGED WITH SIN.

I remember feeling that way. As if I had been stripped of my dignity, my spiritual flesh torn from my body, my pain showing through like broken bones poking through my skin.

It took me years to get out of that situation.


One day as I was driving down Wintergreen Road, I noticed a lone leather wallet laying in the middle of the street. Open, on it's back, helpless and abandoned, like a stuck turtle. I pulled over and got it. There was a driver's license inside, along with other things.

Just as anyone else would do, I went home, looked up the number, called the owner. He asked in a huffy tone, "WHO ARE YOU? ... and WHERE'S MY WALLET?"

um...

so I could tell he was mad. I told him, hey, it was on the road, and I have it here.

Then I gave him my address.

The doorbell rang about an hour later, and I, holding Leah on my hip, answered the door with a smile and handed him his wallet. He took it abruptly, opened it up, looked inside, and belted out at me,

"WHERE'S THE G- D- MONEY?"

I just stood there. I told him, there was no money inside.

He cussed a little more and turned around, got in his car, and drove off.

I don't think I ever told this one, because of what I did next:
I went and sat on the couch and cried.

Maybe it was my hormones, seeing as how Leah wasn't even a year old yet. Maybe it was his rudeness that set me off. Or maybe, my feelings were just plain hurt.

For some reason I've remembered him over the years. He must have been dingier than myself, cause think about it: who in their right mind would actually give their address to come pick something up that they themselves stole? Or took money from? Know what I'm saying?

I was a dumpy mom who sported leaky nipples with a butterball baby on my hip. I thought I was doing something good that day. But as it turns out, your intentions and who you are do not show on the outside. We're not transparent, as I once thought. If things like that matter so much to you, you have to show them who you are.



I was reading in the paper today about the physical fitness tests they're now forcing on the firefighters around here. I suppose that's so the city won't be sued to Kingdom Come when one collapses of a heat stoke while saving some senior citizen's life in a flaming nursing home?

If I were a firefighter I would be sorely offended, and I'd most likely grab my black rubber boots and my hat with a number on it, and take my services elsewhere. This makes me think of the teachers here in Texas, how certain folks got all bent out of shape last year because some of the teachers hadn't properly passed certain spur-of-the-moment exams, or something like that. I say, what's wrong with us? In today's public schools one must don a bulletproof vest in order to survive, and we want to come down on them for not always being Einsteins? How about a big fat bonus check for each and every public school teacher, a genuine thank you, and free counseling whenever needed so they can cope with our little brats on a daily basis while we're off earning the big bucks in our meaningless, greedy professions.

Not all of us, but some of us. I'm exempt from that offense, actually.

But back to the already stressed-out firefighters: my solution would be forced sleep for them. That's it. As in, no more working a day or two straight and having to worry about the bell going off and having to slide down the pole when you're just dozing off. I say they divide it into two shifts: Morning, and Night. Just like regular people. The Night people MUST sleep during the day, and the Morning people MUST sleep at night. This would eliminate the stress, fatigue, delerium, disorientation, and other psychological and physical problems the poor guys and gals are subjected to. The answer is, they just need to go to bed.

Same with this country's military people. Of course, this might not be realistic, so at the very least nobody should complain if these overworked souls go postal on us all. If we're not careful, one day soon the schools will be without teachers and the firehouses will have nothing inside except a lone, hungry dalmation sitting atop an abandoned engine, with one ear perked and a dry water bowl.
Posted by amy lohrman at 12:35 PM
random things that went wrong at work, that were NOT my fault: America's Most Wanted

In '02 or '03, I was working at a craft store again, and one day a new employee approached me, just out of the blue, and said in a low voice: "I know who you are."

I laughed, thinking some joke was coming. Then, she said it again, and with more seriousness.

I looked at her and laughed again. A strange one, I thought to myself, and said, oh really? Who am I?

She got all quiet, and she seemed tense. She looked down at the cash register, and then back at me.

She then informed me,

"I saw you on America's Most Wanted last night."



Yes.

She said that.


I died laughing, waiting for the punchline.

None came.

I just looked at her. She stood there, looking back at me.

It dawned on me, this chick was for real.

She then said, "You don't have to hide it from me."


I asked her, What on earth are you talking about? Are you serious?

As it turns out, she had seen an episode about some battered woman who was on the run. I think she did something bad to her boyfriend or something.

And apparently, I looked just like her.


I politely said, "You have the wrong person."

She responded, "You don't have to lie."

I was getting angry.

I told her again that it wasn't me, and she had me mistaken for someone else.

She stared me down. She knew she was right.

I could see that she was not going to take me at my word, so I said, I have already told you that it wasn't me. I'm not one to lie. Drop it.

She didn't drop it.

I won't repeat what all I said, but I told her what I thought of her, and that I was no liar, among other things.
I suppose I ended up proving myself one way or another, after a lengthy and exasperating defense.

She finally got it: she had made a mistake.

A minute passed. I continued to stand there. She stood there, all shifty and uncomfortable, as she should be.

Finally, she belted out with, "I'm going to the circus this weekend- want to come?"

Yep.

I was like, What?

First I'm a murderous femme on the run, and now you want me to go to the circus with you?

I told her no thank you, and walked away.

This one is a fun one to tell, at work. You know how you collect work stories over the years and file them away in your head, to pull out on a rainy day and share with your current coworkers?

That's what I do.

So although I never made a guest appearance on America's Most Wanted, I must admit, I secretly think that's pretty cool that she thought that about me.

I must be more dangerous than I think.


Random memory: 1999, being informed that I had to arrive at work 30 minutes earlier than I already was, to have Mrs. Texas' freshly juiced carrot juice ready for her. It wasn't everyday. Just a few times a week.

I was already arriving there early, in order to set up. I lived in Oak Cliff at the time, and had to have Leah at school in DeSoto each morning (I had to get her there early) so that I could be ready to open the smoothie bar on time~ 8:00 am, back in Oak Cliff. So mornings were already a logistical nightmare, but I managed to pull it off.

That is until a former Mrs. Texas decided that 8:00 am was not early enough for her, for she needed to be at HER destination on time, and could we open early on certain days, just for her? Oh and have her carrot juice ready?

She was already a Princess Customer, and now this. I remember overhearing her ask the manager if that was possible, and they said, certainly!

But of course! Amy won't mind! I answered back, um... you guys... it's already a challenge to get my daughter to school early, and then back here early, and now you want me to get here even earlier?

They did.

I don't remember how it all panned out, I might have rigged it to where I dropped Leah off at her dad's in the morning because the school wasn't open yet, so I could be back at my work AN HOUR before they opened.

And this was 1999. I was still a straggly mess from what just took place in my life. Divorcing, losing my little brother, falling into a relationship that made me question my sanity and being psychologically beaten to a pulp, borderline starving each day, living on whole milk and soup, and always making sure Leah had enough money on her lunch account to eat properly at school.

So I remember the first day I arrived earlier than early to prepare Mrs. Texas' morning happy sunshine carrot juice for her. I was angry. The woman had already ticked me off by commenting that I never smiled at her.

To me she represented the polar opposite of what I was, and what I was experiencing. I remember watching her pull up front the store in her white spiffy car and walking in like a Barbie doll.

So the first day, I got out all the stainless steel equipment, freshly sterilized, and grabbed a handful of organic carrots. I sliced the tops off each one with a heavy knife and a heavy soul. She didn't understand my plight. Why am I serving her? What am I doing here? Why am I chopping organic carrots when I should be at home, fixing oatmeal for my daughter?

I crammed each carrot, one by one, into the big industrial juicer, wishing they were being methodically crammed somewhere else.

I had her juice ready, after all was said and done. In she walked, just as I was pouring it into a cup. I remember looking up at her as I was placing the lid on, and she greeted me. I managed a faint smile.

I then overheard her mentioning to the manager that she was shocked, she actually saw a smile on my face.

I hated her.
But I remembered her.

Or not so much her, but how I reacted to her.

I was hurting and broke and stressed, she apparently wasn't. I was working hard and scraping to get by, she obviously was not. And I was serving her.

Was it envy I was experiencing? No, her lifestyle held no appeal in my book. It was resentment. My pride was hurt. That, and I lacked something crucial: a servant's heart.

I never knew much about that, at all, and just like everything else I've learned in my life, it started by me first realizing my great need. I never knew how selfish I was, until I became a mother, and I had to put another human being first. I never knew how prideful I was, until I had to scrape by for a living and serve others that I perceived to be more fortunate than myself. I never knew how vain I was until I realized, it was never about me, or my own life.

And I never knew how smart I was, until I started blogging.
(just kidding)


Sometime in the early 90's I decided to join up with a team of Christian women who operated an emergency call center, or crisis hotline, for pregnant women who were considering abortion. It was set up to minister to them and inform them of other options, provide contact information, comfort, counseling, encouragement, and whatever else they needed. I found out about this ministry and called them up and told them I was interested in joining. The woman on the other end told me that they are a team of women who had abortions themselves, most of them at least, and wanted to help other women not to make the same mistake.

I eagerly told her, I too had an abortion, in 1988, and I wanted to help.

She said, that wasn't too long ago.

I agreed.

She then asked if I had received any proper counseling for myself. I answered truthfully, that I tried, but never went back after the first session. It was too hard.

She then informed me, "I appreciate you calling, and we appreciate your interest in our ministry, but we are very careful not to hire women who might be seeking to minister out of their own pain."

I was silent.

I didn't understand what she meant at the time, but her words stuck with me.

Years later, I understood what she was talking about, and I was thankful that she turned me away.

Speaking and giving to others when you are still wounded is actually a selfish thing to do, it's just one more type of band-aid.

Speaking and giving to others out of a healed and restored heart, and a real desire to share truth, is the only way to go. It takes time.

I know there's people out there who think all of this has been an emotional outpouring that comes from some need to lick my wounds and show the world how hurt I've been, or am.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

My answers and the things I say now are simply what I believe to be right, and I say it with a smile. Hard words that come from me are what's necessary. They don't come from some dark, vindictive place.

My Maker has been vindicated through me to certain folks, just as He told me He would. I myself have no desire to be "vindicated".

I'm saying this because there is still confusion out there. When will the clouds clear? When will the sky be blue?

All you have to do is ask to see. I asked for eyes to see, and ears to hear. I asked for wisdom. I asked to be broken, and re-made. I got it. So can you.

Being a stay-at-home mom really gave me the time I needed to do things, such as, writing my own tracts and sending them anonymously to random addresses found in classified ads that were placed in the back of questionable magazines. One time I created a "tract", even though I had only been a Christian for a few years, still, I knew the basics and I had such passion flowing through my veins, I never understood it, I still don't. It seems like I've been doing this kind of thing, in one form or another, since the moment I got saved. I remember sitting on my bed one day at the age of 17, I had made copies of a Christian article, grabbed a stack of envelopes, not even knowing what I was going to do with it, but the passion thing just took over and I wanted to mushroom whatever message was given to me. On this day, I got down to the last article copy, and I noticed there was exactly one envelope left. I was surprised, seeing as how I had no idea how many copies I had made, nor did I know how many envelopes I had grabbed. These coincidences kept happening, and I began to see patterns and purpose in what I was doing. I didn't begin to tell anyone of the signs that were given to me until years later.

So about the tract I created. I made several hundred copies, stuffed them in envelopes, got the questionable addresses from the shady magazines, they were all ready to go, I was all set to save the world. Until it hit me: I didn't have any stamps. And each one required 2 stamps. And I had a few hundred or so to mail.

This is what I did. I didn't question anything. I closed my eyes, put my hands on the envelopes, and asked God to fund my mission. Then I went on with my day.

I don't know if it was later on that day, or that week, but soon after, my mom was going to Wal-Mart, and she invited me to come along with her, she wanted to buy me a bathing suit. I have no idea why. I was married, and the only place I ever went swimming was at my own house. Or, my ex-husband's house. I never viewed it as my own. (another blog entirely)

So I went to Wal-Mart and picked out a bathing suit and went into the dressing rooms to try it on. Wal-Mart has tons of dressing rooms to choose from, you go in and there's lots of curtain-covered rooms. I just walked down the hall and chose a random one, walked in, and guess what was all over the floor? In the one I just happened to choose?

Lots and lots of books of stamps. Yes. All over the place.

I bent down and picked them all up. It was treasure to me. I realized that I held in my hand enough stamps to mail my messages.

Normally I would have turned them in, but I knew that these were for me. Sometimes exceptions can be made, and this was one of those times. I took my stamps home and mailed all my tracts.

Did you know, this was one of my very first miracles, but I just remembered it today? It was included in my printed testimony, the one that just a handful of people have/had. People who know/knew I was blogging, and that I had/have memory problems.

I hinted last year that I was without it, and I'd like it, so that I could use it as an outline for what I was trying to do online.

But as it turns out, I did just fine without it.

Perhaps if I would have had it with me, maybe I would have simply copied it and blogged it, felt satisfied, and left all this alone.

But no, instead, God allowed me to go through darkness, and confusion, and being sidetracked, "garaged", hurt, depressed, lethargic, vindictive*, rambling, vague, vain, over-expressive, silly, creative, and serious.

I suppose this is who I am.

What you're looking at is my improved tract. I don't need to ask God for stamps to send this one.



*immature on occasion in order to prove a point. This is different from the big Vindication thing. That was never my own deal. But that's beside the point, and also pointless. But you don't know what I mean, and that's ok. I was thinking anyway, it's good that I'm confusing, it's like a filter. I wonder how many people have taken one look at my writings and quickly moved on? Probably lots. Probably, most of them. Which reminds me of a recent vision: people walking away from me, who had just viewed me, but did a double-take and looked back, realizing.

realizing.

Yeah that's right. I was speaking truth all along.

I'll just leave it at that, before I get in trouble for saying something I shouldn't.


So I had seen a tract at a Christian bookstore that described one man's experience with death, and hell, coming back, and now he was telling his tale. I was deeply moved and I had to make sure everyone else knew about his story too. So I ordered a huge bulk quantity of these tracts- boxes upon boxes full of them- and when they arrived, I began a littering mission like no other.

One evening as we pulled up to a gas station so my ex could get some cigarrettes, I sat in the car and thumbed through my stack of tracts. He was taking me littering. So while he was inside, a car pulled up alongside ours, and I saw that there were two young guys inside. I glanced over at them and decided that they needed to be informed of the man's hell ordeal. I grabbed two tracts and stepped out of the car, but when I did, they were pulling back out. I guess they changed their mind. When I first saw them, they were pulling in, and the windows were down. When I was out of my car, their windows were going up and they were pulling back out. It all happened so fast: I stood there, and they looked over at me. They stopped. My adrenaline surged thru me and I just did it. I walked up to the car and without thinking twice, inserted two tracts through the barely cracked open window, and watched them fall onto the guy's lap. I smiled. They looked at me and smiled, but they didn't know what I dropped in there. Just then, Tommy came back out, saw me standing there, and saw the two guys looking at me. They saw him and drove off. Tommy looked at me and said in his dry wit, "so I take it you got 'em, Amy?"

Yes. I did.

Poor Tommy. He had to put up with so much. I cause trouble, but never on purpose. Even when I'm minding my own business, trouble just happens. Stuff is stirred up. He tells a funny story about one of our very first dates- it was 1989, at Denny's. The one over by Red Bird Mall. We walked in and were waiting to be seated, when we noticed a drunken burly man dressed in black leather, sitting at the bar, staring me down. Tommy made eye contact with him, but the man didn't stop looking. I looked away, then back again, and he was still looking. Tommy finally said, "Excuse me sir, would you please stop looking at my girlfriend?"

The man said bluntly, "No."

I tried to surpress laughter. Tommy looked again at the man and then down at the floor, then said, "Ok."

I guess he decided this one wasn't worth it.

His sense of humor saved his sanity, I believe, when he was married to me.

This comes to mind today as I ponder my life, and where I'm heading. I've learned so much. I've learned what it takes in a man to be with me. I love so many different types, I fall for guys faster than the weather changes here in Texas. But I keep my distance for reasons known only to me. It's ok if they mistake me for being closed, or a snob, or overly picky. It's none of those. The truth is, the man I end up with MUST have certain qualities, or he'll never survive, with me. The main one of course is a sense of humor, but confidence and understanding are required too. Not to mention, he must also not be afraid to kick some ass when necessary.

I know he's out there.

This really happened, it was a conversation between my little sister & I a little over a year ago. It was so funny when we realized the misunderstanding that we were crying, and I had to call my dad and tell him, and he started laughing so hard, saying, Ya'll have GOT to re-create that and record it. And he's told everybody he knows about it. Here's what happened. I called my sis to see how her husband did at the deer lease that weekend.

Here's what was said:

(sis) Oh, yeah, they did alright, they got 29 does, he's on his way home, I think we're going out to eat tonight...

(me) 29????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

(sis) ..uh, yeah? What?

(me) 29? Did you really say 29?

(sis) yeah...

(me) WHERE ARE THEY ALL???

(sis) they're on ice & they're on their way home! What's the big deal??

(me) Does Daddy know about this?

(sis) no, I haven't talked to him yet, but ...

(me) HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND? You grew up in the same family as me, and never in my life have I heard of ANYTHING like that.

(sis) I just don't know why you're making such a big deal about it.




(silence)





(me processing)




(the whole thing was like, 5 minutes, but I'm condensing it here...)



(me) NEVER HAS ANYONE IN OUR FAMILY GOTTEN 29 DOES AT ONE TIME, AND I DON'T SEE HOW THEY ARE ALL FITTING IN THE TRUCK.


(sis) WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT DOES???? I SAID DOVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S DOVE SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



(from that point on the both of us were rolling, crying with laughter, shaking, me almost wetting my pants, both of us going back and forth, saying how mad we were starting to make the other...)


If this isn't funny to you then you just had to be there.

I used to like to play Robin Hood. When I was a teen. With my dad's belongings. Here's one of my botched attempts.

After we moved from Oak Cliff, my dad continued to own our old house and rent it out, he didn't sell it until just a few years ago. There was a garage apartment out back, an old beat up one that no longer exists. That's where Pam lived, back when we were kids. (another blog entirely)

So in the 80's, for a short period of time, some man rented out the garage apartment. I'd caught glimpses of him before, he was thin, tall, and scraggly. I overheard my dad talking about him on occasion and I figured out, the renter had some problems. All sorts of problems.

So one day when I was about 18 I decided to help this man. I got a Bible, and some food. But I didn't stop there. I went into my dad's bathroom drawers and raided them: toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, soap...

socks, towels, canned goods from the pantry...

combs, vitamins...

Yes. I loaded up several boxes of pillaged items from my own home, put them into the trunk of my car under the cover of darkness, told my parents I was going to a friend's house. Then I drove to Oak Cliff.

I pulled up into my old driveway. His car was there. I snuck out of my car, popped the trunk, and

And was overcome with fear.

And it hit me: What if this man questioned these things, and told my dad? I hadn't considered this yet. What if he showed them to my dad? Another thing I didn't think of. What if my dad noticed his things missing?

I stood there in the driveway, looking at my loot. I was conflicted and torn. The Robin Hood in me was urging me to carry the boxes up the stairs to the garage apartment and leave them there, as planned. The intimidated daughter in me urged me to turn around, go back home, and return my father's belongings to their rightful places and their rightful owner.

I remember standing there in the moonlight. I glanced over my shoulder at the street I used to play on. I remembered popping tar bubbles with a stick and learning to ride my bike.

I never made up my mind. I didn't carry the boxes up the stairs, nor did I bring them back home. Know what I did? I took each box, dumped it out into the gravel driveway into a pile, then turned around and drove home.

My walk has been smattered with botched and compromised attempts at good deeds, ever since.

Sorry.

It doesn't matter what's said to me or about me, and it doesn't matter how one "retalliates". It doesn't matter how many pages or profiles are set up to attract me, trick me, deceive me. It doesn't matter how many false fronts are put up. Nothing matters.

For one thing, and I think I already mentioned this, I don't "click here!" when invited to do so. I don't check out tags that match mine. I don't go look at who left that comment. I've been honest about my intentions all along- I'm not here to be fed. I'm here to feed. I choose to communicate directly now, anyone can reach me anytime via email. I may or may not respond directly though, depending on what's said to me.

What's made me this way? Well, I get by with a little help from my friends. Someone taught me to be this way. Thank you, again. How many times have I thanked you now, and for how many things? With a sincere heart, at that.

I have yet to receive my thank you in return, and there's a chance I never will. Maybe that's why I got to see it in a vision. A clean white shirt was worn. That's beautiful, and that makes me happy. This is why nothing matters what's said or done in the meantime. It's all leading up to that moment of realization, and in that moment, that person will understand what happened.

I will never say "you're welcome" in real life, there is no desire whatsoever to communicate ever again on my part. But in the spirit, I will hug you.

God said to me one time, "There are no shortcuts with Me."

He has not given me any shortcuts to learning on this planet, everything has been learned and accomplished the hard way. You cannot jump over the fence to the pasture, you have to enter in through the gate. You cannot behave Christian, your heart must be aligned first. You cannot appear to have great intelligence, you have to experience things and be broken to gain real wisdom. You cannot feign love. Love will not be mocked.

Here's something I wrote sometime last year...

the long dark corral

This is the very first prophetic dream I ever had. I became a Christian at 17, and it didn't take long for the dreams to start pouring in my little head. I think I was 17 or 18 when I had this one...
I found myself in a long dark tunnel, it seemed to have no end. It was very narrow- only wide enough for one person- and it was totally enclosed. I began to run, faster and faster, with no end in sight...it was very frightening...and then I realized that there were people running behind me. Not chasing me, but following me! As in, I was leading the way! Crazy! We all run faster and faster, and then I realize that we are in a corral....hurdles start appearing, and so now we are not only running as fast as we can, but now we all must leap over these hurdles, in the dark...
There was a sense of urgency and fear, and I knew we must find the exit, we must make it to the end. Finally, as I'm running, I begin to see a small light at the end, and as I get closer, it gets bigger...we all up our pace and make it to the exit...and just as we are all about to be free, a huge bull thrusts his head into the exit! It was not your ordinary bull, either. It was huge. It had horns like you wouldn't believe. And glowing red eyes. It was pure evil, and it was angry, and it snorted and did that thing with it's hoof....like it was about to charge at me. I was terrified, but there were all these people behind me waiting to get out, and we had come so far, and through such darkness, and all the obstacles.....
So I stood my ground and began to pray. I held up my hand in the bull's face, and began to say the Lord's Prayer. As I did, the bull diminished in size, until it was just a weak little critter on the ground! I was amazed! But no time to be amazed...I had to finish...
I stood there at the side of the exit, still holding my hand in the direction of the bull, still praying, continually, and all the people began to exit, one by one, they were set free...

...they were set free......"



About a week before my seizures began in the fall of '06, I had a very disturbing vision, and this will be the first time I've ever told anyone about it, cause it was just THAT freaky. I saw an eye, and it appeared to be the eye of an animal, it was right up close to my face, peering into my head. I watched as the eye slowly looked from left to right, scanning my brain, then back again to the left, where it focused it's gaze for about a minute. I was frozen, all I could do is watch. I sensed evil, but the strange thing was, it was a large animal's eye. It was investigating my head, and I sensed it was looking for "an opening", or a weak spot, or something...
It crossed my mind at that time that it could be an eye of a bull. THE bull. But the concept of it was too frightening, so I dismissed it. Now that enough time has passed, it no longer frightens me to talk about it. The eye seemed fixated on the left half of my brain. And as it turns out, the left side is my problem side. (don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about. Haven't we already been over this??)
What I'm saying is, yes, it's obvious this past year or two has been a real trial, a real test. But as it turns out, this has been my long dark corral as well, and the "bull" began to manifest itself in a variety of ways, starting back in '05 when I first started sharing my testimony.
I always assumed the corral dream referred to my life in general, I had no idea it was a true-to-life ordeal to come, and furthermore, I have been awaiting one single event, one single showdown with the "bull", not a series of events.
People, the enemy can and will manifest himself in a variety of ways in your life. It's never limited to one single battle. Look in places that you least expect. Look into the areas of your life that you think are solid. Look under things. Look under rocks, even. Be curious. It's fun!
I always assumed that a confrontation with the enemy involved direct opposition, fear, etc.
Now I understand, it also comes in the form of more subtle attacks, such as depression, lethargy, and timidity, and confusion. The enemy has done all he can to keep me useless during this time. All this writing has been a struggle. I've been on a personal quest to get out of the tunnel, out of the corral, all this time. I've been running, seeking, searching, only being given just enough light for the next hurdle to overcome. So many obstacles have been placed before me.
I want to come clean and tell the truth about some things. I'm a soul winner. I won't say how many so far, cause then it would ruin everything. I do things in an underhanded fashion. God equips me with the tools I need with each individual "case", and I will not stop until the battle is won. I will never stop. It's my mission, my passion and my joy.
Boys, I love you all. But don't be fooled any longer by my sweet smile. There's a reason behind it.
The method to my madness? Being humble and listening to God. It's all about Him. Nothing on this planet means diddly squat to me. I am still running, although just recently set free from the long dark tunnel- I will never stop. I am running home.
You can try and stop me. You can ridicule me if it makes you feel better. Insult me, try to harness my gifts, pollute my mind... It's old news to me. I'm used to it. You will not win.
I speak to many people. You know who you are. Guess what! Smile! You've been taken...
...by the dingiest li'l blonde airhead this side of the Rio Grande.

And that's all I gotta say. Oh! One more thing-



...nevermind.

well ok wait. Just so you know. I am well aware of some people saying, "her brain was infected, that's where her "visions" are coming from..."
Well then, how would you explain the fact that the visions began all the way back in 1992? Or- "she's creative, an artist, quite the imagination-"
No. I have no desire to invent fantasy, especially if it has to do with my Maker. Another thing- I never wanted to get on Myspace, to be honest with you. When I got sick, and had the mental capacity of an eggplant for a while, my mother went out and purchased this laptop. I had already donated my own computer back in '06, wanting nothing to do with electronic communication ever again, I hate it. But no. Not only did she get a laptop and insist I get back online "to stay connected", but in a prayer, God said to me, "Tell them who you are."
I never questioned it. So there you have it. This is who I am. Ok? What's it to you, anyway?
I am a dead man walking. I make no claims to this life. I am not my own. I did not get on here and expose myself in order to draw attention to myself. I did it because I was told to share.
You can sift thru it all and get what you want out of it, like picking chocolate chips out of a big bowl of cookie dough. Do what you want with the contents of my head. I don't care.

...


Ok so now, fast-forward up to the present. Last night I dreamed this: (as in last night, 5/16/09)

I saw the bull again. But this time it was in a large wooden crate, as if a sideshow attraction. There were people gathered around it, looking at it through the slats in the crate. I approached it to take a closer look, why is this animal on display?

As I walked near to the crate, the bull caught my eye. He saw me, and pressed his body against the side of his crate, and peered at me through the slats. I moved a few feet over, and so did he, his gaze fixed on me. It zoomed-in and focused on his eye, which I recognized.

No longer was this creature able to harm me, it was caged. I saw it for what it was. But why was it a sideshow attraction?

I said something, and just then, the bull repeated what I said. Just as a parrot would. I was startled, and said something again. The bull copied me again, in a shrill, mocking voice. Everything I said was repeated by this animal. I wasn't offended, rather, I had pity on it.

The word "emulating" comes to mind.

I googled it. The main definition is:
"strive to equal or match, especially by imitating"


~*~

What I have perceived as mocking, during the "creepy" parts of my journey, has been, in reality, an attempt at copying.

"He understands and respects you, but I did not create him to be like you."

This is a word I received after sharing my testimony with someone back in '05, and it puzzled me to hear it, seeing as how the thought never even crossed my mind that we were anything alike. As it turned out, the message was for him.

To a man who has listening ears, that would have been enough when it was first spoken. To a dense man who operates in the flesh, that message would have been ignored.

Another creative project during my stay-at-home years was a book idea. I wanted to collect interesting memories and bits of wisdom from old people and fill up a book with it all. Leah & I would visit the nursing home and just sit and visit and talk to some of the residents, and I'd tell them about my idea, and I'd ask them, can I ask you what memory stands out the most in your life? Or, what have you learned is most important? And things like that. They loved it. And I got some really good golden nuggets of wisdom out of them for my book. But of course I ended up abandoning the project eventually.

So one day during this time, I was going into the post office, when lo and behold, there was my grandfather (the stiff) in the parking lot, walking to his van. He didn't live in that town but he had cows on a ranch nearby, so for some reason he had a p.o. box there. So Leah & I went up to him and I called out, Grampaw! Hi! It's me, how are you?? He stood there and with a blank face informed me that he was picking up his mail. I said to him, can I ask you something? And I told him all about my book project. I then asked him if he would tell me his favorite memory. He shook his head no and got in his van and drove off.

I stood there in the post office parking lot, holding my daughter's hand, watching him drive away, and I understood more about why my own father is the way he is, or, was the way he was.

It was a beautiful day, I remember that. I remember the bright blue sky and the puffy clouds. I really do. I looked at the sky and thought, I'll just go back to the nursing home today.

And so I did. And just as I was walking in, I heard a weak voice call out to me from across the room, "You! You! Come over here and hold my hand. Come here!"

I looked, and it was coming from a little old black woman, all crumpled up in her wheelchair. I approached her and greeted her, and she grabbed my hand, shut her eyes, clasped her other hand on top of mine, and began praying. Tears were streaming down her face. She shook her head, eyes still closed, and proclaimed:

"OH HONEY. OH HONEY. HE IS REALLY GONNA BLESS YOU. HE IS REALLY GONNA BLESS YOU ONE DAY. OH HONEY. IS HE EVER GONNA BLESS YOU...."

I was filled with joy and I started to laugh. Her hand was warm and my hand was still captured in her grip. I let her hold on to it for as long as she wanted. What a beautiful woman she was. What a gorgeous sight to behold. That woman was so radiant and had so much peace, it seemed that each line on her face pointed to her Maker.

I remember her words, and I believe them.

I've been meaning to do a little ditty on this ever since I started blogging, and in fact I think I already did, but that was back before I learned how to lock myself out of a blog so I would be forced to leave it alone and not change my mind and delete everything. So I've already told this one but it no longer exists. So here I go again.

I guess it was sometime in the mid-90's. I was over at my dad's, and I saw in the paper a recepie for cookies for dogs. You made them out of liver. We were/still are a big dog family, and my beloved pooch, Jemma, was the receipent of much affection and devotion from me. She was my second child. So I showed the recepie to my dad, and he told me he had not only deer liver in the deep freeze but also a frozen deer heart. He fished them out of there and put them into a plastic bag and said, You're going to make those dog cookies? Why don't you go make them over at your mother's house.

I didn't question him, it never crossed my mind as to why he suggested that. They had just recently divorced. I could have made them at my own house of course but I didn't want to go home, I was still a stay-at-home-mom and I was just spending time with my own people that day.

Just filling you in as to why a grown woman was using her parent's kitchen to "cook" that day.

So I go over to my mom's house, nobody was home. I proceeded to create my dog cookies. Preheated the oven, defrosted the deer organs. Got out the flour, eggs, and seasoning. And the blender. Yes. I noticed that the recepie called for a blender.

I took it step-by-step, first cracking the eggs into the blender, followed by milk, seasoning, and flour. Then I inserted the defrosted liver along with the heart. I placed the lid on, and hit "puree". Next thing you know, utter chaos was reigning in my mother's kitchen, the blender making a horrible screeching sound, the blender lid flying off, and the contents of the blender went splattering and flying literally all over my mother's kitchen. It all happened so fast. It took me a minute to realize what was happening and unplug the cord. But it was too late. Her kitchen was splattered in a deep mauve coating, and I noticed the smell. It was rank. I began to get suspicious of my father at that moment in time. I began to wonder if he knew about liver smelling bad, and sent me over to my mom's on purpose. I had never made, or tasted, or even smelled liver before that day. Maybe it was due to my sheltered upbringing.

Although my mom's kitchen was covered in deer entrails, I noticed there was still some batter remaining in the blender. Just enough for a few cookies maybe. So before cleaning it all up, I poured what remained into a glass baking dish, a thin layer. Just enough for my Jemma, sweetest dog in the world!

Once the cookies were in the oven, I stood in the kitchen and looked around me. Where to begin? And how? Just then the doorbell rang. It was my mother's friend, Judy. She came in and wrinkled up her nose and said, What's that smell? I showed her the kitchen. I remember she and I standing there, and I remember the look of sheer wonder on her face. She said, what happened? What is this?

I told her what I was making. She said, you mean to tell me, this is liver and heart in here? On the cabinets, and on the ceiling?

I nodded.

She looked at me and said, did you know your mother is having her friends over tonight?

As it turned out, Judy told my mom she'd get there early, before my mom got home from work, to help clean the house. She just had no idea what she'd be cleaning.

She turned to me and took the Lord's Name in vain, then said, alright, let's get to work. Next thing you know, under Judy's direction, I'm wearing yellow rubber gloves and scrubbing while she was disinfecting. It was a complicated process. After a few minutes of this she said, Has the smell gotten even worse in here? I pointed to the oven and told her that I went ahead and baked what was left. She lost it. She opened the oven door, got a whiff, and said, You better be glad I'm here, this smells to high heaven, and your mother is not going to be pleased. At all.

The smell was increasing and I must admit, it was horrible. It began to permeate throughout the entire house. I opened the patio door and continued my cleanup job, all the while listening to Judy say things about how my mom was on her way home, and how mad she'd be.

Well, it happened. I'm almost done scrubbing, Judy was almost done with the disinfecting (I think she used Lysol), when in my mom walked. She came in through the garage and I could hear her all the way across the house: WHAT IS THAT TERRIBLE SMELL????


There was no time to defend myself. No time. The following moments were a maternal nightmare, my mom panicking and at the same time, grilling me, saying things like, YOU MADE WHAT OVER HERE?? and YOU DID THIS WITH THE BLENDER?? and then the worst part: YOU'RE COOKING LIVER IN MY OVEN?? I HAVE PEOPLE COMING OVER! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MY HOUSE? HOW COULD YOU COOK LIVER IN MY KITCHEN WHEN MY FRIENDS ARE COMING OVER???

this went on and on. She was really stressed. She got like that sometimes.

Judy tried to calm her down and acted like she had done most of the cleanup, and not to worry, we'll have the smell gone in no time. My mom turned off the oven and slammed my creation down on the stovetop, then outside on the patio, shaking her head the entire time. I started to think it was funny.

I don't remember the rest, like how long I stayed, and if the smell disappeared before her get-together. What I do know is, I called my dad that evening once I got home, and told him I made the cookies, and what happened. All I could hear on the other end was him laughing.

Jemma loved her cookies. And I learned that liver is disgusting. I haven't gone near it since.


When I was a stay-at-home-mom, sometimes I got bored. One day I decided to make some food for a homeless man who lingered under a bridge, it was at I-20 & Hampton. That seemed to be a hot spot for beggars for some reason. I had seen this man several times, so I figured I should help him out. I made him a sandwich, and put it in a plastic bag, along with some cookies, a cold drink, and a tupperware container filled to the brim with hamburger helper. And also a fork, a real one. And a napkin. And a Bible.

I went and picked up my little brother and got him to go with me, looking for him. He was nowhere to be found at first, but after driving up and down the street and looking carefully several times, we spotted him. I made a quick u-turn, pulled over to the side of the road, and flagged him down. He cautiously approached the car and I handed him his lunch. He looked suspiciously at me, then into the bag, then thanked me, and walked away. He didn't even smile.

So later on that night, it hit me: he had no way to read his Bible! If he lives under a bridge, and since he spends his days begging, the only time to read would be at night, and there's a good chance he had no light. So I sat up and told Tommy that we needed to go buy a flashlight and give it to a homeless man.

Tommy was quiet for a moment, then said, Amy, what did you do this time?

I told him about me & Joe feeding this man, and how I gave him a Bible, but he had no way to read it. Tommy mumbled something negative and tried to go back to sleep, and I'm not sure how it all panned out, but within minutes we were in the car, Leah sleeping in the back, heading to the grocery store so I could go in and purchase a flashlight. And batteries, just in case.

So once this was taken care of, Tommy asked, where is this man? I told him which underpass. He was in a really bad mood that night. A few go-rounds under the bridge and viola! I saw him!

I told Tommy, THERE HE IS!!!! So we pulled over and Tommy rolled down the window and yelled out at the poor man, who was staring at us. I think he recognized the car. Tommy said, hey, did my wife give you a Bible today? The scruffy fellow peered into the car and looked at me, smiled, and nodded. Finally, a smile! I smiled back and waved.

Tommy grumbled something mean under his breath and then said to the man, Here's a flashlight so you can read at night. My wife seems to think you need one. The man looked puzzled, took it, along with the batteries, said nothing, and walked away. Tommy was still not amused but I was giddy all the way home.

I sometimes wonder what happened next. Did the man ever read the Bible at night, with the flashlight? I pictured him in my mind, sitting up high on the concrete, way up high underneath the bridge, leaning against a concrete column maybe, taking in all of John's visions in Revelation and getting inspired and turned on to life once more.

This is how my other grandfather died. Not Grampa Jones, who put a bullet thru his head to end it all. No, this is my other one. I haven't said much about him because he was relatively normal.

He didn't talk much, except to tell you to get out of the way if you were blocking his view of the tv. He was a beer-slugging German. He even poured beer on whatever he was cooking, which was just some form of meat. It never failed, each time I'd walk into his house, the place smelled of pot roast, and there he stood over a pot in the kitchen, vaguely acknowledging my presence while he poured part of his beer on whatever he was cooking. It always smelled the same.

One time me and my cousin Sonny sat at the table and made small talk with him, but the only response we got from him was a loud burp followed by a lengthy fart. Sonny and I turned beet red as we tried our hardest to keep our laughter in, but Grampaw saw it, and belted out angrily: THAT'S CONSIDERED A COMPLIMENT IN GERMANY. IT SHOWS APPRECIATION OF YOUR MEAL.

That did it. Sonny and I lost it, tears streaming down our faces, dying with laughter. So I just wanted to tell you what it was like when he died.

Just weeks before, Leah and I were talking about my grandparents, we were going to visit them one day and Leah rolled her eyes and sighed. She didn't want to go. I told her, Leah, they don't have much longer to live. They could die anytime. My sweet daughter replied, Mommy, you keep saying that, but they never do.

So a few weeks after that, it happened. At least for one of them. One of my sisters called me one day in '02, telling me Grampaw had died. I called my dad, who said to come on over to my grandparent's house, we were all going to meet over there while waiting for the body donation people to come pick him up. I said, You mean Grampaw is still home? Yes, he was. He was in his favorite chair, actually. I asked how he died, and it was very uneventful. He had gotten up in the middle of the night as always because he couldn't sleep, sat in his chair and turned on the tv. When my grandmother got up in the morning, she thought he was asleep, so she didn't disturb him, but as the day rolled on, she began to get suspicious. Eventually she realized he was dead.

So my aunt called the body pickup folks (he donated himself to science) and all of us cousins, aunts and uncles ended up over there to pay our last respects. It was weird. My dad, who's the oldest of six and who looks just like his father, turned it into a party. It morphed into a wake. He went and got chips and dip and cake and we all stood around and laughed. Well not all of us. Just me and my cousins. The aunts were crying and my grandmother was silent, just staring at him, sitting upright in his chair. His beer still sat on the table next to him.

So as the day rolled on, we started to wonder where the body guys were. All I know is, my grandfather had died in the middle of the night, and now it was evening. Finally they showed up. Young guys in blue uniforms who drove a white van that looked like an ambulance but it was just white. They came in with a stretcher and wheeled it right on up to Grampaw's favorite chair. Everybody was silent and you could hear sniffles, but I began to giggle. My cousin who stood behind me caught it too and we both found ourselves supressing laughter.

The lifted him up to place him on the stretcher, and this is when I lost it. He was permanently seared into the sitting up position. They placed him on the stretcher and he was still sitting up.

So they attempted to lay him down, and when they did, his legs went up into the air. Us cousins were all laughing by this point. So they pushed down on his legs, and he sat back up. They were getting frustrated, and finally said to us, You might want to look away, we have to make him lie down. None of us left the room. We all watched as one guy pushed down on the top half while the other guy pushed down on his legs. Grampaw finally gave in. He was flat at last. By this point I was doubled over with laughter, crying, trying not to wet my pants. My grandmother flung herself on the stretcher and belted out with, No! No! Don't leave me!

So that's how my grandfather checked on out. My grandmother followed close behind, she died of a broken heart. The woman literally ceased functioning when he died. I think she starved herself to death. It took a couple years but she finally managed to catch up with him and joined him in the hereafter. A military funeral was held and both their ashes were interred together.

My grandmother lived for him. She's the one who hails from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and her great great grandmother was the daughter of a slave on a plantation, the father of said child being the plantation owner.

This means that my great great great great grandfather was from Africa?

Something along those lines. All this was discovered when one of my aunts got into genealogy. She questioned my grandmother about this one relative of hers and my grandmother wouldn't talk about it. I guess she comes from a generation that thinks mixed family heritage is shameful or something.

All I know is, to think I have people that I'm related to in Africa is absolutely fascinating. I would love to meet them.


This one is fairly recent. Last month I walked into the vitamin department, where a coworker was telling a customer all about emu oil. The customer had it slathered all up and down her arms, going, oooh, it's so rich, and ahhh, how lovely! and stuff like that. The lady then asked my coworker, where does it come from? She glanced over at me. We both went blank.

Then it hit me. I thought I knew. I thought of birds, and ducks, and oily feathers. I thought of glands. I thought of swollen glands on dogs, you know where. I thought of dogs going to the vet to have said glands expressed.

And somehow, in my chain-reaction thinking process, I made the positive connection: that emu oil comes from glands located 'neath their tail feathers. I just guessed that's where the glands would be, seeing as how that's how dogs are. I wasn't making any of this up. I'm the very first to say, "I don't know" to a customer's question. But this one I was sure of.

So my reply was, "It comes from their glands".

The lady said, "which glands? ....these glands?" (pointing to her neck.)

I said, "No.... these glands!" (and I jokingly pointed to my butt.)


Yes.

I really did that.


Once she realized what I was saying, she glanced down at her oily arms and hands and exclaimed, "EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW". It was in a disgusted way.

I turned red, like I always do, but I mentally patted myself on the back for knowing exactly where it came from.

Then, as I laid in bed that night waiting on sleep, I bolted up. It hit me.

Emu oil does NOT come from expressed swollen anal glands. No, it was something else...

So I got up and googled it. As it turns out, the oil is all throughout the bird and the bird is actually killed. The meat is used, and the oil that we sell is a by-product sort of thing.

Ok. Whatever.

I'm talking about this today because I slept way too long today and ended up having lots of fragmented bizarre dreams, one of which involved a puppy, and somebody just picked it up, popped off the tail, and

nevermind

It finally happened. Today, at work. Someone said to me, So what did you do for two years when you weren't working? I told the truth. About my blogs.

Talk about worlds colliding. My separate universes are slowly merging into one. All my metaphorical shards are coming back together. This could be good. Or it could be bad. Not bad that all my memories and thoughts and beliefs and life mission and life experiences are finally all in one place in my head, no, that's not bad. What's questionable is what it will be like when I go to work, knowing people there know what I am on the inside.

Have you already achieved that in life? What, it was never an issue? Then you won't be able to relate. Go away. You're not invited here.

My ex-husband said to me one time, Amy I just don't know how you get by in life... you seem to have one foot in heaven and the other foot on a banana peel. He said that on the day I was freaked out of my gourd by the demon that flew in my face when I was praying against the satanic book company in the back of the heavy metal magazine. After I regained what little wits were still with me that day, he comforted me by buying me a pretty cross necklace. That evening as we sat together on the bathroom floor, me holding my new necklace and still crying a little, he said it. He just listened to me and my fears and my confusion and shook his head and busted out with the banana peel quote. It's stuck with me all through the years.

So I'll tell you how I conceived my beautiful daughter, because I probably shouldn't. (That's a wonderful writing motivator.)

It was Mother's Day, 1990. My then-boyfriend/friend/baby daddy/future ex husband and I sat on my parent's roof, watching the sun set. The sky was pink and purple. I was 20, he was 18. We had been friends in high school and dated on and off for a while, but we weren't soul mates or anything. We got along and he kept me laughing. Also he bought me food all the time, and listened. Life was peaceful with him. But I didn't think I wanted to marry him.

So on that Mother's Day I got the idea to become a mother. The idea just came to me out of the blue, and it sounded good. I turned to him and said, "I want a baby." He thought about it over his cigarrette and nodded and said, "that sounds good one day". I was like, I mean, now. Let's have a baby! What do you think?

I don't remember his answer, but I do know that within 5 minutes we were in my room, door shut and locked, making a baby. My parents were home and everything. He even announced, "ONE BABY, COMING RIGHT UP!"

Yep.

So a few days went by and my senses returned. I thought, what was I thinking? What will I look like, pregnant? I remember taking a pillow and stuffing it under my shirt and standing in the mirror. I got one look at myself like that and quickly removed the pillow and called him. I said, Let's never do that again. That was stupid. (that was the first time no protection was used.)

So you know, that was it. I got pregnant that day. A one hit wonder, she was. My daughter.

She was right on time, almost a Valentine's Baby.

Some things in life should be thought out, family planning being one of them. But not on my life path. I leap first, then look back and realize how dangerous the cliff was. Know what I mean?


The year was 2002. I was living in the apartment where the creepy clothing thief was. (that's another story entirely.) My neighbors who lived above me (yet another blog) said to me one day, "you just have to meet our friend. He's so nice. And he just LOVES little bitty women like you!!"

My life mission achieved: being the perfect sized woman for him. I just stood there and said ok, you can give him my number. In my mind I had nothing to lose.

He called. A deep, twangy Texan voice informed me as to where I could meet him. I could tell within the first two sentences that this would go nowhere fast. But my exploratory instincts kicked in as they always do, and I, most deserving of being picked up, wined and dined, got in my little car instead and drove to a seedy area and met him in a seedy parking lot to a seedy bar.

I found his truck, and pulled alongside it. We both stepped out at the same time. I found myself looking up at a giant burly man who appeared to be nearing 50. As it turns out he was in his early 40's but it appeared that years on the road did it's toll on him. He was a truck driver. Which I thought was interesting. Surely this man would make for good conversation, I told myself, as we walked into the bar together.

Here's the official transcript of our conversation that evening:
(I'm sitting next to him at the bar.)

him: ...so what do you do?
me: I sell vitamins, but I love art.
him: what kind of art?
me: painting, ceramics, drawing...
him: you should do computer art. That's where the money's at.
me: yeah I know, but that doesn't really interest me. I love to paint.
him: I have a buddy who does computer art. You should do what he does.
me: thanks for the suggestion, but I enjoy visual art.
him: no you really need to get into computer art.
me: (silent)
me: (eyeballing my margarita and noticing how good it looked at that point in time)
me: (slugging down almost the entire thing at once, hoping for sweet relief from this date)
him: (silent)


me: (silent)





him: (slugging beer)


me: (flagging down waitress, requesting another margarita)






him: where do you get your tires done?
me: (thinking this was flirty double-meaning talk or something, laughing)
him: where at? I know where you can get a good deal on auto repair.


me: (almost totally drunk)




him: yep...




me: I'm ready to go.




him: (pays tab)

me: (fumbling in my purse for tip)




once in the parking lot, he tried to kiss me. I think I gave him a hug goodnight. All I know is he was too tall to reach, and I was glad.

He called a few days later and I was amazingly honest. I just told him straight up we had nothing in common, and that was it. Never spoke to him again. A rare triumph for me, usually my exploratory instincts don't stop until the situation has produced at least a hundred red flags. I was proud of myself for that one.


I received my first jury duty summons in the mail at the age of 19. I thought that was something special. I got all dressed up in my black and white polka dot dress, black shiny heels, pink lipstick and bleach blonde hair cut swirled around my chin, slanted. I soon discovered that jury duty is not fun. I sat and waited in the big room with the rest of Dallas County for several hours, waiting for my name to be called, trapped behind the most annoying man ever. I sure hope he never sees this. He ran his mouth from the moment I got there to the moment my name was finally called, talking to the man who sat beside him. Every now and then the talking man would glance behind him and look at me. I bristled with discomfort. I could sense his man vibe thing. I admit he was cute but I could tell he was older, like in his mid-20's. That was too old for me. Finally my name was called and I went to the front to get a paper or something, whatever they gave you that told you where to go next and when. I came and sat back down and the guy asked what I do. I said I worked at a music store, then I left the room.

I found myself next in a court room, sitting among other people who were selected to be interviewed by some lawyers, and I got my very first glimpse of a real life convict. He sat in the middle of the room, handcuffed. He looked about my age, Hispanic, and really cute. He looked at me and smiled, made me blush, I looked away, but back again, and he was still smiling at me. This got me to laughing under my breath, and the lawyers could see what was going on, and I was dismissed immediately. Little do they know I would have given a fair and wise opinion. And it wasn't my fault that the criminal made me laugh. I used to want to do prison ministry, but I just don't know if the whole male/female thing would compromise my efforts. What if I was attracted to one of them? So I know it's recommended that you stick with your own gender, but that might prove to be even worse*. All I know is, locked up people are fascinating. Think of the stories they have to tell, hidden away deep inside their souls. I think each prisoner should receive a laptop instead of each child.

So I go to work the next day and there's a huge bouquet of roses on the counter with my name on them. They were from Talking Man. Yes. He tracked me down. I was flattered and responded. We dated. He was a science teacher at a private school across town, where he told me of a job opening for an art teacher at the school's summer camp, which I applied for and got. I spent the summer of '89 showing kids how to make Fruit Loop necklaces, cotton ball sheep, and toilet paper roll rocket ships. And the best part about it? I got to make every project up, and the school funded the supplies. What fun. Except for the snobbish looks from the girls who were from that part of town who also worked at the camp. They didn't like me so much. I didn't drive a BMW and their rich boyfriends all thought I was fun. I pulled up in my clunker each morning with my Guns n Roses sticker on the back window (the skull in the black hat) and I wore torn jeans, on purpose.

So while working at this school I ended my fling with the teacher and started dating a guy from Iran. His mother made me park behind their house, not out front. My car was that bad.


*I don't mean I'd be attracted to the women. I'm just thinking of how scary they can be. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just that I think the men would be nicer to me. Is it true that people who go there for child abuse get treated the worst by other inmates? I think that's really nice.

I have a friend who told me recently all about her stay there. She said she got no rest, even from her bunk she could see straight into the showers. There was no privacy. That would be the thing that would drive me insane- no time alone. I wonder if that's why some inmates do things to be put in isolation. Maybe they just need time to themselves.

I try to remember prisoners all over the world when I pray. They're paying for their wrongs that show, when we're free and on the loose carrying around wrongs that don't show. What's the difference? They broke a law of the land, but everyone breaks God's laws each and every day.



Yesterday I went to a used book store and stocked up on cassette tapes because it's all my car can do. That's just my style. No complaints there, in fact I never really took to the idea of cd's anyway. I was working at a music store in the late 80's when they first came out, or when people actually started really buying them, and I just liked them because they made perfect little mirrors. I could check my lipstick and hair between each customer if I wanted. So yesterday I found so many old treasures, lots of 80's stuff that's bad, and it was bad then too. Do you remember Yaz? Upstairs At Eric's? I used to listen to that tape over and over. I never knew why. I just sort of bonded with it. So I saw it yesterday and got it, popped it in the player, and now I'm hooked on it all over again. I'm ridiculed for my taste in movies more than music. It's an official rule in my family: whatever you do, don't let Amy pick the movie. That's because I deliberately choose the most obscure one, that's what makes it so much fun.

I really am trying to get all the way back up to the surface of my real life. I'm still not back to buying good food for myself though. Tonight's dinner was Dorito's and jalapeno cheese dip. I simply have no motivation to buy good food for myself. This was never a problem when my daughter was around. It's easy to keep healthy food on hand for your kid, and then you just eat what you get for them. I never had this problem till she grew up.

You know that thing they showed you at school when you were a kid? The thing in science class where you get a bowl, fill it with water, sprinkle black pepper in, then dip your finger in soap and stick it in the water. All the pepper runs away like magic. Then you take your soapy finger out and the pepper returns.

That's exactly how it is in my head, with my thoughts and ability to concentrate and focus. My thoughts are the pepper. Something stressful happens (the soapy finger) and that's all it takes: I am scattered once more mentally. It's not mental or emotional. It's my nervous system. Stress is handled in a whole new way, ever since my brain infection. Stress makes my thoughts break up and disperse, then once the situation is realized, or coped with, or handled, it all comes back together. Do you understand what I mean? The fog rolls in and out in my head worse than San Francisco. Speaking of, that was my first trip to California, I was 11 years old and nothing held my interest there except Chinatown. I got a big paper lantern. The second time I went to California was to Los Angeles, and again, it was Chinatown all the way. I got gifts for my coworkers, cool things. Huge 3 feet long incense for my manager, a little Budda for the store owner with his initials carved into the bottom, and a cd of some steel drum band that was playing on the Santa Monica pier for the other manager. I got beads for myself, the kind that hang in a doorway. My sister got a tiny scoop for earwax, something I cannot understand for the life of me. How does one go to Chinatown and come away with an earwax scoop?

I had a dream a few years ago about going to an old woman's house to help her, she lived in a cave, but it was her house at the same time. She had it decorated and there were rooms and everything. She was crying and told me of a dream she had. I listened to her, went into another room, got on my knees and prayed, then came to her and told her the meaning of her dream and what God is doing in her son's life. She thanked me and gave me some food.

I was also thinking recently about the name of the summer camp I used to go to- Tres Rios. Three Rivers. That's beautiful. But nevermind.

I'm supposed to be laying low right now. Resting. But I can't. I'm on edge. So much on my mind.

ok I have just a few things to say here. For starters, I had a dream recently. It was alive. This means it means something. I was driving down a street and saw a restaurant. It was called "Amy's Restaurant". And it was all lit up with cute letters and everything. Here's the scary part: my cell phone number was also all lit up in neon letters, right under my name. I knew this "restaurant" had nothing to do with food. And I knew that I was open 24/7. And I knew that I was "on call" and available for anyone, anytime.
In '05 God said to me, "be available." I still haven't risen to the occasion of that instruction just yet. It's because I was confused when He first said it. Did He mean, be available to the guy(s) I was talking to? (instead of changing my email/phone constantly) or did He mean, be available to the people I was talking to about Him? The ones I was sharing my printed testimony with. I sort of know what He meant now. The second one.So as of yet I still have not made myself "available". I'm not ready.
The restaurant dream was happy, it was a happy place I was seeing. This tells me maybe I should not be afraid of what's next. Even though I don't really know. But at the same time, I do. Which leads me to the next thing I wanted to say.
Today I was thinking about something going on in my life right now, something good. (I think.) And I was talking to God about it, and I ended up praying all about it as if I already knew the outcome as if it was nothing. Second nature. It just came out of me, and I sensed in my spirit, "How do you know this?" (God asks me things when I'm praying just to hear me say the answer out loud.) (It's all about verbalizing and speaking truth.) I replied, "God, it's as if I've been working a puzzle all these years, and now I'm down to the last piece... when I work a puzzle, the last piece is easy, because the missing shape within the puzzle matches exactly the piece sitting on the table. It's a no-brainer."Do you know what I'm saying? Have you ever compared something in your life to that? The last piece is the easiest to solve. I think that's what's going on right now. I have one last piece to my puzzle.
And

wait

nevermind

Today I was also thinking, how can anyone be arrogant when toilets exist? Have you ever considered that? You have a thing in your home with a hole in it. A hole that you cover your butt with. I was getting ready for work this morning and as I was brushing my teeth I glanced at the toilet and thought, how can any human think more highly of him/herself than they ought to? Do you think God gave us butts to remind us of our lowly position on this planet?

I have a new thing that's happening. More needles, or bites. They feel like bites, in random places on my body. I haven't had these in a while. I had one just out of the blue the other day while eating somewhere with my daughter. We were just sitting, talking and laughing, when it felt like a bee sting on my left arm. I screamed and jumped up and brushed at my arm, saying, I just got bit! But there was nothing there. Not even a red mark or anything. People were looking. My daughter was blushing. I realized what it was and sat down and my face was red for the next few minutes. It happened again a few days ago when my car was overheating. I smelled smoke and the thermostat was all the way to hot so I was pulling in a gas station, that's when I got it again, this time in my left leg. A sharp stab. I screamed and jumped, then realized it was just another one. My nervous system is biting me. The most painful one I ever had was in my tongue. That was last year I think. It scares me when it happens because there's no warning.I'm still all better. I diagnosed myself. That's what I'm going to be, from here on out- all better. It's that, or waste more time and energy and brain cells on my body, wondering what's happening. I've already made peace with and accepted the fact that my nervous system is running it's own course in life, separate from what I'm doing. It can do whatever it wants.Look at this blog. It sucks. I realize this. But I'm doing this so that the thing about my brother won't be the last thing I said. I don't want to leave it on a depressing note. I was going to make this happy but I just realized I said nothing cheerful here. At all.
Sorry.
I planted some flower seeds the other day, 4 o'clocks. Not that I like that kind, nasturtiums (orange) are my favorite. But they were all out. The grocery store. Where I stood around browsing for what-nots while the guy filled up my balloons with helium. Yes. Balloons.I sort of got tired of posting links to my blogs and videos online so I was thinking I should start taking to the air. Just a few.
That's all.
Ok I suppose that's it.

I've been broken, and repaired. I exploded, then worked hard to bring the pieces back to myself.
I'm beginning to think, the joke's on me. No therapist could have ever reached these dark places. Now I can see where I've been and where I'm going, and on a day that I forget, I can easily look and remember.

About a year ago during one of my foggy mental storms, I was praying, and I heard in my spirit, "do you need to be reminded of your walk with Me?"

I told Him yes.

He said, "it's on its way."

Shortly thereafter I gained incredible momentum and energy and began churning out a string of blogs and videos, memories just pouring out of me like sweet hotcakes at midnight. On your plate at Waffle House, with a friendly waitress coming and filling up your coffee and shady men sitting alone at the back. You know that good feeling?