huh

y'know, i used to post here daily.

when i thought about it, my first response was that maybe i just don't have as much to say as i used to. but immediately afterwards, i thought maybe it was simply that i'm not so self-absorbed as to think so many people would be interested in what i have to say. that probably makes a lot more sense.

the life isn't so chaotic, really. i still spend copious amounts of time at my computer, but it's devoted to classwork, and homework, and research. and when i'm not slaving to school, i'm reading articles on how to be a better writer, or making the rounds on other authors' blogs to try and build my presence online under my pen name.

i really miss blogging. i do. i kinda miss all the f-bombs i used to drop, too.

y'know...

...sometimes i get really tired of all the growth challenges, crucibles, and discovering more about myself.  sometimes i just want what other people have: the good relationship, the smooth days, the utter non-event of more self discovery and self sacrifice.

sometimes i just want to be mundane. normal. dull, even.

letter to my 16 year-old self

Dear 16 year-old me,

I got your letters. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I'm really not much of a letter writer, to be honest. Well, you know how it is: you think up all these really great things in your head, but getting them down onto paper with the intention of actually sending them to people just kind of makes it all seem really stupid and exposing.

I also know that you're craving advice and for someone to see you, and there's nobody there. Even as you tell yourself that's totally not it at all. I get it. I just wanted to share a few things with you that I wish someone had shared with me at your age.

1.) They Really Are Wrong. All those people --yes, all of them-- who seriously make you wonder if you're even worth the air you breathe, they're all full of it. Yeah, you're naive and they get a lot of things that you don't right now. Trust me, that's a strength. I know it doesn't seem like it right now. Being "out of it" is the worst in high school. But please believe me. You don't want to lower yourself as much as it'll take in order to be "in it."

2.) Don't Chase Him. Seriously. He's not worth it. None of them will be, and it'll be just a parade of wrecking balls on your self-esteem. You're a fantastic writer, and I promise you, you will be published some day. It'll happen so unexpectedly that you'll walk around in shock for weeks afterward. You're also a phenomenal singer and pianist. You have a very sharp brain between your ears. The world is yours for the taking. Please appreciate your talent. Do whatever you dream. He'll just get in the way. All of them.

3.) It Gets Better. All that stuff at home? You survive it. You're stronger than you know, and it's not your fault. You'll understand why, and you won't be confused. Instead, take the time to listen to your intuition; it will serve you well in the coming years once you learn how. Learn earlier and it'll save you a lot of time making up lost ground.

4.) Appreciate Your Allies. Your younger siblings are the strongest allies you have. Take more time to get to know and appreciate them. High school sucks, but the less time you wander around stuck in your own angst will be better spent savoring every moment you have with them. In a few short years you'll be in a place where years, decades, will go by in between visits with them, and the phone calls will turn to emails, and then to infrequent text messages. Savor the time you have to go down the hall and hug them any time you want.

5.) You're Stronger Than You Know. Know this.

6.) It's All Small Stuff. All that stuff you hate about high school? It's all small stuff. Don't sweat it. All those power games and popularity contests, the stupid teachers and feeling lost, it's all a rite of passage. Besides, it's not like you'll ever want to go to any of those lame reunions anyway, to preen and prove to all these people who never made a difference in your life that you're better than they are ten, fifteen, twenty years later. It's all the same drama and you're better than that. You know who your friends are. They're still around, and you love them. I know it's awkward at that age, and nobody gets your sense of humor except your strange family and your two closest friends. You're not a dork! You're off-beat and see things in unique ways. Guys will find this irresistibly hot in your late 20's and early 30's. But before you get all giddy, re-read #2 again for me. 

7.) Forgive. All that stuff with your parents is tough, yeah. But I can promise you in ten years you'll gain a new understanding of the larger picture and just how hard and complex, and cruel, the world can be sometimes. When that happens, you'll work really hard to not only forgive, but to gain a friendship with your dad that you'll treasure.

8.) Keep Going. You aren't crazy. The rich world inside your head really is more vivid than the one you live in. That's okay, and never you mind what they say about it. All that time you spend inside your own head, with your own thoughts, is actually really great training for the insights and appreciation you'll have a bit later. Only maybe, if you learn to value it now, you'll save me about fifteen years of wrestling all that self-doubt. Call it enlightened self-interest from your 33 year-old self. =)  Oh, and keep those awesome skirts and bell-bottoms. You might be the only one now, but that look comes back in a few years and I would kill to be able to find those fabrics again!

9.) Trust Your Instincts. I know, this one kind of goes along with learning to trust your intuition. But in a couple years, if you trust your intuition, you'll save both of us from a night of trauma that will leave its mark on us. And when you're just shy of your 31st birthday, it'll save you two years of desperation and misery when you do the wrong thing in your effort to do the right thing. Being a single mother is not so bad. And yes, you can do it.

10.) Never Lose Sight of the People Who Love You. You'll know who they are. The amazing thing is that they're everywhere. You will love them so much you will invent an entirely new family tree and graft it onto your existing one just to fit them all. There are some dark days coming ahead, but if you take my advice you'll avoid the worst of it. Giving the benefit of the doubt has never served you, and you know this already. People do show their worth by how they treat you, and it's not "rude" to stop letting them trample all over you. It's strong. If you disagree, see #5 again.

And even if you take all this and toss it to the four winds, that's okay, too. You will see us through, and we turned out just fine.  

zomg!

Okay, so I just got an email from a publishing company to which I had submitted a novelette about six months ago. Of course, I heard nothing back from them, so I figured it was rejected.  Well, this email of theirs told me that it was a shame they hadn't received the contract they'd sent me, or heard of my acceptance to their offer. So I immediately emailed them to tell them I hadn't received anything.  But I was in their accepted folder.  


I might still have a contract.  Cross your fingers. Pray for me. Anything. 


And Mitch and Jane, I know you've been reading and commenting. Lately I've been trying to wind down and recover from that awful class, and then got hit with a cold. I'm better, and getting back to my old self. I just wanted to say I'm not ignoring you, and I've appreciated all of your encouragement and wisdom. 


And GAH!!!  PUBLISHING! I might finally, finally, realize my dream. Published author. Pray. I know I am.


EDIT: They accepted it!  They loved it, were just as dismayed as I was that I'd never received my acceptance letter and contract, emailed me with a new one within an hour, and....yeah. I'm going to be published.

maybe

maybe there's a light --finally-- at the end of this tunnel.  last night i turned in my final assignment for my statistics class.  right now i'm sitting at a 82.88%, pulled up from a 78.3% three weeks ago.  there's still last week's grades and group project scores not entered, so i'm not out of the woods yet. but at least the oppressive stress and resulting physical depression are lifting.

ps. thost group projects?  yeah, did both of them myself.  turns out this most recent one last week is because, of all my group members, i was the only one left. everyone else had dropped out.

what's in a name

i was kinda tempted the other day to change this blog's name to "confessions of a raving bitch," but that's already taken, sadly.

i'm having one of those "knock shit over left and right all over the damn house" days.  right after yesterday discovering that i've been working on the wrong chapter all week for my statistics class, so i've done absolutely FUCKINGZERO work that i actually should have been doing.  and, of course, since it takes me all seven days of the week to barely squeak by with my homework, classwork, and tests by the skin of my teeth anyway, realizing that i have three days to do all that was too much. i almost submitted drop-out forms right there.

i'm so tired of feeling like such a failure of life itself. pretty much from the day morning sickness hit when i was pregnant with Little Owl, i've been falling short left and right. she's 18 mos now; that's a lot of falling short.

when my financial aid check finally came in, i bought a juicer and a whole ton of dr. schultze's products to begin the huge detox project i've been needing. by day 2, i felt a little better. today's day 3, and the radioactive cloud that was fogging up my brain is gone. numbers aren't twisting themselves around to look like other numbers as often (which is how i screwed myself into doing totally wrong homework in the first place), letters sometimes actually make sense when i read them, i have some energy to go out and run an errand or two, and yesterday i haven't needed (like desperately needed) a nap despite waking up three hours earlier than usual.

and last night i listened to my holosync soundtrack for the first time in over two years, fell asleep with absolutely no trouble, and actually relaxed a bit. my school nightmare isn't crippling like it was last night. it's still overwhelming and i don't feel confident that i'll be able to do anything at all, but at least i don't want to curl up into a ball, cry my eyeballs out, and completely give up. how come no one ever told me that trying to get my damn degree was going to make me feel like worthless shit every damn day?

i never even re-enrolled because i wanted to. i did it because i was tired of being the stupid, pointless member of the family. i did it because i was tired of, "you're so smart, why didn't you ever do anything with it?" i did it so i could get a stupidass piece of paper to show that i'm something. and because not having any degree at all meant that i was trapped forever in the most menial, meaningless, lowest-paying and rewardless jobs for the rest of my life, which was just another way of saying that i am without merit or worth without a degree, and i was tired of it.

but seriously, fucking seriously, all i want to do is finish my fucking novels and publish them. and there's no time left over after taking care of: homework, Little Owl, the house, and getting just enough sleep to keep me running. and believe me, i trim sleep around the edges so much every so often i realize that i've whittled it to nothing and need a few days of dear-God-please-i'm-just-human, curl-up-and-wish-the-ground-would-swallow-me-up sleep. then it's back to scrambling desperately trying to only fall a little short.

no time for living.

the one about hiroshima

yeah, that was me about a week and a half ago.

this class is killing me.

i called it my "emotional hiroshima." of course, this pic was perfect because --if you're so inclined-- you can see the clown face right in the mushroom cloud itself.

such absurdity in the face of something we take so seriously. that's probably how i should be looking at it. my life won't end if i fail this class.  sure, i'll most likely be kicked out of school because of my crappy GPA, which means i'll be stuck with student loans and nothing to show for it, still amounting to nothing but a high school diploma in a family with nothing but multi-degree holders. hell, my baby sister's in her Master's program right now. and sure, it'll do a number on my self-image because let's face it, it's not like i'm really all that confident right now or feeling like i amount to anything worth counting. so far, i'm everything my parents drilled into me was beneath me. so maybe i'm pinning way too much on this class and my successful completing of it.

on the other hand, maybe i'm not?

mushroom cloud. bozo's face. sure, there might be nuclear winter, but at least the cloud's laughing, right?

chewing cud d'frog

so i'm taking this statistics class, right?

yeah, it's kicking my ass with boots the size of the moon.

i feel like the hugest failure. i can't keep up in class. it eats up so much of my time that Little Owl is being deprived of attention. i'm short-tempered from being sleep-deprived, stressed-out, and living in this constant state of panic. if i fail this class, or even get a D and need to repeat it, i'm going to be kicked out of school because i've already had to repeat 2 classes.

it's eating me up. i hate it. i don't know what to do about it. i'm staring yet more failure in the fucking eye and it's winning.

the iGoddess hatchling: the making of

it just occurred to me, just now, that maybe gestating the iGoddess hatchling took absolutely everything out of me emotionally and spiritually that was good is because, just like my fat stores and fluid and energy, her umbilical cord was also attached to my Funk because --as the most loved, anticipated, empowered, enlightened, cherished, magical child ever born-- she needed everything i had and more, because her own inner bonfire of juicyFunk is even more bombastic than mine will ever be? 

i forgot we are triune beings: body, mind, and spirit. there i was, thinking i was just physically growing a child in me when i should have remembered she was connected --is still connected-- to my entire being? 

as a pregnant woman needs to take supplements and pay attention to her calorie intake when she's pregnant and increase it to accommodate a fetus, i should have also been taking Funk supplements and increasing my own caloric Funk intake. 

and i didn't.

iGoddess II: The Search for Funk

lots of things going on. some are, for once in the history of iGoddess, not something i can freely write about here. i know, i know: this violates the sacrosanct idea that there are no secrets here on iGoddess, no suppression and no shame.

well, a practiced and well-versed Funkmaster knows that nothing is sacred. at some point in the future, i'll bring it all to light and laugh good-naturedly at my foolishness and endeavor to use it in some spontaneous bit of outrageously fantastic performance art.

in the meantime, tho...

the Funk and i are so far removed at the moment --and this moment has lasted a little over two years-- that i rather feel agnostic. there's been such silence for so long that i'm doubting my memories of Juicy Funk and the Jiggy Snake. did i hallucinate? was i mad? does it matter?

i said i'd be writing here more, and then i never came back. lots of stuff. more Burning Heaven to the Ground. and gestating the iGoddess Child became a spiritually wasting illness. it sapped so much out of me, my spirit is a dried husk.

more than one person's made the observation that the blazing bonfire that was Delena is now rather like a small mound of cold ash.

i don't want to be a barren wasteland of nonFunk. i don't like that i can't reach down into the depths of me and summon up a squeak --let alone a roar-- of juicyloamy, bombastic mindsplosions of gutteral passion. i don't like that there are no depths anymore at all. i've become a two-dimensional WYSIWYG.

so i'm coming back here, the closed circle, returning to the beginning. i've gotten out my bible, the televisionary oracle, as well as a few other books. i set up another supersecret blog to write about what cannot be written here, just so it has somewhere to go. and i'm going to plot my rejourney as i search out the Funk once again.

this land of grey agnostics sucks. i want Funk-gnostics instead.

[i also went back to my old URL because going back and editing all those links in three years' worth of blog posts was just too much of a pain in the ass.]