Leather and Lace

by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley

Is love so fragile... And the heart so hollow
Shatter with words... Impossible to follow
You're saying I'm fragile... I try not to be
I search only... for something I cant see
I have my own life... and I am stronger than you know
But I carry this feelin when you walked into my house
That you wont be walking out the door
Still I carry this feeling when you walked into my house
That you wont be walking out the door

Lovers forever...face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your leather...
Take from me...my lace

You in the moonlight with your sleepy eyes
Could you ever love a man like me
And you were right, when I walked into your house
I knew Id never want to leave
Sometimes I'm a strong man
Sometimes cold and scared and sometimes I cry
But that time I saw you, I knew with you to light my nights
Somehow I'd get by

Lovers forever...face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
I need you to love me, I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me...my lace

Lovers forever...face to face
My city, your mountains...stay with me, stay
I need you to love me...I need you to stay
Give to me your leather
Take from me...my lace
Take from me...my lace
Take from me...my lace

I Miss My Friend...

A confluence of different events and thoughts have conjured up a subject I don't often talk about, and while I thought I would keep this one between me and me, something is telling me to talk about it. Actually, someone is telling me to talk about it. Susan is.

Susan shows up every now and then to remind me that I'm not alone, that I deserve happiness, that I tend to make life more complicated than it needs to be. Susan reminds me to simplify, and to try to take care of myself as well as I take care of others. This wouldn't be that unusual, I suppose - if Susan were still alive. But four and a half years ago, give or take, Susan lost her battle with depression and took her own life.

There were so many ironies in that, but the biggest one was that Susan felt everyone would be better off without her. She felt like she couldn't quite find her place in life, and that led her to feel like she didn't quite have a place in life. The irony, at least for me, is that Susan was one of those people I wanted to be like when I grew up. Never mind that she was a few years younger than me. I was already a mother of two when we met, and I always sort of saw Susan as who and what I might have been if I hadn't chosen to be a mother at a relatively young age. She was so much fun, so energetic, so passionate, and so bright. I never would have guessed what she was going through. She never let me see. Little Bit was only six months old when Susan died, and they had just met for the first time the week before (she had moved a few hours away not long before the baby was born). I can still remember how happy and peaceful she looked, holding the baby. I had been unable to bring the big girls to that visit, and I will always regret that they didn't get to see their "Auntie Susan" one more time. But she's still around. No, not just the memory of her, not just the idle thought of "what would Susan think about that" or "what would her advice be." No, nothing that ordinary. Susan is actually physically here with me sometimes. (Or is that psychically?) Susan's spirit checks in with me every now and then, sometimes through dreams, once in a message sent to me through her father, but every now and then, even when I'm wide awake, I feel her. I know she's here, and I know she's looking out for me.

In life and in death, Susan worried a lot about me, especially about the choices I've made when it comes to relationships. More than once, she's expressed her vehement disapproval over people and situations - she's much less diplomatic since she died. But right now, she's happy. Happy about the choices and changes I'm making in my life, happy that I'm finally on track to the life she thinks I deserve, the happiness she thinks I deserve. I just wish with all my heart that she had realized that she deserved that kind of happiness too.

My Two Cents

I'm one of probably a billion or so bloggers writing on this topic in the next 24 hours or so, but I'll live with the spectre of unoriginality looming over my head. After all, it's a big event.

Of course. It's the inevitable 9-11 blog. People of my mother's generation remember where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy was shot. For my grandparents it was the end of the Great War. People my age or a little older can at least remember when John Lennon was killed. But now even children the age of The Clone and Red can remember 9-11 and the days that followed.

Me, I was 8 months pregnant with Little Bit. I was working in a mental health organization, her daddy was going to school and we shared a car. We also gave rides to two of his classmates who lived in our area of town, quite a ways away from the school. So each morning, either he would drop me off at work and then continue on to school with our passengers, or I would drop them all off at school and then head to work. On September 11, he was dropping me off, and we were running a little late, as usual. Just as we were pulling in to the parking lot at my office, we heard a news report that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. The natural assumption, at the time, was that it was some horrible accident. (Would it ever cross your mind to think that today?)nnBut even as we sat in the car listening to the news and making morbid jokes about how blind the pilot must have been to have just not seen such a big building, they announced that another plane had flown into the other tower. You could literally see on all of our faces, the moment that it sunk in. Oh shit. This is no accident.

Well, we could just forget about getting anything done at work that day, but my coworkers and I stayed there. The TV in the common room of the clinic where I officed, stayed on all day. Staff and consumers alike sat in silence as we watched footage. We must have seen those planes hit half a million times, as the stations ran it in almost a loop... over and over and over again, towers collapsing, people screaming, crying, running in the streets... news of the plane crashing into the Pentagon, and into that field in Pennsylvania - that news came, and a little bit of footage with it, but mostly it was the towers. Little Bit's daddy showed up with his classmates in tow; their classes had been cancelled for the day. They joined us as we all sat watching. I remember that every so often I would be surprised to suddenly feel wetness on my cheeks; I was crying without even realizing it. I remember worrying for the daughters I was already raising, and flat-out panicking for the one I was carrying... knowing that the shock and grief I was feeling would affect her more deeply. Wondering what right I had, to be bringing her into such a scary world, especially when I didn't have the resources I felt I would need, to shelter her, to protect her, to keep her from harm. I bet a lot of expectant and new parents had that same feeling that day.

Well, as it does with everything, time went on. Five years now, has gone on. In some ways, most of us are much the same as we were on September 10, 2001. In other ways, our nation, our whole world, has changed. Something was taken from us that day that we will never get back. But, being the eternal cockeyed optimist, I like to thing something was given to us that day, too. A gift. The gift of knowing not to take things for granted. The gift of appreciating the things we have while we still have them. And the gift of those first several, glorious days when we as Americans were more united than we have ever been.

RMM Weird Quote of the Day, September 10

"I wouldn't put up with your bubbles."

RMM Weird Quotes of the Day, September 9

"Why'd you put the ponies in his butt?"

"You can't be too fast picking up turtles."

Out of the Forest With You!!!!

My eyes are at it again, refusing to work properly... checking the headlines on Yahoo! News, I saw:

"Ban on gay rabbits may be lifted"

I wondered - how can you tell? Little boy bunnies with too much hare gel (ar ar ar)? Little girl bunnies crooning k.d. lang songs? And even if you could tell, how would you ban them? What would you ban them from, fer cryin' out loud?!?!?!

Then, of course, I looked closer and realized they were talking about rabbis, not rabbits. But that's not nearly as amusing, now is it?

Weeekend in New England

You know I'm in a sappy mood when I'm quoting lyrics:

by Barry Manilow

Last night, I said goodbye
Now--it seems a year
I’m back in the city
Where nothing is clear
But thoughts of me --holding you
Bringing us near

And tell me
When will our eyes meet
When can I touch you
When will this strong yearning end
And when will I hold you again

Time in New England
Took me away
To long rocky beaches--and you, by the bay
We started a story
Whose end must now wait

And, tell me
When will our eyes meet
When can I touch you
When will this strong yearning end
And when will I hold you again

I feel the change comin’--
I feel the wind blow
I feel brave and daring!
I feel my blood flow
With youI can bring out
All the love, that I have--
With you there’s a heaven
So earth ain’t so bad

And tell me
When will our eyes meet
When can I touch you
When will this strong yearning end
And when will I hold you again