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... gs i carry</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://sch ...
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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' gd:etag='W/"DE4BQnc9fCp7ImA9WxNbEUg."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467</id><updated>2009-11-13T18:02:33.964-06:00</updated><title>the things i carry</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default?redirect=false&v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default?start-index=26&max-results=25&redirect=false&v=2'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>183</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry gd:etag='W/"DUIHRHczfip7ImA9WxNSF0k."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-1683331072066574579</id><published>2009-08-31T14:13:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-31T14:38:55.986-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-08-31T14:38:55.986-05:00</app:edited><title>Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option</title><content type='html'>my thought was to begin with "therapy: week X." In all honesty, I can't remember what week it is. I went from once a week to three times a week back down to two, with intermittent visits to other mental health professionals to manage the cocktail, to manage the OCD, to manage the ED. I sit on the pink couch in the pink room at the therapist with a pink button-down and hair as white as an old witch atop her head. I sit in front of her, our eyes meet on the same level. She tells a story, I reveal a sliver, embedded visibly beneath my flesh, waiting for me to pick at it with a dull knife and tweezers. Surfacing now. Watching my mother with a drink in her hand. Then another. Then another. Watching my dad with one drug or another in his lungs, in his nostrils, and another, and another. And my mother picks up another drink. Everyone picks up another drink. And i don't. And i can see what they hide. And so i am distrustful and have every reason to remove myself and be the hidden reason. The one left behind. The one with burns and blood. I am beginning to shut the door on this I can't stay out in the open and be left behind for another. and another. And watch you hide from something that i see so clearly. I stand on the gravel behind the house, staring up at the sun. My arms are underneath the lid of the recycling can, attempting to mute the deafening sound of bottles pouring to the bottom. I recall therapist's question. "Are you strong enough to leave him when there's nothing left that you can support? When he's taken every ounce of love and turned it into nothing? Can you watch him slowly kill himself like you've watched everyone else fade and die and give you nothing?" That answer weighs heavily.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-1683331072066574579?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/1683331072066574579/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=1683331072066574579' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1683331072066574579?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1683331072066574579?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/08/never-allow-someone-to-be-your-priority.html' title='Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"A0AHRH86fSp7ImA9WxJbEU8."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-2807149039847558340</id><published>2009-07-20T17:40:00.001-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-20T17:42:15.115-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-07-20T17:42:15.115-05:00</app:edited><title>that sheet pisses you off anyway</title><content type='html'>As I am sitting at my desk, preparing to create busywork for myself, The sun beams through the window I finger through my make-up bag, pulling out little orange pill bottles. There are seven now. What was it like before the morning cocktail of anti-psychotics, anti-anxieties, anti-depressants, supplements? I look in the tiny mirror lying beside me. Do I look like that person? Like the person who relies on three psychiatric professionals to structure her day? Like the person who needed the fires put out in her head? It is much cooler beneath my skull. There are no flames spurting from between crooked fissures. I still don’t sleep. Vivid nightmares wake me from a Benzedrine state. A non-relaxed state, more of a sweaty sleep state In which I expect those dreams. I expect the noises and familiar voices. They cannot escape during the day, so they wait. Yesterday, I walked out of the therapist’s pink, cheerful office Out into the sunshine and to the car And to the gym And home Where I sat, speechless, dead-eyed, staring at the television. Not even at the television. At the fireplace. At the curtains. Before we left for the market, I bent forward and laid my head On the leather ottoman, stretched, and cried very silently. There was no reason for him to know.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-2807149039847558340?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/2807149039847558340/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=2807149039847558340' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2807149039847558340?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2807149039847558340?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/07/that-sheet-pisses-you-off-anyway.html' title='that sheet pisses you off anyway'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>1</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DkYFQXs6fyp7ImA9WxJUFk4."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-617735826066102803</id><published>2009-07-14T23:47:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-15T00:01:50.517-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-07-15T00:01:50.517-05:00</app:edited><title>its behind you</title><content type='html'>i have to ask you. why you won't cross the bridge anymore. you only follow until we come to the grating. then you fall and soundlessly hit the water. and you follow me into vivid, recurring nightmares. disappearing after i have chosen my weapon. staring out the opposite window facing me. pointing down from the 10th floor. motioning. i have not slept in days. i sit here now, in a dark kitchen at the sharp-edged wooden table. These chairs don't match the table. They don't match anything. Odd how familiar this light is, the only light we see in homes. Ginsberg walked along avenues noticing the televisions all on in every home blinking wildly, pounding out lip-smacking propaganda and variety shows. my eyes hurt today. sitting slumped into the couch, staring blankly at the television, wavering whether to go out and be social or sleep. yet here i am. not asleep. it's worse when i drink, much worse when i don't. retract. there is a vulnerability surrounding me like a duststorm. i am safely swirling in a comfortable vortex of particles waiting to be thrown to the ground my eyes teary and torn by debris. what if i start fighting myself? (ironic) what if i stop.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-617735826066102803?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/617735826066102803/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=617735826066102803' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/617735826066102803?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/617735826066102803?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-behind-you.html' title='its behind you'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEEFQn46fip7ImA9WxJVFUs."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-2989167714229466317</id><published>2009-07-01T19:42:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-02T15:30:13.016-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-07-02T15:30:13.016-05:00</app:edited><title>nameless</title><content type='html'>I have become an unwilling participant on stage. Not even in my own life. On display, constructing props, setting the stage, raising and lowering a curtain, waiting for the other me to arrive, to critique, to write about it later. Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances" I feel like I'm watching myself play this role. That I'm not a real part of it, like a dream. Its not being controlled by me. Sometimes I go out there, out onto the stage and act my own part, but it's just an act, and the other me is sitting in the audience, arms crossed, waiting for intermission so she can go to the lobby and swig her gin. "Break a leg," she says to me. But i know she really means, "don't fuck up this time." She's watching like a hawk, meanwhile, I'm attempting to quell this wave of nausea with a dose of what they've handed me to numb the nerve endings. I wake up and cheer myself on in the mirror Smile and wave like a delicate princess, but my reality, my deservingness of these titles have been challenged. My leading men they face me, and they turn. They grab the hand of another and she looks at me with a speck of disgust How will I get through this act? I have no costume, no makeup, no lighting, no magic. Peering out into the dark audience, gripping at this restraint, this skin no bouquet of flowers lands in front of me as i bow, no curtain comes down and ends this act. This is how i get through, half-believing and pretending, shaking like a small dog, pissing on myself, Unable to escape the breathy-humid confines of this arena. Not knowing the script. Doppelganger, double-entendre. I step out of the spotlight.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-2989167714229466317?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/2989167714229466317/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=2989167714229466317' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2989167714229466317?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2989167714229466317?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/07/nameless.html' title='nameless'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"D0UMQ38_eip7ImA9WxJWGUU."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-1640090141669317768</id><published>2009-06-25T21:45:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-25T22:01:22.142-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-25T22:01:22.142-05:00</app:edited><title>"I'll be there in an hour"</title><content type='html'><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ2bq3BuxI/AAAAAAAAALQ/fL9AB2GUpas/s1600-h/uhhh.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ2bq3BuxI/AAAAAAAAALQ/fL9AB2GUpas/s320/uhhh.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351462106212449042" /></a> Move here.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-1640090141669317768?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/1640090141669317768/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=1640090141669317768' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1640090141669317768?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1640090141669317768?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/ill-be-there-in-hour.html' title='"I'll be there in an hour"'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ2bq3BuxI/AAAAAAAAALQ/fL9AB2GUpas/s72-c/uhhh.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DkUBQn04eip7ImA9WxJWGUU."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-7438520647365337896</id><published>2009-06-25T21:36:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-25T21:44:13.332-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-25T21:44:13.332-05:00</app:edited><title>Father's Day</title><content type='html'><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ1AbD3KOI/AAAAAAAAALI/nF2UUYv_d-c/s1600-h/dad.do.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ1AbD3KOI/AAAAAAAAALI/nF2UUYv_d-c/s320/dad.do.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351460538603219170" /></a> This is my dad. Ask me why I can't have normal relationships.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-7438520647365337896?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/7438520647365337896/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=7438520647365337896' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/7438520647365337896?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/7438520647365337896?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/fathers-day.html' title='Father's Day'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8MZB1oCON_4/SkQ1AbD3KOI/AAAAAAAAALI/nF2UUYv_d-c/s72-c/dad.do.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"C0EMR3k6fSp7ImA9WxJWGEw."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-4663102166491400902</id><published>2009-06-23T21:19:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-23T21:48:06.715-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-23T21:48:06.715-05:00</app:edited><title>two very different erics</title><content type='html'>"oysters, black morels, homemade vino" posed atop a white table cloth, perfectly sunset-lit left to right, two glasses of sweet white wine a small white plate oyster shells and a delicately-carved, butter-smeared knife a black bowl filled with ice, small oysters a small white plate succulent black morels a large white plate of crusty french bread buttered with sprigs of fresh chives from their garden. They are more in love in their home. Smiling in dirty overalls from a wet, lush vegetable patch from over the handles of shovels in falling snow, flakes caught in mid-air flurry. Our conversations were sporadic, predominantly of love and architecture. There was a pinhole of hope as we parted ways at the bus stop, each in the hands of partners who would soon be shadows. I scattered the photos and looked into her eyes, believing it was two very different people sitting, sipping wine white tablecloth table, food and home created out of love more than out of necessity "cheers. to us."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-4663102166491400902?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/4663102166491400902/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=4663102166491400902' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4663102166491400902?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4663102166491400902?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-very-different-erics.html' title='two very different erics'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEEGQn04fyp7ImA9WxJWFkU."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-8949060837670801856</id><published>2009-06-22T10:59:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-22T11:03:43.337-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-22T11:03:43.337-05:00</app:edited><title>but how do you fill that hole?</title><content type='html'>For one human being to love another: That is the most difficult of all our tasks, The ultimate, last test of proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. --Rilke<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-8949060837670801856?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/8949060837670801856/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=8949060837670801856' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8949060837670801856?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8949060837670801856?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/but-how-do-you-fill-that-hole.html' title='but how do you fill that hole?'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DUcDQno7fCp7ImA9WxJWFkw."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-6144075692202540748</id><published>2009-06-21T14:58:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-21T15:44:33.404-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-21T15:44:33.404-05:00</app:edited><title>isis</title><content type='html'>Watching first dates at Barrio, he and i munching on chips and salsa over purplish-red wine, I contemplate the women that surround me, and the words that people say when they see me in something other than jeans and a black shirt. Their eyes open with disbelief. "Is that a skirt?" I'm still exploring my adolescent, 32 year old, puberty-stricken body. I stare at it in front of the mirror in disbelief, reciting a mantra over and over and closing my eyes to eliminate the existence of these new curves. Eyes focused on the couples that flock to dimly lit booths, you can always tell. There is too much smiling. Too much hope, optimism. You lose that later, you learn to disagree. We, sitting side-by-side at the bar. I take a sip of my sangria, dip a warm corn chip into a chunky, green tomatillo salsa, spicy, when he comes up with a gem. "I like that neither of us have anything." And that is true. It has always been true. I have whittled my life down to a shitty bed, clothes, half of the wedding presents and kitchen appliances, all of my books, my records. I drift back to this afternoon, "Nothing matters when you're riding. Everything melts, doesn't it? That's it." I drive back to my house, find ribbons in a box. I have thrown most of them away. I decided i didn't need those trivial mementos to remind me that this is the only real talent i have. Blue and red ribbons, reminding me that after almost five years of silence, my muscles remembered where they were when they hit the saddle. I take another sip of sangria, eyeing the couples that are now silent, uncomfortable silence. Ruminating. Masticating. I tug at my hoodie, feeling squishy under the PMS. I'm in jeans and a black t-shirt, a black hoodie. It's how i always am. I mull my strength as an athlete and how to balance it with the anorexia that i wish would magically re-appear. "Once you're outside you won't want to hide anymore." I've only been on one date in the past six months. We've accomplished our goal, backwards. "That one isn't a first date. Dude is in a t-shirt and flip-flops. You at least put the button-up over the t-shirt on the first date." When the guy who sits across from me at work shows up in a button-up, he is striking enough for me to try to think of things to talk to him about. Although when he strips off his black hoodie, exposing sexy grey t-shirt and jeans, i stare at the tattoo on his left forearm. I cannot think of anything to say, so i turn back to the computer. The girls at the bar, backs straight, arms draped over the back, eyes on the punk-rock, coked-out bartender. High-heels click along the wooden floor. Back and forth, strutting. Ritualizing. Their waists have not yet thickened with age and stress. Beneath stylish low-cut blouses, artificially made-up flesh reveals Considerable cleavage. Revealing. Riveting to watch the mating dance As our tapas show their artful faces, We don't name what we are. There's a certain comfort that comes without a title.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-6144075692202540748?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/6144075692202540748/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=6144075692202540748' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6144075692202540748?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6144075692202540748?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/isis.html' title='isis'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"CUYASXk4eSp7ImA9WxJXEEs."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-448458656310188624</id><published>2009-06-03T12:15:00.006-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-03T16:05:48.731-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-06-03T16:05:48.731-05:00</app:edited><title>Porch. Beer. Ex-girlfriend.</title><content type='html'>--"So if I absorb my environment, what do I want to be absorbing?" My response: Last weekend, I rode with a friend down to the Red Hook Brewery. As we rode past urban sprawl, construction sites, through the tunnels, it opened up suddenly into the marshy farmland surrounding the Sammamish River. We stopped on the side of the trail to talk about it. "Would you ever live down here? Farm? Horses? Vineyards?" "Yeah. I would." It was a response precluded by a heavy sigh and a look into the distance, into the tall ornamental grasses on the bank of this rushing, clear river. "Me too. I've thought about it. I'd love some place outside the city. Close enough to go back to the city, but far enough that it's this quiet, this incredible." At the brewery, we sat down with a beer, there were babies. An abundance of babies, toddlers. We sat there, half-paying attention to the pints, absorbed in these novel interactions between fleshy fat alien babies. "You think they know? Look how everything is new. Everything is amazing and honest." "Organic. They touch each other like it's the first time they've ever experienced anything. It's pure joy. Honest joy and discovery. Color and form, touch and feel." "Don't you think everything is like that anyway? The first time you fall in love, the first time you touch someone intimately? The first time you read Kerouac, the first time you learn about crayons or clay?" A glance in each other's direction. Honest. This is my response to absorption. Making love to every moment. Realizing that death is an invitation to live. I have to remind myself not to be rote, and to open my eyes, acknowledge what i'm doing, what i'm touching. --"Is it enough to just be loved by someone? If I am who I think I am, then I think it's got to be sad for [someone else to know this about me]. This is the man who got an open-ended date tattooed on his body - the day we got married and an empty spot for the day I leave or the day I die if I go first. What does that mean to enter a committed relationship with such an eye towards finality? Is that the ultimate realist or does he really understand that I might not be here forever?" My response: Finality. I knew from the beginning that my marriage had an end date. I saw it happening. There was a tattoo on him with the foreboding warning, "caveat emptor." I didn't know then that i took what i couldn't handle. An empty spot filled with room for the sadness that a final breath brings. That final kiss that disappears into thin air when you shut the door, falling on silent lips. Is life or death really relevant at that point? I see it not so much as finality, but as an open-ended question. I have this irrational fear. This terrifying fear that I'll be left standing, dead eyes welling with confusing, burning tears. --"A friend of mine said I needed to find out who I was without a man in my life. What does that mean? I asked him. I don't mean that you need to be alone forever, but that you need to know who you are on your own, he replied." My response: I spent my whole life alone. So did you. Man or not. This alone-ness in our heads becomes an obsessive full-time job. Reeling over these chest-rattling sobs, these uncertainties. Who exactly are any of us without each other? This isn't Walden Pond and we are unhappily attracted to people who willingly give attention, but what are we without homes? How do we know where to go? So we go where our food bowls are, as far as our chains will stretch and bend instead of finally putting out a hand and finally admitting that you can't run anymore. That you're so tired. I don't necessarily agree with "alone." I run in circles alone. Mama raised an independent woman. She also raised a woman who never trusted anyone else to help her up. Yesterday, I was taking a CPR course. There was a point when we had to lie on the floor with our partners, putting each other on our sides into an appropriate position so we didn't choke on our own vomit. After it was over, I was lying on the floor, ready with my palms placed by my side to hoist myself up, and there "ES" was, bending over me with a hand out to help me up. I wondered why he did that. Then i remembered what I'd said, "you're the first person I've not walked in front of or behind, but truly beside." We've been alone in our own heads so long, having these conversations in our heads, lips barely moving, the words are dying to escape. --"At the same time, I don't know if I could live the life in my mind if I was on my own. But would I have that without him? Could I love myself without seeing myself through his eyes?" My response: Again, my marriage was an error in judgement. Pun intended. We judged each other unfairly. He watched everything i did and followed, in suit. I hated myself for it, for being weak. I hated him more for being weak. I always saw myself through his eyes. I was never allowed the life I wanted, the only way was without him. I planned for it. For years, I thought about it. I thought about what my life really was. I was a woman stuck in a little-girl body, stuck with little-girl thoughts because I knew he'd take care of everything. I knew he'd bail me out. I had to learn how to bail myself out again. The other day, lying on the bed, I realized something I'd never believed before. I didn't even recognize the words, the voice that was confident in who I was because I knew who I was in ES's eyes. There was no judgement there. There was no weakness or fear. --"Over the years I've resolved that if this didn't work out, I would likely never marry again. If anything long-term arose, I would consider long term commitments, but not marriage. It's something I should have learned early, though my husband has said that if I hadn't wanted to marry him, he would have ended things. He needs that traditional form of commitment and I, now more than ever, know I don't. Granted, I enjoy the security and soft-landing of my marriage. In fact, the fact that I never had anything secure and stable in my life, let alone someone to love me and push me to be free, is precisely why it's so hard to think about walking away. It's an addiction. It's too easy. I doubt that if left to my own devices I would actually be able to follow through on the things I speak about for a life of my own: Can I live alone? Not the being alone, but the day to day practicalities of living...could I do that?" My response: Is it not easy because it's right? Why walk alone when you have someone to willingly give you that cushion with no strings attached? With nothing but a beaming pride that you're his? Or are you? Are any of us when we give ourselves, emotionally to others? It's not physical contact, a quick fuck with another woman that I fear. I fear exactly what I gave to other men when I was married--what I should have been sharing with husband, I gave to them. I gave myself to everything else. I was allowed to, but there were terms. There was no feather-pillow, marshmallow landing. The mundane practicalities, we all struggle with, our kind, our generation of etherial attention-span-less-ness. --"What he wants out of living life is different than what I want. Regardless of any deep psycho-emotional connection and understanding and love we have...this is the realization I am coming to and it makes me ill...I don't want this to be the truth...I want the other life...but I want him to be in that life, too. I think." My response: I'm leaning over my computer with my hands covering my face thinking about what to say to this. I've never had this. I've never walked hand-in-hand with someone down the same road, with the same objectives, the same goals, the same life, looking at each other, completely content, completely without words.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-448458656310188624?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/448458656310188624/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=448458656310188624' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/448458656310188624?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/448458656310188624?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/06/porch-beer-ex-girlfriend.html' title='Porch. Beer. Ex-girlfriend.'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"CEMBQnw5fip7ImA9WxJRFko."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-2729139627537544512</id><published>2009-05-18T12:48:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-18T13:47:33.226-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-18T13:47:33.226-05:00</app:edited><title>You were right...it was a date</title><content type='html'>My therapist asked me last week if what happened last weekend when I went cycling with my new cycling friend was a "date." I said i didn't think it was a date. She said, "it was a date. You need to decide what to do before you get yourself into a situation." Can't i just avoid this and hope it goes away? We cycled this weekend over on one of the islands. There were moments when were forced to dismount on the side of the roads, these roads lined with tall grasses, vibrant wildflowers and dilapidated wooden fences, just to take in the view of the snow capped Cascades, of Rainier, seemingly on fire, floating on an island of its own. I'd notice him peripherally, taking my sweatiness in, and at one point he reached to sweep my bangs out of my eyes. This lighthouse at the pinnacle of an adjunct island. It reminded me of the old lighthouse in Milwaukee, the one that was being restored, that I'd run by through the park along Lake Michigan. White with a black ring, an enormous swirling lantern at the top. The metal casing would let out a flash reflecting the sun. Low tide, we walked down to the beach, leaving our bikes on the rocks above, taking in cliche salty, fishy air. "It doesn't smell like this in the city," he said. "Can you imagine yourself living on an island like this?" I said it depended on the reason. It depended on my age, my intentions. "I can see that. It would probably depend on who you were with, too." I bit my lip. We finished our ride at a sushi bar on a little strip of touristy-looking buildings, old. Maybe they weren't touristy. There were no locals hanging out. I wondered if the island had locals at all. "I don't know much about sushi anymore," he says. "I think it is basically always the same. You spent 4 years on a boat and you don't know about fish?" Two beers and a spicy tuna roll later he reaches over and touches my wrist. He asks if we can consider this a date. "You have to have felt this. Am I the only one?" "I'm seeing someone." i look out towards the patio, noticing the sun begin to set. I felt a slight warmth on my arms where the punishing orb had attacked me underneath his fingertips still resting there. "So, is it serious with you and this other guy?" I thought back to every email, every text, every conversation, every time my I would lose my breath, every day, every night, every time we'd managed to dislodge the sheets from every corner of the bed. "It is getting serious, yes." "Can we keep this friendly and see what happens? I really like you. I can't believe you hadn't noticed this at work. Do you think this could get awkward because we work together?" It might. His eyes changed from bright green to stormy blue, dipping a piece of albacore into the wasabi, looking straight into my own eyes. I wondered what color they were right now. I thought about the veins on his arms and the lack of tattoos. I always expect to see them when I see guys in T-shirts. Today, I saw him at work, he was in a meeting with one of the other engineers. He turned to look and flashed me a smile. Wearing those dark-rimmed glasses, poring through papers. I stopped for a second outside the glass, cocked my head, thought of how i hoped to god he wouldn't try to kiss me as I left his house, salty and wet. Setting my file down, I closed my eyes and opened them only when i knew i was facing far enough to my right. I opened them only when I felt the cool breeze from my fire-escape window. We've only had one date. <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-2729139627537544512?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/2729139627537544512/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=2729139627537544512' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2729139627537544512?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/2729139627537544512?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/you-were-rightit-was-date.html' title='You were right...it was a date'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"CEYGRnk9fCp7ImA9WxJRFEw."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-5042401141212400662</id><published>2009-05-15T12:08:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-15T13:28:47.764-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-15T13:28:47.764-05:00</app:edited><title>breakup letter</title><content type='html'>Sitting cross-legged, entangled in a damp sheet, This was the moment. The last moment of epidermal strength infallibility in droplets stuck in a well-woven web hanging by the last sticky thread. visceral deconstruction a rearrangement i hesitate to define courage by fearlessness contraction, expansion only when we allow the air in the room to clear<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-5042401141212400662?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/5042401141212400662/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=5042401141212400662' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/5042401141212400662?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/5042401141212400662?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/breakup-letter.html' title='breakup letter'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DUUMQH8-fip7ImA9WxJRFE0."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-8274951857746094183</id><published>2009-05-14T14:19:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-15T12:08:01.156-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-15T12:08:01.156-05:00</app:edited><title>absinthe, cocaine, fulci or "it's your turn to clean the glue machine"</title><content type='html'>It's been since I left the brewery and went to Eastern Europe that i'd talked to J. Facebook, you've done it again. I can't really remember the first day we met. It must have been when i started at OBC. I would be out in front, my first position was as a retail girl. Folding shirts and serving beer to groups of frat boys. 3 or 4 o'clock would roll around, the bottling run would be over, the boys would start to gather in the tasting room, filling pint glasses with their celebration, or with infuriation. I did remember thinking that I wanted that. I wanted to stroll in after a bottling run, after cleaning tanks, after struggling with labels and glue, wet and tired, clad in big rubber boots (I never did get over the "wet" part). Mostly, I wanted to be one of the boys. After a few months in retail, I asked for a transfer to production. I remember walking onto that bottling line and knowing that the next two years would entail dragging hoses and attempting to end a run without throwing bottles at the German machinery. As with any job, you start to develop close relationships with co-workers. I remember my first days bottling and kegging with J. Patience beyond belief, that boy. We'd arrive at 4 AM to start the keg run. He did everything those first couple days, never left my side, even though i know he had partied till just about the time he had to come to work. Sometimes we'd find our bottling supervisor still sleeping in the large bin of plastic wrap that our bottles would come packed in, maybe in a pool of vomit, maybe not. There were times that J showed up so late that i'd already kegged half the tank. He'd walk in, reeking of the night before, be very sorry, and offer to clean everything. Inevitably, on those days, the machines would break down and we'd spend hours fiddling with wrenches, nuts and bolts. J taught me how to be spatial. How to use my left brain for good, instead of evil. He taught me the finer points of not being killed by heavy machinery and the forklift. We had such shitty days, he and I, scrubbing pig-intestine glue off of the machines, water so hot we had to wear thick, awkward-fitting black gloves, scrubbing the dreaded pink mold from the bottom of the filler. Shitty days when bottles exploded out of nowhere and shot amber glass in all directions. Days when we'd have to unpack the bottles by hand onto the conveyers. Our hands were always cut up from bottle caps. We took care of each other, he and I. He'd rarely not be by my side in rotation, and we'd take such painstaking effort to make sure that nothing would go wrong for ourselves. Those days were long. But nothing replaces those conversations in the early mornings, the sky was always dark, the air in the brewery smelled like malt-o-meal. J would be so angry sometimes, we'd start drinking early. Sometimes, I'd change the schedule so that we could be on the same runs. Sometimes, I'd change the schedule so that we could go out to the bars and clean the beer lines, but really all we'd do is get really drunk and end up somewhere in Old Town, talking about drinking even more. Many an evening was spent in J's basement apartment with the cat and the cold tiled floor, fat rails of cocaine, a bottle of absinthe, and horror movies, up until dawn, talking about music, about Lovecraft, bitching about work. Nothing replaces those days. They were long. I think about them and that stale beer and crushed hops smell runs from my brain into my nose. We missed a lot of each other's lives. I still have that poem that he wrote me on the back of the 90 Shilling coaster.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-8274951857746094183?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/8274951857746094183/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=8274951857746094183' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8274951857746094183?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8274951857746094183?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/absinthe-cocaine-fulci-or-its-your-turn.html' title='absinthe, cocaine, fulci or "it's your turn to clean the glue machine"'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEAESX44fyp7ImA9WxJREk4."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-4972160564585890891</id><published>2009-05-13T11:53:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-13T12:45:08.037-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-13T12:45:08.037-05:00</app:edited><title>you smell like glitter and cotton candy</title><content type='html'>Paperwork. I write emails to friends, chat, look at other people's profiles on Facebook. Look out the window, longingly, at my fire escape and the crows that gather there. My eyes take in brief sunshine. Glance at my Outlook, notice there's a message from the person who sits to my right. One word answers to my questions. I sit here and try not to eat out of boredom. I try to chew gum. Bubble gum, minty gum. I think minty gum works. I chew piece after piece out of sheer boredom. I walk into the production room on my way to the bathroom and run into my new cycling friend. "We should make this a thing." I have a hangover. Don't speak in riddles. "What? What kind of thing." "Cycling on the weekends." "oh. that thing." "Yeah, so this saturday, then. I'll think of a route, we'll go out to dinner again. Cool?" I look past the papers he's carrying and notice the prominent veins on his arms, leading up to his neck. And then I am looking into his eyes and today, they are bright green. I'm considering the scars on his chest from lung surgery. He smiles and tells me about the fieldwork he's been doing. I fiddle with a pair of scissors and listen, thinking mostly about the hockey game i missed while cooking dinner last night. I'm listening, but only half-heartedly. I'm thinking about last night. About making dinner for a chef. About making dinner. I suck at life, I'm thinking. I should do this more often. Domesticity is not my forte and i forget about it, at the mercy of the wine. But the chef's roommate was at the kitchen table with me, drinking wine, we were talking about something, laughing, chopping vegetables. I don't look at him, he brushes the back of my neck with a kiss. I'm startled by new cycling friend's laugh. I think he said something funny. "What?" He tells me about something that happened on Sunday. I look back into his eyes and again, he smiles and asks where we should go for dinner. A friend asked me the other day what i'd say if new cycling friend asked me out on a date, or if i even thought these were actual dates. Would i tell him i were seeing someone? Part of me wants to say no. The part of me that traces veins with the tips of my fingers and thinks grey hair and scars are hot. I walk back to my desk, throw on my headphones and think about where I want to go to dinner.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-4972160564585890891?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/4972160564585890891/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=4972160564585890891' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4972160564585890891?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4972160564585890891?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/you-smell-like-glitter-and-cotton-candy_13.html' title='you smell like glitter and cotton candy'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"AkAEQ3k6fyp7ImA9WxJREUg."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-4251041315802118513</id><published>2009-05-12T14:18:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-12T15:05:02.717-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-12T15:05:02.717-05:00</app:edited><title>things that aren't appropriate</title><content type='html'>I had a drink with my roommates last night. A couple of drinks. A couple of drinks after i had already had a couple of drinks. It's funny, when you don't see people in a while, you remember why you liked them. or why you didn't. I was sitting at the head of the table that the landlord left. It has an antique cover that i'd set my hot coffee on, and it left a white ring. We're trying to figure out how we can hide it. I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what to say, facing both of them again. I never know how to begin conversations with my ex-husband. Maybe that was part of the problem. We didn't just laugh. We didn't just connect. We were good friends. We occupied each other's time, space, void. We snarled and poked at each other until we bled. And so we resort to suspicious behavior, snapping, hiding. There is an air of un-forgetfulness, un-forgiveness. No guilt, no remorse, only something left behind. Our roommate decides to walk to the kitchen and pop open another Fat Tire. He asks if we want a chili dog. I don't want a chili dog, but it breaks through the uncomfortable tension of me questioning my ex-husband about his new "friend." She's married. I wonder about this girl, this married "friend." Is she as unhappy as I was? Does she want out? Why would he choose someone in exactly the same situation as we were in two years ago? Wanting out, but wanting the security. Wanting the greener grass, but wanting to come back to the food bowl. Does he wonder what she says to her husband? Does he wonder if her husband is expecting her home for a candlelit bubble bath, and what he is thinking when she doesn't show? He explains that it's because there's no chance of it working out. Ever. This is the reason he sees her. They talk, they have coffee. They must have something in common. They must share a passion for something. They must share experiences. He doesn't ask about my relationship. I've told him that it's none of his business and that I don't want his opinions about it. We're just not there, yet. He has another drink and walks to the kitchen to sort out some cast iron skillets. "These are mine." I tell him he can't take everything. "This is mine." I tell him he can't have it. He sits down with his chili dog. I ask about his other girlfriend, the sugar mama that he doesn't want because he doesn't want a serious relationship right now. I get nowhere with my questions. And i'm too drunk to argue anymore. I decide that, when i look at him, I don't like him anymore. It's not because he's being insolent, it's because i really don't like him. I don't know what he's about anymore, and he makes comments, likewise. "I didn't even know you liked hockey." I do like hockey. I look at him and I cannot, for the life of me, remember what we had in common, what we talked about, if we ever really opened up to each other. This was a good example of our relationship. We made better roommates than spouses.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-4251041315802118513?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/4251041315802118513/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=4251041315802118513' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4251041315802118513?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/4251041315802118513?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/things-that-arent-appropriate.html' title='things that aren't appropriate'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEAMQXs7cCp7ImA9WxJREEo."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-6054408015944474707</id><published>2009-05-11T14:29:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-11T16:19:40.508-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-11T16:19:40.508-05:00</app:edited><title>Detachment</title><content type='html'>"Do you know what the procedure is for detached retina?" No. "They place this little gas bubble behind your eye and...you have to look in one direction, not moving your eyes...for 2 weeks." (It's called pneumatic retinoxepy) Not moving your eyes. Not moving your eyes. One stray look Might have adverse, lifelong effects. Permanent detachment. "I'm your typical boy." I've never dated a "typical boy." I have no idea what that even means. Am I your typical girl? I don't know if my eyes could ever be still. There was a very long time when I was stereotypically on a deteriorating raft surrounded by thick, salty air and hungry sharks. And sun that pounded my skin into blistery, bloody sheets. "If you had a theme, what would it be? A theme. A word." Suffocation. And it will be a most undesirable way to die.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-6054408015944474707?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/6054408015944474707/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=6054408015944474707' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6054408015944474707?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6054408015944474707?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/detachment.html' title='Detachment'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"C0cMQHYzeip7ImA9WxJREUg."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-7917567625304471456</id><published>2009-05-11T12:39:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-12T12:58:01.882-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-12T12:58:01.882-05:00</app:edited><title>i brought a 4-pack of Guinness and potato chips to my first therapy session</title><content type='html'>I spent this past saturday with someone who told me that the reason they were 34 and had not ever had a serious relationship was because of their mother. I spent that morning walking along the beach, sunlight finally beaming in a cloudless sky. When he left me in the truck, i opened his wallet and peeked at his license. It's the same as looking through people's drawers. Piecing together their fragmented lives, snippets of an entire life before you came together. Bills, tickets, half-written-in journals, statements about their existence, condom wrappers, photos. He spent that day looking at me, hard. I couldn't quite figure it out, what he was looking for. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There were a few glances. Hazel. Blue-green. Like mine. You can't ever tell through the glasses. I decided I didn't date light-eyed men, fair-haired and fine-boned. It's a trust issue. Which is ironic. Because i have light eyes. Although not fair-haired or fine-boned. I did notice his room, his bathroom. The window that looked over the cherry blossoms and the lilac bushes and the quiet street. And then we were cycling on the island. And he always wanted to be on my left side, talking, questioning. I wanted to know what he meant by that. By stopping and mentioning where we were on the water, and the reflection, and the gin. He didn't let me lead. I took it. Sunset over the I-90 bridge. On my ride home, alone, I was still asleep on the pillow. I had pulled the sheets from the corner.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-7917567625304471456?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/7917567625304471456/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=7917567625304471456' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/7917567625304471456?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/7917567625304471456?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-brought-4-pack-of-guinness-and-potato.html' title='i brought a 4-pack of Guinness and potato chips to my first therapy session'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEQBRHg5cCp7ImA9WxJSF08."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-5938791028545521760</id><published>2009-05-07T12:57:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-07T14:59:15.628-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-07T14:59:15.628-05:00</app:edited><title>bedside table drawer</title><content type='html'>The first memories i have are of my dad leaving for work. He worked swing-shift sometimes, and when he came home at odd hours from the metal forge plant, he would take off his burned, ashen clothes, pile them in the corner, and go to sleep. I remember seeing a picture of him in front of the enormous drop forge, a furnace burning hundreds of degrees hotter than my little body could ever imagine. In the summer, when my mom would take the scissors to my faded, worn-kneed jeans, she would give the legs to him. He used them as a layer of protection against the searing sparks that flew as he brought the heavy hammer down on a piece of iron, molding it into a tool, something practical, something useful. I imagined the jean-legs disintigrating with each firey ball that collided with the layers of fabric, finally contacting the skin, the smell of singed hair melding with the smell of hot melting metal He would come home, sleep, get up and leave for baseball practice. There was a dirty, grey uniform that he wore. Stirrups and white socks. I remember the uniform had a number on the back, maybe his name. I cannot remember the number. Maybe it changed. I don't remember watching him play. I was small then. I'm sure i never knew the size of his hands, or if mine would fit into his palm. I don't think that i ever knew if he had scars or callouses from work, from the baseball or the smooth wood bat. There were so many rough surfaces, so many edges. I ran into them all. Get up, look around, find a band-aid for the wound. "Don't bleed on my things."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-5938791028545521760?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/5938791028545521760/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=5938791028545521760' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/5938791028545521760?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/5938791028545521760?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/bedside-table-drawer.html' title='bedside table drawer'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DEUBQ3k9eSp7ImA9WxJSE00."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-3463412515260473006</id><published>2009-05-02T15:16:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-05-02T18:17:32.761-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-05-02T18:17:32.761-05:00</app:edited><title>if you can cheer me up, i can learn to love you</title><content type='html'>The quote of the day concerned two awkward goof-balls attempting to wax poetic about social cues. this is something we do every day, pick apart a social structure or two until we've beaten it like a bad dog, until it's on the ground, begging for air, for the chance to show us a "different side." these conversations last days. we can pick up where we left off, always, and let the disintegration begin. i could potentially describe the bus ride that i had the other day, the one that began with my partner-in-crime and i walking to the bus stop on a cloudless morning, i hadn't noticed until we arrived at the stop and he followed me that he hadn't lit a cigarette. I raised my eyebrows. The #3 comes every ten minutes. Of course it was full, it was nearing 8:00, filled with junior professionals heading down the hill, downtown to the high rise cubicles that we all occupy, even on beautiful days. And then the Can Lady got on. The Asian lady with the half-drooping face. Some sort of deformity that i cannot define. She carries cans in ripped black hefty bags onto the bus, and they leave a slithery trail of flat beer and soda to the back door, where she absolutely needed to be, even though there were shoulder-to-shoulder bodies in the aisle. I think the drippy mess crept onto my jeans as she dragged her bags on the floor through our legs. I smelled old beer all day. i wish i were a better writer, i could describe what we talk about on a daily basis. i could describe a certain friend's descent (or ascent, really) into unemployment. fun-employment. everyone looks and says, "tsk tsk. jeez, aren't you looking? can't you find anything? aren't you bored?" the answer i received, once, was..."no, i'm not looking." not looking not because she didn't want to, but because this forced break from the rat race was exactly what she needed to be able to sit down and really take a look at herself and her own needs. We work in this giant machine. I'm a firm believer that the machine works. It serves its purpose. That micromanagement is how people are "motivated" into doing "work." That nagging barb in the back of your neck that walks by your desk, employing some secret mix of formulated bullshit to suck your soul out and thereby rendering you able to do no more than make charts and graphs (not using red). The machine means that we all have a place. But when she left it, it meant that she didn't have a place. Accepting this was the first step. Because it doesn't come without withdrawal that longing...wishing you could score a job, any office job, temping anything to be able to prove your worth for 8-10 hours a day.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-3463412515260473006?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/3463412515260473006/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=3463412515260473006' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/3463412515260473006?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/3463412515260473006?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/05/if-you-can-cheer-me-up-i-can-learn-to.html' title='if you can cheer me up, i can learn to love you'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>1</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DU8NRngyfSp7ImA9WxJSEUk."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-1020289463399807983</id><published>2009-04-30T19:33:00.001-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-30T22:18:17.695-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-30T22:18:17.695-05:00</app:edited><title>camera obscura</title><content type='html'>my perception of space is slightly skewed. i grew up not having space not having time or privacy. all of these things were occupied or taken away. I left my phone at work. I feel slightly disconnected, so i make up stories to pass the time. I sit here in silence, because music distracts me from my original intent. I climb the stairs to the anne frank room and look at the photo album. The first photo is of our wedding day. It's the newspaper shot. I don't know where it came from, or which paper it was from. Its the first photo. The pictures aren't chronological. There are some of us in bulgaria, in the mountains, hiking with our colleagues. There are some of us with friends, some with family. Some of those profile shots of me in the sunset. There are some of babas we passed in the streets, dressed in traditional Rhodope baba gear. I turn the pages, think about where we were. I think we went in circles. I think we came full circle, a complete 360 regression. I told a friend the other night that i really have faked a lot of orgasms. It was the truth. "Fourth time, one hour. No lie." That's what you said, right? An hour on the fourth go? The first one's for you, the second one's for her, the third one is for both of us, the fourth one is...an hour. It really had no point. I talk to him when i have questions about things neither of us have a clue about. I can always tell that he's laughing on the other end. He tells me what he thinks i need to say when i have sex with other men. "Mostly just don't say anything." He talks to me when he has life crises. We've spent the last year re-evaluating his life, from one end of the country to another. "Meet me in Idaho." I think of all the opportunities in that album. There were pictures of us at camp, pictures of us in florida, in mexico, in Hong Kong. There was just no love. There was no place in my heart for that kind of love. The love that one should see when they open a photo album. "Look how in love you were." I feel slightly disconnected. So i write stories. "Now is the time when your relationship will take a turn. You have a choice. You can sabotage it, or you can stay and face it." "We make a good team." We make a good team when i make you laugh. When i get hyper in the middle of the afternoon because i want to come over and make out with you. "What do you want for Christmas, little girl." That was ironic. If only you knew what that little girl wanted. Every Wednesday, she asks me what that little girl wants. "Love. A home. Attention." That's all she ever wants. She doesn't get her childhood. I took her and ran, already. We live out of a backpack. A backpack that i set on the floor in the bathroom, and rummage through in the morning wishing i could just leave it there, and put my clothes away in one place. and not have to carry (enter heart skipping a beat) everything.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-1020289463399807983?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/1020289463399807983/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=1020289463399807983' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1020289463399807983?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1020289463399807983?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/camera-obscura.html' title='camera obscura'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"D0QBRHk9fSp7ImA9WxJTGEs."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-8187147081920189735</id><published>2009-04-27T15:40:00.005-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-27T15:49:15.765-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-27T15:49:15.765-05:00</app:edited><title>"you know me, I'll walk away and never look back."</title><content type='html'>It might end at the point when I give up on having a childhood. It might end when I pick up my backpack for good, leave you all behind. Leave all of this behind. But those are irrational thoughts, unproductive thoughts. These are angry thoughts. I have learned that I have to stop asking so many questions and learning to actually answer them. I leave too many questions unanswered. The end is here. The end is now. The end of my fear of everything has to be now or it will never come. It will never come and I will be lost. I can only write these stories about my nonexistent childhood for so long before they consume me and my unrealistic expectations about the way things are supposed to fall into place. “Everyone is like that. No one can commit completely. It’s not human nature to just fall into one thing. To love one thing, one person, to work one job, to have one dwelling, to have things that they cannot rid themselves of.” When you are lost, go back to what you know. Now I have to come up with the answers about what I know. I know that I never feel the same today as I did yesterday. I know that yesterday is, in fact, always dead. It is the ashes of what I burn in my sleep. I know that my brain is on fire sometimes, and it is all I can do to soak it in a shower of cold chemical to cool its rampant flame. So does it end with the cold numbing of neurons? Does it end with the deadening and dampening of neurotransmitters? And when my eyes are dull and dirty, and my hair is matted and I haven’t been out of my pajamas for weeks, and I am still convinced that it is yesterday, and never today, and I can never persuade the sun to burn the memories into spots.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-8187147081920189735?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/8187147081920189735/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=8187147081920189735' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8187147081920189735?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/8187147081920189735?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/you-know-me-ill-walk-away-and-never.html' title='"you know me, I'll walk away and never look back."'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"AkQESH0-eip7ImA9WxJTGEk."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-1747539273370228485</id><published>2009-04-27T10:34:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-27T11:05:09.352-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-27T11:05:09.352-05:00</app:edited><title>where did you sleep last night</title><content type='html'>Last night, quite aware of 3:14 A.M. Restlessly weighing my conscience And it being early enough in the middle of the night To not medicate, I considered keeping this at arm's length At a tolerable distance As I secure a comfortable spot Perched, watching, hollow-boned and aeriform, a tiny beating heart, a tongue that never speaks more than antediluvian riddles she watches her hair cascade over his dark eyes and remembers that there are still pancakes in the cast iron, forgotten, burning; left behind when they walked down the steps together, already replaying the scene in their heads, already drinking cheap wine on a warm patch of blanket, moonlit grass already out of love. already her lips sip the last drops of wine hands fall to the ground.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-1747539273370228485?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/1747539273370228485/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=1747539273370228485' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1747539273370228485?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1747539273370228485?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/where-did-you-sleep-last-night.html' title='where did you sleep last night'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"DkYHRno5cCp7ImA9WxJTF0U."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-3132833661518630169</id><published>2009-04-26T16:18:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-26T17:15:37.428-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-26T17:15:37.428-05:00</app:edited><title>truth or dare</title><content type='html'>When I was younger, I learned to allow words to resonate in my thoughts. I took them very seriously. I took apart every word, learned to play them, juggle them. Every.word.counts. Dare. That was fleeting. It was only an action; the flash of a camera, a brief crescendo. But the voices lasted longer. Truth. I'm leaning over my laptop watching a jungle flourish in my back yard, watching the black cats roll around on their backs in the grass that we should cut soon. Dare. I never told anyone. When they ask, I say we're friends. Truth. I think he still thinks about her. i have is stories that i should write down, that i have begun to reveal. pasts that begin to melt together in a swirl of place and time, kisses, addictions, and flesh and suicidal rage. and i am told that none of these occurrences is in the least bit average. Truth. There used to be very little of my heart that i left exposed to be broken. I have always done the shattering. and silently walk away, closing the door so i couldn't hear it fall to the floor. Dare. Being still is a challenge. Truth. He doesn't want to know what's inside my head because it scares the hell out of him. What he wants is to look into bright, clear eyes that aren't painful and stormy. The distractions are imminent. I take off my glasses so that i don't see them. so that i can only see what is close to me. i took a step slightly to the right, to make a point. but he followed. And when she returns, I wonder whose bright steps he'll follow.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-3132833661518630169?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/3132833661518630169/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=3132833661518630169' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/3132833661518630169?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/3132833661518630169?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/truth-or-dare.html' title='truth or dare'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"CUcHSX06eCp7ImA9WxJTFEs."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-6704474708076779883</id><published>2009-04-22T23:53:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-23T00:03:58.310-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-23T00:03:58.310-05:00</app:edited><title>some things will never wash away</title><content type='html'>unforgiving subtlety nuances that barely reach the surface cracks in the surface that never seem to burst but spiral until they ripple creating mountains, a frozen tectonic movement inching towards certain misplaced eruptions vigilantly upwards nothing grows there nothing grows when there is no air to breathe.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-6704474708076779883?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/6704474708076779883/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=6704474708076779883' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6704474708076779883?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/6704474708076779883?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-things-will-never-wash-away.html' title='some things will never wash away'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry><entry gd:etag='W/"CU4NSH47cCp7ImA9WxJTEkU."'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17734467.post-1792059288663821597</id><published>2009-04-20T08:48:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-04-20T22:19:59.008-05:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app='http://www.w3.org/2007/app'>2009-04-20T22:19:59.008-05:00</app:edited><title>expectations</title><content type='html'>"Dating has been the sad, small experience that I always remembered it to be. Pretty girls with amusingly high expectations, and not quite as pretty girls with yet still higher ones...Sometimes I find find myself out with a girl, and halfway through the "date", I find myself just so annoyed, and wondering "WTF am I even doing here?". I think: "this girl will never really 'get' me, and I will never really 'get' her, and why the hell should I anyway?" When i read these words this morning, I thought that it was self-defeatist. I thought, there are millions of people in the world who have this ability to go out, connect, be normal, have a life, live a dream. Then I realized I wasn't any further along than he is. I read those words over and over. Realized that connection is relative. I've felt that annoyance. I know that feeling because the more i open up to people, the less i feel like i can control it, the less i feel like they don't "get" it. It's a daily occurance that I chat with a few friends and debate what life is worth to us. Sooner or later, it will be par for the course that i will inadvernently try to find a reason to stop dating, find a reason that no one needs to know what is going on, a reason why I should be alone. And so it comes back to the earlier statement, "WTF am i even doing here?" But this is part of what has recently become, once again, a part of what I have become. Yes, my therapist says that we are more than our diagnoses, but she also knows how personal and how safe I keep them. I keep them in my heart, save them from the world, from destruction. Dating is hard. Dating is harder than before. Before, it was quirky. I was moody and foreboding. I was punk rock, I was emo. I was my soundtrack. Dating is hard. I go back and forth. I think in black and white. I call it all-or-nothing. I'm supposed to say something about how "things" affect me. All of you will nod your heads at this. You will say, hmmm...that's our girl. She has her own page in the DSM-IV <a href="http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/psychology/781/bpd-dsm.htm">http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/psychology/781/bpd-dsm.htm</a> "You cannot have your childhood." What can i have, then? "You can have right now. You can start from nothing. You have nothing to lose. The only way you fail is if you take that last step off the bridge." So what the fuck am i doing here, anyway.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17734467-1792059288663821597?l=ednaseyes.blogspot.com'/></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/feeds/1792059288663821597/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17734467&postID=1792059288663821597' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1792059288663821597?v=2'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17734467/posts/default/1792059288663821597?v=2'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://ednaseyes.blogspot.com/2009/04/expectations.html' title='expectations'/><author><name>edna stinowski</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty name='OpenSocialUserId' value='17488501825048234915'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></entry></feed>

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