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Chasing the dead.

I’m probably an outcast to my paternal family tree. Nobody came out and said “stay away” but the one time I tried really hard to meet my father I had him tracked down by a volunteer branch at the Salvation Army. If you could provide a last address, full name, birth date, and social security number (which i have scrawled on a torn piece of scratch paper in my maternal grandmothers handwriting in an old envelope that I have held onto my entire life as if it were gold) they would contact the “missing” person for you at no charge. I wasn’t really surprised when they wrote me a month or so later saying they sent him my letter and he chose not to respond. As an adult, and then as a teen, I could understand the fear an estranged child could cause to a new and probably better life. What caught me off guard was when I realized the pain it caused me. The last time we had contact I was under two years old and have no memory of it so It was a huge awakening 16 years later to find that I really DID care what he thought and that there was deep emotional scarring from the thought of rejection.

More than my father, I really wanted to meet my grandmother Rosemary whom I’d heard such great stories about. She was an artist who was also gifted with premonitions and prophetic dreams. There were several stories about her painting for 2 days straight to get the dream out of her head and then the scene in the painting would soon become a real event. Family tragedy, such as her husbands military ship going down, became sickening reality on canvas. I really don’t know for sure how much of these stories are true or even partially true because I was never there to see or experience first-hand. I have the imaginary paintings in my head as they were described and I feel a psychic connection with her since I am very sensitive to energies and intuitive and have my own prophetic dreams that I finally got wise enough to record after 20+ years of forgetting them. I have no reason to think these stories are “wives tales” because I have had many “paranormal” experiences that have been confirmed either by photographic evidence, verbal affirmation of correct premonitions by the people i dream about, and random sensitives saying the same thing about the same spot I felt a particular energy without my mentioning it or, sometimes, without ever meeting that sensitive before that moment. The sinking ship painting I was told about brought the sad news of her becoming a widow, after maybe five years of marriage, in 1945. She was only 26 or 27 years old and had two small children but she packed them up for a move to California where she worked nights and went to school to complete her GED. She actually went on to complete her Masters degree and taught art El Camino College. We are/were such kindred spirits. Alike in so many ways. From being a struggling single parent who refused to drop out of school (I Finally decided on my Registered Nurse degree after taking nearly every course available in 4 different Community Colleges while running from the “bad men” in my life who stalked me). From high school the plan my art teacher had was for me to be an Art major and get scholarships for my potential. But, when I started college with a full 21 unit Art assault plan, I found that there were so many talented people with the same major. The formula seemed to be: the better the artist was the closer they were to me in seating. My self esteem began slip and I knew that I could make nice art for my home but I’d starve to death if I had to make a living with my mediocre potential and skills. I was also confused as to what major to stick with because I liked everything. I love to do everything for myself as far as fixing the cars or the home so when something came up on a vintage car restoration project that I needed help with I took a class. I also knew I was great at fiction as evidenced by all my A+ papers that I had 2 months to write but I finished without drafts or much research the night/morning before it was due. So I joined the college newspaper and soon became the Features Editor, staff writer, cartoonist, illustrator, and page design/paste up person back when the Mac was still a baby and we weren’t designing the pages on the screen to print out in magical camera-ready perfection. No we had to adjust font, size, leading, etc and reprint each article if it didn’t fit on the board. Everything was coated in hot wax to “glue” it to the page boards and all the pretty lines and bars that separate stories and headings were meticulously placed pieces of vinyl pin-striping in various different widths and once you actually got it down “mostly” straight it had to be cut square at the ends with an X-acto knife. Oh I know the suspense is killing you here as you think of what tragedy could happen when making the final cut…….ummmm vinyl is stretchy so the mere act of holding it taught to make a straight line puts you at risk for “shrinkage” when you make the cut and let go. Yeah, after the final cut is made it always seems to be 1/16″ to 1/8″ short and guess what time it is folks! Printer deadline time. After several 6 hours marathon paste-up sessions I figured out that I should only use the striping that were the exact size of our various tipped sharpies so i could just “touch up” instead of removing 10 yards of sticky vinyl string to begin the tedious relining of the entire newspaper sized page. I lived in the newsroom for nearly a year and then decided that a career in journalism would make me blind and poor postured (and just plain poor) before I was thirty so I began taking creative writing classes and unleashed my freedom or creativity. It’s stimulating when you know your work doesn’t have to pass editorial board and that the sadly censored letters could happily return to their rightful places where the *,$, and #’s were standing guard for too long. But even with the excitement of creative minds all brainstorming and chatting wittily I began to notice that writing causes a lot of sitting. Sitting in one place. Sitting for hours before you realize rigor mortis has set in and you just ruined club night for at least two weeks. So my wonderful poor circulation (a gift from the gene faeries) reacted most unpleasantly to this new habit of sitting till my legs were numb and swollen to twice their size(a habit i still have while writing, researching, blogging, podcasting, and networking with creative types). The need for venous bloodflow prompted the need to get another project in the air. I researched careers in medicine as MD, Physicians Assistant, Nurse, DO, changed my mind mid semester as to which program would be best in terms of time put in – student loan payback – amount of time I’d love in the growing up of my little boy – how much was required to enter the program (ie: number of A’s required in relation to the odds I could study for once and or guess my way through like I do most of the time to keep a B+ average).

Several semesters later,Car chick/Artist/Creative writer/Editor/Healer/Algebra and Chesmistry 2-page equation lover/Techy gurl on the internet years before anyone heard of it (1989?)/Nature communicator with Pagan-Wiccan tendencies was now also taking, for credit, auto body shop and grinding the old paint off the new baby (64 impala) all the way down to the metal and pulling out the little dents with near precision. Auto body is an art form. It came easy to me because I looked at the car as a piece to mold and perfect. Bondo was easy to tackle because I put it on the cleanest and most ready surface, knowing as an artist that you must start with a good foundation to get a good completed piece. The other students mostly tried to do it the easy way by slapping the Bondo on haphazardly and then trying to make the outermost layer clean up nice.

From the obituary bio I was drawn to by, i’m sure, grandma Rosemary or her mother or any other angel spirit watching over me, we see Rosemary was a sculptor, painter, writer, teacher, healer of the earth. A lot like me but I also have a good/bad temper and enjoy aggressive sports like playing roller hockey in the men’s league or jumping in a bar fight to save a stranger from getting unfairly beaten to a pulp. I’m not as bad as you’re probably imagining. It’s a matter of balance. I will crawl on the ground outside to coax an insect out of harms way just as surely as I’d get in some guys face at the rink if he’s getting too close to the goal with the puck.

So back to balance. I can’t get enthused about anything unless I have too much going on at the same time giving me the artificial energy/enthusiasm of adrenaline over-stimulation. So I look for problems and I solve them. I took auto electrical systems because I was tired of having men who “knew what they were talking about, miss, so will you please wait behind the yellow line” tell me for the 10th or 11th time in a month that my battery goes dead because the ‘voltage regulator’ is bad. That line can be inter changed with ‘the alternator’ by the same expert a day later. Nobody heard a word I said when I told them that 10 alternators and regulators can’t ALL be factory rejects and so it MAY be a wiring problem. If it weren’t for the “never question the mechanics for accuracy” policy combined with the “90 day replacement guarantee on electrical parts purchases at any of our 3 Boys chain stores ” (three guys with black hair and the initials of M,M, and J) I would have had to hold up a few banks to pay for all the parts and mandatory M, M,& J installation of said parts. Turns out the real problem was with the terminal on the wire running from the voltage regulator to the alternator and I solved the problem with a new terminal that cost me about 50c. And I got the highest grade in that class which was comprised of 30 or so guys in ASE mechanic programs.

Rarely have I ever taken a vehicle in for a minor maintenance visit and those times I did go to a shop it was to avoid being accused of voiding the warranty if something happened later. Hindsight offers me great frothing at the mouth stress after seeing the damage the “pros” caused and the amount of months I wasted trying to get things corrected half-assed so I’d go away and leave them alone. I may have had one warranty repair done in my house in 12 years. Maybe I’m a bit controlling but I get satisfaction and a calm feeling from having control over the inner workings of my house and cars. Maybe grandma Rosemary was not quite so gung-ho to re-wire the ceiling fan for lights but I get the feeling she was still in charge of repairs when hired help came and she probably did her research to be sure things got done right. I feel that she still had her hands on everything in her environment. I’m told she liked to nurture all the living things around her and loved the earth. Another similarity between us. As a teen I always felt like she was sending me encouraging thoughts from an unknown place when I found I had a talent for art and it seemed she was inside my head when I got out of bed in the middle of the night to make some important creation in a manic artistic frenzy.

The strangest things have been happening to me the last few weeks and they have prompted me to seek out my estranged family. Not only is family more important and precious to me as i age but I’d also love to see and touch the artworks that this inspirational mentor has created. I want to sit in her favorite chair, browse her bookshelves, read her poetry, trace my hands over her sculptures, and lose myself in her paintings and art supplies. Perhaps there’s a favorite brush I would be given to paint my own works with. Maybe someone will share some of her ashes so I can bring her to see my home and my children, animals, plants, pet spiders.

Yes, this has all become such an important mission to me because I was given spiritual messages that could not have been coincidence.

About a year ago, quite possibly February 2008, a ball of light appeared in my bedroom. I’ve had other energies visit me from time to time so it didn’t frighten me at all but this one gave me an immediate thought as to who it might be but when I searched the internet for her name nothing showed up. This ball has been in my room nightly for an entire year and every time I saw it I immediately thought of Rosemary Dumas and stuck with that thought even though my internet search showed nothing. Then, in February 2009, when I was sitting at my computer editing a blog I got this strange urge to log on to a site I signed own radio show up on. I saw there was a psychic radio show offering free readings on earlier but I missed it. For some reason I felt compelled to check in to see if they were running late. Of course they were. They also said they weren’t taking any more callers 20 minutes before I signed in but I called in anyway and sent a quick instant message to the host letting her know I felt Michael had a message for me and could she please let me hold to see if he had time. Several callers in front of me suddenly dropped off and I was on with the psychic. I was caught off guard already because I’ve never felt the need to ask a psychic for advice. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to ask until he spoke to me. I asked him if he saw anyone around me that was acting as my spirit-guide (an angel) because I had been feeling as though a certain person had been with me in this ball of light. Right away he said yes, its a grandmother or great-grandmother on your fathers side that you do not know. She’s been sort of tapping you on the head trying to get your attention (i did not tell him how long) and that she was traditional in a sense that she was raised a certain way but that spiritually she was very non-traditional (gifted psychically?). He also said (without knowing me from Adam) he felt I was a gifted writer and that I should work on it as something will become of it soon. Well, at the time he said that, I’d already been trying to get a TV producer acquaintance to co-write a couple documentaries. A couple ideas have interested him and he has requested me to give him more information in a summary. I’ve also applied to National Endowment for the Arts for a creative writing grant for short fiction.

So, with two powerful answers from this man I had to believe that he had angels guiding him. I closed the computer, saw the ball of light really flying in my face for attention and felt I was supposed to search for her name again. I googled her name and only one link came up but it was the right one. The obituary/remembrance written by a family member opened before my eyes. I forwarded it to my mother and grandmother and printed it out for myself.

This was another scrap of paper with links to my lineage that I would hoard for eternity. I made a pretty hot pink file and punched decorative stars in it and then lined it with neon green paper to show through the cutouts. After I finished making places for notes, document copies, and research, it was put into action.

I’ve spent every day since the discovery of the obit searching ancestry.com and social security records and county records in search of the family I didn’t get to keep. The ball of light hasn’t been around since I took on the family tree research and I’m sure that’s because the psychic and I were right about the identity and I’ve been put on the path she pointed out to reconnect with her people and heal the empty spot that I discovered when I was 18.

And, just for the record, I encouraged my children to create art when they were babies and never stopped. If I had an artistic mentor all these years I’d probably be a happy artist rather than an unhappy nurse living vicariously through her childrens art. My son Angel did tattoos for a short bit and recently submitted some designs/graphic art to a local clothing company that he likes. They are pleased with his ideas and will probably purchase a few.

My 13-year-old, Maya, was just recently recognized with a Gold Key award from scholastic, Inc for Young Artists and Authors of 2009. A letter explaining just how grand this honor is on her portfolio page at the bottom.

http://www.gallery.mac.com/creepycast#100022

This award was a lot of work to apply for (for me) and I barely got all the required papers and CD copies of her art to them in time for the deadline. A couple weeks from now we will know how she did in the final round nationally. I am happy with the Gold Key alone because she will have her name on the record with other winners of the past like Robert Redford, Joyce Carol Oats, and Truman Capote.

I am on a mission to unite a family that broke up because of nothing in particular. My own children are also estranged from their paternal families for the most part due to safety and psychological well being needs. Perhaps they can fill their empty spots with new family from my past.

As for the ancestry search, I’m pretty much ready to give up. It seemed too easy at first to fill the tree and now I know why. Family tree making is like playing “ancestor Sudoku”. Everything falls so well in to place giving you false hope that it’s all right. Then as the last relative is about to fall into the square you realize that somewhere back two or three generations is a stranger who fit the puzzle. Now the tedious job of figuring out who that is and getting all their blood out of the leaves is more daunting than starting fresh.

Here’s to hoping that one of the leads will accept us and share the answer key so I can just cheat and fill in the squares

About me…….

If I have to complete one more “about me” section in a social network I’m going to start crying. If I start crying I will get wrinkles under my eyes and that would make me really angry and cause me to get road rage. I will have to drive my big Dodge Ram 95mph on the freeway and scare the shit out of poor, unqualified freeway drivers and cause one of them to call the CHiPs on me. Of course the CHP are always in some sneaky unmarked car so when I see them coming up the freeway in my rearview mirror (and I will because when I’m driving I’m watching all mirrors in a circular motion not unlike how a lighthouse beacon light goes around in circles) I will assume they are gangster assassins who are out to run me off the road. So a high speed chase will ensue and then the news choppers will begin the dragonfly pack coverage and one of them will get a close up of the driver(me) which I will see in real time on my smart phone, because I’m an undercover geekess like that, and that’s when I will remember that I was out all night drinking for the first time in years and I woke up in a rocketship at a neighborhood park with lipstick on my chin and my eyebrows smeared all the way up to my hairline but when I got back to my truck I had a “brainstorm” moment where I had to whip out my bluetooth portable keyboard and start blogging on my smart phone before I risked losing said “brainstorm” when I got a DM tweet from a friend inviting me to a new and exciting social network so I figured if I didn’t follow the link I would be labeled “rude”(again) and, of course there’s always an “about me” space…….you see where this is heading right? I propose a ban on all new social network startups so this doesn’t happen to YOU too…….

Coraline is now my favorite movie.

I don’t usually go to the movie theater because I can’t stand the rudeness of people these days. And I don’t really care about watching things anyway because I have an attention span problem that is actually quite comical. So when a movie comes along that makes me want to see it on opening weekend it had better be really good.

Coraline was well worth the wait. It is actually one of my favorite books and I’m fascinated by stop-motion animation so when I heard it was being made I put a reminder in my iGoogle calendar.

The story is gothic enough for my tastes but also has a problem for the main character to solve and teaches a couple of good lessons under the disguise of an animated film. Lots of hidden grown-up humor like a giant praying mantis that the “other dad” rides around the garden. I have a mantis myself (it’s a gas powered tiller) so I thought that was cute.

Go see the movie on the big screen. I, myself, can’t wait for it to come out on DVD so I can watch it over and over.

It has a black cat as a major character! That’s a good reason in itself!

Grown up response to a message board on rollingstone.com

I don’t usually get into the message boards unless I’m in a bitchy mood and need to unload it or I feel the posts are getting out of control as far as meanness or near-slander. A little bit of everything was in the mix here so I posted a longwinded but fair comment.

Here’s the cut and paste of it:

we used to hand out LP’s cassette demos from the parking lot of the whiskey and other places before warner signed them. they are ALL very talented and well trained musicians and very versatile as well (an actual SIGN of good musicianship is the ability to change your genre at a moments notice and still be a good musician). Mike and Joe are also wonderfully talented visual artists (drawing/painting etc).

before Hybrid Theory came out they had a cd demo with all of those songs sung/rapped by mike) the band was named hybrid theory but when they signed with warner (and now also had chester who is a sweetheart and also a painter) they had to change the name for legal reasons and chose linkin park.

i’ve loved them since the first day i met them, told everyone i knew about them because i knew they would rise to the top, and try to keep up with the music biz news to see what they are up to now that they are constantly on tour or writing/recording.

the last album will not go in my collection unless they give it to me because it is not my style. that doesn’t mean the quality is poor it just means they have gone in a different direction artistically and it’s not my thing.

Whether I like a song they did or now has no bearing on the fact that they are still professional musicians with a lot of talent and will now have a new type of following as well as the old ‘nu-metal/rap-rock” people that have been following them since their beginning.

[i'm amused that the capitals are random on this post and i like it like that. you say i'm lazy? i could call it artistic freedom of expression. ]

Bar observation using my Treo 755P and the wireless fullsize keyboard. A computer in my coat pocket. No excuse not to write now is there?

here I am in a bar again. all alone. it’s kind of peaceful that way. If I go with friends I won’t get any writing done. I’m here using my Treo 755P and my Bluetooth collapsable keyboard to travel light and write at the spur of the moment. I did complete about 200 words on my new story and then I got really bored. Writing, as a task, bores the shit out of me. I can come up with ideas but when I. have to actually start writing it’s more like a chore. So I’ve become a professional “Title
Writer”. I’ve got tons of book titles written in journals which are hidden in unknown places all around the house. I find then at the most random time and then I read the ideas and tell myself that I want to write now that I have a good idea. And then I do nothing. So here I am in a bar, all alone, pretending to write fantastic and moving novels. But if I’m honest with myself I will tell you that the keyboard is just something to hide behind so I can remain alone. Alone in my self pity (even though I know that I look pretty today) and my self loathing and my self depreciating my sense that I’m not good enough. I know, when I’m all made up with illusion and makeup and magic, people think I was or could have been a model. But nobody knows how hard the modeling industry was to crack in the early 80’s. I was told of the flaws that I didn’t know I had. So the poor self esteem I had then was sent crashing even lowerwith the new figure grossities that I was made aware of. It’s amazing to me to go to a bar and see women who are way less attractive carrying on like they were the most beautiful woman on the planet. It’s hard to comprehend. I am not, however, surprised when some model comes out and says they have a drug problem or an eating disorder or are just so depressed about their body that they want to commit suicide. you do your own math on that. don’t forget to factor in public humiliation and microscopic flaws made big by agents and photographers and the like. oh and there’s that obsession with perfection that is never up to a models standards of herself.

Yes people, this will eventually give birth to my Dumpster Diva show.

But for now it’s a modgepodge of ideas that have been flying around with other junk in the back of my head. I’ve decided that the only way to conquer such a catastrophe is in small steps. Every week, or sometimes more often, I commit to reaching in to the dark scary hole of my head and plucking out whatever I can get my hands on without huring myself or allowing all the spinning content to get loose and take over the planet. I’ve been preparing myself for this task by watch reels and reels of cotton candy making demonstrations. I must gently stick the paper cone in the fluff and twirl it just right so as not to overfill and then lose it in the dirt.

As I am a recycle queen I’m not going to buy those paper cones. I’m going to reshape the toilet paper rolls or gift wrap tubes to make my own whimsy catching cones.

I just hope i don’t get any tiny flecks of leftover tissue in my eyes while preforming the delicate extraction procedure cuz that would distract me enough to make me forget my brain door was open and who knows what could happen then. I can forsee the news going on and on about millions of hysterical butterflies and bats flying into things because they don’t know where they are supposed to be and are, of course, still dizzy from all those years of flying cyclone style inside my head. Poor things will be misunderstood and swatted at while some jack ass at the Institute for Hiding Movie Monsters that Really Do Exist (IHMMRDE) begins the process of awakening Godzilla and King Kong so they can jump up and down and pout that they can’t reach the “flaaaayyyying stuuuufffffff” while simultaneously ruining all the cars parked in the vicinity.

Birth control and business cards have something in common

if you or someone you know is taking birth control pills look at the case the pills come in.  these plastic follet style cases are tossed in the trash by the thousands.  next time ask the pharmacist to refrain from sticking the label all the way down so you can easily remove it for its new life as a business card holder. get creative and decorate it with scrapbook brads and/or stickers.

easy, inexpensive cushion makeover

Linen napkin

the fabric should be about 2 or 3 inches larger than your pillow

ok i cheated. to speed things up i threaded the ribbon through a large plastic darning needle. it’s plastic, as in toy, so i don’t really consider that sewing :)

i love to shop the clearance racks at my local Target because the linens are very affordable.  I found a couple packs of linen cloth napkins for use as, well, cloth napkins.  i despise paper napkins unless we are eating out or on the road.  i think that when we are at home we should be responsible earthlings and save our resourses for future generations.  anyway, when i took them out of the package (btw they were marked down from $14 to $4 for a package of two) I realized that the size and decorative hole pattern aro

Linen napkin

the fabric should be about 2 or 3 inches larger than your pillow

ok i cheated. to speed things up i threaded the ribbon through a large plastic darning needle. it’s plastic, as in toy, so i don’t really consider that sewing :)

und the border made them perfect for a quick change of my throw pillows.  true to my “no sew” mantra i grabbed my ribbon box and found that 1/8″ satin ribbon fit perfectly in the holes and i quickly “stitched” a new cover over the pillow.  since i just recovered the pillows with dollar store silk-like covers last month i decided that i would use this as a demo only and then put the napkins back on the table where they are more useful to us.  i admit i am a pack-rat when it comes to clearance items but i usually get around to using the item at a later date or making it part of a last minute gift.  keep your eyes open for those red tags and you may find a bargain that has many uses.

Linen napkin

A good old-fashioned car (truck) chase makes me glad to be alive all over again.

After running a few errands last night I found myself boxed in between a small slow moving scion (in front) and a large quadcab truck similar to mine (behind me and looking drunk or angry).  Since we were on an unlit two-lane “no passing” curved road at 1:00am I figured the guy behind me was drunk and I kept an eye on him in the mirror because he kept speeding up to nearly kiss my tailgait and then slow a bit and start all over again.  Once we were clear of the posts that divided the two sides of the road and the crazy truck behind me was now at a constant kiss of my bumper (too dark to see the face but it was very close in my mirror).  I decided to rekindle my early 20’s experiences of a few high speed chases I’d been involved in where I was not the driver and had no control over the situation.  The second I was clear of the rails/post dividers I floored it over the double line and around the little slow moving Scion in front of me while testing the driver behind.  I’m not sure if this truck person was really following me for some reason or was just a liquored up asshole who decided to take the bait but he floored it right after me.  So now I’m a little scared but a lot excited.  I sped up around more traffic in the dark and ran a red light and of course so did my challenger.  I waited for him to get under the freeway overpass where concrete divides the two directions of traffic and I slammed on the brakes till I was down to 50mph so that I could “flip a bitch” (uturn) without flipping my truck and sped off through another red light to get on the freeway onramp.  I could see a large Silverado or Ram truck coming up the onramp and decided I better plan on that being my persuer.  Now I’m going 110mph and my tie rods are yelping and bucking for their dear lives so I have to say I was not only surprised but also thankful that I actually had fellow drivers on the freeway that actually know the “yield to the right of way of faster traffic” in the fast lane.  They all moved right over when I was coming up behind.  I was way ahead of the other traffic now but still wasn’t taking any chances so I cut the lights on the offramp and drove around the first block that way to stay out of sight if someone was looking for another vehicle on the dark deserted street that goes to my neighborhood.  I ended up doing a couple figure eights around a couple blocks and when I felt there wasn’t anyone on my tail I went home.  Then I started feeling all giddy because I’m still addicted to adrenaline and had a great time.  I also kept in mind the whole time that if I got pulled over I had a really good excuse to drive like a stuntwoman.  Now don’t get all pissy with me and send me emails about safety and other people at risk in my path.  If my children were with me I would have shit a brick in fear for their lives but at the same time it’s the hesitation that hurts us.  I am not a willing victim most of the time.  We all should have the right to stand up for ourselves.  I’d rather get in trouble with the law for defending myself than to be “saved by the officers” right before I was beaten nearly to death. Oh, and in case you figured as much, I teach my children that it’s OK to fight back even if you know you’re going to be suspended.  Our nation is raising legions of pussies now because everyone is afraid to get punished for fighting for themselves or a cause they believe fiercely in.  I may get the crap beat out of me some day but I will stand up and fight as long as I can before I go down.