Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

What do you do when you get angry? Do you sulk? Complain? Blow up? Drink? Run away from the problem?

As a recovering Catholic, I tend to blame myself for whatever it was that caused me to be angry, I make excuses for the other person. I think that everyone I love is SO good and SO perfect that they didn’t mean to do what they did to piss me off. I’ll think, Maybe I’m being sensitive or emotional. perhaps I didn’t communicate well and this triggered a series of events that led to me getting all pissy! I start to feel sorry because my anger might make them feel bad! Is that ridiculous?  How self-deprecating, no?

Actually, let me condition this. When I get angry at people I don’t know or care about, especially in regards to politics, I don’t ever feel sorry about making them feel uncomfortable. It’s only when I’m angry at people I love do I see their side in the issue and blame myself.

Boy did my mom fuck me up in the head. I was always to blame when things went wrong. If I had friends over at my house and they were causing trouble, it was always my fault. Even if I were trying to get them to calm down and behave, if she walked in on them breaking furniture or something, somehow (and EVERY time) I instigated it. I was always the cause of problems.

My mom was so non-confrontational and SO "humble" that she would rather blame her own kid and therefore, have the family take responsibility for problems than to throw blame on others.

Only ONE time did she stick up for me in my ENTIRE life and that was when my friend’s car was towed in San Diego on new Year’s eve (side note: my friend Tara and I both lied to our parents about going to each other’s house and took off to San Diego, we parked it in a bad spot and it got towed and we took a cab back to Tara’s house where she told her mom that the car was stolen! Boy was she in trouble! it ended up simply being towed!)

Anyway, Tara’s mom called my mom to say that I was responsible for half of the towing costs ($75) because I was with her when the car was towed. My mom said that as a non-driver I would have no idea about parking spots and was not responsible. This was the only case where my mom’s cheapness trumped her humility.

So there you have it. Still til this day do I blame myself. I’m having issues writing an "I’m angry because" email to a very close and dear person because I don’t want to make them feel badly. But I’m angry! Perhaps when I calm down I can sit down and write my thoughts without being self-deprecating and apologetic…

thoughts?

THANK GOODNESS!

Alex is going to connect with her old friend and former next door neighbor Marcia and head to Austin. I sure hope she reaches her. I at least now know that she’s serious about leaving her small town. If she has no place in Austin, I’ll encourage her to go to El Paso…

THANKS EVERYBODY!

My sister Alex is petrified to the point of inaction. My mom lives on the coast, 30 miles away from my sister’s city, and was mandatorily evacuated yesterday morning. Now, my mom and sister, with my 3 BEAUTIFUL nieces, are planning to weather the hurricane in Alex’s boarded up home, stockpiled with food and water. My sister is on her way to San Antonio (without her kids and my mom) to drop off her husband at the airport where he’ll fly off to Iraq. FUCKING A! HE’S THE FUCKING REASON why she can’t leave her small-pissing-fucking-ass town of population 4,000. They’re on a voluntary evacuation and they’re 15 miles from the nearest county which went mandatory evac yesterday!

My sister made a thousand excuses:

1. Can’t leave the animals.
2. Where would I go?
3. We have to take care of the house.
4. This city has survived floods before and our part of town was dry.
5. There are so many crazy people in those shelters and I dont’ want to expose my kids to that (so expose them to looters, violence, mold, a torn up home, tornadoes?)
6. Dan and his mom (who lives in the same pissing-ass city) have been through many hurricanes before, it’s not a big deal…

Turns out that she really wants to leave but has to drop his ass off at the airport and is afraid to go because of his mom’s wrath. She said that she had to tell her husband (really, ask) that if the city goes mandatory evac that she’ll leave. NO SHIT ALEX!! YOU HAD TO TELL HIM THAT?

I don’t know if you’re reading this because you may not have internet at this point (you said they’re taking down the internet posts in her city or something…)

but people in New Orleans said that they could "weather the storm" without REALLY knowing. NOW WE KNOW…

DON’T STAY BIG A! PLEASE?

If I’m making this into a big deal, it’s because it might end up BEING A BIG DEAL

Anyone live in El Paso or another western city in Texas that my mom, 3 kids, sister and a coulple of gerbils can stay?

My sister Alex told me recently that she is not a good candidate for transplant. She said this was based on her being too healthy and I was so ecstatic to hear that. She has pulmonary hypertension, a rare and deadly disease of the heart and lungs, that is far more complext than simply "high blood pressure" of the lungs. (She was initially told that she had 2 years to live and that was in 1998!)

Well, turns out that she wasn’t just too healthy for transplant… they discovered that she has elevated levels of platformed reactive antibodies to HLA antigens (and apparently, patients with this have higher rates of organ rejection than do patients without such antibodies.) As a result, she has to go back for more tests and it may turn out that even if she was dying, she may be blacklisted from transplant wait-lists! This SUCKS.

This is weighing heavily in my mind because should something serious happen and transplant is the only option, they may leave her to die. urgh. Something like 6000 people die each year waiting for transplant (that’s 1 every 88 minutes)

After IM’ing Alex this morning, I decided to sleep and catch a few more winks before work (I’ve worked all weekend and came in the night before.)

I then had a dream that my other sister Jennifer died. My brother Ralph made our entire family go on this roller-coaster in Mexico that didn’t have seat belts. he said it was alright and that not a lot of people died on it. The roller coaster ended up dumping its passengers into a huge pool and I knew that some of my siblings (at least 3 of the Castro kids) couldn’t swim. I was the first to go underwater, and stayed there until I saw all of my family get dumped  in the pool and helped them up to dry land. I helped Jennifer, but later, after the last sister got helped to shore was I told that Jennifer died in the pool!

This was such a horrible dream. I cried and cried, I was WAILING. I was slamming my fists into tables, throwing major fits, cursing, and in so much pain. Then I demanded to see her body and when I did, I touched her and she came to life.

What the FUCK does this mean?

Work is going to suck this week.

I just came back from a trip to Secaucus, New Jersey, which so happens to be 4 miles from NYC. I have been so busy as of late that I didn’t even know that I could get to NYC so easily. Had I known, and if I had made time to find out, I could have made plans to see Nikki, an old from in Brooklyn! I ended up having dinner with my boss Rino, a good guy, but who I had spent 6 hours driving up from DC to NYC already that day! he just came back from a week business trip to Stokholm, so we were both super-loopy… lesson: I’ve been in DC for a year and haven’t made it up to NYC unless for work–GET A LIFE DEB!

No wait—that is NOT true. I went to NYC on election night to watch the returns come in with the staff of Moveon (as I had a special invitation from former Feminist majority web boss, Roz, who now works for them). I cried along with Julia Stiles, Moby and the rest of the Moveon staff on the 23rd floor of a penthouse apartment overlooking central park. I drank Absynthe and drunkenly educated Julia Stiles about the 1 vote margin of support for Roe v wade from Sandra Day O’Connor and that the day would come and that Ohio had to go to Kerry because if we lose, there goes Roe. She didn’t get it. I almost had to use finger puppets to explain the split…

So work is going to suck, but I have to make outside life good to balance it. Thank GOD i met Bryan. he is making life infinitely more fun and has made me more motivated to leave work before 7pm. (that’s just the tip of iceberg in terms of how he’s made my life SO much better!)

So I need to stop distracting myself and start improving all areas of life. What should I do? Here’s a list:

1) SAVE MONEY (that way I can travel more and visit old friends in NYC, Miami, and London and travel to new places… one day I’ll go to Barcelona and ANY PLACE in Italy)

2) in order to save money I’ll need to DO MY BILLS ON TIME AND QUIT SHOPPING!

3) Instead of shopping I should: BRUSH UP ON MY SPANISH and find a conversation group or take a class. Perhaps an English/Spanish swap where I help a native spanish speaker learn english while she helps me practice in spanish?!

4) I spent time with a new coworker who wants to join a sports team and we’re both thinking perhaps volleyball, so I think I shall BECOME MORE ATHLETIC! I’m also training for a 5k. Laugh all you want, chuckleheads, it’s a 5k now, but I’ve set my eyes on a half marathon and then I’ll kick your ass when I’m done with it and run all over your entrails! that was kind of gross…

I’m going to leave my goals at that, I think… anything else?

*ps* I haven’t had a drink since July 2nd, although sometimes my resolve wavers, I don’t dare pick up a glass (I can never forget that I almost DIED!)

From Moveon.org:

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Since last Thursday, offers of over 150,000 beds have been posted at hurricanehousing.org, with over 50,000 of those spots in the Southeast.

The thanks that mean the most, of course, are those of the people who have found a place to stay. Here’s what Mary, one of the Katrina survivors, had to say:

"I bought a condo in Biloxi just 10 days before Katrina to be closer to family after my husband’s death last Jan. No motels were taking reservations so I looked on the web…that is how I came across hurricanehousing.org. What a blessing in this time of need. I’ll be staying with wonderful Susan and her cats for one week."

Over 1,500 people like Mary have responded to the postings, seeking housing for 11,000 hurricane victims—even as most relief organizations are still focused primarily on saving everyone they can from the most immediate dangers. With over a million people displaced, as attention shifts to finding medium-term solutions for those crammed into churches and other makeshift shelters, we expect that the housing offered so far will be snapped up.

That’s where you can help:

Offer housing: If you can shelter someone in need, even if you’re nowhere near New Orleans, you may be able to make a difference for someone who has lost everything. The need is most urgent in the following locations: all of Texas and Louisiana; Washington, DC; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Memphis and Greensboro, North Carolina. But victims are also being moved to cities further afield, including Boston, Chicago, and even St. Paul, Minnesota. Post your offer of a spare room, or a bed, or even a couch here:

http://www.hurricanehousing.org/?id=5959-1318339-SAmiPOl_NtIYLrxYjE7aUA

Donate: We’ve also partnered with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). As part of their effort to help victims of Katrina, they’re not only working to help their (mostly low-income) members to find housing, but also to organize to see that low income neighborhoods and families get the help they need. They’re strapped for funds to do this important work, and need our help. You can donate online right now at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=868&t=7

We’re doing everything we can to get these offers into the hands of those in need. We’ve set up a toll-free hotline so people without internet access can call in and get help finding housing. Celebrities—from Rosie Perez to Moby to Tim Robbins to the Beastie Boys—are helping us publicize the website and hotline through public service announcements and other outreach.

Meanwhile, MoveOn.org Political Action is readying plans to hold the Bush Administration to account for its failures in preventing and then responding to this disaster, and make sure that Congress provides the aid that’s needed.

Here are a couple more stories from the victims and their families:

I went out of town for the weekend. When I found out about the hurricane, the airline wouldn’t let me return home to get my things or my dog. So I had to sit and watch in horror as the waters came in and see everything from the television. I’m distraught not only because I want my dog, I want to be home, but because I only had three classes left to graduate. [Through your site] I found a place. It was a miracle. The guy renting his apt was moving and I have 30 days to stay here and that gives me time to find a job and more permanent housing. He also hooked me up with a job. I will be attending the University of Houston Monday. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to people like him and others who responded and opened their homes to me.–Dara

We moved to New Orleans in 2003 and bought a house which was under 12 feet of water following Hurricane Katrina. We evacuated safely but were at a loss as to where we would go while waiting for the endless water to drain from our city. We applied at hurricanehousing.org and got two responses within 24 hours.–Ann

Today’s New York Times also includes a story of a family that was placed through hurricanehousing.org. The Mixons, from a New Orleans suburb, have plenty to worry about with the mortgages on their home and a now uninhabitable rental property adding up and the possibility that their business won’t survive. The offer by Shannon O’Leary and Alex McKinney in Cummings, GA, provided not just shelter near family members, but a new friendship for both couples and their 4-year old daughters in a time of trouble. To read the article, click here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=865&t=6

Together we’re making a difference. Thank you.

–Noah T. Winer and the whole MoveOn.org Civic Action Team
  Tuesday, September 6^th, 2005

20,000 of the poorest people in Louisiana are digging through trash for food, wet, tired, and desperate for help. Donate! If you can afford to give 25, 50 bucks or more then please do: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/relief/

The BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund is providing support to families who are assisting those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. These funds raised by the BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund will go to individual families who have opened their homes to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, to supplement their personal households as the recovery efforts continue.

*ps* Bush says, "don’t buy gas if you don’t need it" what a stupid ass. DON’T DRIVE IF YOU DON’T HAVE TO! what an asshole.