With the purging of so much crap I�ve been carrying around, like the good little Crapolic that I never quite escape from being, I�ve decided to strip down, stain, and put a shiny new coat on Ms. Rubyfuss� Land of the Found. I feel like Madame Tussaud walking around the dusty wax museum with a pink feather duster, fluffing sticky webs out of dark corners here and there.

It was Elliott Smith�s brutal suicide that jammed me forward and made me honest at therapy today. I�ve been carrying around this lump for so long, thinking I needed to hold it together for everyone else. Until today. And then it all came tumbling out. And it was awful and glorious like love. And when I walked outside after sitting in her office, where I finally allowed myself to spill it, I could smell again. I could smell the leaves and the wet brick and the cold. And it didn�t make my eyes spill over with tears like everything has been lately because I�d actually let the rock drop in my stomach and displace all the tears that were there; that have been there for so long.

So yes, this is one of those entries. I realized I�m still pissed as hell at my dad for dropping the emotional ball when my mother was sick and after she died. I guess I�ve been walking around thinking, �it�s been three years�you have no right not to be over this yet,� the voice of my best friend�s emotionally frigid ex-boyfriend in my ears. It�s amazingly true about the squeaky wheel. I think I�ve said it before, but I�ll say it again. Fuck the goddamn squeaky fucking wheel. It�s an ill wind that does nobody good and all that. So I�ve been walking around, above the anger, so I thought. And what do I do instead? I make my relationship into this outlet for stoicism. Don�t get me wrong�there�s plenty there to be upset about. I mean, my boyfriend is the sweetest best guy you�d ever want to meet. But I had to save his life about a month ago as he lay passed out in the hallway, on his back, choking on vomit at 6 something in the morning. I sound flip, I know, but like I said, I�m all cried out today. The thing is, I had been carrying this fear and craziness around with me, like I had to take his pain or something. And I�ve always been wary of being a Tinkerbell of sorts. I will not drink the poison for Peter Pan. Because when it comes right down to it there is no audience there to clap until your little flashlight bulb flickers back to life. All I can say is thank God I had one ear open during the night and ran out there to turn him on his side. Thank God I heard the deafening silence. And he couldn�t understand the gravity of the situation. He still can�t completely understand because he wasn�t really there when it happened. But I�ve been walking around in a haze since then like I�m supposed to hold it together or some shit. We�ve talked about it a great deal and both cried and whatnot and he hasn�t had any hard liquor to drink at all since then and if he does I�m very close to done. He knows it will be the downfall.

So what�s fucked up (besides the obvious) is that this situation dragged me back (I found out today, when I finally let the deluge through) to my father coating the world with plastic after my mother died, just being mean, and eventually melting down saran wrap and sanitizing his memory, making it clean of colostomy bags and hospital junk and sponges on sticks. Now, when I was able to slow it down I was finally capable of separating it from me (not before re-opening the feeling of being completely let down by him) and realizing he�s just incapable.

This is all really hard to explain but I suppose the important thing is that I sat in it for a good hour and cried for it all and it had been so long. I don�t want to carry that shit around in a beautiful suitcase. I almost didn�t talk about it today. But the palpable pain that Elliott Smith must have felt got so close to me that I had to let it break for all of the pain of the people in my life. And that it�s ok to be angry too. And now I�m taking stock of new models of strength in my life and in the world�models of strength that don�t sacrifice themselves. Not Tinkerbell and not Peter Pan. I guess the ones that had the greatest influence on me growing up were the ones who drank the poison and the ones who expected the poison to be drunk. Argh. Anyway� enough on and on.

More later. My site signed my guestbook asking for a makeover and I must comply.

As inappropriately pithy as it is, I will end this entry with a quote from my tea bag: �Faith moves mountains; otherwise even stones are heavy.�