Tuesday, January 31, 2006

What did you want to be?

When you grew up? I was thinking about this question the other day. My "ideal" occupation has shifted over the last 25 or so years I've been thinking about this question.

My first recollection of wanting to pursue a career was the obligatory "doctor", "fireman" and/or "ballerina" answer we all gave when we were six. On second thought, nix that last one, I've never wanted to be a ballerina proper because I'm one big-boned Bessy, and somehow, I just knew it would never work out. Thank God I had the ballet classes I did though, or my mother's nom du jour of "my little bull in a China shop", would have really stuck for good. I remember being 9 or 10, it was summer,and I was laying outside looking up at the stars with my best friend J. I remember thinking that the stars were so cool. I remember wanting to be able to explore the vastness of the space I saw in front of me. It was my first inkling of wanting to be an astronomer. Of course continued science classes only fed that desire, and by 8th grade, I really wanted to study astronomy. This would later morph into a desire to study astrophysics, but I get ahead of myself. I did my science project in the 8th grade on black holes. The project itself sucked, but I learned a lot. I partially blame the woefully inadequate math teachers I had growing up.

Then came high school. I remember being a sophomore - we didn't have freshman at my high school because 9th grade was part of junior high. It was the last day we could change our classes before they stuck. I had a PE class I was dreading attending. I just wasn't ready to launch into PE my first semester at high school. I needed to get acclimated to the surroundings first. So the night before class change day my mother took me to see Real Genius. Yes, this is the Real Genius with Val Kilmer, and the cute little boy who was androgynous, circa 1985. I sat and watched that movie in awe. Keep in mind, I was a very niave 15-year old Mormon. I was hooked, I came home telling my mother that I was going to pursue acting. I mean how unfair is that? You hear all these stories of actors seeing Citizen Kane, or some brilliant Jack Nicholson performance back in '84, and these movies, the moments are what spurned them on to study the great skill of acting. Me, I see some half-rate teeny bopper flick, and I think I'm Laurence fucking Olivier.

The rest, they say, is history. This acting bug carried me through the remainder of high school, two stints at two different colleges - Roosevelt University, in Chicago, where I studied musical theater, and Southern Utah University, where I got my BA in psychology and theater.

Cut to 1999 in Seattle. Ly and I had lived here for 4 years at that point. I had my second thyroidectomy, my vocal cord got paralyzed, and in the midst of healing, and seeing different alternative healthcare practitioners, one of them introduces me to the Brian Utting school. I had found the bases of my life passion - bodywork. This is truly the reason I think I am here. I want to always act, and will do so when possible. My bodywork might morph into something else, but for now, it's a very nice friend to have.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

One-liners for today

"Her legs were locked so tight I couldn't even get a whiff of spring roll." Pierce Brosnan The Matador



"I look like a Bangkok hooker on a Sunday morning, after the navy's left town." Pierce Brosnan The Matador

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Interesting tidbit (Mo polygamy)

On Mormon polygamy...

"It was never legal"

Bat-shit crazy

So those of you who know me, know that I like rain, I like rain a lot. That said, I am about to go 100% batshit crazy if this rain keeps up. We are setting records up here in Seattle. I have never been one to suffer from seasonal affective disorder (many other disorders, yes), but couple all this rain with being stuck in the apartment recouperating, and it's all taking it's toll.

A sidebar to all of this, is that I'm not sure where I learned this, but somewhere in my past I have had it drilled into my head that if I'm not doing something, being productive, being needed by someone or something, I have no use for all practical purposes. I just feel like a big tub o' lard that hasn't done shit for 2 weeks now. I mean thank God I'm taking this herbalife and it's cleaning me out like it is (oh nelly, and I do mean CLEAN), or I would really feel like a big lump of whale blubber. Come on ladies, you know those days. And I am reminded of P's blog post about hating knowing when one's reactions are due to hormones, and having someone point that out, and them being right. Only difference now, I'm pointing my own hormonal issues out.

Thus, the recipe I've come up with to explain my current dark malaise is:

8 parts surgery (number 11 and counting)
2 parts general anesthetic (past and present) running havoc in my system
5 parts record rainfall in Seattle
3 parts "time factor" in healing after surgery
2 parts hormones
60 parts boredom
5 parts inability to exercise like I had been (oh give me a home where the endorphins roam...)
2 parts inability to move energy through my body via the bodywork I give to other people
20 parts I'm just farking OVER. IT.

The recipe I've been trying to follow to counteract the dark malaise:

200 parts chanting
10 parts reading
5 parts telling myself and my overactive brain to shut the fuck up
3 parts scheduling at least one or two activities a day in which I get out of the apartment
3 parts insurance billing and paperwork to keep busy

Mostly, it's a good counter spell, I just happen to be in a downswing right now.

Wee.....wee..............ahhhhhh......


wee........

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Happiest of Birthdays

to my darling Mandy. You just get better with every year. I am truly grateful to have you in my life, and don't know where I'd be without you. Please make this whole day entirely about you. Do something special for yourself, and treat yourself well - on the inside and outside. Now off to make a birthday phone call.

Love Always,

Stine

Monday, January 16, 2006

A baked potato in my neck?

So I just got back from my post-op follow-up with my surgeon. For those of you that get queasy, I'm going to talk some medical stuff for a sec, so close your eyes. So the doc was reading me the pathology report, and said my goiter was as big as a baked friggin potato. WTF? I can't believe I've been carrying that around in my neck. No wonder swallowing was a bit difficult. He said the operation was really bloody and it took them a long time to cut through the scar tissue to even get to the muscles he cut underneath the scar tissue. He said they did something different than what they normally do, in that they cut into the goiter, and remove the goiter from the inside out. Apparently this is most effective in protecting the larygeal nerve. He did say they left a small portion that attaches to the nerve - which is fine by me. I'm damned if that is going to grow into another goiter in my lifetime. Anyway, the pathology of it all fascinates me. I almost asked them to save my goiter and give it to me, but then I wonder exactly how sick that would make me. I know some people at the massage school who would be very interested in seeing something like that.

My doc also wouldn't let me out of jury duty next week? How lame is that? He said sitting around in a jury room all day seems like the perfect rest and relaxation. He's a hard-ass, but I like him a lot and he makes me laugh.

Anyway, just found all the medical mumbo jumbo interesting - especially hearing him compare it to a baked potato. Who knows maybe at some point, they will find some grilled salmon in my liver, or a nice head of broccolli in my ass.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

24 & Capote

Dudes, just saw Capote - Heath Ledger was good in Brokeback Mountain, but fucking Phillip Seymour Hoffman kicked my ass in Capote. I think he should win the Oscar.

Must post review about it soon (eat your heart out Ly), but for now, must go get ready for the season premier of 24.

Can we say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, HELL YEAH!

Friday, January 13, 2006

Rice pudding is the shit

I have become addicted to this shit in the last five days. I hadn't had any for 20 years, and then one of my nurses brought over a container, and I ate the whole damn thing that day. The next day, someone else brought some over - gone. Yesterday, a six-pack - demolished. Why is my body SO enamoured of this manna from heaven? I love it, I want to bathe in it, I want it to shoot gloriously out of Clive Owen's dick all over my body.

I gotta get out of the house today. I've been here for six days straight now and it's starting to wear on my psyche. I'm feeling like a lurp. I mean I know I just had surgery a week ago, but I need to move about. I should go mail my nieces and nephews Christmas presents (yes, I suck and am late with everything). Speaking of, Beck and Mandy, be on the lookout for a pressie coming your way. Beck, you must let Katy partake ok?

I've been trying to do at least one or two business things each day. I have this innate need to always be doing something "productive". Thank you very much mother. I mean, it's so hard for me to just chill. I'm trying though. I find when I try to push it, my throat hurts more, and it ends up pissing off the back of my head and my jaw for some reason. Must talk to the doc about that. I need to find a digital camara to take a picture of my scar. It's knarly. I look like the Corpse Bride. Which I guess has it's goth appeal. That's a good question, can one be a goth well into one's 30's? I'm not a real goth, but I do so love some of the esthetic.

Now I'm just rambling. I have decided I am not going to do up the living room pod today. I have this pod I have constructed, because we have no real couch and our love seat sucks for comfort. I take our pappa san chair, bolster the hell outta it, put a foot stool beneath it with some pillows on it, put a sheet over it all, some blankets over that, my piano bench with all my meds, phones, books, and medical knick knacks by my side. This has been my home for the past six days. I need to branch out I tell ya, need to branch out. It's always so hard for me to find the line between healing, and driving myself crazy.

Yeah, what the fuck else is new?

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

And in closing...from the gimp vocal cord girl

Quality could be better, but hey...I just wanted to remember after surgery, that even with the gimp cord, I could still sing. It ain't B's voice, but once upon a time.

too bad we can't do audio posts that are duets.

this is an audio post - click to play

Random updates

The New Year was splendid in the hound's and my world. We went out to my friend M's house in Ravensdale. It's about an hour drive from Seattle. They live on a lake that reminds me of On Golden Pond. It's a nice little cabin'ish feel cozy place. We drank, smoked, played games, lit fireworks. The lights went out a couple times. I seriously had visions of Wolf Creek or some scary movie that takes place in the woods. Very fun. We toasted in the New Year and all eventually fell off to bed. In the morning, M's hubby J roasted us a nice wake and bake, then I made my famous (if I do say so myself) biscuits and gravy. Nothing like carbs and fat to stave of the hangover. We then had a leisurely ride back to Seattle, and then went to see Walk the Line.

Speaking of sexy motherfuckers, Joaquin Phoenix is quite that. Damn he looks good in black. I knew that he did his own singing for this movie, but I didn't realize Reese did as well. Very, very believable, and talented.

Updates from babyland, my friend M is doing nicely. She wants to leave the massage school before she has the baby. I hope she is able to. I can't wait until she has this baby. I also just found out that one of my good friends from massage school is pregnant with twins. She just turned 37. I'm very happy for her. My younger (as in 21 years old) sister just had her first child. They named her Kaisha. It's very exciting to see all these babies. Which brings me to one of the presents I got from my step-mother (the mother of my younger half sister who just had the baby). It was a framed picture. In this picture was professionally hand-drawn likenesses of all my neices and nephews. In the center of all the children was a likeness of Jesus Christ. He was holding Kaisha. Below all the children, there was printed a verse from the Book of Mormon: "And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones." 3 Nephi 17:23.

Ok, so before this, my father had sent me a very nice picture he had taken of me when I was about 8 years old. He had it framed, and it was very touching and personal. I never get personal things from them, and usually the gifts they give don't really have anything to do with me, who I am or what I like at any given point. I'm not saying that they should, it's just nice to get a gift that shows someone knows who you are. So the picture my father sent was very nice, and I was very touched. This second picture they sent was...uhm...nice. I mean I love my family, I love my neices and nephews, but the presentation of it all just struck me as very disingenuous. And there was an underlying tone of, "you breed, you get attention and are rewarded." I know they don't consciously think this way, but it's kind of true. It's especially true in Mormon families. The people with the children get the most focus.

Needless to say I've been dealing a lot lately with feeling second best, second choice, and just forgotten. I know this isn't true, I know much of this is my own shit, and I fully claim it. I just have moments of feeling bad, and when I got this picture of the children, I just cried, and cried, and cried. Anyway, water under the bridge.

Mostly, lately, I've been chanting and focusing on clearing my body for my surgery. I've really been exploring what lies behind the karma associated with my neck. I mean you'd think I'd have figured it out by now after soon to be 3 thyroid surgeries, a vocal cord surgery, a broken neck, and 3 or 4 herniated disks. Something going on there Stine. I have been telling my body that my voice needs to remain in tact so that I can keep chanting and telling people about how practicing Buddhism has changed my life. It has given me that groundedness I have so longed for. Doesn't mean that things don't still suck, that I don't feel shitty, ugly, fat, useless, etc. etc., but at the end of the day, I still feel hope. That feeling of hope is getting stronger, it's getting more prevalent in my daily life. I will all of the sudden just think to myself, shit I feel positive. I mean hell, 3 years ago, that would NEVER have happened on any regular basis. So, I go into this surgery feeling hopefully, fully prepared to take on whatever life throws my way. I have a lot of supportive people in my life - despite sometimes feeling all the things I mentioned above.

It may be a bit before I'm back online again. I'm gonna check back once more before Friday morning. Until then, peace dudes.