Ugh...going through some really tough stuff right now. 2010 has officially been one of the worst (if not the worst) years of my life. I'm glad it's nearly over.

Friends keep disappearing off of my Facebook friends list. Is this happening to anyone else? Is it a Facebook glitch, or am I really losing my friends one by one? Perhaps I'm just being paranoid. I hope so.

I'm in desperate need of friends right now, and over the past year-and-a-half I seem to have lost my closest friends one by one. I guess it's a true test of friendship when you see who sticks around during the hard times. I feel so much sorrow over the friends that I have recently lost, because they were the ones I thought (and hoped) would be there through thick and thin. I'm tired of being the one that stands behind my friends, especially when they need it most, only to be dumped when the tables are turned and I'm the one in need.

Or, as the case is recently, having not stuck by me during my times of need, then betraying my trust and our friendship time and time again until I seriously question my sanity at having let such a so-called "friendship" go on for so long. I question my motives for having stuck it out this long. Do I stand beside this friend on principle, because that's what friends are supposed to do? Do I stand beside this friend because that's what Christ would do? Do I stand beside her out of habit, because I always have? Or are my motives selfish ones? Do I stand beside her because she's the only one that always comes back? Because she's the only one that will put up with me and all the baggage I come with?

If I stand by such a friend, what price will I pay? The consequences to myself, my family, and those around me could be dire. Is such a friend, or friendship, worth it? She has collected her 10 pieces of silver many times over; if I walk away now, will I be guilty of the same?

Do I give her my love, my blessing, my best wishes, and walk away? Do I do and say nothing, as she has done to me? Do I wait, bide my time, and react only when she acts? This last is what I have been doing. Waiting. It's been over a month now...she's had plenty of time to contact me, but has not. I decided a month ago that I would wait and see what her actions would be, and then I would decide what to do. Now that she has not acted one way or another, what do I do? Do I just wait here, in limbo?

I feel so lost, so alone; so friendless. Is this my own fault? Perhaps. Is it because the people of the world (or at least those whom I come in contact with) have lost the ability to be a true friend? I don't know. Either way, the result is the same; I wallow in my sorrow, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, and now, year after year, as the world, and all those I once called 'friend' pass me by.

Still decompressing from Burning Man...resting (I way over did it at BM), but I've been rather restless, so I decided to make some fabric flowers. I found a great tutorial for them here:

http://heyjenrenee.blogspot.com/2010/03/fabric-flower-tutorial.html

I'm making red and denim flowers right now, all made from cut-off pants. The denim is from a pair of jeans that I made into cutoff shorts, and the red flowers are from a jersey-knit pair of pajama pants that I cut off to make yoga-like pants. The flowers are turning out so cute! I've kinda done my own thing and sewed and arranged the flowers a bit differently than in the tutorial. I think that mine turned out super cute. I'll post pics when I'm done with them.

Next I'd like to try these rolled fabric flowers:

http://mysparkle.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-rolled-flowers.html

The rolled fabric flowers look a little more difficult, but they shouldn't be too hard to make. Though I might have to get out of bed to make the rolled flowers. If I don't, I'll end up with glue all over my bed (which is already filled with tiny fabric scraps). I don't know why, but all my life, if I'm creating artwork or crafts, I always make such a mess. Whether it be paint all over my body (I seriously don't know how it gets some places...lol), or glitter or beads littered throughout the house, I just can't help but make a mess when I'm creating something.

Ahh...well, I've been up all night, and it's now 5:30ish AM, and I'm drifting off to sleep. I'd be asleep already, but my thumb is killing me (part of the nail came off...I'll explain later). It's throbbing...*cries* I'm going to go wash it out good (it's totally infected), and bandage it up. Hopefully I can get into a dermatologist soon to see if there's anything they can do for me. I just hope that my thumb nail, or thumb itself isn't messed up. *sigh* It probably will be. The same thing has happened to my big toes, and they're all jacked up now (stupid podiatrists screwed up). Okay I'm going to stop thinking about it now, because focusing on it makes it hurt even worse.

Anyway, one of these days I'm going to write out my stories from Burning Man 2010. I have so much to write about! I took tons of pics too! I need to write down a bit of an outline of the stories, while they're still fresh in my memory. I don't think I'll have the time or effort to sit down and write it all out right now, because I'm going to be too busy packing to move.

Speaking of moving, we still don't know where we're moving to. We're desperately trying to find a rental that will accommodate our needs and fits within our budget. Easier said than done! I'm so sick of doing this...trying to find a place to live, never having anything stable, having to pack, unpack, etc.

This last move I didn't even unpack most of my boxes. I knew that we were going to be here less than a year. (We're living in the home of a missionary couple while they're serving their mission in California. They'll be home sometime at the beginning of October, so we've got to be out before then. Ugh I just hope we don't have to help put their house back together the way they had it. When their kids (all adults) move all of their things into the basement and extra bedrooms, they just sort of threw everything in with no rhyme or reason, they just stacked and stacked and it was so unorganized and awful. My mom and I sort of organized the basement so that I could set up a craft room (which I never finished...*sigh*). Ah well, c'est la vie. But in the meantime, we need to find a house! If anyone knows of a nice rental home, preferably in the Davis County area, that has at least 3 bedrooms (and an office or extra bedroom), for around $1k-$1300 a month, then let me know!

Alright, I keep falling asleep and typing gibberish. It's rather funny, actually. lol. Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope all is well with you.

Much Love,
-Ash

Wow...so my 10 year high school reunion is coming up. So crazy...I can't believe it's been 10 years! I feel old. lol. I was hesitant to attend the reunion. I didn't go to the 5 year reunion, but I heard that not many people did. With the 10 year reunion coming up I've been thinking so much about the things I went through in high school, and the things I've gone through since leaving high school. I've been through so very much since high school, but I've accomplished so little. I look at the social networking site pages of my peers and see what they're doing with their lives. So many people are living my dreams of having a spouse, a home, children, and a career. 10 years ago that's where I thought I'd be too! My how things change. I can only hope that the next 10 years will be better. I hope that by the time my 25th high school reunion comes up that I will have pictures posted of my family and I...a husband, children, a home, and hopefully I'll be a working artist, helping to support my family and doing what I love at the same time. Ahh...dreams. Some dreams come true; I hope mine will.

Anyway, I actually didn't go to BHS very long, only 1 semester; then I transferred to Salt Lake Community College. But I do know a lot of people from my class. I grew up with so many of them, and attended both elementary school and junior high with them. I've been hesitant about attending the reunion.
My school years were absolutely miserable for me. I was an outcast, always the one that got teased. I had few friends. I did terrible in school as far as grades went; I was bored because the things they taught weren’t anything new to me. I've always done much better learning on my own. I also got screwed by the public school system because of my disabilities; they never cared, they just brushed me aside. I fell through the cracks, and no one noticed. I had to stop going to school because of my back, and at first they had me on "home hospital" schooling, but that was a complete joke. It was back before the days where you could do schoolwork online. Once a week a teacher would come to my house and drop off a stack of homework to do. I tried to do the work at first, but I just couldn't do it. (This was back before I was diagnosed with ADD and medicated for it.) Usually I just put the homework all in a pile, never did it, and never turned it in.

Luckily I was able to get into SLCC when I was 16 or 17. I did so much better in college than I did in my previous schooling experiences. I absolutely loved it, but unfortunately traumas in my life forced me to drop out before I could complete my degree. The biggest problem was my back. At that point in time I refused to take narcotics to relieve the pain; I was too afraid of addiction, and rightly so. A lot of other things happened all at once, so I stopped going to school; figuring I'd return after things calmed down. Nine years later, I still haven't made it back to college. I long to go back. I yearn to complete what I started. I so want to be able to have a degree and work in the field I love (visual art).
Back to my reunion...I finally decided that I will attend the reunion. I bought my ticket for it today. I wish I had a reason to choose the option to buy 2 tickets, the ones for couples. But no, I had reason to only buy a single ticket. I'm crossing my fingers that for the next reunion, should I choose to attend, that I'll have reason to buy 2 tickets.

As I said, I've been hesitant to attend my high school reunion. I don't really know why I'm going, I just have the urge to. I even volunteered to be on the reunion committee (what was I thinking?!). They want me to put together a slide show of pictures of classmates from high school and pictures from the present. Sounds like a lot of work, but it might be fun. I just have to find a projector and a laptop to do it with, because I have neither. Maybe I want to see the people that were so mean to me, see that they're not better than me, and prove to them that I turned out great (or at least appear to have).

But really, though I've had a pretty miserable life during the past decade, I'm proud of how I turned out. Most people wouldn't have turned out so well if they'd gone through what I have. I've experienced more of life in the past 10 years than most people will in their entire lifetime. Having gone through so much has given me knowledge, wisdom, strength. It has taught me survival. It has taught me love, heartbreak, tragedy, and happiness. The strongest metals are forged in the hottest fires; the fires I've been through. I'll admit that I'm just about as screwed up as a person can get, but I've learned to love who I am. I still have problems with low self-esteem, but daily my confidence in myself increases. Maybe the reason I'm going to attend my reunion is so that I can prove to myself that I can do it, and that I can survive. Or…maybe…just maybe…I’ll meet some handsome classmate, we’ll fall in love, and live happily ever after…hahaha…well, a girl can dream!

Anyway, I'm rambling on and on (I tend to do that much too often), so I'll be done for now. Wish me luck that my reunion will go well!

AHHHHHHHHH!!! So I’m freaking out here. I know I haven’t written in a while, well, I have written a few times since I last posted, but I haven’t posted what I’ve written. I don’t know why I didn’t post those entries, I just didn’t. Well, I do know, sort of. I’ve been having these issues with writing lately. Well, I’ve been having issues with everything lately, but let’s just focus on the writing. My therapist says that it’s “dread”. Every time I go to get on my computer, this overwhelming wave of dread hits me, and I don’t get on. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I think it may have to do with my medication. I finally stood up to my psychiatrist (my psychiatrist and therapist are two different people; I love my therapist, can’t stand my psychiatrist), and told him that I was tired of him putting me on more and more medications that aren’t working, and said that I want to go off of what he had me on (Cymbalta, Triavil, and Lamictal), and go back to something that worked for me years ago; Zoloft. The thing is, Zoloft stopped working for me a few years ago (which happens with anti-depressants; they work only for so long and then gradually the body builds up a resistance to it for some reason). Well, no one told me that after being off an anti-depressant for a few years it may start to work if taken again. Why didn’t anyone tell me this?! Stupid doctors!

So I finally asked my psychiatrist if I could go back on a medication that had stopped working, and asked if it would work again. He said yes that it may. (Grr.) So I said I wanted to try that. So for the past couple of weeks I’ve basically been in detox from all the meds (that I listed above) that he had me on. Now I’ve been through switching meds before, but it’s never been this awful, or this drawn-out. It’s literally made me insane (or more so). I feel bad for everyone that’s been around me for the past few weeks. I know that I’m hard to deal with normally, but I’m sure that for the past few weeks that I’ve been like handling a living time-bomb. I’ve been trying to warn everyone to stay away from me (especially my mom), but no one seems to want to listen. *sigh* So that’s caused a lot of arguments/fights, which is always oh-so-much fun.

I’ve started on Zoloft as of two days ago, and things are already MUCH better. Maybe it’s just my mind fooling me into thinking that the Zoloft is so much better, but I don’t really care at this point; I’m just glad I don’t feel as miserable as I have for the past few weeks.

That brings me back to my point (yes, I do have a point…sometimes), the reason for me writing today. I logged on MSN Messenger today, and my friend Trish (one of my best friends) had the messenger status of, “Time together is just never quite enough when you and I are alone I’ve never felt so at home <3”. So I IMd her and asked her if she is dating someone. At first she said no, and then she said something like, “Well nevermind, I am close to someone.” I said cool, and asked who. She said, “Do you remember Shay?” My heart dropped. I started freaking out. The thing is, I had been thinking a lot about “Shay” lately. I didn’t know why until now. I sometimes have a “sixth sense” about things, and this is proving to be one of those times.

The thing about Shay (real name Sarah) is that she is one of the most wicked, evil people I’ve ever met. I’m ashamed to say that even knowing that, I still allowed her into my life as a friend. I learned the hard way that Sarah doesn’t have friends; she has minions. Pawns. She just uses people for her own wants, abuses them, then spits them out when she’s finished with them. There just aren’t enough words to explain what a terrible person Sarah is. The best way to describe Sarah is as a “perfect politician”. If you add up all the corrupt political attributes of politicians, you have Sarah’s personality. And now she’s “dating” one of my best friends.

The stupid part is, they’ve never even met each other in person. The worst part is, I introduced them. The way I met Sarah is via one of those stupid virtual worlds (I’m not going to name it, because I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else ending up in that awful place). I thought she was pretty cool at first because she spoke her mind and stood up for her beliefs, and I respected that. However, I soon saw the real Sarah. I’m ashamed to say that not only did I put up with what she did and said, I sometimes participated in it. I’m disgusted with myself for being part of manipulating people, or otherwise treating people poorly. I soon grew to dislike Sarah. Then I did something even worse, instead of just not associating with her anymore, I stuck to the old adage of “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”. So I kept Sarah close. Then, I started to use her. I guess I didn’t feel bad doing it because she did it to everyone around her. I let her believe that I was one of her minions, all while manipulating her for my own needs. I look back at the things I did and I want to vomit. I became all the things I hated about Sarah.

Now in this virtual world we played this “game”. We were all vampires, and we “lived” in the virtual world as vampires, biting people, gaining vampire minions, etc. In the vampire clan we were in was ran by a monarchy. There was a king and queen, and other various royalty. Then there was the “council”. The council basically ran everything. Well a bunch of stuff happened (there was ALWAYS some sort of drama going on in the clan, and throughout the virtual world in general), and Sarah ended up as president of the council. Once again I manipulated her, and others, and got myself elected as vice president. From there, we controlled everything. The irony was that though “Shay” thought she was using me as her pawn to do her bidding, I was the one doing the controlling. I got her to do everything I wanted her to do. I let this go on for months. I guess I figured that it wasn’t the “real” world, so I could do and say what I wanted there, and there wouldn’t be any repercussion. Boy was I wrong! I’m so ashamed of the things I did. The thing is, with every horrible thing I did, Sarah did things that were a hundred times worse. But I just let it slide. I turned a blind eye towards it. I still can’t believe the things I put up with.

Then, in December, things in my real life came crashing down, and I ended up in the hospital. I got many letters, emails, notes, etc. from various friends and family sending me well wishes and such. Then, I got this email from dear Sarah:

“Can you please pass a message to Ashley for me?

First- I hope you are doing well, and that you get better soon :-) Also, remember all of us are pulling for you.

Second- Sandy and I are moving to another SIM, so the stuff I can take (of yours) I will, and put it all in a folder labeled 'Lilia's Stuff' so it doesn't get Lost in your inventory.

Third- I will find a replacement for the VP slot, mainly because I have to get things going again, you will still be in council, I just need to make sure Continuity is in place at all times.

Feel Better-

~Shay”

So basically she stole all my stuff in the virtual world (stuff that cost real money, by the way), and then instead of doing the right thing and holding my position of vice president for me, she just threw me under the bus. As I said, that’s what she does. She uses people until they are no longer useful to her, and then she spits them out.

I was absolutely disgusted with her pretended concern and thoughtfulness in the letter. Typical politics with her. It kind of blindsided me. I was shocked that she would have the gall to kick me while I was down. Me who despite my dislike of her had always treated her well, always been a good friend to her, who had always been there for her, and she kicks me when I’m down.

The thing is, it turns out that she did me a HUGE favor. She got me to reevaluate my participation in the virtual world, and I decided that I hated who I had become there. So I left. But before I left, I exposed her for the fraud she was…I handed over proof of her manipulation to someone I trusted. The thing is, the person I gave the information to was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and so of course he didn’t use it against her, and even let it slide. But I decided that I wasn’t going to waste any more of my life and time with her, or the virtual world. So I left, and never looked back.

That is, until now. I logged back in today. I feel sickened for doing so. So I just logged out. I thought that maybe I should get involved in that world again so that I could protect Trish. But if I do that, I know I’ll just fall back into those manipulative behaviors that I so despise. So I’m going to try my best to stay away, to let Trish make her own mistakes, and learn her own lessons. Trish is one of the most stubborn people I know (almost as stubborn as me! Lol), and I know that if I try to push her away from Sarah that it will just push them closer. Gah, I just don’t know what to do! Should I just stay out of it? Should I just let one of my best friends get hurt by one of the most truly evil people I’ve ever met? What should I do?! I think I may have done too much as it is already. I told Trish how I felt about her dating Sarah, and I think that upset her. My bad. I think I did exactly the opposite of what I wanted; instead of letting Trish know that I’m concerned for her well being, I think I just offended her and pushed her away from me, and towards Sarah.

Ugh…so many things running through my head. I wonder if I should tell Morgane (Trish’s ex and another of my best friends) about this, or if I should leave her out of it?

I also just noticed that Sarah removed me as a friend on Facebook. Could it be because I just stopped talking to her, and she couldn’t stand to be out of the spotlight? Or could it be that she disliked what I write on Facebook? I know she hates everything about my thoughts and beliefs. They’re exactly opposite of her own beliefs (she’s a left-wing ultra liberal lesbian atheist and I’m a right-winged ultra conservative Mormon), and I don’t think she can handle hearing the truth from me. Either way, it’s curious that she removed me as a friend. Though I kept my enemy close in her case, it’s not something I do with anyone else. But with Sarah, she does that with everyone, which is why I’m surprised she removed me from her friends list removing me from being “close”. Now how will she keep an eye on someone she despises?

So I did something stupid…I added Sarah as a friend on Facebook again. Should I wait and see what happens? Should I try to be friends with her, or at least be civil with her since she’s “dating” one of my friends? Should I just let it be and ignore her? Should I remove her as a friend if she accepts the friend request? Ugh, I don’t know what to do! So frustrating!

Hi! So, it’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve actually been busy-ish. I mean, busy for me; which is actually a good thing. Too often in my life I’ve done almost nothing. Especially over the past five years since my last back surgery. At first it was because I spent the first 6 months after surgery lying in bed. After that the only time I could go out for the next six months were things like going to the grocery store with my mom, because I could use one of the little motorized carts to drive around in. Other than that it was being pushed around in a wheelchair for that year.Now with that year, doing things and keeping busy wasn’t really an option. The only way I got through it was because I was so doped up on painkillers that honestly, I don’t even remember most of that year. That is probably a good thing, or I would have gone insane.

After that first year, when I was in recovery from my back surgery, I just sort of lost myself. I would try to do “normal” things, try to be busy with life. That would work okay for a while, but then I’d go back into sleeping all day, or lying in bed all day, or just doing nothing. During the recovery time, that was okay. The problem was, after I was healed, or mostly healed, I stayed in that zone of doing nothing. I think there were a lot of reasons behind that. Not only was it just habit because of having been immobile for so long, but it also became about me hiding. I still had so much emotional hurt and pain in addition to the physical pain, and the easy way out became to hide.

Of course there were times that I didn’t hide. I actually held down a couple of full time jobs in those years. Those jobs didn’t last very long though. The first time was in 2006 when I worked for Cisco, but only did so for a few months. The reason I quit was because my family had been planning a trip to Canada to see where my brother served his LDS mission, and to meet the people he served there. It was very important that I go on that trip, so before I was even hired, I made sure that a stipulation of my employment would be that I be allowed time off for that

trip.Well, when the time came to leave, my boss told me that we were too busy, and there was absolutely no way he would let me take the time off. I explained how stupid that reasoning was, because I was going regardless of the consequences at work, so he might as well keep my employment on hold until I got back instead of me resigning and Cisco having to hire someone new and pay for all new training. I mean, that’s just logic! But he didn’t get it (he was an asshole anyway who later ended up in prison for child pornography). So I tendered my resignation and left that job. After I got back from the trip to Canada, I just didn’t get another job. I don’t remember my mindset exactly, but I’m sure it was just easier not to get a job, to go back into hiding; which is exactly what I did.

In 2007 I got a job with Dell. I was there for all of six weeks. I could have done really well with that job. I was making more than I had ever made before, and I was great at what I did. I didn’t exactly love the job, but it was a job, and a means to an end. If nothing else, it was a paycheck.That all came crashing down. Everything was pulled out from under me. I and two other women in the training class had been being sexually harassed by a disgusting older man in the class. We complained time and time a

gain to our trainers, and when nothing was done, we went over his head. Still, nothing happened. That is, until they threatened myself and the other two women with our jobs if we didn’t stop rocking the boat, as it were. That silenced the other two women, but not me. I mean, I understand that they needed their jobs and their paychecks, but at what cost? Selling your soul? I have morals, standards, and principles that I will defend to the death if needs be. Anyway, I wouldn’t keep quiet, so they fired me. Yes, I got fired for being sexually harassed. That’s justice, eh? Anyway, long story short, I had a huge lawsuit against the company, let alone the man that was sexually harassing myself and the other women. I was actually working with the office of the Attorney General of Utah, the problem was that going through with the lawsuit would take a lot of time, effort, and money. I had the time, but I didn’t have the effort or money to continue with it. So I had to drop it. The only thing that comforted me was that I knew they’d all get theirs. Not only in Karma, but someday God would take care of it. So I turned it over to Him.

After that I was just broken. Here I had put so very much into succeeding, only to have the rug pulled out from beneath me. I was angry, hurt, and overall depressed. I sank back into the pit of despair I’ve so often found myself in. The problem was, this time I didn’t bounce back. I just sank deeper and deeper. Of course some good things happened in my life, but they were overwhelmed drastically by the bad things. So once again I hid, and have been hiding ever since. However, things are starting to change. I have my ups and downs. It seems at times that the bad still greatly outweighs the goods, but I’m working on changing that. Even though it seems like every step that I take forward I end up taking 10 steps back, I’m still taking steps, and that’s a start.

I noticed the other day that almost everything I write about in my blog is sad and depressing. I think that’s because I use my writing as an outlet; to let things out that I otherwise would keep bottled up inside. The things I feel like I need to get out most are the negative things. I talked to my therapist about this very thing, and she said that even though writing about the bad things is good, that I need to stop focusing on just the bad things. I need to focus (and write about) the good things too. So that’s my goal in my writing, is to write about good things in addition to the bad.

One good thing that I want to start writing about are my passions in arts and crafts. I absolutely LOVE arts and crafts, and want to share that love with others. I’m working on starting a

business to sell my artwork and artisan crafts, and think it would be fun to write about those things too. So I’m going to write about that. Not only am I going to write about what I create, or what I have for sale, but I’m also going to do things like write tutorials and such. I’m even working on one right now; a tutorial on creating a greeting card. I’ve had to wait to do this (and to start my business) because I haven’t had a good enough camera to use to take pictures of my work. Now I do, so here I go! I’m sooo excited. I’m delighted to actually be doing something. Not only to be creating, but to have something to be proud of.

So I’m going to create a separate blog for my arts and crafts. It’s going to be named after my Esty shop; The Queen’s Quill. The URL for The Queen’s Quill blog is: http://www.thequeensquill.blogspot.com . I hope you’ll check it out, and find it fun and useful. I would definitely love and appreciate any feedback you could offer on it! I’d love suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. Most of all, I hope you enjoy it!

I’m trying not to cry. I’ve been trying not to cry for hours. I’m so tired of this. I’m so tired of feeling so distant from my family. We just don’t understand each other. We don’t get along. I feel like they’re all against me. I’ve always been the bad one. I’ve always been the one that isn’t good enough. I’ve always been the one that does everything wrong. I don’t think I can survive here much longer.

Shit, here come the tears. I’m just so weary. So tired of this. What can I do? I feel so helpless; I feel so alone. What can I do? What way out do I have? God, I need a Xanax. I’m so tempted to take one. It’s very dangerous to take Xanax and drugs like Xanax when I’m on the meds I’m on. The question is, do I care? Right now I’d do just about anything to relieve this pain.

The tears stream down my cheeks. My mom would call these “crocodile tears”. I want my mommy. But she’s so against me right now. Everything I do is wrong in her eyes.

I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need the approval of my family anymore. I’m trying to convince myself that their way of thinking is faulty. That they’re the ones that are toxic. My family says it’s me, that I’m the one that’s crazy and that I’m the one with a skewed way of thinking. But when I tell my therapists, or my psychiatrists (yes I have multiple of each) about what goes on, about what I think, they awknowledge that yes, I am mentally ill, but that it’s most likely caused by things that happened to me during my childhood. Caused by my environment, the environment I’m still stuck in.

…

So I walked away for a while. I’m much more calm now. I’ve been looking at some artwork (I discovered a great artisan named Kel Flowers [what a fabulous name! I’m jealous] whose custom made books are amazing), and reading some poetry, and, well, I feel better.

I think maybe my emotions are running wild because of my hormones. It’s “that time of month,” and I think that could be causing my roller-coaster emotional state as well as my severe back pain. Ah, the joys of being a woman. (I’m sure you’re dying to hear about my feminine health issues…if it bugs you, skip the next paragraph. [and perhaps grow up a bit. Hahah…totally kidding!].)

The problem with my periods are many. First of all, they’ve never been regular. I guess in a way that’s kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand it’s kinda nice to have only a few periods a year. Also, I get PMS about a week before my period which includes debilitating back pain (as in I can’t get out of bed), crazy emotional roller coaster mood swings, and pregnancy-like symptoms (things like being overly emotional, cravings, morning sickness, tender breasts, etc.). The worst part of all that is that not only do I get that for at least a week before my period, it continues during my period. So that’s 2 weeks I’m basically out of commission. So that is another reason it’s kind of a good thing

that I have irregular periods. The bad part about being irregular is that it screws up with my hormones, which when irregular can cause issues (as if I don’t have enough issues already). I don’t really know how to explain it, but when I go a long time without having a period it’s almost like I get a buildup of hormones or something that cause mood swings and such, which actually gets relieved after my period is over. (I know, totally weird.)

Anyway, enough about my feminine health. As I mentioned, I was reading poetry a bit earlier. I was looking through the website of that artist I mentioned (Kel Flowers), and she had a book that she made that was inspired by the poem “Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath. I had never read this particular poem before, but as the book was beautiful (and the verse of the poem I could read in the pictures of the book were beautiful too), and because I love mushrooms (k…we’ve established that I’m weird, lol); I decided to look up the poem. I found it on a blog (actually looks like an interesting blog) here:

http://thebutterflydiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/sylvia-plaths-mushrooms/

I really like how the writer of this blog displayed this poem, and added pictures, and so I’m going to post the same here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Mushrooms

By Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

Isn’t that a lovely poem? I’m in love with it. It’s definitely one of my new favorites! When doing a Google search for this poem, I also came across websites with analysis’ of the poem. Most people agreed that this poem was a metaphor for the women’s rights movement. However, some people noted that they think that “Mushrooms” is about communism in either Vietnam or China. One commentator said, “hey .... another idea..... it is known that Sylvia Plath was pregnant at the time of writing this poem. i feel this poem also depicts the coming of a new generation. 'whitely, discreetly, quietly'... what better words can you get, to describe a growing fetus!! maybe she imagined her own baby speaking to her. the poem represents the hope and future of the world - the forthcoming generation. ... or .... she may be speaking of WAR AND HATRED. remember the smoke that goes up from an explosion takes the shape of a MUSHROOM!!” One commentator even likened the mushrooms in the poem to gossip. All interesting speculations. Personally I tend to lead towards the supposition that “Mushrooms” is about the women’s rights movement. Perhaps that’s romanticism on my part, but I’m sticking to it! Lol ;P