mind your head

Woke up to pitter pattering rain outside my window. With my eyes shut I pulled up the blinds. I lay there listening to the soft rain, reveling in the bright grey light. I picked up one of the books I'd fallen asleep next to and began to read. Several pages in the rain softened even more, distant and light, matching the mood for the snowfall recalled in the book. I paused to look at the bloated white sky and to my disbelief, it had cracked and billions of fat flurries fell furiously.

I love the white, the quiet and stillness of it all. It is timeless and I think I could live in it forever. Getting out in it and going anywhere is another story altogether. What is there to do but to watch it fall and cover the ground in a thick later winter blanket. Every time I look up from my book it's falling heavier, padding everything delicately. I could go all day without doing anything or saying a word to anyone. I've got my records, my books, the fresh frozen air drafting over the window sill. I'm perfectly content to sit here imprinting my mind with this sacred simple moment with myself and the snow.

Here is the song I'm listening to. It feels like it was written for this very moment.

control your mind my girl
and give your heart to one
for if you love all men
you'll be surely left with none



mom would understand the heaviness of this beautiful day. she would sit outside and sip tea with me, hold my hand with hers. her skin would be soft but slightly cracked. suicide still seems unimaginable, even after it's happened. i wake up in the middle of the night realizing it wasn't an accident, it was an impulse. there were no dramatics this time around, she didn't want to be saved, she didn't want her own family to find her lifeless body but rather leave that dirty work to the maid. it all fit so perfectly, shattered so cleanly and effortlessly for her. our memories of her are what keeps her spirit alive. she wanted nothing to do with any part of her being. how are we supposed to go on thinking of her?

cydne just got home and is extremely excited about the snow. my teary sadface must now be thrown down some big frozen hill before it all stops. time to sled.

wizard sings kenny loggins better than kenny loggins. the karate guy is to warn you of the malfunctioning window.


matt, jim, titus. all the saints


titus is handsome; i am getting punched in the face.



what would we do without bruncheons.

the muzz. check out the reflection in her eye.




in the barn




more on the flickr. i've been uploading pretty frequently, maybe time to put a filter on myself. i'm enjoying it, anyway.

four times more photos on my flickr. i need more friends on there.

wallpaper at mimosa. how did this ever go out of style?


the best bathtub in the world. old as the hills!


first shot with the self timer. slightly unprepared. wearing my grandmother's housecoat in my mother's childhood bedroom.


my grandfather's old room.


there are bunch more at my flickr. clicking the photos links you, if you didn't already know.

(where mother died, where her parents slept, where i grew up, where sally keeps bills)

Well, my dreams came true and Santa brought me a Canon Rebel XSi for Chrimmuh. I am totally freaking ecstatic over it. We are still getting to know each other and I don't have any sort of photo editor on here but for the time being, I'm cool with being snap happy and flexing my photo muscles a bit. It's been a minute.

So, here is my flickr that I have started updating after over a year long hiatus, and here are some of the photos I posted from Christmas day. I definitely feel like an amateur but this camera is a dream.






To Grandmother's house we go...


With my brothers and Muzz in the nursing home. :[


The first of many self portraits to come.

I'm not sure how I will go about posting pictures on here. Either I will just post a few and hope people visit my flickr on occasion or I will lj cut cut cut cut cut. We shall see. HOOTY HOOOOOO!

So I sold my point and shoot digital and now have enough money to buy a digital slr. FINALLY. I was pretty dead- set on getting a Canon 20d because they're quite affordable used, but then I heard good things about the Canon XSi/Xti, and Nikon D80. My price range really is about $500-$600 with a lens, and I'm pretty sure I won't be happy with just a kit lens. I would rather get a less expensive body and have a really nice lens but I have NO idea what kind to get.

Penny for your thoughts?

Today I am going to vote even though I live a good 45 minutes away from my polling place and have to drive there during five o'clock traffic when I get off work. I am so ready for this election to be over and wish I had voted early. I also wish my vote in Georgia actually counted, and that I knew more about all the other people I am going to vote for in addition to Obama. Honestly, I hate politics. This was supposed to be a picture post.



This is what we had for breakfast yesterday.
Locally prepared breakfast sausage, fried egg, Tim's homemade gingered apricot jam, smoked gouda, caramelized onions all on a pan-fried sesame bagel from a local bakery.


This is our incredible Butternut squash soup that I could eat every day for the rest of my life.
Coconut milk, some broth of the pollo variety, butternut squash, ginger, a dash of nutmeg, garlic, sauteed onion, white carrots. Topped with toasted butternut squash seeds.


Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen


Yikes. Chef's got some of my cocaine makeup on his nose.


My personal favorite.

I'm trying to remember all the details but when I woke up I remember feeling like I had been really disturbed in my sleep and then I realized OH YEAH, I had a nightmare! and then oh YEAH, it was about Sarah Palin. Well, she comes in towards the end and then I started to lucid dream because it was getting really scary and I wanted to wake up.

First I remember I am staying in a strange hotel where the only channels on tv are porn and you can't turn them off. All the porn is group sex. I was on a top floor but I did not have a window. Someone knocks on my door and tells me Senator McCain is looking for me and that I am to report to the lake immediately. Down at the lake there are a bunch of people, most of whom look really confused, some others who being devious and building something behind some trees on the far side of the lake. McCain is short, stout, and standing on an old dock with his arms crossed while some young douchey guy is yelling his commands for him because McCain can't yell. I'm more interested in what the rebels are building behind the trees so I ditch the President (eeeee, scary) and go to investigate. The rest of the crowd doesn't seem to be paying attention to what he's saying either.

As I'm walking to the trees, I catch a glimpse of a shining path in another direction and am intrigued. I follow the linoleum path (mind you I am still by a lake) up to the back of this old building. I open the back door and FUCKING HELL, it's Everybody's. I dream about work all the time, it's really annoying. I walk into the kitchen and everything is in complete disarray. Everyone working looks like they've had the shit beat out of them and they're miserably trying to make things work but something seems to be really wrong. All of the plastic containers and trays are in completely illogical places. One of our line cooks tells me I'm late and that we have a new manager and I'm like "GUYS, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" but they're just shaking their heads and pulling shit out of the ovens, doing weird things to the food like putting it on the floor and walking over it. I hear a lot of commotion in another room and I sneak behind the bar to see what's going on. There is a crowd of people and this one reeeeeaaallly obnoxious voice that can belong only to Sarah Palin. At this point I don't know what to do except try to clean up and make sure the food is okay but everyone looks like they're about to throw themselves in the ovens and I'm starting to get really upset. A fury begins to rise in me by the moment and Sarah Palin walks in, talking loudly about nothing at all, walks right through the middle of the huge mess and chaos that is happening in the kitchen and puts on an apron. Still talking. She completely ignores the people working around her as she gets behind the salad line and continues talking to two men in suits. I don't remember what they were talking about but I started talking to one of the pizza cooks about "what the fuck?" and he just shrugged.

SO I STARTED THROWING THINGS. We have bus pans under each of the lines and I started to clean up by throwing all of the stuff that was on the floor into the bus pans. The kitchen is usually loud so this is not an abnormal activity but Sarah Palin got PISSED. She yells at me from behind her line as if I am her 3 year old who has run off with her Blackberry or something. I continued throwing things around and yelled back to her, "IS ANYONE GOING TO HELP CLEAN UP THIS MESS? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!" and that is when Sarah Palin went up in flames and threw down her apron. She marches up to me like she's gonna rip my head off and grabs a fistful of my hair. Her face is practically touching mine and she is spitting on me as she speaks in this very low, slithery tone. She slowly lets go of my hair but her voice gets louder and scarier. Everything is silent and we all are just standing there petrified. She is going on and on about our poor workmanship and ungratefulness, yelling so loud the plates are shaking. The temperature of the kitchen seems to be rising by the second. It feels as if something is about to explode through the middle of the room. Sarah Palin is still yelling at us and I am about to cry or beat her to a pulp when suddenly I realize I am dreaming and that I would like to end this one now. Sarah Palin starts to get quiet and music comes on and drowns her out completely!!! She tries to talk over it but it doesn't matter, she's done and we're back to work as we were before she barged in and treated us like dogs. She looks disgusted and defeated as she walks out the door.

Gotta be at work in 20 minutes but I want to remember this dream.

I've already forgotten most of it but the end was the more important part. My brothers, my mom, my dad and I were in this big empty house on stilts on a hill and I could never seem to find anyone. I find out from one of my cousins who was there too that my grandmother had died the day before and I am confused as to why my family didn't tell me sooner. I was upset about this until I looked for my dad and realized he had taken his things and fled the house without notice. The situation hits me and a cold night falls. I am looking for my mom and my brothers and they are all dragging around upstairs. My mom lies down on a bed on a cold wooden patio overlooking a huge valley and my brothers and I know that she is dying. We try to talk to her, beg her not to go, hold her arms with our firmest grip but she does not acknowledge our pleas. She has a very sleepy smile as she pats the bed for us to lie down next to her. She starts to fade, her pink cheeks turn grey, her body's warmth drops by the second. Hansell, Grady and I lie down next to her, with me on the end. We know it is the thing to do. Mother is dead by this point and a strong wind comes up over our hillside. Suddenly it is like we are in some nature show time-lapse where the seasons change, everything is moving very fast, our eyes close permanently and our bodies shrivel. Clouds roll over us and cover us in this silvery silk starting at our feet, like a cocoon.


I also had a dream that I checked my livejournal (uh..) and it was filled with all these things that I had forgotten throughout my life. Not just recently, I'm talking like 15 years. It was another one of those things where I was trying to read it all but I didn't have enough time and it was impossible to remember everything.

Today at 10am after three hours of sleep I drove my ass to Roswell to surprise my grandparents who were in the process of being dressed as I walked in. Bad timing allowed me to escape upstairs to mom's old room with the four post bed on which I collapsed and stared at the silk canopy for a while and thought of all the nights I'd spent there through my life. I remembered something I literally have not thought about in ten years.... a secret hiding spot under one of the floorboards in mom's closet. While trying to find the special panel in the 168 year old floor I came across shoes from when I lived in Hawaii that, no kidding, still had sand inside them. I found the loose panel and a note I wrote on March 24, 1998 that went something like,
"To whom it may concern:
Please leave these treasures so that someday someone else will find them and think back on the treasures they held in their hands once-apon-a-time!

Virginia DeRosa"

I remember that I wrote "treasures" twice and I'm glad my handwriting transformed when I was 13. Along with the note was a clothespin, a strange old shoe buffer, and a crystal doorknob (one of my most cherished possessions, I have one here too). Today was the first time I have not cried at Mimosa since mom's death although Muzz and I did talk about her a good deal and we agreed that it felt like she was with us, just in the garden or digging through the attic, bumbling down the cobblestone driveway or building fairy houses on the front lawn. For the first time today I noticed that Muzz's giant Buddha statue had a tiny shell in the palm of its hand and that is unmistakeably something mom did. She can't be gone... everything stayed the same.

The best thing I did at Mimosa today was sing to Muzzie. I don't think I've ever seen her so happy. She sang the Chattanooga Choo Choo in its entirety!! Nothin could be finer than to have your eggs in Car-oh-lina...
As requested, I sang her the following songs for about an hour,
Dream a Little Dream of Me
Night and Day
How High the Moon
Mr. Sandman
San Francisco
Bali Hai
Black Coffee
I Fall to Pieces
I've Just Discovered Boys
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria/I am 16
Get Happy
Mares Eat Oates
The Man that Got Away


Generally these are my favorite songs to sing to myself (Sound of Music excluded, haha) to myself on a daily basis. San Francisco and Dream a Little Dream especially. Part of me will always want to be Judy Garland.

( little vid )

Had the day off today and had a blast playing with friends. Took a bunch of pictures that I'd like to share. Not the best quality but it's hard to get anyone to keep still. It's 10:34 and I am ready for bed.

The day started with going to Daddy D'z for Atlanta's best bar-be-que with Cydne, James, and Dave. Fried green tomatoes and everything.


( a bundle more )

I'm back on myspace. Add accordingly.......

http://www.myspace.com/virginiaderosa


NEWS:
I made rent busting my ass the past two nights at work. Two nights!! However, I demand that every student who has not worked in the service industry take a class on fucking TIPPING ETIQUETTE where the only way you can pass if you tip at least 15%, for the love of Christ. This ten percent bullshit is kiiiiillllll-ing me! I flip those tables faster than these Jersey girls can eat their "thalads". At the end of the night I had one table of Emory girls on the patio who were having a casual conversation about their cocaine usage as I was sweeping. True to their kind they left me $2 on $30. So it goes...

Today I figured out that the squirrel loves chewing on pens but we don't want her to fill up with ink so instead I drag the pen up, down, and around her chicken-wire cage and she follows it frantically. I've gotta make a movie or something, that shit is hilarious.

I never really bought the idea of "insomnia" until recently when it has become literally impossible for me to fall asleep at night or during the day. I close my eyes and toss and turn for-ev-er until I finally turn on the light, read, maybe have a glass of wine or pack a bowl to move things along and I'm just...panicking. I think about rearranging all of my furniture, I think about making my bed again, vacuuming, going for a run, at FIVE IN THE MORNING. I just want to sleep!! Eventually I do but usually for only 4-5 hours which is brutal on my schedule, pretty much daily. I always seem to be half awake when I sleep and am disturbed by the smallest noises. This all has to do with working late, I'm sure, and the fact that I really do have way too much energy these days. Something to do with the awesome new coffeeshop that opened up next to work? Something to do with all these boy-crazed thoughts I can't get out of my head. I need some good lovin and various other forms of exercise, lots of it. I don't like the idea of sleeping pills but xanax sounds pretty fantastic right about now. Maybe I just need someone to read me Goodnight Moon.

edit:
Victoria moved to Seattle and gave Cydne and I all kinds of awesome stuff including TEN BOTTLES OF VINTAGE WINE, a couple of them are 40 years old. Pure vinegar? I will keep you posted.

I would like to make an announcement concerning my excessive deletion of livejournal posts. Generally this happens when I feel like my momentary explosion of fill-in-the-blank is not worth sharing with the public for more than a few minutes. After, holy shit, seven years of having this livejournal I still hate most of what I put on here and still do not really know why I keep writing in it except that I want someone to listen I guess (if I didn't I wouldn't say anything at all). It's a pretty weak form of escapism but sometimes anything will do. I want to be comfortable writing in here again, regardless of the fact that I've fought this love-hate machine since I was 15 and I can't seem to break away. It documents my life! That's important even when my selection of livejournal topics is pretty limited to
mom
boys
self.

I was looking through my phonebook this morning wondering whom I could get lunch with to bring me back to reality and it hit me that I have a lot of friends I almost never talk to. People I don't just call up and ask out to lunch. People I could have much stronger relationships with, people who really do matter to me but for one reason or another I seem to lose touch with in many of the same ways I lose myself. I have a tendency to push the good things out of my life, I admit it. I guess my point here is that when I write in the empty white content box I am either feeling very high or low. I am trying to reach out hoping someone might reach back. Then again, writing all this rubbish is more of a distraction than a method of dealing with anything, at least for me. I am a highly emotional being and often do not know what to do with myself. Except right now I know I have to dress myself, brush my teeth and try to have a lunchdate with Kate who is one of those friends I have probably neglected. Real life!

I promise not to delete this post, livejournal. Hell, I'll even make it public.