wednesday 3 o'clock: domestic skirmishes... aka life amongst my savages

mrs. hilary clinton has the same job as president thomas jefferson had. not the main one that she really vied for, but almost a more important one. she held it and performed the hell out of it with great diplomatic skill as well as effectiveness. she did this until a concussion intervened. oh that and a horrible tragedy putting all of her amazing work under a microscope. the horrible, fatal and somehow unstoppable embassy attacks of 2012.

i would have gladly voted for her as a presidential candidate, if she had made it as far as to hold that spot on the election ballot. i am of course thrilled that mr. obama threw his hat into the ring and became our president not just one time, but on the edge of his second term. i say all of this in mind of the horrible breaking down of reason and sanity all over the world. especially as a footnote to hopefully the last acts of random violence that occur specifically upon domestic soils. i want never to live through any other atrocities such as the Sandy Hook murders, the outbreak of wrong doing towards Batman lovers in Colorado, or the plethora of other horrible activities that are war-like in all of their aggressive and unkind results everywhere.

at heart i am a pacifist. a Quaker almost even. perhaps even for lack of a better description, a teensy variation of a peace-loving hippie from the sixties. it may simply be the case of not wanting to experience any more unkindness of one human towards any other. i survived sibling rivalry, so i keep thinking does it need to keep on going at any scale or level. it is just a wheel spinning activity if you really look it in the eye.

this having been said, and not said to be dramatic or trivialize the "troubles" flowing throughout the world around me, i am in the land of domestic unrest. the violence of the world is growing generally. man is a bellicose animal, without the means to resolve his issues without bloodshed. i remain suspicious that it is safe out there while all this ire is rubbing against itself to create some spark and a bigger, more pronounced bloody result. i just do not understand any of it.

what i also do not get is the ongoing war that exists within my own small part of the world. i refer to the oddities of household passive aggression. the inexplicable itchiness inside my little red home.

i have so little understanding of why it is in fully blown expression here. really, i just don't get it.

i gave up what could have been a seriously mediocre pastime or as others refer to it, a career as an architect. i studied years to complete the undergraduate level of college training to do this. it took me six whole years on top of an already well recognized B.Arts from a well viewed college before that. i studied at night, while i held a full time job during days to aid in my training. i even went so far as to take an exam which puts the C.P.A. exam in its place like the whiny little bitch it really is. i worked and worked as a nanny, bartender, knitting salesperson and garment finisher to support myself as i attempted to achieve this basic level of training and a legal right to wield a rubber stamp with my professional license number upon it. in this, i find myself twenty-odd years later in a place where passive aggression is the mode, not any passing form of professionalism or peace. i am losing the conflicts daily.

these losses are very minute. sometimes i see how they add up. like a single drop of water can be additive to more and collect into a small trickle. then form a watery force large enough to cut a magnificent swath through some stone and call itself a Grand Canyon. the small notches of activity that run through my psyche are teensy. normal people are not bothered by them. it is not that i am decidedly abnormal, i just have my ways. i do not enjoy my ways being disregarded or simply ignored. i am a person and would enjoy some respect. a little logic and love thrown into the mix would serve my interests well also.

here is one of the skirmishes. i like socks. i like when i wear them, that i have them match. they wear better that way. i like when i have matching elastic rings on my legs and bilateral similarity of pressure applied for better circulation to my limbs. it is possible i missed the memo that said socks are sold as redundant one-offs. not that they are paired to suit your bipedal design. i am frustrated by the fact that i have a sock eating monster living in my washer or dryer. it is hungry enough in its hidden placement, that it prefers only one half of my paired foot-warming hose. it is perplexing, yet i feel bonded to many, many others in the world. there are dryer or wind+laundry line locations world-wide that experience the mysteries of sock loss. it is not anything anyone can pinpoint the origins of, because if they could there would be a NOBEL prize awarded for its discovery.

i had the flu the past two weeks. going to the basement was a profoundly energy sucking experience i avoided. it took more effort than to switch sleeping positions or change the tv channels. so i was more lax than usual about it.

eventually, there were no children at home to do some of my laziness or health initiated favors. i had to go myself to ferret out some socks to warm my oddly mismatching cold feet. the level of poor circulation to my feet is causing me great worry. any educated person living and fighting with diabetes is on this page along side of me. nobody wants to lose any part of their body, especially a toe or a foot. so keeping that circulation going well is a very important part of daily maintenance.

i have been horrified to see that doing the laundry for my husband is a beloved part of his household task participation. he likes to say, he does the family laundry. i know he does. it is a white lie though. he does it really poorly, just so he doesn't have to think too hard about it. surely my whining has covered this content before? if not, that is for another day. my most recent and deeply unexpected discovery was that the same trash bin that corrals the lint from the dryer, random washed papers in a post laundered papier mache state, soap bottle caps etc. also contains my socks.

what the hell?

this is a fresh page in the war of passive aggression that i need to investigate. already the skirmishes are being lost. i keep buying new pretty striped and dotted, wildly colorful socks to entertain my feet with. they are being tossed into that bin willy-nilly in solitude. rendering brand new sock pairings useless one mate at a time.

WHY???????????????

what did my poor six pack of Betsy Johnson orange and pink roses ever do to you?

why are my recently accepted ankle high stripey numbers turned away at the pairing station?

who would be offended by turquoise and kelly green ankle high socks with a cute picot edging?

who is responsible for this act of unkindness;

a domestic war?

is it a counter-attack against the solution to subtle doctrines on the color-free greigeness of the system?

i am appalled. i want my feet to be cozy and remain at the other end of my body.

i want them til i get done for, permanently.

why is this a reasonable act?

i am sad that i am living through a fresh take on dealing with domesticity. the last invigorating strike against my sanity was the unnecessary roughness call of eating all the store-bought pie and leaving the eating utensil in the entrails of the packaging of a small, sweet fruit whispered through bakery item.

(according to my grocery tape).

left on the stove in all of its empty glory with a knife inside the box.

pretense of future dispensing pie pan in a rinsed condition to the overflowing recycling is not even a whisper of possibility.

the what's up of the innocent...

and the deniability of the guilty party

this war is only one.

it wears me down daily, in all of its myriad of presentations.

i find myself looking towards running away someday.

hobo-stick and bandana filled to its edges with jewels leaking from its corners.

i can see it in my future.

in my ultimate cessation of fighting a good fight.

of letting go of the dream.

the dream of two matching socks... and a fully cut pie. one without the telltale marks of many fork tines pricked directly into the pie pan without formality and diplomacy of a sliced wedge portion.

the civility of it all is gone.

dentente is a poof of smoke.

gone. gone. gone.

adieu.

with mixed socks and bruised feelings, i offer these visual bon-mots.

re-tweaked bracelets for a client. one who has unwittingly and patiently been waiting for me to deliver some goods. some bracelets, charmed and uncharmed styles;

some leather cuffed ones,

and some rings.

just some items to flaunt in their boutique or at their place at "Styleweek RI".

the flu kept my productivity down to the barest level manageable.

one that was interwoven with mysterious sock related losses.

charm bracelets