Tomorrow is my last day at the BHC.  I’ve been a call center associate for 3 years now, and I’ve learned quite a bit about myself and about other mental patients.  So far, I’ve learned about working relationships and how to show up for work every day with no excuses.  I’ve learned how to redirect a borderline, when to tell someone to stop crying, and how to not get suckered by the Klonopin junkies in the greater Charlotte area.  

But I’ve also learned how to really care about someone I might never meet.  I learned how to work hard for the sake of working hard, nothing more.  I learned that sometimes my greatest assets are knowing when to shut my mouth, that happiness is more important than being right most of the time.  While I was taking down my pictures and such from my cube walls, I realized that I had used my copy of the St. Francis prayer so many times without even knowing it… especially the line “it is greater to understand, than to be understood.”  There’s no point in a power struggle, there’s no room for righteous indignation, there is just patience and the knowledge that everything is always changing, and to look at it otherwise is foolish.

I’ve seen my own compassion and I’ve seen every one of my limitations here.  I’ll miss the friendships that have grown here, the familiarity and the camraderie, but I know that I’ll find it in my new job.  I’m sad, but more excited than sad and I know that I’m not disappearing, just shifting, which is exactly what I am supposed to do.  I am here, doing what I am doing, and because of that it is what I am supposed to be doing.  I’m learning that, daily.

I aspire to be more like the goddess Tara, who vowed-

“There are many who wish to gain enlightenment
in a man’s form,
And there are few who wish to work
for the welfare of living beings
in a female form.  

Therefore may I, in a female body,
work for the welfare of all beings,
until such time as all humanity has found its fullness.”

And shoot, if I can do that makin bagels, I can do anything.  :)

man.  i love me some NPR.  i used to listen to NPR back when i worked for DHL, only it was the jazz station out of denver called KUVO, “oasis in the city”… i LOVED that station!  that, and KCSU were pretty much all i would rock out to when i was back delivering packages.  i learned a lot about good indie rock and even more about BAD indie rock.  i also learned about arturo gomez, who has maybe the best noon hour jazz show ever.  also, he’s got the radio personality down like it’s going outta style.  for serious! 

thanks to the internet, even though i’m 2000 miles away from mountains and snow and dear arturo, i can still catch a little oasis in the city every now and again at www.kuvo.org.  ah, the good ole days…

but enough about the past, let’s talk about how i put my two weeks in FINALLY and am now on my way to assistant managing a bagel shop!  which is about as far away from working at mental health as you can get, except that i’ll have mad skills if one of the bagel shop guests starts to go a little bananas.  i know all about redirection, so listen charlotte area banana sandwiches – don’t try your tomfoolery on me, ok?  i got you in my crosshairs, and i know juuuuust how to handle these types of shenanigans.  yeah!

this weekend jeanne and i are watching gone with the wind.  jeanne says it’s a travesty that i haven’t seen it yet, and i say that i was raised in colorado.  it’s a travesty to me that all her boots have heels with no traction, y’know?  but, to each her own.  i think amy might roll with, and amber might come too.  very excited about amber joining la cosa nostra, and megan as well!  new girls always put a smile on my face.  :) 

yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of my dad’s death.  i talked about it in the meditation meeting, and it’s still kind of weird for me.  i miss him, but it’s an odd kind of missing.  i would love nothing more than to hug him one more time, or hear his voice, or see him smile again, but i have all of those memories with me and thanks to sobriety i can conjure them clearly and keep them close to my soul.  not to say that the tangible self wouldn’t be incredible, but i’m not angry with god anymore, and that’s a huge leap for me. 

man.  we’re getting deep in here!  thank goodness mom taught me how to swim…

another reason why i love jeanne so so much is that title – last night, on our in-the-bed phone call, jeanne dropped this story about these tailors who charge something like 400 bones for a custom made shirt and a pair of custom made slacks.  now, unless they’re custom made from the hair of 10,000 virgins, i have no desire to spend 400 clams on ONE outfit – that 400 could be spent in so many different ways, like shoes and jeans and wide leather belts that have almost the same effect as tailoring anyway, but are super fun and sassy.  so anyway, during this story jeanne goes “so i told the ladies, what you don’t know about me is that i’m really a gay black man.” totally straight faced, totally serious, and yeah, i fell out laughing and told her it was going to be the title of my blog today.  so, here it is!

my physical health has been a bit subpar lately, but i only have myself to thank for that.  over the weekend, my diet SUCKED.  i ate doritos, potato chips, dip, cheesy puffs, oreos, mini snickers, lots of coffee, marshmallow cereal, etc. etc.  yeah.  it was gnarly. 

(like that, but less organized)

 we had a slumber party though, and that’s really the only acceptable slumber party cuisine!  then on saturday night, ben took me to sonoma (and i wore a pagmina!) and we ate…. everything.  two appetizers, main courses, desserts, then a chef special that was BOMB.  if you read this and live anywhere close to charlotte, check out sonoma – it is fiercely good food.  superman alan took care of us, which was lovely, and then i had a food baby to deal with the rest of the night. 

sunday wasn’t as bad, we had our first softball game (called, due to rain, but we got a practice game in) then i met with pete, then i spoke at wilmith… so my eating wasn’t bad, but i smoked a bunch of cigarettes.   these cigarettes need to get kicked cause a) they’re expensive and b) they’ll kill me dead.  not a fan of either of those, really. 

it’s like tamara from work says, i’m too cute to smoke.

i have my OJE at brueggers on saturday, i’m excited.  i love jim and he’s the one who’s going to walk me through the day.  i think i’ll like it, should be a whole lot different than what i do now, which i’m good with.  ben is taking me shopping after work for a pair of black pants and a white or black polo t-shirt, and insoles for my old new balances.  i FINALLY chucked out my old asics… it made me a little sad, because those are the shoes i ran my first triathlon in, the shoes i ran the labor day 5k with my sister in, the shoes i wore to move out to charlotte… yeah.  oh well.  everything needs a finale, y’know?  i really should’ve let them die in dignity and from here on out i’m going to work on adopting a much more buddhist attitude toward my stuff – detachment!

the meditation meeting last night was stellar, as usual.  we meditated on smiling and i really focused on using it to heal my body, organ by organ.  it helped that before the meeting a bunch of us sat outside drinking coffee and smoking at the east ‘bou, trading horrific driving stories and laughing really hard.  i adore my life sometimes, especially last night.

Even more than I need new jeans, and I need new jeans somethin fierce.  My current underwear situation is like this – I don’t have a whole lot of good underwear, so I have to wash the pairs I do have quite a bit, which wears them out faster, thus I lose more underwear.  I’m just gonna roll commando everywhere, save me some time AND money.

Anyway.  SO MUCH STUFF HAS HAPPENED.  It’s time for bullet points.

• I turned 25 on September 4th, woot!
• I am in the process of interviewing, etc. for a new job at Breuggers, but don’t tell CHS or I’ll cut you.  Bad.
• La Cosa Nostra has two potential new members - Shelley and Donna, both fab ladies.  Brunch is on Saturday and Nic-o’s gonna be in town for it, which is yay times 47.  We’re having a CCDG sleepover on Friday night, holla!
• Randomosity continues to surround the current members of CCDG, but it’s okay.  Last Saturday it was cyclists instead of a dog walker, so go figure… at least they’re active.
• Haze got in a dog fight.  :(  Scariest thing ever, plus I got a bite (a little teeny one) and it sucked all around.
• We moved from one side of our duplex to the other side.  Jeanne came over post CCDG to lend a hand, and her and Kyle and I scrubbed the house next door from top to bottom… crazy messy.  Like they’d never cleaned before.  GROSS.
• Ben went on a golf outing with a bunch of other men last weekend in Shelby and had the time of his life.  He spoke yesterday and darn near made me cry.  He didn’t give me a shout out, but I’m the bumper sticker half of this duo, and I can jive with that. 
• Speaking of bumper stickers, I found one (not really, I saw it on another car) that I must must must have -

• Went to my very first NFL football game to see the Panthers play, which was a spectacle but kind of cool.  I saw Jim and Melissa there, and Dan, and I went with Ben and it was a nice experience.
• I got my hair cut by Marty’s daughter on my birthday.  She curled it and gave me party girl hair!  But now it’s just Emily hair.  Ah, well.
• Mona has to stay in her crate in the house now, which is smart on Sarah and Kyle’s part but kinda sucks for Mona. 

I think that’s all I can commit to right now.  But there will be more later because I just finished two new books and I need to digest them, then write about them.  One was called The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr and the other was Ben’s favorite book, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy.  So yeah. 

Softball starts Sunday!  Rawr!

every saturday, my spons sister jeanne and i get together and have what i like to call the c.c.d.g. club… coffee, cigarettes, and dirty girls.  this is an extremely self-explanatory name, as our club involves drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and being dirty girls – meaning we don’t shower prior to meeting up, not that we get naked or anything like that.  we’re sober, remember?

so jeanne is fast becoming one of my all time favorite folks, not only because we’re both part of la cosa nostra, but also because she is just about the most fabulous person i have met.  she’s tiny, very petite, small statured, but what she lacks in physical size she more than makes up for in personality and style… the girl can DRESS.  and i mean she can dress up, she can dress down, even on c.c.d.g. days she rocks it.  who else can pull off green shades?  nobody.  this is why i love her, in part.  the other reason is that she is loud and proud, stands up for the little guy, and isn’t afraid of a soapbox.  because she’s so little, she doesn’t get beaten up, but she certainly doesn’t get ignored either.  pretty fantastic.

the other reason is that i’ve never met someone who i’ve talked to the way i have with her.  not that i haven’t had close friendships before, but something about her just makes me feel like no matter what, i’m okay… and she’ll be able to top any story i’ve got.  there’s something so comfortable about that, about being accepted fully and knowing that i feel the same way back.  she and i can talk about anything under the sun, but when i’m a woman in peril, she is someone that i know will be there.  not that it always has to be serious -  our mutual hatred for khakis on women, capri pants, and shoulder pads have worked their way into numerous convos.  she invented the word “smovaries”, in reference to smashing her ovaries with supertight pants (but you would be amazed by how good her butt looks in ‘em!).   she texts me things like “but i’m the batadactyl”… who else besides the woo?  nobody.

and i am so intensely grateful to god for putting her in my life… here is a woman, a real life survivor, who loves people ferociously and lives her life fully and rocks shoes that make my feet hurt just looking at them.  i hope that i am even half as helpful to her as she is to me. 

plus sometimes i borrow her shoes, and i can ALMOST walk in them.  yes.  :)

the other thing i need to realize is that the only way i’m going to lose any weight or even maintain my current weight is to exercise MORE than i eat, which is just so against my nature.  actually, to be fair, the place that i eat the most is also the place that i blog – my desk.  it’s things like trail mix that end up being my caloric downfall, cause i’ll sit here and take calls and slowly but surely eat every last m & m piece out of my trail mix.  then the raisins and almonds.  lastly, i will eat the peanuts, but i don’t enjoy it.  i do it cause if i don’t, i feel like i’m spitting in the face of all the poor kids in africa ever.  pretty terrible…

but it’s okay because i am young and in shape and all i really need to do is start keeping a food journal and cooking more at home.  i should probably stop reading david lebovitz’s food blog here at work considering it makes me salivate at least twelve times more than normal.  plus i should buy more gum, because i’m chewing my last piece as i type.  ben would say “you sure are chewing it!” cause apparently i smack my gum.  i cannot help that, i tried with tate, i try with ben, it just smacks.  maybe it’s the gum’s fault.

but really i want to say that my green bean salad came out great, but was gross as leftovers, which is kind of a bummer but not altogether surprising.  then i made steak with peppers and onions and tomatoes (es!!) in a stir fry way, which came out really really good, then we made wraps out of those leftovers and i killed the last of them with an avocado (singular) last night, and some noodles.  it was eatfest 09 last night, and *sadly* today.  i think it’d be different if i ran this morning or did some kind of exercise, but all i did this morning was drive back from ben’s house and eat honey nut cheerios from a plastic baggie.  pretty glamorous.

well, tomorrow is a new day to be filled with jogging and 6 p.m. big book studies.   plus, miss ramsey’s hitting the CTB with me tonight, and that makes me happy, and i’ll take haze bear and mona for a walk when i’m outta here in… 57 minutes, and counting.  if it’s not raining, i mean.  there might be a nap in my immediate future post dog walk.   nap thirty, what?

why isn’t the word spelled avocadoes, with an es at the end like tomatoes and potatoes.  i honestly have a little sympathy for dan quayle on this because maybe he was thinking of avocados and got all flustered… but i don’t think the VP of the nation i live in should be dumber than me, really.  i guess more evil is okay, since i am about 93% goodness and light, and i’m pretty sure cheney was about 97% the devil.  but that’s only speculation, and besides you can never really trust statistics.

there are a few things on my mind.  i need to start increasing the duration of my workouts, because i’m not losing any weight and i’m starting to get a little bored.  ben said something about exercise bands and good moves to build lean muscle, and i think that would be a nice addition to my running days.  swimming, i mean… there’s nothing more i can do besides swim longer, but that cuts into my get-ready-for-work time.  yoga is always beautiful.  so there is a solution, and its name might be exercise bands.

also, i want to make this green bean salad for a side for dinner tonight, and i’m scared.  like, honest to God, literally afraid.  i don’t know WHY i’m afraid, because the worst that will happen is that it tastes less than awesome and we don’t eat it and i wasted some groceries.  but still, i am afraid.  it’s silly, but so telling of my personality flaws… i am someone who seeks approval, and if i make a mistake i’m automatically convinced that no one loves me or likes me and i should just go jump off a cliff.  that is what we call “extreme thinking.”  yeah.  i’m going to face my fear and make a green bean salad that i’ve never made before and be secure in the fact that i am liked AND loved, regardless of how my salad turns out.

i led the meditation meeting last night and i sweated the entire time, i was so nervous.  reference the paragraph above and see how i react to situations that are new and involve others… hahaha.  :)  it went well, just as it always does.  thinking of this makes me more confident about my green bean salad and that it will all work out okay, just as long as i let it. 

sponsorship family brunch is this weekend and i’m looking forward to some food and fellowship with la cosa nostra, especially earth mama.  there are few people in the world who i trust implicitely, but i am blessed to have a few of them so handy.  speaking of mamas, i miss my real mama TERRIBLY.  my heart hurts when i think about how long it’s been since i’ve seen her, and i’ve gotta figure out a way to not live across the country.  ooh man, i miss my mama.   she used to try to grow avocado plants from their pits.  she’d put them in half a bowl of warm water and see if they’d sprout, but they only ever got moldy.

speaking of avocados (again), i have two at home in a brown paper bag, ripening.  i have plans for a salad of epic proportions, with three colors of bell pepper, tomatoes, avocados (without the es!!), spinach, an organic lettuce blend, cucumbers, red onion, maybe some sliced pablanos, cheese, and possibly steak… should be amazing.  i must not let my fear of combinations rule my life and ruin my salads.  avocado warrior, that’s me… :)

(they’re a fruit, y’know)

it’s no secret that i’ve got some injun blood.  i’m quite happy about that, really, because it gives me a great excuse for my big nose and my alcoholism.  however, my last name is not bearclaw (it sounds a lot like bearclaw), it is a welsh last name thanks to my dad.  my mom’s last name is an actual tribe, which i wrote about a few months back… pretty cool.  but it is still not bearclaw.  dad’s side is bearclaw.  yup!

so here are the bearclaws by the pool :

that would be an honorary bearclaw in there as well, ouida.  big bearclaws, little bearclaws, and mama bearclaw actually in a bathing suit – what?!

my brother’s youngest daughter is quite the daredevil – her only request was “higher!”

flip dog (a.k.a. marty) is responsible for giving me the nickname “little river hippie”, which ben has shortened to “little river”, thus little river bearclaw.  this is ben teaching my oldest niece how to squirt water with her hands, and i had been launching my middle niece off my knees into the pool.  his muscles are almost as big as mine… almost.

so all in all, the bearclaws are a pretty attractive bunch of folks who love each other and are all pretty batty.  but lovely.  :)

i gotta give it to the ride sometimes.  they kill it on my morning drive… i heard otis redding, peter gabriel, and steely dan on my way to work this morning. *my “commute” takes all of 7 to 10 minutes*  the ride is 95.7 here in the QC, and while it bothers me that they consider R.E.M. “classic rock”, it is an essential part of my life.  i don’t know that i’d function as well without the ride, unless there was a better NPR jazz station or a college station that wasn’t 90% static like 91.7 is. 

but i digress… no, i don’t.  i stayed almost entirely on topic there.  i really didn’t digress until i pointed out the digression.  fuck it, we’re here now, let’s keep truckin.

so tool played at the botunda last night.  for those of you not from the QC, the botunda is the bojangles theater.  it is large and round and i (and many others) call it the botunda.  so yeah, tool was there last night and the traffic was ridiculously backed up on briar creek, but i just took it easy… let some folks in who didn’t know how to alternate merge.  that blows my mind, that people can’t figure that out.  really?  how hard is it.  c’mon now.

i made it through the traffic and stopped by a gas station to get ben a blue gatorade and some good n plentys.  haze dog was in the car with me and we just kinda cruised down to ben’s apartment.  the weather was really nice and the sky was gorgeous… one of those moments where i don’t mind that i live in charlotte, not colorado.  i was very much in love with life, and i so enjoy that feeling. 

it was nice.  :)