“House Of Chains”

I’m so stripped down and naked
Feed me with change
Love me numb
So I can heal your pain
Make me wake up early
I’ll drive home so far away
Skip school and sleep in my car
Turn on the head and melt the snow away

Is there still time for love
Love.
I’ll forgive and forget
I wont regret a thing
But my pride and anger
It’s a danger to myself

Now I’m looking out the front door window
To my teen hood house of chains
Seems like everyone’s pretending to know the key
To something for somewhere
They’ve never been
In this road never ending
I’m ending this with you
Let’s go there
Still time for me and you…

Is there still time for love
Love.
I’ll forgive and forget
I wont regret a thing
But my pride and anger
It’s a danger to myself

Mom’s in the hospital
She’s sick and under nourished
But anything is possible
She says violets always flourish
Fathers so afraid
Of the child inside he’s lost
So how much will he pay
For all the pain he caused
I saw him smiling, laughing
Betrayed and so lost but I found, let’s celebrate it
No matter what it costs

Is there still time for love
Love.
I’ll forgive and forget
I wont regret a thing
But my pride and anger
It’s a danger to myself

We don’t have to wait
Now’s never too late
Now is forever
And we are always free

We don’t have to wait
Now’s never too late
Now is forever
And we are always free

The retched Valentines Day curse has struck again. This time with some fucking authority. The day after has turned out to be the most intensely~horrific day I have had to experience. I found out at 10am this morning that my brother was dead. My handsome, cherished 18 year old brother is gone and I can’t get him back. He had an accident with an  industrial drill at his jobsite. It caught his sleeve and jerked him down to his death. My uncle must be having the roughest time so far since he was there when it happened. I can’t even begin to fathom having to see something like this happen. Especially to someone you love. His memories aren’t enough for me right now. I want to hug him. To see him smile and give me the finger. To laugh. To sing AC/DC songs and rock out in his mustang. To stop at the corner store and buy lottery tickets.  I’m so worried about my family. I’m glad they all have eachother and thanks to my work, I will be able to be with them. As soon as tomorrow. They are paying for both me and Nate to fly to Texas to be with my family. I am so grateful that the burden of getting there was lifted from my shoulders with such ease. Thanks to Alycia and Ingy my pets will get love in our absence. And trust, me…they need it. Nate has been so wonderful to me. He’s had to go through losing his mother and understands what I’m going through to the fullest extent. We leave at 7am in the morning and arrive at San Antonio around 2pm. Nate will be meeting my family for the first time. I wanted him to meet Flyzzy so bad. I can’t stop torturing myself with thoughts of memories that I never got to have. This is so hard, the hardest of the hardest that I have ever known. It still feels so surreal and I don’t think that feeling will ever go away. I know when I wake up in the morning for the split second before I come to, I will have forgotten this horrible tragedy and things will be as they were. At least in my head. Then, I will relive it all over again. We missed our connecting flight out of Phoenix. This has been the weirdest day ever. Floyd is watching over this trip and making me DEPART at 420 and now our plane is delayed and I am LEAVING at 420. This is too weird to be a coincidence. Well, the hardest part was the viewing. My dad took me in alone and I certainly wasn’t expecting what I saw. My brother looked like a mannequin. He was cold and worst of all, dead. I had to go lay on the pew in the back of the church and couldn’t stand anyone being near me. “It’s okay, honey, he had a beautiful life”. Bullshit, I want my brother back and I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE!!!!! I eventually started hyperventillating and my hands became completely numb. The numbness traveled all the way up to my elbows. I was doing the paper bag thing when Mimi took me for walk. She talked to me briefly about God and how we are all connected. At that moment, a woman, “Sherry” came up to me and gave me the biggest hug. She said “feel that love, honey…that is your brother hugging you. Hold on to that love and never let it go.” She gave me a rock that she had found at their lake house (where my brother spent alot of time) and told me that my brother wanted me to have it. That rock would be my savior throughout this ordeal until I realized that it was my brother who had saved me. At the very moment that Sherry was explaining to me how my brother was an arch angel and had been here for such a short time to save all of us, I looked up to see a big fish at the top of the church. This fish, to me, symbolized my brother’s freedom, peace and joy from the other side. He was showing us that he was still here with us. And, still catching fish at that. On the day of the funeral, I felt my brother shining through me as I made a speech, read a poem, comforted my family and saw his beautiful face in the woodwork of the wall. I had the peaceful feeling that I KNEW that there is more to life than this hell that we are all stuck in. I felt and believed that my brother was closer to me now than he ever was before and he will always be with me in everything I do. I’ve always known this, as far as memories go, but on that day I SAW and FELT something I had never experiened before. My brother showed me that there is more to life than this. I began to see the beauty and pain in the world for what it really is. For once in my life, I want to make a difference and help the world that we are all suffering in. I’m scared to be away from my family as I know that alot of my strength comes from the love surrounding me. Nate is absolutely amazing and very comforting and I’m sure I will be okay, but I’m just scared to be alone. I’m trying like hell to hold onto that peaceful feeling I had in my heart when everything just made sense. I wasn’t afraid to die or lose someone because I saw the power of the other side and felt it’s peace within my heart. This feeling is slowly fading away from me and I wander if I was just crazy or hallucinating because of the intense emotions I am going through. I have always been a skeptic and someone who has to see/experience things for myself in order to believe. I cannot and will not deny what I experienced on that day. I am going to a spiritual meditation on Wednesday and really want some sort of guidance so that I can utilize this experience. I have always been able to turn my head because not thinking about something is alot easier than dealing with it. That is a horrible way of life and I now it is time to love.

Lucky is the only thing I can think of right now. You have no idea. It boggles my mind that I could be so lucky. Why me? What did I ever do to deserve to be treated like the moon and stars? I am just happy to be able to celebrate love on a day for lovers with someone I love. If this, in fact, is the case, then everyday with Nate is Valentines Day. He’s the kindest, sweetest, sexiest, most accomodating, loving, beautiful man I have ever known. And I mean that from the depth of my soul (if I even have one).  I could never have expected what I came home to today. Not in a million years. I figured he had got me some flowers and maybe some fish for the fish~tank. Even when he was acting silly about giving me gifts, it never crossed my mind that he would have such an amazing surprise for me. I hate to lay it on so thick for you like this, but uh, this is MY blog. It ain’t called Janellybelly for nothing. Plus, I want to remember this day forever and just like it happened because Nate made it so special. Before I met him, BLAH to V-day. What’s that stand for anyway? Venereal disease? Yeah, Happy VD Day everyone! I hope you don’t have one! Anyway…it went a little something like this:

1. Last night we went to Mollie Stones to pick up ingredients to make Cioppino. We got crab, mussels, clams, scallops, halibut and oysters. All fresh. But they didn’t have everything we needed so Nate said he would go to “Clement Street” today to get everything else.

2. I’ve been looking forward to making our Cioppino all day. I mean, what a great idea (mine). So, anyway he goes to Clement Street and I know this is where (a) there are shit-tons of Asians, (b) our saltwater fish store is, (c) lots of grocery stands ~ amongst other things. When he got back (we were IM’ing all day) he said he got me a surprise. When I asked him what it was….”it begins with SUH and ends in PRIZE”. I figured he got me some fishies (since I had suggested it).

3. When I got off the bus, I saw someone cussing out a vehicle up ahead. Yup, that was my baby! He held my hand and walked me all the way to the house. When we got home I was to stand in the living room with my eyes closed tight!!! Hard, especially with 3 dogs attacking me, but I did it.

4. He presented me with a bouquet of beautiful, classic red roses. Red is for LOVE, ya’ll. “OKAY, CLOSE YOUR EYES AGAIN”

5. This time he handed me a giant tie-dyed Stegasaurus. I’ve seen these guys before in the children’s store on Clement Street and always admire them.

6. My Stegasaurus, that Nate dearingly named “Stegga” was wearing a silver necklace. A gorgeous silver necklace with 3 diamonds dangleLING so magnificently from its base. I didn’t think they were real at first. Not that I wanted them to be, I just assumed they weren’t. Boy was I wrong. When he told me they were real, I made him tell me how much so that I would know what I was dealing with. I cried. I am by no means a jewelry czar. The minimal jewelry that I do wear consists of a beaded “candy” bracelet that says “NERDCORE”, a plastic ring from one of those cheesy trinket machines at Taco Bell, the occasional necklace that I made and/or earrings. Currently, I haven’t a single matching pair of earrings. I can’t hold on to jewelry for the life of me. Better get my shit together now that I own DIAMONDS! Hah, that’s right. I said it! And it felt good.

7. Lastly, I was handed a DVD of Law and Order ~ Trial by Jury. We’ve been really into them lately and have the first two years of both Criminal Intent and SVU. I’m an addict and often find myself (when I’m out) wishing I was in bed watching Law and Order. I must be getting old or something. Shit, I am going to be 28 in less than a month. Wonder what I’ll get for my birthday…*evil grin*.

I got Nate tickets to see the Moody Blues. I know he loves them deeply and I wouldn’t want him to miss them should they happen into town so we’re going next Friday to see the show. I love this man. And not just because he gave me a diamond necklace. OOOO, maybe I can get some pearls out of him later? I’ll just leave it at that.

I should be shot by the moral police. Today, I ripped off a bum, and I am not happy about it. It’s been tormenting me all day. You see, I dropped a dollar on the ground and he picked it up and asked me if it was mine. I told him to keep it. Then, he says “hey, ma’am…do you have an ipod?” I said yea I did, but not with me. He then gave me this power adapter. I said no, it was okay but he insisted that “if you get, then you give and that’s how the cycle goes”. He asked me what it was for  and I told him I thought it was so you could charge your ipod from electrical outlets as opposed to your computer. He then figured out that it was quite a useful device and said if he had known that, he would have sold it for $5. I tried to give it back to him again but he said no. If I had had $5, I would have given it to him. Even a $10. But, all I had was a god damn $20 bill and I wasn’t prepared to part with it. Until of course, after he exited the bus. I feel terrible, as I should.