Once Upon a Time...

No, no... scratch that...

It was a dark and stormy night...?

No... Definitely not that...

Remember back in the day, before a buffoon was in charge of the United States?

It's hard to remember sometimes, I know.. and it's only been ten insanely ludicrous months...

Feels like forever... And writing? Well... it's a lot like exercise. You don't do it a lot, you get kind of rusty and creaky and before you know it, you sound like Rice Krispie cereal waking up in the morning...

Okay, I sound like Rice Krispies anyway when I wake up in the morning.

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Jason 3.0: Now With Sound Affects!

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So getting back in to this isn't quite like riding a bicycle, but also not quite like how a three year old knows instinctively how to reprogram and update your latest smart phone. Life has changed so drastically from the minute details all the way up through the grand picture of the forest, sometimes it's hard to know where to begin. Change the look and feel of the blog? Find a new blog platform? Just write long statuses on facebook so people can "TL/DR" it?

But I missed this. Quiet evenings, breeze from the west, traffic moving in the background, cats lounging, dogs (if Chihuahuas still count as dogs, that is) on either side pressing against my hips, sipping an iced coffee, and writing whatever pops into my head, whether a story, something religious or political, a short "Dear Diary" type entry...

I did this for me. Only for me. This was mine... And is again mine. I have the quiet moments again. Have reclaimed my time, as it were, from the chaos and imminent and spontaneous problems and issues that seemed to happen weekly, if not daily...

To be able to just sit and be...

I used to think it was silence that I valued above all else. Having grown up in a quite (not chaotic but) loud home, silence was always hard to come by... four other siblings all close in age, most (if not all) of my mother's immediate family on the same country road (in spitting distance, as they say), there was never a shortage of family and loudness...

I find it's actually a lack of chaos I crave most. I can block out noise pretty good, ignore sounds, other people, music, video games... (Thanks, family!) One thing we never had to worry about growing up was imminent danger or unexpected chaos. Our home may have been loud and with spontaneous moments large families always create, but there was never a worry about disasters and emergencies, not that I was aware of anyway. Most drama surrounded who was arguing with who in the family, or what sibling had taken another siblings toy or item without asking. There was a steady rhythm of stability. Not calm, not silent, but stable.

I like stable. I crave stable. I need stable.

And coffee. Obviously.

And while I cannot create a stable, normal, calm government for my fellow Americans (or the rest of the world), I can, and am, creating a stable environment for myself, in so much as I am able. I can't tell what the future holds. I know Mississippi now thinks people can willy-nilly discriminate against The Gays because "Jesus" (see here), and given the current political climate, who am I to say whether my world here in Florida will remain calm and stable? The oh-so-poor-and-persecuted "Christians" may target my lovely state next for a fascist rebellion against fellow Americans...

But until then?

I shall be calm. Stable. Serene when I can... and blog...

Once upon a time...

Jason 3.0

Life...

& Otherwise...

It still amazes me how life twists and turns unexpectedly...

But then again, I'm not crazy... And I have a therapist to prove it... However, my taste in men notwithstanding, 10 months post-breakup, 6 months post his moving out (hella long story there)? If anything, I'm a hopeless, helpless romantic...

The therapist said I wouldn't be single long... not because I'm all that and a bag of chips, not because I get lonely, not because I have emotional issues around being with someone... I tend to make up my mind quickly when I like something... I'm not one to stay on the pot, as it were. I'm there, I shit, I move on. Lessons learned, but as we all know, some lessons need to be relearned in under circumstances, with new kinds of crazy...

Are there new kinds of crazy? Well, new to me... After years with a paranoid-schizo, this last time with bipolar ADHD, the new one seems to have the same issues I do. We like what we like, we don't take compliments well (though we try), we've both been burned by the exes and dealt with drug abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse... It sucks that I do tend to have battered wife syndrome, constantly apologetic, increased heart rate and concern whenever a car drives by with uber-loud speakers at any point of the day...

What the fuck has happened to me?

Ugh. Making it through. Dealing, talking, finding the me moments again... Can I just say how stress-free it is to be able to walk around my bed again? To have books on bookcases again? To see my floor, even though I still hate that it's white and always looks dirty?

I can see my dirty floors and that makes me happy.... File that under sentences you don't hear every day...

I don't have near the patience I used to have. Not even close.

I still have a trusting naive streak, to be sure. Sometimes I love this part of my personality, sometimes not so much.

I still love sitting outside and listening to the rain.

I love my chihuahuas, even though they aren't mine by choice but by circumstance, and I'll still tell you they are the most annoying little shits ever created by mankind... but I love them regardless. I will have a real dog again one day, though, and never again own a dog under 20 pounds. Fucking chihuahuas...

I still have dreams. I will own a house, though I've certainly been set back. I will marry a man I love one day, and he will love me back the way every human should be loved.

I'm still afraid of failure.

I'm still afraid of getting into "trouble," though at 41 years old, you would think I'd have kicked that stupid fear to the curb by now... Ugh... grow up religious with a meek, naive, trusting personality... you'll understand.

I still love to read, draw, and garden. I'm sprouting three avocado trees as I type this, along with a myriad of tropical and subtropical plants I still don't know most of the names of six years later after moving to Florida, but I love growing them nonetheless.

I still love love.

I still adore upbeat music with a steady beat and a catchy melody. I also still love a good angry rock song when the mood calls for it.

I still like me, although I don't think I've ever really loved me like I do these days. It's rough growing up thinking you have to be perfect as Jesus was perfect. You hear it every day for 18 years, it does something to a brain. Religion fucks with everyone though. (Cue excuses about religion versus "spirituality" and the like... and then insert my mega-eye roll...)

I will always, always roll my eyes. That much I can guarantee is unavoidable and genetically ingrained into my being...

What is it to be a normal, functioning human?

I'm not sure anyone knows, but a lot of people like to pretend to know.What I do know is that I'm about as normal as I'm ever gonna be.

I'm still going to need the Lady of Shallot print above my couch in the living room, no matter where I live, as long as I live...

I'm still going to need to have bookcases filled with books, with subjects as vast and different as there are subjects to write and read about.

I'm still going to have to have pizza every week.

I realize these aren't needs and are very much first-world problems, as it were.

Saying "need" when it should be "want" is also a pet peeve unless it's me doing the needing/wanting... But we're also all a little hypocritical sometimes too.

I am Jason 3.0.

I am me. I am not perfect. But I'm doing the best I can.

What else is there to do?

This is Life... & Otherwise...

Battle for the Jade Dragon (Part 1 of ___)

He stared grimly through the bushes atop his mount... Seven? No, there were eight guards, the usual. Their bright green skin was an offense, to be sure, no less so than the very metals purged from the earth that made up their armor and weapons...

So he gazed beyond them, upon the sacred Jade Dragon...

Forged from the stones and metals deep in the belly of the earth, by his kin, it now stood as beautiful as ever, in the temple of the sky lizards. Sunlight, wind, rain... all of the elements that were the enemy of the earth and her rocks and minerals, beating mercilessly upon it's exquisite jade surface... Even now he could see how the wind had eroded some of the scaling features of her sides, the rain mercilessly rubbing down the fine points of the horns of the Dragon's crest.

Treasonous. No, sacrilegious.

Even still, breathtaking...

Disgusted, one last look toward the guard to make sure they hadn't spotted him among the leaves, he steered the mole away and gingerly, quietly, crept back to the entrance below, to the warm and comforting tunnels of the earth.

"Well?"

"Dragon's scales, let me at least breathe deeply among the dirt before you badger me, Gillian!" Onyx swept down from his saddle. He pulled a few root shoots from a pouch on his side and fed them to the mole as he patted her down, the dusty crumbles beneath his toed claws giving him comfort.

Gillian tapped his own feet impatiently while his hatchtwin went about his routine.

"Not heavily guarded, not even by upsider standards," he suddenly said.

Gillian looked up quickly. "Doesn't that seem... suspicious?"

"Of course it does!" Onyx snapped disdainfully. He wrapped the mole's reins about a larger root jutting from the side of the tunnel before he pushed his way past his brother. "Everything about this seems suspicious! The building and placement of the temple, how we got the information that they were placing the Dragon there, our sister--our sister--marrying one of those disgustingly bright green creatures! I can't even begin to think..." He stopped walking abruptly, Gillian almost running into his backside.

"What?"

"Have you heard from her?"

"Our sister? Ha! How would I even! The very coupling that was supposed to join our peoples has done nothing but drive us further apart! Like an Earth Lizard of the dirt could ever join with... with them!" Gillian spat out the word and the poison from his mouth singed the dirt at their feet. "If father had been alive, never would we have witnessed such a ridiculous spectacle, let alone entertained such... ugh."

"Still, three moon cycles of watching, the guard watch never changes. Always eight guards, one at each pillar of the outer circle. I thought briefly today they were missing one, but no... Even as they congregate to bow before Jade Dragon and offer the statue fruits and leaves--pshaw! Fruits and leaves... As if! But always... Always eight guards..." he trailed off thoughtfully.

"Perhaps they think we've given up on getting it back?"

"Don't be such a hatchling, Gillian. No... No, they are quite aware of our desire to see our prize back... I suspect a trap of some type... It's too... Too..."

"There you are!" From the darkness approached a guard. "The queen wants to see you both right away, the upsiders are amassing troops--"

"Get up!" Onyx shouted and grabbed the lizard by his cuff, pulling him up on two feet. "You are a member of the royal guard, you slithering skink! Next time I see you running about like an upsider on all fours I will gut you from fangs to tail, do you hear me!"

Gillian stifled a giggle.

"S-s-s-sorry, my prince, sorry, I--"

"Silence! Stay here--on TWO FEET, skink!--and guard this entrance, collapse it if needed, if any of the upsiders get too close. Gillian, let's go..."

***

She sat upon a throne carved from part twisted trunk roots, part jet-black coal. Rubies and diamonds adorned the sides and back of the seat while floating orbs of light made them glisten and shine in the dark grand cavern of the queen. Long folds of rat and mole hide covered her scales, small gems embroidered into the hems and cuffs. Upon her crest horns sat a gold crown intertwined with roots of the oak.

The queen herself, however... It hurt Onyx's eyes to see such a fat, slovenly thing upon his father's throne... He could only assume she had been beautiful once, enough to catch his father's yellow eyes and seat her beside him... Her dull scales, grotesque jowls, bits of unshed skin clinging between scales here and there... While the war with the upsiders had made life a bit harsher, unshed skin? Dull scales? Her claws were twisted and overgrown, and the fur robes did little to hide the mounds of flesh that squeezed against and between the gaps of the throne itself...

He and Gillian bowed low before their stepmother. "My queen--" he began.

"About time you skinks got here! Do you have any idea what has been happening?"

"My queen, Gillian and I were scouting--"

"Shut up, I don't care about your silly quest for that silly statue! Onyx, you and your cult have been nothing but a thorn in this campaign against upsiders with your stupid obsessions and superstitions--"

"My queen--"

"Do not interrupt me again!" She lunged forward with a quickness that betrayed her size, several claws suddenly against his throat. He could smell the venom on her breath as she leaned in close. "You forget yourself, Onyx. Do not try me."

She dropped him to the dirt floor and leaned back once again into the groaning throne.

She continued as if nothing has happened. "Your stupid superstitions... That dragon statue is nothing if our kingdom continues to be invaded from upsiders as they dig and mine for more of our dirt and stones and metals! And now--now they have amassed near the topside of the lake! Our lake!" she screamed the last, slamming claws down upon the throne. "I need not remind you what happens if the earth top collapses down into our main water supply?"

"No, my queen."

"Forget about your silly statue. You are a prince. Military trained. Skill trained. Kill trained. By the venom of my ancestors, you will do your duty and protect this kingdom."

"Yes, my queen."

"Then go. I do not want to see your skinny scales again until that lake is safe."

"Yes, my queen." Onyx stood, grabbed his brother and exited.

***

(To be continued...)