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Today, I have a Tuesday Tune and then I’m gonna get all personal on you.

When people ask me what my favorite Christmas song is, I usually offer up the old carols. The songs I sang in accapella choir. The Boar’s Head Carol, the Coventry Carol, the Holly & the Ivy, Carol of the Bells… you know the stuff. The very old non-commercial stuff. I could tell you all about the Coventry Carol and Lady Godiva and some other stuff, but MEH. No one cares anymore. Everyone likes modern music. Madonna doing Santa Baby. That Mariah Carey song. Aaron Neville.

Don’t get me wrong. I like some of ‘em too. Bing Crosby and David Bowie doing the Little Drummer Boy. But the truth of the matter is that in some ways I am a child of the 80’s still. The band that rose to such huge prominence and to this day retains as much respect for their politics as their music holds a place in my heart with their Christmas song.

Last year, I cried for hours. I just wanted Rott. I was so lonely without him. I was worried about him too up in the Sierras in the cold. I wanted things to be like they used to be. Of course, stupid me was thinking back several years instead of just one or two years. Our first Christmas together in Huntington Beach.  The year we were homeless and he brought a tree to the motel on Christmas Eve. I missed just holding him and having him hold me. Last year felt so much like my first Christmas without my parents that I got a little drunk. Couldn’t take the pain.

This year he’s home and all the joy and love that I thought would be there isn’t. It’s been replaced by wariness, caution, fear, trust issues, and a host of the most painful emotions I’ve ever experienced. I’m beset with loss and the man is right there. Things may not be hopeless but at the moment my limboland is painful and painfully barren. I’m not alone like last year, but the loss of so many of my hopes has left me feeling raw and even more lonely than I was last year.

I laughed at myself a few days ago about getting what you wish for. All I could wish for last year was to have him home with me where I knew he was safe and where I could show him that I loved him. This year… I know he’s safe at least. And when he smiles, I can see it. And I know that all this churning emotion at least tells me that I am still alive inside this shell.

And even if we can’t yet cross the chasm between us, and may never be able to, I have those places I can go to in my heart where I can still feel the heat of those memories we made together.  In my mind, Christmas will always be about that night we struggled to decorate a tree that filled a little room and how we laid together in the dark, holding hands, listening to midnight mass on the TV as the lights blinked on that dried out tree.

Sometimes, the best Christmas’s are the ones in your heart.

Remember when people were retweeting Neil Gaiman’s call for people to help me find homes for the kittehs? Remember how so many people emailed and said they would take them? Do you know how many of those people actually did what they said they would do? None of them. Well, one person who said she would take one, ended up not being able to, but yanno… she found someone else who would. An author from Lyrical Press came and adopted the only female.

So all of that frenzy was pretty much for naught and makes me wonder if those people just said those things thinking the great Neilhimself would notice them. I’m still left with my life falling apart and pain in indescribable places and the babies still need homes. Oh, they are fixed and have had shots now though.

Nicki’s cat Neko will not be coming home from the foster care home because the vet discovered she has a heart condition that will require expensive medication and treatment. I can’t afford that. I don’t even have a car that works at the moment and I have DH who is looking for a way to not live with or be with me anymore.

I have an ad on Craigslist in the hope that the smallest of the babies will all find homes. I’m afraid to give them all up because then the DH will still leave and I will have nothing. Having nothing to look forward to is a very desolate feeling. I’m pathetic enough to wish to work things out with him. When he says he cannot live like this and he’s going to leave because of it, I just want to throw up and pains begin in various parts of my body. I’ve swallowed some Tylenols so hopefully the physical pains will dull soon.

As for my heart… I think it’s done. Three times I let a man have it and two times it’s been tossed back. Third time doesn’t look like it’s a charm. I really think he’s just gonna stomp all over it and walk away as if the last ten years was ten minutes. When people stop talking to you and tell you they don’t want to talk about it, that’s a pretty significant thing.

So aside from being an emotional zombie who doesn’t know how to do anything except sit and let the hot tears wash down her face, I still need homes for some of the babies. Last time the mobilization got me all jacked up on hope and got one kitten a home. Can it be done again? This time to save my sanity or my life (since my blood pressure is about as high as strokesville.) You tell me.

Am I wasting my breath again? Maybe I should just open the door and push them all out… cats, the DH, the lazy kid. Or maybe I should just quietly get the car fixed, toss some stuff in the trunk, pick up my netbook and walk away from all of them. That seems really irresponsible of me. I’m not usually the type you can’t rely on to see things through, but I’m tired of the lip service from everyone starting with my daughter, the man I’ve been with for ten years, and all those people on here who promised to help me but couldn’t be bothered to return an email. Am I the only person out here with ethics and a heart? Is that why everyone stomps on me? Is that why I feel so miserable that I’m gonna have to run to the sink and yak as soon as I post this?

For years I’ve been responsible for others. I’m still responsible for them, sacrificing for them. And I don’t feel appreciated in the least. Now, I’ve strangers treating me the same way with their empty promises of assistance. Am I wrong to want someone to be straight up with me and just help me without asking for or expecting anything in return or reneging? And those people I would like something from – my kid, my DH – why is it that they care only for their own feelings and nothing for mine? Am I just something they use like a utensil or a car? I’m convenient and acquiescent I guess. Perfect for giving lip service to.

If you know someone who could help find the kittehs homes, please repost and retweet the Craigslist link. I really do need homes for them before they end up in the street. I have a feeling that is where I am headed here soon because I just do not see a HEA up ahead.

I remember how I used worry about Motley when she was little. Fear was always close to the surface. Today, I’m thinking of Dawg and what I posted last year and what he’s had to live without for two years. And my heart bleeds for him.

Hug your kids today. Please.

I’m not sure how it happened but New York Times bestselling author and pop icon Neil Gaiman got hold of my Flirty Author Bitches post about the babies. Apparently, he has a half a million followers. I can believe it. My bandwidth usage tripled in the space of a few minutes last night and I couldn’t even get on my own site. All the tweets and re-tweets are keeping that level of hits up there.

This morning I have a few thoughts about all of this. I remembered how the grass roots blogger efforts got Lisa of Clusterfook a trip to Disney World with her girls. I know from her email to me during the fundraising, how much that trip meant to her. I knew that there was power in the tweets and blog posts and blog radio shows in this community. I knew that grass roots efforts could yield solutions and so much more.

Help is being offered and I sincerely appreciate it. So does Motley (Nikki). We still need more help, but I can see that @neilhimself’s re-tweets have made a difference. I think the re-tweets of ordinary people can help too. There is a lot we can accomplish when we work together and pass the word. I’ve seen it happen before as in the case of Lisa, and I know it can happen again to help keep my babies safe.

Motley and I thank every one of you for your love and support and friendship. Those of you who check out Socially Dead for her Twilight spoof posts and leave her encouragement. Those of you come here and check out my Marcus Mondays and read my rambles about my life and my writing. Those of you who found us because of a celebrity’s post on Twitter. All of you have value to us. And you’ve all made a difference in our lives and hopefully the lives of the babies.

The Flirty Author Bitches post is called Mobilizing and I would say we’re headed to the freeway soon. The cause has movement. We just need to keep up the momentum until everyone has a safe home.

Thank you all. I can’t even express how wonderful you are. To save even one is a miracle. To save them all… well, we aren’t there yet, but I am beginning to have faith. Your tweets were just as responsible for turning on the light in my darkness as @neilhimself’s. I just have no words (although I’ve just typed a buttload of them, haven’t I? LOL) for how much this means to me.

Many hugs and MUAHS!

I did. Over HERE. Please read, retweet and all that other bloggy goodness. I need help. Can’t sleep and I’m falling apart here… How the hell did my life turn to shit so quickly? Was it always shit and I never noticed? I can’t believe that…

My life is like a circus and everything is all topsy turvy and weird. I don’t know what’s going to happen in my relationship. Certainly, my gut is speaking loudly in negative terms which makes it difficult to be positive. I still have not been able to shed a tear which somehow makes dealing with things more difficult. Usually, if I can spout a few tears, I feel more at ease and more able to cope. Unfortunately, the only times I’ve actually felt like the tears could come out, is when I’ve been at work.  That makes it an automatic blink them back, swallow them, choke them, hold them at bay no matter the cost! It also means I’m sorta fucked.

I couldn’t gather my wits about me quick enough this morning to post a Marcus but it’s still Monday so I’m doing better than last week anyway.  So here’s the closest to a circus Marcus we’re gonna get.

Damn. Those are the nicest abs and pecs and biceps ever. Yum-mo!

One last note before I go… I’ve got a release date for Mating. It’s one of two stories about werewolf twins who find their mates suddenly. Runaways is still in the editing process but it should be done soon. Mating will be out June 16 at Freya’s Bowers. It’s a short story about 8K words so it won’t harm your wallet.

Wishing you all a less turmoil filled Monday than I’m having!

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The sun sometimes does shine out of people’s asses. Or their green eyes. How do you put away nearly 11 years of your life in a neat little box as if it were just a stack of photos and mementos? I need to learn this in case what appears to be inevitable occurs. I can’t armor myself either. There is nothing that can withstand a nuclear blast. And I’m no cockroach.

I thought about posting Comfortably Numb but I’m not comfortable. Not sure how long it will be before I am once more. But I like this song. It’s very me right now if you just take the S off of she.

She Is The Sunlight – Trading Yesterday