It was kind of a funny weekend.
I. Boy or Book?
Friday I got a text message from a guy I dated briefly last summer -- one of the local rookie cops. Nice guy, but a bit odd in that his behavior has always been erratic. Wouldn't call for weeks, but always looked like running into me made his day. Bizarre.
I'd written him off a long time ago as a result, but last week he stopped by the office and we chatted a little, so his text inviting me to dinner at a local restaurant with him and his housemates didn't surprise me much. I went, mostly out of curiosity.
The hanging out only lasted an hour, and the entire conversation centered around his housemates' wedding two weeks ago, and all the cute girls that attended. I was internally amused -- here he goes again -- and a little bored, and when I realized I was wearing the smug, condescending, tolerant expression I get when I'm amused and a little bored and trying not to show it, I got up and excused myself for a few minutes.
When I returned, they were paying their bills and getting ready to leave. No extensions of this strange hang-out invitation were given, so I bid them a cheerful goodbye and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my evening -- it was only eight o'clock.
Thankfully Borders has a location just down the road from the restaurant, and the naughty book addict in my brain whispered, "Go! Go! Maybe something's on sale." (Evil naughty book addict.)
As I walked through the gleaming glass doors, a book with the painted torso of a skeleton smoking a cigarette caught my attention: David Sedaris' latest collection of essays, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Oo.
I opened the cover and before I'd finished the second page I was laughing aloud. In order not to frighten or bewilder other customers entering or exiting the premesis, I removed myself to the fiction section, next to his other works, and folded myself up on a tiny stool to keep reading. Sadly, I didn't yet own any of his other books, so, tired of fiction and yearning for humor, I yielded to the demon book addict and bought that book and three of his others (one of them was on sale. I didn't lose entirely).
That night I celebrated the true purpose of a single's bedroom and propped myself up on pillows and read. And laughed and laughed and laughed. I had to put the book down a few times and struggle for breath. Since my bedroom window is one of the few in my house with screens, and is therefore one of the few consistently open, I'm sure anyone taking a nice late-night walk quickened his pace, hearing the cacklings of a madwoman from somewhere inside.
II. Looking from the Crossroad
Saturday I continued my voracious consumption of Sedaris' essays, mostly while lying on my stomach baking in the backyard under a murderous June sun. The glare of the light off the white pages gave me a headache, but I resisted for a valiant while.
When I finally gave up (after all, it's hard to read while lying on one's back, and I want an even tan), I started thinking. Mostly about my writing. My thoughts wandered back to my thesis on Till We Have Faces my senior year in college. I remembered all the research I did on C.S. Lewis, particularly his early years writing, when he produced some of the most horrible poetry I have ever read. He kept on trying, though -- sonnets, epics (especially epics) -- until his friends and critics finally convinced him to give it up. Even when he turned to fiction and essays, and garnered huge success, even then, years after he stopped writing poetry, he still thought of himself as a poet and not a writer of fiction.
Conversely, I've always thought of myself as a fiction writer. My head teems with stories, good ones, innovative ones, stories that might win me some small acclaim in not-so-great genres like fantasy literature, some that might win me some small acclaim in slightly better genres. The problem is that I hate writing them. I enjoy writing the interesting parts, of course, but I don't like to bother myself with the rest -- to me it's just filler. When all of it ought to be part of one whole.
Even poetry has taken a backseat as the years after college, when my writing classes demanded production, slide away. What has emerged instead has taken its shape as you read it here: the blog.
I have just over three and a half years' worth of raw material on my blog for what I think I might like to do -- the personal narrative essay. Why not? I enjoy reading narrative essays, and I certainly enjoy writing them, or at least writing their bastard second cousins, the blog posts. One of the reasons I decided to take crap minimum wage jobs right out of college and then go wherever the wind took me was in order to have a more interesting life from which to draw for my writing. Back then I had gritty fictional realism in mind, but the principle holds true when applied to gritty personal narratives.
I have so many real life stories. And if I were given a dollar for every time I've heard, "Omigosh, Sarah, your life is like a drama/soap opera/novel/reenactment of Bridget Jones," I could comfortably pad my IRA.
So again, why not? This is the form in which I have trained myself, without knowing, these past four years. (I had another blog on another site before I fell in love with Blogger.) It's a form I have found I enjoy. And it gives me this blissful sense of directed purpose.
Bliss with a sharp edge. The bliss a piece of iron might feel, as it begins to understand the shape into which it's being hammered between naps in the coals. Ah. That's it. I know what I'm for. But it's still hot and there are still hammer blows and the blacksmith still isn't letting up. A fierce bliss, maybe. A harsh joy. A hint of shaping to undergo and work to do.
This spring and summer I've reached a lot of crossroads. After endless miles toiling along one undeviating way, being brought to a point of choosing has been an enormous relief. Being shaken awake to see the choice has been an enormous relief. Perhaps like the piece of iron saying, That spot, right there, it's not quite even, can we work on that? just as the hammer blow falls right on it. Ouch. Ahhhhh.
I have made momentous decisions -- in regard to my faith, in regard to my choice of career and location, in regard to my attitude toward my life and my singleness, and now in regard to my writing. My counselor told me a couple of months ago that, although my verbiage was overwhelmed and anxious, what he heard me saying was that my life was just beginning. I suddenly realized he was right -- my life is new, it's my own, I can shake free from the older influences that did me no good and choose how and where and under what conditions I want to live. It's still in the beginning stages, of course. But one of the greatest excitements of a journey is the starting out. Later on it'll get exhausting and frustrating, but now is the newness of discovery, the hardening to a purpose, the pointing the nose into the wind and tightening the shoulder straps and starting off.
III. The Winds of Change
The Little Hell Hole, also known as my house, has been trying to kill me. The air circulation makes the inside of a Ziploc bag sound positively refreshing, and the damp that traps itself inside appears to have been pumped in from the Amazon. The Little Hell Hole is moldering.
It's not the house's fault. But it's a sad house. Sitting inside it for any length of time would depress Shirley Temple. If it were a lot bigger and more open, it would hold that nice spooky atmosphere of a house with too many stories and no tongue to tell them with; instead it feels like it should have fallen down years ago, it isn't cute anymore (and probably hasn't been since the advent of indoor plumbing, when the home-made nature of the place took on a gruesomely callous flair), it's too clumsy to feel haunted, and the only thing holding it up has been, ironically, neglect.
So I'm looking for alternative places to live. I miss space. I miss the ability to rearrange the furniture if I want, I miss the ability to buy new pieces of antique furniture in order to rearrange if I want, I miss sitting at the dining room table, for God's sake. I miss light pouring in through the windows instead of hiding sourly outside, I miss the fresh smell of well-ventilated rooms, I miss books in my living room. I miss enough room for company.
I will probably begin looking seriously toward the end of the summer, closer to when my year's lease is due to run out, and when my landlord might feel more inclined to let me out of it early. Summer brings out the house's only two amenities: a large backyard and a wide gracious front porch, both of which I can enjoy without needing to sit inside the house.
In the meantime I have to make the place liveable for sleeping, and liveable for Simon, who has cast a thick coat of shed hair on all the floors (or would, if I didn't vacuum). I had called the landlord earlier in the week to beg for screens, and he said he'd rig some for me, but as of the weekend, no word, no screens. And I was DYING.
Saturday I spent a delightful evening with Meg, Phillip and Josie, and noticed how well-ventilated and cool their house was. I was thinking wistfully of whole-house fans, when my eye landed on an unobtrusive object in one of the upstairs windows:
A window fan.
I could have banged my head against the wall. Here is the perfect, sensible solution: draws in air and requires no screens. The very sense of it made it elusive, I think. So, with an end to the suffocation in sight, yesterday I drove through a storm that amounted to a pygmy hurricane to purchase a pair. Then I took them home and began the unexpectedly painful process of wrestling open the selected windows.
The one in the bathroom was the worst. Years of staying shut, with no fan whatsoever siphoning off the moisture in the room, had rotted the window frame completely. And by "rotted" I mean I was wiping black wet powdered wood off my palms after touching it. I managed to shove it up about eight inches when it stuck and wouldn't budge, and in trying to wiggle it from underneath, I felt the bottom of the frame give under the slight pressure and the glass cracked. I stopped in time to prevent a break, and then I stood there looking in helpless rage at the disgusting wood until my next-door neighbor, an elderly garrulous gentleman named Gordon, came to my aid -- having heard my shouted grunts of effort in getting the window as far as I did.
Between his tapping the window gradually up with a hammer, and my bracing the crumbling frame, we managed just to get it open enough to wedge the fan under. He helped me with the second bedroom window as well, muttering deprecations against my landlord for being cheap. But finally the fans were installed and turned on, and voila! blissful, beautiful, blessed breeze.
I'm hoping the one in the bathroom will keep all my towels from rotting. And now I can stand to live in my house. For as long as it takes to find a new, better-kept place.
IV. In a Brand-New Pair of Shoes
The Spine of Satan has muttered its way down to The Spine of One of Satan's Lesser Minions: no longer constantly putting me on the rack, so to speak, but easily tired and requiring vigilant caution. One of these vigilances, while simple, puts me at a slight disadvantage in regard to my usual style of dress: No More Heels.
This distresses me, as the number of flats I own you could probably pack in your wallet. Smaller people have criticized me for my love-affair with three-inch heels when I already stand at 5' 9-and-3/4" in my bare feet; but I love height. (I don't love heights. Walking over one of those city grates and staring at a street visible forty feet below me gives me the heebie jeebies. But I do love my height.) I love being tall. I enjoy all of its benefits -- a more slender-looking figure, the ability to see above everyone else's head in a crowd, rarely experiencing vision obstruction at the movie theater, helping others in the grocery store getting items off the top shelves, looking fabulous in a floor-length dress -- which, in my opinion, far outweigh its disadvantages -- buying pants, namely, and towering threateningly over men (although, depending on the situation, this can be a huge benefit. People don't try to push me around. All I have to do is loom a little).
So I cherish my heels. The Spine of One of Satan's Lesser Minions necessitates, however, flats. I've been wearing my only pair of black leather flip-flops, but that cramps my wardrobe a little; black isn't my first choice for summer.
While out on my window fans mission, therefore, I bought a pair of brown sandals. They're comfortable, cute, and match the half of my wardrobe that the black shoes don't. Considering my growing hatred of laundromats, this expansion of available attire works very well, allowing me to throw some variety into the mix, and avoid laundry for a little longer, even if I can't avoid it three inches taller than Nature intended.
V. My Old Man Fan Club
It just keeps growing, and keeps growing less flattering.
What possesses a man old enough to be my father's much older brother to ask a young woman out for a drink? I understand the inclination, but following through on it belies a loose grip on reality...and appropriate conduct.
I'm not in the mood right now anyway. My plate is heaped with work and with getting a life. Figuring out polite-yet-firm ways to shoo away these fifty- and sixty-year-olds hasn't been top of my priority list, and there's no way to tell them politely, "Shed thirty or forty years and I'll consider it." I'm as old as some of their children, for God's sake. And even if I had gold-digger tendencies, which, so far, I don't, these poor guys don't have any assets to appeal even to that trait.
They're not bad guys. They're just...way too old. Don't they know that? What girl has dreamed from her childhood of taking her three- and five-year-olds to visit Daddy in the nursing home, and paying their college tuitions from his estate? "Hi, honey, I'm here to wipe the drool off your chin and give you a new bedpan for our fifth anniversary. The kids helped decorate it so it matches your gown. Isn't it cute?"
It's the tenacity that stuns me. Give a twenty-something guy a slight snub (intentionally or not), and you'll never see him again. Brain an old guy with an iron skillet while saying "No thank you" in an assertive voice and he might get the idea that you're not interested.
Boss-Man says egos decrease in fragility as they age. Maybe I don't need an iron skillet, but a cannon.
VI. Around the Cobbler's Bench
D. works at the local post office. She has, for as long as anyone at my office has known her, been "a tough nut to crack."
I liked her from the get-go. Maybe she reminded me of the breed of people who populate my natal region: downward-turning lines slashed into the corners of her mouth, curt voice, aloof demeanor. Unfriendly, especially for the sunny vivacious Midwest (who are these people?). Or perhaps she presented a challenge, a bastion of guardedness upon which to work my own sunny vivacity until her dourness wore down like a stone under moss. Or maybe I've been old since I was born and the people I like best either share my mentality or are twenty years my senior (D. falls under the latter category).
Whatever the reason, we now get along splendidly. She reminds me, comfortingly, of my origins, of where I come from, of the people who are becoming increasingly unfamiliar (when I visit Pennsylvania I'm more and more surprised at how -- unpleasant -- people are to strangers) and yet whom I understand completely. She also possesses a wry sense of humor I enjoy. We swap tips and tricks for quitting smoking, complain about rude customers, jaw about the government, exchange town gossip. She tells me about her husband and asks after my dating life.
When I went to send out the mail on Friday, she asked if I were seeing anyone. I told her, with a snort, "No," and she made a face about the men in town, and then took on a thoughtful expression.
"I know a guy," she said. "He's the son of our best family friends. Nice guy. Really nice guy. At least you could meet him and go out to dinner."
"Sure," I said, remembering the New Deal, and, having learned a lot with CB, ready to apply the lessons. Besides, going home every night to a cat gets old, however beloved said kitty.
"I'll talk to him," she said.
Today while running office errands I bumped into a girl I barely know. She's about my age, and we chatted for a minute.
"I hear a friend of mine is going to ask you out," she said, with that sly "woo-woo-you're-going-to-be-talking-to-a-BOY" grin that girls never outgrow.
I had forgotten about D.'s offer.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yeah, I've known him forever and he told me a family friend of his was setting you up on a blind date."
I remembered then. Her grin got a little more dimpled. "He's really nice," she said. "He wanted to know if you were. I told him he couldn't weasel information out of me." Then she wished me luck and repeated that he's really nice.
"Nice" can mean so many things -- anything you want it to mean, really. When girls say it of guys it speaks to his character or temperament more than anything else, and is usually a good sign -- he may be a bit of a diamond in the rough, but worth a little scraping and polishing. Either that or he's just fantastically great.
The whole thing is funny. Blind dates are usually hilarious in that they're never not a total crap shoot. Small towns are funny in that a butterfly flaps its wings in Widow Allen's garden and the next day it's front page news. (Much fun can be had with this, when it isn't supremely irritating.) And I'm back to the Square One of Not Caring One Way or the Other, which ought to make any results whatsoever entertaining enough to add value to the experience.
Am I the monkey, or the weasel? Or am I the bench? I feel like the bench. And where on earth is the cobbler?
Monday, June 16, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
the (fire)burn(s)out
I’m quite close to being Caught Up at work.
Of course, since I worked overtime and pushed myself too hard, the usual slide from energy on Monday to exhaustion on Friday has taken place much more intensely than usual. Today, for example, I slept in forty minutes, drank half a pot of coffee before the end of my first hour at the office, endured the bizarre combination of physical hype and mental comatoxicity that followed, developed a foul mood, stared glassy-eyed at the television over lunch, and dragged around for the rest of the day. I accomplished what I needed to, but it required every ounce of will just to exist in the present.
Well. Tonight I plan to absorb more episodes of Boomtown, which Eigh Ann loaned me, and which I’m mesmerically enjoying, over a rapidly assembled Everything Salad which requires little energy (mine OR the stove’s) and therefore radiates no additional heat. I plan also to abolish stress vibes by petting the cat, who has been more then usually affectionate – last night he took up his place on the ottoman and slept with an enormous happy smile on his feline face, stretching out every now and then so as just, delicately, to brace his paws on my foot.
And then, oh then, an early bedtime.
Of course, since I worked overtime and pushed myself too hard, the usual slide from energy on Monday to exhaustion on Friday has taken place much more intensely than usual. Today, for example, I slept in forty minutes, drank half a pot of coffee before the end of my first hour at the office, endured the bizarre combination of physical hype and mental comatoxicity that followed, developed a foul mood, stared glassy-eyed at the television over lunch, and dragged around for the rest of the day. I accomplished what I needed to, but it required every ounce of will just to exist in the present.
Well. Tonight I plan to absorb more episodes of Boomtown, which Eigh Ann loaned me, and which I’m mesmerically enjoying, over a rapidly assembled Everything Salad which requires little energy (mine OR the stove’s) and therefore radiates no additional heat. I plan also to abolish stress vibes by petting the cat, who has been more then usually affectionate – last night he took up his place on the ottoman and slept with an enormous happy smile on his feline face, stretching out every now and then so as just, delicately, to brace his paws on my foot.
And then, oh then, an early bedtime.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
just a little too much
There are time when nothing exists but work. This is one of those times. Work consumes every aspect of my life. Lately I've been having two kinds of dreams: one wherein I accomplish everything on my task list and have the office in shining flawless order (and then wake up and pout when I realize it was a dream), and the other wherein I can get nothing done and it's basically an extension of my actual days and I wake up with my fists clenched under the pillow.
I have to admit, I don't always mind. When something in my relational life collapses, it's always good to hurl myself into my work. I love and hate the arrival of five o'clock, because I get to take a break...and I also have no idea what to do with myself. Times like these remind me of all my show weeks in college theater, where everything is a catastrophe and the world is COMING TO AN END AND WHERE THE F--K IS THAT BLUSHER AND WHY CAN'T ANYONE MAKE THEIR CALL TIME AND IF I HEAR THAT STUPID SONG ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO KILL THE STAR OF THE SHOW. And yet it was the very head-cleaving stress that was part of the enjoyment of doing theater. Everything, not just the show, was extremely dramatic. Yielding to (and exacerbating) the slightest emotion held a savage catharsis that made the whole thing almost grossly therapeutic.
So with times at work like these. And it's good to feel that I'm finally getting something done.
But I'd like a little balance. Lately I just don't know how to relax.
On a musical note, I would like to highlight two songs that I love for their base lines. Give me an interesting, mobile, creative base line any day. Something you can feel intelligent blasting out your car window. For this, I recommend Josh Ritter's "The Golden Age of Radio" (which has searing lyrics), and Bright Eyes' "Classic Cars" (which just hits me in the pit of the stomach, I don't know exactly why; but the final variation on the chorus is amazing).
I have to admit, I don't always mind. When something in my relational life collapses, it's always good to hurl myself into my work. I love and hate the arrival of five o'clock, because I get to take a break...and I also have no idea what to do with myself. Times like these remind me of all my show weeks in college theater, where everything is a catastrophe and the world is COMING TO AN END AND WHERE THE F--K IS THAT BLUSHER AND WHY CAN'T ANYONE MAKE THEIR CALL TIME AND IF I HEAR THAT STUPID SONG ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO KILL THE STAR OF THE SHOW. And yet it was the very head-cleaving stress that was part of the enjoyment of doing theater. Everything, not just the show, was extremely dramatic. Yielding to (and exacerbating) the slightest emotion held a savage catharsis that made the whole thing almost grossly therapeutic.
So with times at work like these. And it's good to feel that I'm finally getting something done.
But I'd like a little balance. Lately I just don't know how to relax.
On a musical note, I would like to highlight two songs that I love for their base lines. Give me an interesting, mobile, creative base line any day. Something you can feel intelligent blasting out your car window. For this, I recommend Josh Ritter's "The Golden Age of Radio" (which has searing lyrics), and Bright Eyes' "Classic Cars" (which just hits me in the pit of the stomach, I don't know exactly why; but the final variation on the chorus is amazing).
Thursday, June 05, 2008
hrmph.
Crazy stupid day. Work chaotic. I don't even remember what I did today, but I know there wasn't enough of me to do it.
Sometimes I think eight arms are totally wasted on the octopus.
Sometimes I think eight arms are totally wasted on the octopus.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
escapades in the kitchen: burgers
One of the best things about warm weather is grilling.
It's just so OPPRESSIVE cooking in the kitchen when the weather turns hot -- even more so if, like me, you have a small kitchen with less ventilation than a tomb. Besides which, there's really no comparison between looking out a window and being outside the window. (Get me Out of Doors in summer, as much as possible -- and one of the best assets of my house is its wide, gracious covered front porch, where I can sit in comfort even in a downpour.)
Yesterday, feeling an aversion to the indoors and a distinct laziness about having to fiddle with stovetop knobs and run up the indoor temperature, I bought a couple pounds of ground beef and went to work making hamburgers.
(Now, one thing any of my readers must realize is that I. Love. Meat. Beef, pork, lamb, venison, poultry, fish -- I love it all. I will occasionally go vegeterian for a short period of time, because it feels lighter, but on the whole I enjoy using my incisors, eyeteeth and canines for their intended purpose.)
I decided to try something a little different from my usual method of seasoning the outside of the burger; this time, I thought, I'd season it all the way through.
There are no real measurements, and working with raw meat is always interesting because you don't know what "to taste" means until after you've cooked it. I recommend going with your instincts. Here's what I put in:
- seasoned salt
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- ground black pepper
- ground red pepper
- ground cumin
- Worcestershire sauce
- sherry vinegar
I placed the ground beef (80/20 -- lean beef, unfortunately, doesn't make very good burgers; the fat makes the flavor) in a large mixing bowl, added all seasonings generously, until I could start to smell it (meaning it was quite well seasoned, since the smell of raw meat is a bit overwhelming), and mixed everything together by hand. The rest was as usual: form into patties, season the tops with a little more Worcestershire sauce, and grill.
I found that I could make about eight burgers out of the two pounds of ground beef. Being inordinately indolent after work, I decided to vacuum seal and freeze the leftover patties individually -- that way all I have to do is throw one in the fridge in the morning, and throw it on the grill when I get home from work.
And doing it all that way is a LOT cheaper than buying the premade burger patties in the store.
Plus the flavor of the meat and the mixed-in seasoning was EXCELLENT. The burger barely needed condiments.
It's just so OPPRESSIVE cooking in the kitchen when the weather turns hot -- even more so if, like me, you have a small kitchen with less ventilation than a tomb. Besides which, there's really no comparison between looking out a window and being outside the window. (Get me Out of Doors in summer, as much as possible -- and one of the best assets of my house is its wide, gracious covered front porch, where I can sit in comfort even in a downpour.)
Yesterday, feeling an aversion to the indoors and a distinct laziness about having to fiddle with stovetop knobs and run up the indoor temperature, I bought a couple pounds of ground beef and went to work making hamburgers.
(Now, one thing any of my readers must realize is that I. Love. Meat. Beef, pork, lamb, venison, poultry, fish -- I love it all. I will occasionally go vegeterian for a short period of time, because it feels lighter, but on the whole I enjoy using my incisors, eyeteeth and canines for their intended purpose.)
I decided to try something a little different from my usual method of seasoning the outside of the burger; this time, I thought, I'd season it all the way through.
There are no real measurements, and working with raw meat is always interesting because you don't know what "to taste" means until after you've cooked it. I recommend going with your instincts. Here's what I put in:
- seasoned salt
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- ground black pepper
- ground red pepper
- ground cumin
- Worcestershire sauce
- sherry vinegar
I placed the ground beef (80/20 -- lean beef, unfortunately, doesn't make very good burgers; the fat makes the flavor) in a large mixing bowl, added all seasonings generously, until I could start to smell it (meaning it was quite well seasoned, since the smell of raw meat is a bit overwhelming), and mixed everything together by hand. The rest was as usual: form into patties, season the tops with a little more Worcestershire sauce, and grill.
I found that I could make about eight burgers out of the two pounds of ground beef. Being inordinately indolent after work, I decided to vacuum seal and freeze the leftover patties individually -- that way all I have to do is throw one in the fridge in the morning, and throw it on the grill when I get home from work.
And doing it all that way is a LOT cheaper than buying the premade burger patties in the store.
Plus the flavor of the meat and the mixed-in seasoning was EXCELLENT. The burger barely needed condiments.
we can only
I love the beginning of summer.
It has finally reached the point where even rainy days hold warmth, and that muggy haze which will torment us later on, but which I absolutely welcome right now.
Everything smells like steamed clover today -- I think the smell of clover and the taste of peaches are the essence of summer. And summer in Michigan is quite a thing to behold -- everything seems to radiate joy. Everywhere you go there are fresh fruit and vegetable stands, more beaches than can be counted, hand-dipped ice cream shops, green things, sun-baked fields, blue skies, and more sunshine than a person reasonably knows how to handle.
And for reasons perhaps not inexplicable, my musical tastes return to bluegrass in summer, particularly Gillian Welch. I think the thought of sitting on a porch, or at a campfire, or on the beach, strumming a guitar and singing simple songs of the Americana tradition holds a magnetic appeal.
I MUST learn the guitar. Since at present I can't afford actual lessons, the next best option is to teach myself -- a trip to Borders hovers in the near future. I pulled out my guitar on my lunch break this afternoon and tuned it for the first time in months (poor guitar). I'm even looking forward to the blisters on my fingertips.
Annnd Emmylou is releasing a new album in six days! Absolutely splendid.
It has finally reached the point where even rainy days hold warmth, and that muggy haze which will torment us later on, but which I absolutely welcome right now.
Everything smells like steamed clover today -- I think the smell of clover and the taste of peaches are the essence of summer. And summer in Michigan is quite a thing to behold -- everything seems to radiate joy. Everywhere you go there are fresh fruit and vegetable stands, more beaches than can be counted, hand-dipped ice cream shops, green things, sun-baked fields, blue skies, and more sunshine than a person reasonably knows how to handle.
And for reasons perhaps not inexplicable, my musical tastes return to bluegrass in summer, particularly Gillian Welch. I think the thought of sitting on a porch, or at a campfire, or on the beach, strumming a guitar and singing simple songs of the Americana tradition holds a magnetic appeal.
I MUST learn the guitar. Since at present I can't afford actual lessons, the next best option is to teach myself -- a trip to Borders hovers in the near future. I pulled out my guitar on my lunch break this afternoon and tuned it for the first time in months (poor guitar). I'm even looking forward to the blisters on my fingertips.
Annnd Emmylou is releasing a new album in six days! Absolutely splendid.
Monday, June 02, 2008
"I have a new mission. It's called getting a life."
Updates:
1. Spine of Satan. I have this interesting condition. An extra (sixth) lumbar vertebra. Whereas the average homo sapiens has 206 bones in his/her body, I have 207. Cool, right? I'm the next phase in human evolution.
If that's the case, though, then the human race is slowly devolving. This extra bone is cracked. It was discovered when I fell down a flight of stairs at the age of sixteen. Suddenly pain like I'd never experienced radiated from a central spot just above my tailbone, and wouldn't stop (about 20% of the people who have an extra vertebra, I was told, have this series of cracks in the bone. No one knows why. About 5%, I was told further, experience pain from it. I have since concluded that I must be the extreme of all things). I wore a back brace for months. (Ugly. Oh, it was ugly. I had to wear boy's jeans because the brace eliminated my hips. I felt like Frankenstein.) I took Lortab. Nothing availed.
Of its own, however, my back began to improve. I had to stop horseback riding, which disappointed but didn't hurt me too badly, as I was a bit old for camp, which was the only place where I could indulge this favorite pasttime. I had to be careful of my movements and had restricted activities in gym class (which I didn't mind in the least). But the pain went away.
Until college, when driving the hour and a half home sitting in one position began forcing it to protest. I have since learned to pack a couple of sweatshirts and a pillow for long car trips, so that I can give it support and change sitting positions minutely. I also learned to take periodic breaks to walk around and shake it out a little.
Well, it had improved so much that I foolishly drove the eight hours back to Michigan from my sister's home last week with only one stop.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I haven't experienced this level of pain in years. I spent the weekend crippling around like a little old lady, moaning and hissing and gritting my teeth and shuffling along and gingerly easing myself into and out of chairs and sleeping with a foam pillow under my back to give it more support at night. Grr.
It's gotten to the point where I'm irritated with my body. Pain is distracting. I can't even carry files around at work. And the shadows under my eyes are no longer their normal purplish color, but actual grey.
My doctor is calling in some painkillers for me. Hopefully this phase will pass, and I will be humbly reminded that my human limitations have not evaporated.
2. Lessons Learned. I am 99% certain that my status as a single gal has been reinstated. (I love the Break-Up by Silence method. Just love it. No, wait, I hate it. C'mon, dude, it's so much easier to get rid of a loose tooth with one quick painful jerk, rather than wiggle at it like a dog worrying a bone for hours. Just get it over with and leave me without nagging questions.) I haven't heard from CB in over a week, which forced me to conclude that I wouldn't be hearing from him anytime soon. Also people in this small town who stopped talking to me while I was seeing him are now on speaking terms with me again. Yay for the grapevine wherein the subject of the gossip is the last to hear it.
It wasn't entirely his fault, just as it wasn't entirely mine. The problem with dating men who have no affiliation with faith or the church primarily concerns sexual mores: Even decent men, with good work ethics and good people ethics, have no clue what to do with a girl like me. It's not a source of anger for them, but pure bewilderment, and this strange and mythical specimen of female becomes too puzzling and too much work, especially when they find out that there's NO WAY they're going to "get any" from her, and that she's absurdly innocent in today's basely informed culture. (I'm learning, though, how not to make life more difficult for men; I've unwittingly done so several times over -- so the good thing about the failed attempt with CB is that I'm carrying away ways to avoid this sort of thing happening again, and, as I read in a truly crappy book somewhere, "All knowledge is worth having." It's going to take a few days to get over feeling a little sad about it. I liked him a lot. But the sadness will pass; it always does.)
Also, as Boss-Man says, who I am comes clearly to the forefront within a week or so, which drives them to stay or go (so far, always "go"). This is good, he says, in that what takes some people months to conclude -- that a relationship isn't going to work -- takes me no longer than two weeks, so I've never actually wasted my time on anyone.
I've concluded that I'm not very good at this casual dating thing. I'm going to continue to try it, because I see no other clear alternative, but the time, I think, has come to reexamine and readjust my priorities.
3. Getting a life. The new top priority is learning to live life to the fullest. Because historically my present has tended to be painful, and because I do not believe in living in the past, I have habitually lived in the future. However, the future has not yet arrived, and the present is the means to getting there, and if I don't live in the now, I'll never live in the future either. I am a free adult, with free choices, and great strength of will. I therefore choose (and must reenact the choice many times daily) to love my life, and to seek out those things which will enrich and enlarge it.
I've been moving in this direction anyway, only, out of force of habit, I'd been phrasing it in the negative: I will no longer do things out of self-pity (or desperation). The positive, however, is much more powerful, with many more options: I will live my life to the fullest. I've been asking myself, throughout the course of the last few days, What can I do to live to the fullest right now? The answers are often delightfully simple. Living to the fullest on a Saturday morning usually means drinking coffee and journaling on the porch, for example.
Long-term choices have yet to manifest themselves clearly; I'm not sure what I want in the next year, or ten years, etc. But I don't think I'll focus much on that. There are enough short-term choices to attend to. And somehow, making choices of a full life are rendered much easier in summer.
4. Sun Therapy. I can't get enough sunshine. After such an endless winter, and such a slow, cold spring, now that eighty degrees have finally begun to make a daily appearance, I greedily soak in all the UV and Vitamin D that I can. Two years ago I suffered a blistering case of sun poisoning, and have since eschewed the sun's direct rays, opting instead to maintain a lily-white, nineteenth-century-lady's appearance. This year, however, I have decided to get as brown as I can. Taking a tip from my sister, I have purchased various products to obtain a strategically even tan, and kicked off Monday with a bit of a sunbathe in the backyard during my lunch hour. It's amazingly therapeutic: I return to the craze of the office environment afterward with a Zen-like aura of tranquility. The slow, contented lassitude of having lain under the sun's caress while doing nothing is pleasantly slow to wear off.
5. Proceed with Caution. I don't understand the strange dearth of girls in this town who could be my friends. And I've already dated all three of this town's reasonably eligible men. Which leaves the rest: an overwhelming majority of older and/or married men...who all love me.
This is irritating on a number of fronts. The first and most significant is that I enjoy the company and conversation of men, so if I run into these gentlemen singly or in packs while I am about town, I stop to chat; but lately they've been inviting me to get-togethers and cookouts and outdoor activities like horseback riding, and I feel a strong reticence in regard to their invitations. It's not just the semi-ribald banter that we occasionally toss back and forth (and which I try to quell as wittily as possible); it's that, as far as the social events are concerned, a.) I have no idea whether or not their wives and kids would be there -- if they were, I'd be a little, but only a little, more willing to accept; I'm not going to be the single onion ring at a sausage party, if you know what I mean; but I just don't know; and b.) there is a swimming pool involved, and beer, which means bathing-suit-clad me admist drunk men, which spells disaster. No thanks. But the invitations from the single older men to do one-on-one activities like farm tours and horseback riding spell just as much disaster -- and I've reached the age now where, even if I had a female friend to bring along as a safety net, it would still be stupid, and might look even worse.
And with the afore-mentioned dearth of single women my age in town, the only potential social life I have is in these inadvisable situations.
Humph. I smile and dodge their questions as gracefully as possible, that I might still be able to chat with these gentlemen in public, although I'm becoming leery of doing even that. I don't want to encourage either idle ideas in masculine minds, or idle ideas in other heads which contain even idler tongues.
This is where I get a little annoyed with The Way Things Are, and also with CB. First of all, if I were still dating him, some of these men wouldn't be talking to me at all, thanks to the small town politics which are beginning to resemble an ant war. Second, the ones left (one of these older men is his father) would be able to talk to me within a specific context -- as CB's girlfriend -- and even though I would still refuse to be alone with them, I could hang out with them in more social situations, because I'd attend the events with CB. Third, I'd simply have more to do. CB is very much involved in the town's civic life, and there'd be a lot of work and a lot of fun stuff to be involved in, particularly in summer. (All of this is predicated on the fact that I like him; if I didn't, I wouldn't waste his time, energy, or potential emotions using him for the contingent social benefits.)
But oh well. A girl can't change The Way Things Are, nor can she force the affections of any man by any wiles (which I despise) or strength of will, however ironic it seems that, rather like cats at a dinner party who bolt straight for the one cat-hater in the room, I am simultaneously the cat lover on the sidelines thoroughly left out (when it comes to the men I'd actually consider dating), and the cat hater trying to throw off unretracted claws (when it comes to the men who are completely inappropriate) and be left in peace.
It's a funny old world.
1. Spine of Satan. I have this interesting condition. An extra (sixth) lumbar vertebra. Whereas the average homo sapiens has 206 bones in his/her body, I have 207. Cool, right? I'm the next phase in human evolution.
If that's the case, though, then the human race is slowly devolving. This extra bone is cracked. It was discovered when I fell down a flight of stairs at the age of sixteen. Suddenly pain like I'd never experienced radiated from a central spot just above my tailbone, and wouldn't stop (about 20% of the people who have an extra vertebra, I was told, have this series of cracks in the bone. No one knows why. About 5%, I was told further, experience pain from it. I have since concluded that I must be the extreme of all things). I wore a back brace for months. (Ugly. Oh, it was ugly. I had to wear boy's jeans because the brace eliminated my hips. I felt like Frankenstein.) I took Lortab. Nothing availed.
Of its own, however, my back began to improve. I had to stop horseback riding, which disappointed but didn't hurt me too badly, as I was a bit old for camp, which was the only place where I could indulge this favorite pasttime. I had to be careful of my movements and had restricted activities in gym class (which I didn't mind in the least). But the pain went away.
Until college, when driving the hour and a half home sitting in one position began forcing it to protest. I have since learned to pack a couple of sweatshirts and a pillow for long car trips, so that I can give it support and change sitting positions minutely. I also learned to take periodic breaks to walk around and shake it out a little.
Well, it had improved so much that I foolishly drove the eight hours back to Michigan from my sister's home last week with only one stop.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I haven't experienced this level of pain in years. I spent the weekend crippling around like a little old lady, moaning and hissing and gritting my teeth and shuffling along and gingerly easing myself into and out of chairs and sleeping with a foam pillow under my back to give it more support at night. Grr.
It's gotten to the point where I'm irritated with my body. Pain is distracting. I can't even carry files around at work. And the shadows under my eyes are no longer their normal purplish color, but actual grey.
My doctor is calling in some painkillers for me. Hopefully this phase will pass, and I will be humbly reminded that my human limitations have not evaporated.
2. Lessons Learned. I am 99% certain that my status as a single gal has been reinstated. (I love the Break-Up by Silence method. Just love it. No, wait, I hate it. C'mon, dude, it's so much easier to get rid of a loose tooth with one quick painful jerk, rather than wiggle at it like a dog worrying a bone for hours. Just get it over with and leave me without nagging questions.) I haven't heard from CB in over a week, which forced me to conclude that I wouldn't be hearing from him anytime soon. Also people in this small town who stopped talking to me while I was seeing him are now on speaking terms with me again. Yay for the grapevine wherein the subject of the gossip is the last to hear it.
It wasn't entirely his fault, just as it wasn't entirely mine. The problem with dating men who have no affiliation with faith or the church primarily concerns sexual mores: Even decent men, with good work ethics and good people ethics, have no clue what to do with a girl like me. It's not a source of anger for them, but pure bewilderment, and this strange and mythical specimen of female becomes too puzzling and too much work, especially when they find out that there's NO WAY they're going to "get any" from her, and that she's absurdly innocent in today's basely informed culture. (I'm learning, though, how not to make life more difficult for men; I've unwittingly done so several times over -- so the good thing about the failed attempt with CB is that I'm carrying away ways to avoid this sort of thing happening again, and, as I read in a truly crappy book somewhere, "All knowledge is worth having." It's going to take a few days to get over feeling a little sad about it. I liked him a lot. But the sadness will pass; it always does.)
Also, as Boss-Man says, who I am comes clearly to the forefront within a week or so, which drives them to stay or go (so far, always "go"). This is good, he says, in that what takes some people months to conclude -- that a relationship isn't going to work -- takes me no longer than two weeks, so I've never actually wasted my time on anyone.
I've concluded that I'm not very good at this casual dating thing. I'm going to continue to try it, because I see no other clear alternative, but the time, I think, has come to reexamine and readjust my priorities.
3. Getting a life. The new top priority is learning to live life to the fullest. Because historically my present has tended to be painful, and because I do not believe in living in the past, I have habitually lived in the future. However, the future has not yet arrived, and the present is the means to getting there, and if I don't live in the now, I'll never live in the future either. I am a free adult, with free choices, and great strength of will. I therefore choose (and must reenact the choice many times daily) to love my life, and to seek out those things which will enrich and enlarge it.
I've been moving in this direction anyway, only, out of force of habit, I'd been phrasing it in the negative: I will no longer do things out of self-pity (or desperation). The positive, however, is much more powerful, with many more options: I will live my life to the fullest. I've been asking myself, throughout the course of the last few days, What can I do to live to the fullest right now? The answers are often delightfully simple. Living to the fullest on a Saturday morning usually means drinking coffee and journaling on the porch, for example.
Long-term choices have yet to manifest themselves clearly; I'm not sure what I want in the next year, or ten years, etc. But I don't think I'll focus much on that. There are enough short-term choices to attend to. And somehow, making choices of a full life are rendered much easier in summer.
4. Sun Therapy. I can't get enough sunshine. After such an endless winter, and such a slow, cold spring, now that eighty degrees have finally begun to make a daily appearance, I greedily soak in all the UV and Vitamin D that I can. Two years ago I suffered a blistering case of sun poisoning, and have since eschewed the sun's direct rays, opting instead to maintain a lily-white, nineteenth-century-lady's appearance. This year, however, I have decided to get as brown as I can. Taking a tip from my sister, I have purchased various products to obtain a strategically even tan, and kicked off Monday with a bit of a sunbathe in the backyard during my lunch hour. It's amazingly therapeutic: I return to the craze of the office environment afterward with a Zen-like aura of tranquility. The slow, contented lassitude of having lain under the sun's caress while doing nothing is pleasantly slow to wear off.
5. Proceed with Caution. I don't understand the strange dearth of girls in this town who could be my friends. And I've already dated all three of this town's reasonably eligible men. Which leaves the rest: an overwhelming majority of older and/or married men...who all love me.
This is irritating on a number of fronts. The first and most significant is that I enjoy the company and conversation of men, so if I run into these gentlemen singly or in packs while I am about town, I stop to chat; but lately they've been inviting me to get-togethers and cookouts and outdoor activities like horseback riding, and I feel a strong reticence in regard to their invitations. It's not just the semi-ribald banter that we occasionally toss back and forth (and which I try to quell as wittily as possible); it's that, as far as the social events are concerned, a.) I have no idea whether or not their wives and kids would be there -- if they were, I'd be a little, but only a little, more willing to accept; I'm not going to be the single onion ring at a sausage party, if you know what I mean; but I just don't know; and b.) there is a swimming pool involved, and beer, which means bathing-suit-clad me admist drunk men, which spells disaster. No thanks. But the invitations from the single older men to do one-on-one activities like farm tours and horseback riding spell just as much disaster -- and I've reached the age now where, even if I had a female friend to bring along as a safety net, it would still be stupid, and might look even worse.
And with the afore-mentioned dearth of single women my age in town, the only potential social life I have is in these inadvisable situations.
Humph. I smile and dodge their questions as gracefully as possible, that I might still be able to chat with these gentlemen in public, although I'm becoming leery of doing even that. I don't want to encourage either idle ideas in masculine minds, or idle ideas in other heads which contain even idler tongues.
This is where I get a little annoyed with The Way Things Are, and also with CB. First of all, if I were still dating him, some of these men wouldn't be talking to me at all, thanks to the small town politics which are beginning to resemble an ant war. Second, the ones left (one of these older men is his father) would be able to talk to me within a specific context -- as CB's girlfriend -- and even though I would still refuse to be alone with them, I could hang out with them in more social situations, because I'd attend the events with CB. Third, I'd simply have more to do. CB is very much involved in the town's civic life, and there'd be a lot of work and a lot of fun stuff to be involved in, particularly in summer. (All of this is predicated on the fact that I like him; if I didn't, I wouldn't waste his time, energy, or potential emotions using him for the contingent social benefits.)
But oh well. A girl can't change The Way Things Are, nor can she force the affections of any man by any wiles (which I despise) or strength of will, however ironic it seems that, rather like cats at a dinner party who bolt straight for the one cat-hater in the room, I am simultaneously the cat lover on the sidelines thoroughly left out (when it comes to the men I'd actually consider dating), and the cat hater trying to throw off unretracted claws (when it comes to the men who are completely inappropriate) and be left in peace.
It's a funny old world.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
guarded
I've contended for a long time that my guardian angel is very busy.
Yesterday I went to the local grocery store for some comfort ice cream and another Die Hard movie (I'd driven eight hours only stopping once on Tuesday, which kindled a flare-up in my old back problems, rendering me stoic but quite miserable), and as I was checking out, the cashier, a slender cute teenaged girl I've always gotten along with, struck up a conversation.
"Do you know [Boy #1]?" she said.
"Yes," I answered, keeping my expression and tone neutral. However badly things end with a guy, or a friendship, or a job, I dislike participating in the spread of nastiness, so I tend to keep my mouth shut.
"Yeah, he said he'd been talking to a girl named Sarah who worked in a law office, and I knew your name was Sarah and when you came into the store yesterday, you were wearing your jacket with the law office logo on the back, so I figured he was talking about you."
"Yes indeed," I said.
There was a pause while the credit card machine malfunctioned and she pushed a few buttons. After a minute, she said, "I'm not on very good terms with him."
"Oh really," I said, perking up.
"Yeah. I had to call the cops on him."
"Oo, I want to hear all about this," I said.
She told me that, first of all, she was eighteen and Boy #1 was twenty-eight ("Yesss," I intoned), and that she had a boyfriend, which Boy #1 knew, but she'd been hanging out with Boy #1 thinking everything was cool, until one night while hanging out with him she told him she was going to her boyfriend's house. At which he exploded in temper. She left, got into her car, and drove to her boyfriend's. Boy #1 followed her, shouting the whole way, so when she got there, she called the police. He has since been prank calling her cell phone, and showing up at the store to call her nasty names (really nasty names). She said she had to block his number the day before.
"Well," I said, after expressing sympathy, outrage and horror. "I'm glad I'm not seeing him anymore."
"Yeah," she said. "When I figured out he was talking about you, I thought, 'Oh no, I have to say something to her! She's so cute and nice!'"
I thanked her and left the store thoughtfully. My first response was to acknowledge how much I love the sisterhood of being female. This is what we do -- we look out for each other, we are shocked and horrified and irate at each other's misfortunes, and we go out of our way to warn bare acquaintances about the bad apples in the barrel.
My second response was to wonder if she'd been telling the whole truth. I have no reason to doubt her; we barely know each other, and she's always struck me as nice. Still, despite the sisterhood, girls will sometimes screw each other over as royally as possible when it comes to men. It could be that she'd like to be with Boy #1 and was trying to eliminate any competition. That doesn't bother me a bit in this case; I've been done with him for a few weeks now.
Which she would know if she were really attempting to date him. I concluded that I'd take her story as the truth with a pinch of salt, because it does makes sense that way: If she already has a boyfriend, and Boy #1 is either jealous or attempting to groom her into feeling safe, he would have brought up my name as someone he's seeing currently, in order to accomplish his ends. (If this is something that pathological guys do. I don't know much about workings of the masculine psyche.) I'll assume she left out some details, however, as I'd seen no signs of that kind of behavior in him, though he was something of a jerk to bolt when he thought I was "getting too serious" -- which goes to show what he's really after. Also I'd detected a cruel streak in him, toward the end, although, again, I didn't see any signs of psychotic behavior.
My next thought centered around how not like that he'd been with me, and to wonder why. I'm older and not as vulnerable/powerless? He'd decided to get rid of me, and so all of that crazy behavior wasn't necessary? There was a lot the cashier hadn't told me and her situation with Boy #1 was starkly different from mine? It makes me shiver a little bit, because I was alone with him a lot, and he really could have hurt me if he'd wanted to. But he didn't -- he knew I can handle a gun, I never indicated weakness, and something kept him (mostly) within the bounds of decency. But then it also boils down to Boss-Man, who has a reputation about town, and would descend in a cloud of burning sulphuric legal wrath on anyone who gave me grief, so I walk around with a certain aura of confident protection. Everybody knows whom I work for.
Even so, I've felt a little sorry for my guardian angel over the years. He seems to be working a lot. Do beings of cosmic power ever need a vacation? (I hope not, for my sake.)
Glad to have gotten out of that one, and that unscathed.
Yesterday I went to the local grocery store for some comfort ice cream and another Die Hard movie (I'd driven eight hours only stopping once on Tuesday, which kindled a flare-up in my old back problems, rendering me stoic but quite miserable), and as I was checking out, the cashier, a slender cute teenaged girl I've always gotten along with, struck up a conversation.
"Do you know [Boy #1]?" she said.
"Yes," I answered, keeping my expression and tone neutral. However badly things end with a guy, or a friendship, or a job, I dislike participating in the spread of nastiness, so I tend to keep my mouth shut.
"Yeah, he said he'd been talking to a girl named Sarah who worked in a law office, and I knew your name was Sarah and when you came into the store yesterday, you were wearing your jacket with the law office logo on the back, so I figured he was talking about you."
"Yes indeed," I said.
There was a pause while the credit card machine malfunctioned and she pushed a few buttons. After a minute, she said, "I'm not on very good terms with him."
"Oh really," I said, perking up.
"Yeah. I had to call the cops on him."
"Oo, I want to hear all about this," I said.
She told me that, first of all, she was eighteen and Boy #1 was twenty-eight ("Yesss," I intoned), and that she had a boyfriend, which Boy #1 knew, but she'd been hanging out with Boy #1 thinking everything was cool, until one night while hanging out with him she told him she was going to her boyfriend's house. At which he exploded in temper. She left, got into her car, and drove to her boyfriend's. Boy #1 followed her, shouting the whole way, so when she got there, she called the police. He has since been prank calling her cell phone, and showing up at the store to call her nasty names (really nasty names). She said she had to block his number the day before.
"Well," I said, after expressing sympathy, outrage and horror. "I'm glad I'm not seeing him anymore."
"Yeah," she said. "When I figured out he was talking about you, I thought, 'Oh no, I have to say something to her! She's so cute and nice!'"
I thanked her and left the store thoughtfully. My first response was to acknowledge how much I love the sisterhood of being female. This is what we do -- we look out for each other, we are shocked and horrified and irate at each other's misfortunes, and we go out of our way to warn bare acquaintances about the bad apples in the barrel.
My second response was to wonder if she'd been telling the whole truth. I have no reason to doubt her; we barely know each other, and she's always struck me as nice. Still, despite the sisterhood, girls will sometimes screw each other over as royally as possible when it comes to men. It could be that she'd like to be with Boy #1 and was trying to eliminate any competition. That doesn't bother me a bit in this case; I've been done with him for a few weeks now.
Which she would know if she were really attempting to date him. I concluded that I'd take her story as the truth with a pinch of salt, because it does makes sense that way: If she already has a boyfriend, and Boy #1 is either jealous or attempting to groom her into feeling safe, he would have brought up my name as someone he's seeing currently, in order to accomplish his ends. (If this is something that pathological guys do. I don't know much about workings of the masculine psyche.) I'll assume she left out some details, however, as I'd seen no signs of that kind of behavior in him, though he was something of a jerk to bolt when he thought I was "getting too serious" -- which goes to show what he's really after. Also I'd detected a cruel streak in him, toward the end, although, again, I didn't see any signs of psychotic behavior.
My next thought centered around how not like that he'd been with me, and to wonder why. I'm older and not as vulnerable/powerless? He'd decided to get rid of me, and so all of that crazy behavior wasn't necessary? There was a lot the cashier hadn't told me and her situation with Boy #1 was starkly different from mine? It makes me shiver a little bit, because I was alone with him a lot, and he really could have hurt me if he'd wanted to. But he didn't -- he knew I can handle a gun, I never indicated weakness, and something kept him (mostly) within the bounds of decency. But then it also boils down to Boss-Man, who has a reputation about town, and would descend in a cloud of burning sulphuric legal wrath on anyone who gave me grief, so I walk around with a certain aura of confident protection. Everybody knows whom I work for.
Even so, I've felt a little sorry for my guardian angel over the years. He seems to be working a lot. Do beings of cosmic power ever need a vacation? (I hope not, for my sake.)
Glad to have gotten out of that one, and that unscathed.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
I plead the First
When I went to fetch the office mail this morning, one of the post office boxes was sealed shut.
Thinking that perhaps we had been late with our annual rent, I popped in to see the clerk.
No, we don't need money, he said. We need information.
And proceeded to hand me a form requesting not only the name of each person authorized to use the post office box, but also two forms of identification for each said person.
I didn't keep my temper very well. I was exhausted from driving eight hours the day before and staying up too late trying to wind down from the driving; also in a foul mood from taking Prednisone for the latest migraine. I stared at the application in extremely annoyed disbelief.
The postmaster explained that two of the "hijackers" had used post office boxes with false IDs. I did not say, as I was thinking, "And it took our wonderful government SEVEN YEARS to get around to addressing that moot issue?"
I mean come on. Homeland Security is getting a little a.) tardy and b.) meticulous. Both in a bad way. Are they bored over there, or what?
I like to keep my political opinions offline as much as possible. But when I have to present two forms of ID to get my own mail, the government has gone a little too far. I don't like big government. I don't like the implicit attitude that each and every American citizen has become suddenly suspect of potential terrorism (what of our judiciary slogan, "innocent until proven guilty"? I realize a government should not be foolhardy, and that preemptive measures must be taken in some regards, but our mail? Isn't it enough that flying has become the world's biggest hassle?). I don't like the sense of being spied on -- 1984, anyone? I don't like every postal worker that waltzes through the local post office having access to my driver license and passport numbers -- especially because I saw completed forms with such information on them just lying around in the post office. And I don't like the absurd parallel to the one kid in fourth grade who throws his potato chip crumbs all over the floor and suddenly nobody's allowed to eat in class.
And some of the "ID" forms that are acceptable to the government strike me as being None of Their Business. Here's the list as I received it from our local post office:
- State Issued ID Card
- Armed Forces ID
- Vehicle Insurance Policy
- University ID
- Home Owners Insurance Policy
- Current Lease
- Certification of Naturalization
- Government ID
- Voter Registration Card
- Passport
- Recognized Corporate ID Card
- Mortgage
- Deed of Trust
- Alien Registration Card
Vehicle Insurance Policy? Home Owners Insurance Policy? Current lease? Mortgage? Since when did the federal government have any business at all sticking their noses into any of that? Does anyone else feel a certain reduction in dignity having to hand over copies of their insurance, lease, or mortgage to the post office, in the event they don't have a voter registration card or a passport? What next? Credit card numbers? Bank accounts?
No. This is ridiculous. I have been a staunch supporter of the "War on Terror" as the better of two evils for a long time now, while still thinking of it as an evil. But I've found the whole thing increasingly distasteful of late, and when this "War on Terror" hobbles my ability to do something as simple as gather the mail as a daily part of my job, I really don't think some of the higher-ups are doing theirs. What has Homeland Security been doing besides making daily life more difficult for the average citizen without any noticeable benefit or increased (hm) homeland security? Have there been more threats and fake IDs used to obtain post office boxes? Why not tell us then? What next -- the government opening and reading everyone's mail? (Maybe they already do this and I'm behind on the times.)
It doesn't make sense. I feel a distinct sensation of bureaucratic strangulation. Soon we'll be so numbered and tagged and ID'd that we won't be able to go anywhere or do anything without having our numbers tattooed on our arms or stuck in chips under our shoulders. How much does the federal government have a right to know? When did the Republicans start getting big government? Because this is practically socialist, and I'm no fan of that.
It's bad enough that the gas prices are soaring uninhibited by any grounds of decency or common sense, which is driving up the cost of every other imaginable thing -- goods, food, transportation -- to the point where services (like my small law office) suffer because the average person can't afford to pay the bills and eat and drive to work, much less obtain an attorney.
But having to prove myself twice over just to check the mail is insulting.
I'm annoyed. There are precautions, and then there are absurdities. I've been seeing a lot of absurdity. And I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering whether November's elections will bring any upward change, and how much longer the good American people can shoulder this increasingly unbearable pressure from those elected to care for them.
Thinking that perhaps we had been late with our annual rent, I popped in to see the clerk.
No, we don't need money, he said. We need information.
And proceeded to hand me a form requesting not only the name of each person authorized to use the post office box, but also two forms of identification for each said person.
I didn't keep my temper very well. I was exhausted from driving eight hours the day before and staying up too late trying to wind down from the driving; also in a foul mood from taking Prednisone for the latest migraine. I stared at the application in extremely annoyed disbelief.
The postmaster explained that two of the "hijackers" had used post office boxes with false IDs. I did not say, as I was thinking, "And it took our wonderful government SEVEN YEARS to get around to addressing that moot issue?"
I mean come on. Homeland Security is getting a little a.) tardy and b.) meticulous. Both in a bad way. Are they bored over there, or what?
I like to keep my political opinions offline as much as possible. But when I have to present two forms of ID to get my own mail, the government has gone a little too far. I don't like big government. I don't like the implicit attitude that each and every American citizen has become suddenly suspect of potential terrorism (what of our judiciary slogan, "innocent until proven guilty"? I realize a government should not be foolhardy, and that preemptive measures must be taken in some regards, but our mail? Isn't it enough that flying has become the world's biggest hassle?). I don't like the sense of being spied on -- 1984, anyone? I don't like every postal worker that waltzes through the local post office having access to my driver license and passport numbers -- especially because I saw completed forms with such information on them just lying around in the post office. And I don't like the absurd parallel to the one kid in fourth grade who throws his potato chip crumbs all over the floor and suddenly nobody's allowed to eat in class.
And some of the "ID" forms that are acceptable to the government strike me as being None of Their Business. Here's the list as I received it from our local post office:
- State Issued ID Card
- Armed Forces ID
- Vehicle Insurance Policy
- University ID
- Home Owners Insurance Policy
- Current Lease
- Certification of Naturalization
- Government ID
- Voter Registration Card
- Passport
- Recognized Corporate ID Card
- Mortgage
- Deed of Trust
- Alien Registration Card
Vehicle Insurance Policy? Home Owners Insurance Policy? Current lease? Mortgage? Since when did the federal government have any business at all sticking their noses into any of that? Does anyone else feel a certain reduction in dignity having to hand over copies of their insurance, lease, or mortgage to the post office, in the event they don't have a voter registration card or a passport? What next? Credit card numbers? Bank accounts?
No. This is ridiculous. I have been a staunch supporter of the "War on Terror" as the better of two evils for a long time now, while still thinking of it as an evil. But I've found the whole thing increasingly distasteful of late, and when this "War on Terror" hobbles my ability to do something as simple as gather the mail as a daily part of my job, I really don't think some of the higher-ups are doing theirs. What has Homeland Security been doing besides making daily life more difficult for the average citizen without any noticeable benefit or increased (hm) homeland security? Have there been more threats and fake IDs used to obtain post office boxes? Why not tell us then? What next -- the government opening and reading everyone's mail? (Maybe they already do this and I'm behind on the times.)
It doesn't make sense. I feel a distinct sensation of bureaucratic strangulation. Soon we'll be so numbered and tagged and ID'd that we won't be able to go anywhere or do anything without having our numbers tattooed on our arms or stuck in chips under our shoulders. How much does the federal government have a right to know? When did the Republicans start getting big government? Because this is practically socialist, and I'm no fan of that.
It's bad enough that the gas prices are soaring uninhibited by any grounds of decency or common sense, which is driving up the cost of every other imaginable thing -- goods, food, transportation -- to the point where services (like my small law office) suffer because the average person can't afford to pay the bills and eat and drive to work, much less obtain an attorney.
But having to prove myself twice over just to check the mail is insulting.
I'm annoyed. There are precautions, and then there are absurdities. I've been seeing a lot of absurdity. And I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering whether November's elections will bring any upward change, and how much longer the good American people can shoulder this increasingly unbearable pressure from those elected to care for them.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
miscellanea
I couldn't do it. I contracted with myself to do it, and I couldn't do it.
I have this very old prejudice against televisions in the bedroom. Blame my parents. Or their parents. Come to think of it, no one even in my extended family has ever had televisions in their bedrooms. Maybe it's a weird Scotch-Irish/German American thing. I mean, we keep books in the bathroom. Why not TVs in the bedroom? But somehow it's a desecration. Beds are for reading in. (And other things, of course, if one is married. But even so, reading takes place in bed far more often than even that reportedly most enjoyable of activities. One doesn't need stamina to read a book for hours every night.) The television is an ugly, noisy, blue-light monstrous invader. Its place is in the living room where the whole family can gather around it (movies are for sharing, too). It belongs nowhere else.
The bedroom, in my family experience, has always been this sanctorum of privacy and quiet -- a place to go hide when the world, or even the rest of the house, becomes frustrating or threatening. A place to relax and let down all of the walls you keep rigidly in place outside of it. A place to find peace. A retreat, a haven.
Somehow quiet is critical to this concept. A TV is never quiet. Books are quiet. Books are friendly. Books engage the parts of your brain that allow you to forget, to escape, to become thoroughly absorbed in a different world and travel far away for awhile without any more movement than is occasionally required to adjust a pillow.
So, despite my stern decision to be like more people and lounge in bed with the TV blasting, I finished my movie in the living room, brushed my teeth, and crawled in bed with Bridget Jones.
I didn't make it to sleep by 10:00 either. I wasn't sleepy. Of course I am now, however, when my attention should be sharper and more focused. The perversity of the human body.
A funny thing has begun to happen. When I first started working a desk job where I had internet access anytime I wanted it, I wasted so much time surfing it was actually rather embarrassing. Now, though, I'm losing interest, and I'm trying to sort out why. I don't think I'm the only one, either -- over the years, the comments have dwindled, and so has my religious perusal of the blogs of every single person I might have met if only for five minutes at a party.
I think it's life. I know that for myself, I'm becoming increasingly hungry to live, to have my own life which totally occupies my attention, to be involved with people and not webpages. I'm impatient for that "real life" thing to take off -- I suppose it has to do with the post on "settling down" I wrote a month or so ago. I want to make roots. I want to be a part of what's happening around me. I want friendship and love and a home and all those domestic activities that seemed so boring when I was younger -- gardening, mowing the yard, painting the house. I want the miraculous beauty of ordinary life.
I'm working out how to get there. It won't require a husband, either, so no worries about interference with the New Deal re: dating. So I'm sorting things out. It's about time I came to life.
I have this very old prejudice against televisions in the bedroom. Blame my parents. Or their parents. Come to think of it, no one even in my extended family has ever had televisions in their bedrooms. Maybe it's a weird Scotch-Irish/German American thing. I mean, we keep books in the bathroom. Why not TVs in the bedroom? But somehow it's a desecration. Beds are for reading in. (And other things, of course, if one is married. But even so, reading takes place in bed far more often than even that reportedly most enjoyable of activities. One doesn't need stamina to read a book for hours every night.) The television is an ugly, noisy, blue-light monstrous invader. Its place is in the living room where the whole family can gather around it (movies are for sharing, too). It belongs nowhere else.
The bedroom, in my family experience, has always been this sanctorum of privacy and quiet -- a place to go hide when the world, or even the rest of the house, becomes frustrating or threatening. A place to relax and let down all of the walls you keep rigidly in place outside of it. A place to find peace. A retreat, a haven.
Somehow quiet is critical to this concept. A TV is never quiet. Books are quiet. Books are friendly. Books engage the parts of your brain that allow you to forget, to escape, to become thoroughly absorbed in a different world and travel far away for awhile without any more movement than is occasionally required to adjust a pillow.
So, despite my stern decision to be like more people and lounge in bed with the TV blasting, I finished my movie in the living room, brushed my teeth, and crawled in bed with Bridget Jones.
I didn't make it to sleep by 10:00 either. I wasn't sleepy. Of course I am now, however, when my attention should be sharper and more focused. The perversity of the human body.
A funny thing has begun to happen. When I first started working a desk job where I had internet access anytime I wanted it, I wasted so much time surfing it was actually rather embarrassing. Now, though, I'm losing interest, and I'm trying to sort out why. I don't think I'm the only one, either -- over the years, the comments have dwindled, and so has my religious perusal of the blogs of every single person I might have met if only for five minutes at a party.
I think it's life. I know that for myself, I'm becoming increasingly hungry to live, to have my own life which totally occupies my attention, to be involved with people and not webpages. I'm impatient for that "real life" thing to take off -- I suppose it has to do with the post on "settling down" I wrote a month or so ago. I want to make roots. I want to be a part of what's happening around me. I want friendship and love and a home and all those domestic activities that seemed so boring when I was younger -- gardening, mowing the yard, painting the house. I want the miraculous beauty of ordinary life.
I'm working out how to get there. It won't require a husband, either, so no worries about interference with the New Deal re: dating. So I'm sorting things out. It's about time I came to life.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
constitution for wednesday
So. Freaking. Tired. The ups and downs of dating are exhausting. It's like a never-ending exercise regime where there's unfamiliar music playing in the background and you can't tell when you're supposed to be running and when you're supposed to be resting and the whole thing begins to seem suspiciously like musical chairs but you don't know who your partner is or whether you're even supposed to have one.
With all that craziness, therefore (which isn't completely unenjoyable, just a strain on the out-of-shape dating form), I am drawing up a contract with myself for tonight. I get all jumpy and edgy and forget how to rest.
Tonight's strict itinerary: I will:
1. Go home immediately following post-work tutoring session.
2. Change into fluffy flannel pajamas.
3. Reheat leftovers for dinner.
4. Eat said leftovers in front of television, preferably Die Hard.
5. Once leftovers have been consumed, move TV into bedroom for temporary indulgence in utter decadence (existence usually being spartan books-only activities in bedroom) of sprawling full length in bed having brains turned to mush by mindlessly violent films of choice.
6. Turn the lights out, roll over and go to sleep no later than 10:00.
I will not:
1. Worry about mountains of unwashed clothes.
2. Bother myself about dishes cluttering the sink.
3. Try to rectify spacially challenged disaster in four of the five rooms of my house.
4. Entertain any thoughts or feelings of guilt whatsoever for Nos. 1-3; there's always tomorrow and I'm really really tired.
With all that craziness, therefore (which isn't completely unenjoyable, just a strain on the out-of-shape dating form), I am drawing up a contract with myself for tonight. I get all jumpy and edgy and forget how to rest.
Tonight's strict itinerary: I will:
1. Go home immediately following post-work tutoring session.
2. Change into fluffy flannel pajamas.
3. Reheat leftovers for dinner.
4. Eat said leftovers in front of television, preferably Die Hard.
5. Once leftovers have been consumed, move TV into bedroom for temporary indulgence in utter decadence (existence usually being spartan books-only activities in bedroom) of sprawling full length in bed having brains turned to mush by mindlessly violent films of choice.
6. Turn the lights out, roll over and go to sleep no later than 10:00.
I will not:
1. Worry about mountains of unwashed clothes.
2. Bother myself about dishes cluttering the sink.
3. Try to rectify spacially challenged disaster in four of the five rooms of my house.
4. Entertain any thoughts or feelings of guilt whatsoever for Nos. 1-3; there's always tomorrow and I'm really really tired.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
well, now
That's more like it.
Boy #1 is history. Old, dead, defunct, dry, moth-eaten history. [Yawn.]
Onto Boy #2.
I've known this one for awhile now, seen him about town, etc., knew he was interested but never encouraged him till recently, when I thought, What the hell? Why not. So I gave him just the teeniest bit of encouragement last week, and Bam! we're dating.
I'll call him CB, for Cowboy. This one, a bit like Boy #1, loves things that go fast and wreck other things. He also likes the great outdoors, killing the things that live there, or setting it on fire. He raises horses and pigs. He drives a huge and fast truck.
He's also the consummate gentleman. I haven't had to open a door for myself since I started seeing him -- truck door included. He won't let me do any dishes or help with the cooking; he won't let me pay for anything at all; he concerns himself with my comfort; he does all the work and all he wants me to do is sit there and be happy.
A girl could get used to this.
Actually, after most of a life of taking care of others and myself with as little help from anyone else as possible, I protest a little bit about not being able to do anything and having all my own needs taken care of. I mean, what's up with that? But whenever I say something like, But I want to help! or, You really don't have to do that, he just looks at me and crooks a grin and says, Get used to it.
Now, I'm refusing to do what I usually do and go all ga-ga and filmy eyed with soft-lensed visions of fat barefoot babies and tire swings. Nope; this is just dating, and it's just for fun. But he has surprised me. On a number of fronts. So I've decided to enjoy the surprises, take all the spoiling I can get, and see how well these two very differently backgrounded people who both also apparently love direct communication work together.
But so far, with my own New Deal, this is turning out exactly like I'd hoped. Life has more zest. Waking up brings me pleasure with a hint of excitement. Even my job is more fun.
Oh, two points of interest:
1.) My cat likes him. This is something of a minor miracle. My cat has only liked two men in my history of owning him, and neither of those previous two have been men I dated. Interesting.
2.) This boy has never been to college, doesn't do much reading. He's a cowboy. But he told me that what drew him to me from the first was my intelligence. That my being so smart meant he wouldn't have to worry about me because I know my own mind and don't need other people to make it up for me. This is something I've never heard before. I spend most of my time pretending I'm not as smart as I am, so as not to put the men off, and they usually mumble something about "big words" and vamoose anyway. CB likes the big words, figures out what I'm saying from the context. I've never felt more relaxed about speaking the way I speak, instead of performing mental contortions trying to reword my sentences in a way that doesn't sound too educated.
So I'm pretty happy with all this. And he's the one doing all of the calling and most of the texting; I'm just sitting back and having fun. And reminding myself not to take it seriously. (This is new to me, after all.)
Can't put more than one hook in the water, though. I think he's leaning toward a slightly more serious side of things, while reserving that interesting male skittishness toward the M-word, and even though I'm not (yet) serious in any fashion, I still just can't go out with somebody else. Now if things don't work out with CB, I'm jumping back on the horse and going after another right away; but until then, I guess you have to call me a one-man girl. True blue. Tunnel visioned. One-track-minded. Whatever you want. This hook is plenty of fun all by itself.
Boy #1 is history. Old, dead, defunct, dry, moth-eaten history. [Yawn.]
Onto Boy #2.
I've known this one for awhile now, seen him about town, etc., knew he was interested but never encouraged him till recently, when I thought, What the hell? Why not. So I gave him just the teeniest bit of encouragement last week, and Bam! we're dating.
I'll call him CB, for Cowboy. This one, a bit like Boy #1, loves things that go fast and wreck other things. He also likes the great outdoors, killing the things that live there, or setting it on fire. He raises horses and pigs. He drives a huge and fast truck.
He's also the consummate gentleman. I haven't had to open a door for myself since I started seeing him -- truck door included. He won't let me do any dishes or help with the cooking; he won't let me pay for anything at all; he concerns himself with my comfort; he does all the work and all he wants me to do is sit there and be happy.
A girl could get used to this.
Actually, after most of a life of taking care of others and myself with as little help from anyone else as possible, I protest a little bit about not being able to do anything and having all my own needs taken care of. I mean, what's up with that? But whenever I say something like, But I want to help! or, You really don't have to do that, he just looks at me and crooks a grin and says, Get used to it.
Now, I'm refusing to do what I usually do and go all ga-ga and filmy eyed with soft-lensed visions of fat barefoot babies and tire swings. Nope; this is just dating, and it's just for fun. But he has surprised me. On a number of fronts. So I've decided to enjoy the surprises, take all the spoiling I can get, and see how well these two very differently backgrounded people who both also apparently love direct communication work together.
But so far, with my own New Deal, this is turning out exactly like I'd hoped. Life has more zest. Waking up brings me pleasure with a hint of excitement. Even my job is more fun.
Oh, two points of interest:
1.) My cat likes him. This is something of a minor miracle. My cat has only liked two men in my history of owning him, and neither of those previous two have been men I dated. Interesting.
2.) This boy has never been to college, doesn't do much reading. He's a cowboy. But he told me that what drew him to me from the first was my intelligence. That my being so smart meant he wouldn't have to worry about me because I know my own mind and don't need other people to make it up for me. This is something I've never heard before. I spend most of my time pretending I'm not as smart as I am, so as not to put the men off, and they usually mumble something about "big words" and vamoose anyway. CB likes the big words, figures out what I'm saying from the context. I've never felt more relaxed about speaking the way I speak, instead of performing mental contortions trying to reword my sentences in a way that doesn't sound too educated.
So I'm pretty happy with all this. And he's the one doing all of the calling and most of the texting; I'm just sitting back and having fun. And reminding myself not to take it seriously. (This is new to me, after all.)
Can't put more than one hook in the water, though. I think he's leaning toward a slightly more serious side of things, while reserving that interesting male skittishness toward the M-word, and even though I'm not (yet) serious in any fashion, I still just can't go out with somebody else. Now if things don't work out with CB, I'm jumping back on the horse and going after another right away; but until then, I guess you have to call me a one-man girl. True blue. Tunnel visioned. One-track-minded. Whatever you want. This hook is plenty of fun all by itself.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
aha
Ahahahaha. I've figured it out.
Turns out Boy is not disinterested, and sudden squirreliness had little to do with politics. I heard from a friend of a friend who is a friend of his that he rabbited away because he thought I was getting too serious.
Figures, I said. The one time I'm NOT serious about a guy I get punished for it anyway.
Just play it cool, said the friend. And date. A lot. Play the field.
Now of course, my life being what it is, before my blind date with Boy I had never seen him before, even though it's a small town, so when it all seemed to be going up in smoke I thought, No biggie; I didn't run into him before, I probably won't run into him again. Wrong. Suddenly I'm seeing him EVERYwhere. Bank. Grocery store. And every road I'm driving on. Ridiculous.
But I employed the Play It Cool strategy and carelessly waggled fingers at him whenever I saw him and went about my business.
He stopped by the house yesterday. I was sitting on the porch with a friend, getting ready to grill, when a truck that I knew was his even without my glasses (I memorize vehicles quickly) drove by, honked, then turned around and came back. An hour of his telling stories ensued.
AHA! I thought. The strategy works. And my brain started outputting an analysis of the new situation.
See, I've known my own tack of desperate earnest eagerness hasn't been working -- it's never worked at all. But I've been clinging to this romantic notion that when I meet That One Guy everything will fall into place like the first five minutes of Enchanted. So I never changed my tactics; I figured when I met the right person, my tactics would be fine.
But when a strategy doesn't work, an intelligent person must learn to adapt. It might be uncomfortable -- I'm a homebody, I like cooking and grilling and watching movies and reading and sitting around with people I know well talking for hours over beer about the abstract problems of the world. I forget, though, that the people I know well took time to know well. I can't expect anything different in my dating life. And in order to meet people, I have to Get Out There. Prince Charming isn't going to consult a crystal ball and come charging up my driveway; I have to learn to do something new, so I can be seen.
Uncomfortable, yes. Unnatural, a bit. But it will get easier with practice, like learning a new technique on the piano. And if I view it as a fun mental exercise, I can enjoy what everyone but me has always known is a game. I've always hated games as phony and gilded, but it looks like I have to learn to play or sit life out on the sidelines permanently.
So I'm going to experiment, with all those things that women over time have said work, to see how effective they really are. Playing it cool. Playing hard to get. Playing it casual. Playing the field. (See how all these things start with "play"?) It's like chess. If I jump my knight completely over his bishop and pretend to be going after his rook, I can get his queen. And if that strategy doesn't work, I can try a new one. Lost this game? Onto the next opponent. Won this game but bored with the opponent? Time to move along. Play a few games at once? Better than playing solitaire.
I'm interested. My boundless curiosity is piqued. I'm going to look at it like a scientific enterprise, and I'm going to (finally) have fun with it. Lots of other people have said that dating is fun -- I want some of that fun, thank you! My life as it is is unbearably boring. And I used to be pretty good at chess. Looks like it's time to brush up my skills and start assembling the pawns.
Turns out Boy is not disinterested, and sudden squirreliness had little to do with politics. I heard from a friend of a friend who is a friend of his that he rabbited away because he thought I was getting too serious.
Figures, I said. The one time I'm NOT serious about a guy I get punished for it anyway.
Just play it cool, said the friend. And date. A lot. Play the field.
Now of course, my life being what it is, before my blind date with Boy I had never seen him before, even though it's a small town, so when it all seemed to be going up in smoke I thought, No biggie; I didn't run into him before, I probably won't run into him again. Wrong. Suddenly I'm seeing him EVERYwhere. Bank. Grocery store. And every road I'm driving on. Ridiculous.
But I employed the Play It Cool strategy and carelessly waggled fingers at him whenever I saw him and went about my business.
He stopped by the house yesterday. I was sitting on the porch with a friend, getting ready to grill, when a truck that I knew was his even without my glasses (I memorize vehicles quickly) drove by, honked, then turned around and came back. An hour of his telling stories ensued.
AHA! I thought. The strategy works. And my brain started outputting an analysis of the new situation.
See, I've known my own tack of desperate earnest eagerness hasn't been working -- it's never worked at all. But I've been clinging to this romantic notion that when I meet That One Guy everything will fall into place like the first five minutes of Enchanted. So I never changed my tactics; I figured when I met the right person, my tactics would be fine.
But when a strategy doesn't work, an intelligent person must learn to adapt. It might be uncomfortable -- I'm a homebody, I like cooking and grilling and watching movies and reading and sitting around with people I know well talking for hours over beer about the abstract problems of the world. I forget, though, that the people I know well took time to know well. I can't expect anything different in my dating life. And in order to meet people, I have to Get Out There. Prince Charming isn't going to consult a crystal ball and come charging up my driveway; I have to learn to do something new, so I can be seen.
Uncomfortable, yes. Unnatural, a bit. But it will get easier with practice, like learning a new technique on the piano. And if I view it as a fun mental exercise, I can enjoy what everyone but me has always known is a game. I've always hated games as phony and gilded, but it looks like I have to learn to play or sit life out on the sidelines permanently.
So I'm going to experiment, with all those things that women over time have said work, to see how effective they really are. Playing it cool. Playing hard to get. Playing it casual. Playing the field. (See how all these things start with "play"?) It's like chess. If I jump my knight completely over his bishop and pretend to be going after his rook, I can get his queen. And if that strategy doesn't work, I can try a new one. Lost this game? Onto the next opponent. Won this game but bored with the opponent? Time to move along. Play a few games at once? Better than playing solitaire.
I'm interested. My boundless curiosity is piqued. I'm going to look at it like a scientific enterprise, and I'm going to (finally) have fun with it. Lots of other people have said that dating is fun -- I want some of that fun, thank you! My life as it is is unbearably boring. And I used to be pretty good at chess. Looks like it's time to brush up my skills and start assembling the pawns.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
as usual*
Damn. Damn. Damn.
9:15 a.m. Work. Get call from Boss, who inquires after my mental state, saying he worries about me. I tell him fine, not worried about loss of Boy -- though still confused about what happened.
Boss says he had brainwave regarding strange loss of interest from Boy: small town politics. Boy is friends with folks who hate Boss. Someone planted bug in his ear. I got caught in middle. Boy listened to friends rather than consult me for truth.
I tell Boss this actually makes sense because of odd conversations I had with Boy at around time his behavior changed, relating to Boss's finances and taxes, about which I refused to speak. Secretary means secret-keeper, after all. Boy wouldn't stop harping. V. bizarre.
11:00 a.m. Feel significantly better. Boy didn't suddenly decide I was ugly. Boy is simply a weak person who relies overly much on the opinions of his friends. Boy is sheep. I am sheep dog. I want another sheep dog, not sheep. Best to have found it out this early, good riddance, want loyal partner, etc.
12:00 p.m. Home. Phone call to mother incenses her further over Boy's already Neanderthalic behavior. I don't tell her I found said behavior irritating but attractive in Bam-Bam sort of way. Instead am even more disgusted by what appears to have been Boy's attempt to dig up dirt on Boss using me. Invent half a dozen imaginary ways of telling Boy off.
12:58 p.m. Return to office from lunch. See Boy's work van heading toward street I am driving on to reach office. Boy looking at traffic not me. Jerk. No. Good. I don't have to wonder whether or not I should wave. Put arm down. Zoom quickly into parking lot across street from office to avoid being seen...or maybe to get out and be seen more quickly when Boy drives by. (After all, am one of prettiest girls in town. Might as well rub in what he's missing.)
12:59 p.m. Shit. Shit. Boy is parking in front of building Boss's wife is building next to office. Boy is doing inspection work at new building! Have to run into him. Shit.
1:00 p.m. Cross street looking relaxed and confident. All good so far. Boy is on cell phone (as always), still sitting in van. Will just wave and saunter past.
1:01 p.m. Boy gets out of truck before have reached curb. Hanging up phone. Must pass him now.
God he's attractive.
1:05 p.m. Arrrrgh. Meant to be cool and aloof when next saw him, but instead smiled and said hey. Boy made usual comments about how self is lucky to wear casual clothes to work, lucky to have lunch break, he's been checking electrical work all day, etc. Smiled and told him guess that's how it goes. Ooo-ed over Boy's dirty hands like some blonde barfly giggling over war wounds. (Lovely huge work-hardened manly kill-something hands. Miss holding those hands. Want to touch those hands. No! No! Boy is treacherous, dirt-digging sheep. Go back to work.) Managed to get away before dignity completely cracked and fell off. Walked shaking into office and tried concentrating on something else. Like maybe if I look busy and important and responsible he'll notice if he comes in to see me.
1:08 p.m. Saw his van drive past office window. Stupid. Of course he wouldn't say hi, he doesn't like me anymore. Why? Why? Slam dictation tape into slot to begin transcription. Am important with crucial job. Have many highly critical things to do. Love work. Don't need Boy.
1:10 p.m. Can't stop thinking about it. Why would he let small town politics take precedence over me? I'm gorgeous and funny. Oh God. Know he's all over, it's toast, did right thing by deciding not to pine, but still want him. Ugh. Ugh. Hate dating. Hate self. Now have nothing to think about but how nicely Boy kissed -- no! That way lies insanity. Dictation! Think about dictation.
1:11 p.m. Really want cigarette. Force self to focus.
1:12 p.m. Keep making typos all over screen. Have to rewind damn dicatation tape over and over. Fingers don't seem to belong to self at all but to have begun some sort of rebellion where they dance all over keys in some kind of code telling me things that make no sense. Forcibly take control. Am supreme dictator of fingers.
1:15 p.m. Despair. I lurrrved him. Now he's gone and I'll never see or hear or touch or smell him again.
1:17 p.m. WANT CIGARETTE.
1:20 p.m. Finally done with dictation. Nobody in office. Cigarette!
1:21 p.m. Left cigarettes in car. Damn. No, good. Very good girl. Don't need filthy nasty evil noisome candy of Satan. Will power through momentary despair entirely on positive self-talk and force of will. Will be fine.
1:22 p.m. Must have drug of some kind. Will nip upstairs to break room for cup of coffee.
1:30 p.m. Spent seven minutes staring blankly down at sunny breeze-swept street. Am going to be alone for rest of life and wind up creaking in nursing home rocking chair with no visitors being beaten by attendants with bedpans. Brain knows Boy is Fascist idiot, but heart still hurts about it. Really liked Boy. Know he won't call, would force self not to pick up phone if he did call, but wish he would call so at least could ignore him and not feel cast off like old mitten.
3:19 p.m. Head hurts. Brain gradually persuading heart that heart is wrong and brain is right. Body not listening. Want cigarette.
* With acknowledgments to Helen Fielding.
9:15 a.m. Work. Get call from Boss, who inquires after my mental state, saying he worries about me. I tell him fine, not worried about loss of Boy -- though still confused about what happened.
Boss says he had brainwave regarding strange loss of interest from Boy: small town politics. Boy is friends with folks who hate Boss. Someone planted bug in his ear. I got caught in middle. Boy listened to friends rather than consult me for truth.
I tell Boss this actually makes sense because of odd conversations I had with Boy at around time his behavior changed, relating to Boss's finances and taxes, about which I refused to speak. Secretary means secret-keeper, after all. Boy wouldn't stop harping. V. bizarre.
11:00 a.m. Feel significantly better. Boy didn't suddenly decide I was ugly. Boy is simply a weak person who relies overly much on the opinions of his friends. Boy is sheep. I am sheep dog. I want another sheep dog, not sheep. Best to have found it out this early, good riddance, want loyal partner, etc.
12:00 p.m. Home. Phone call to mother incenses her further over Boy's already Neanderthalic behavior. I don't tell her I found said behavior irritating but attractive in Bam-Bam sort of way. Instead am even more disgusted by what appears to have been Boy's attempt to dig up dirt on Boss using me. Invent half a dozen imaginary ways of telling Boy off.
12:58 p.m. Return to office from lunch. See Boy's work van heading toward street I am driving on to reach office. Boy looking at traffic not me. Jerk. No. Good. I don't have to wonder whether or not I should wave. Put arm down. Zoom quickly into parking lot across street from office to avoid being seen...or maybe to get out and be seen more quickly when Boy drives by. (After all, am one of prettiest girls in town. Might as well rub in what he's missing.)
12:59 p.m. Shit. Shit. Boy is parking in front of building Boss's wife is building next to office. Boy is doing inspection work at new building! Have to run into him. Shit.
1:00 p.m. Cross street looking relaxed and confident. All good so far. Boy is on cell phone (as always), still sitting in van. Will just wave and saunter past.
1:01 p.m. Boy gets out of truck before have reached curb. Hanging up phone. Must pass him now.
God he's attractive.
1:05 p.m. Arrrrgh. Meant to be cool and aloof when next saw him, but instead smiled and said hey. Boy made usual comments about how self is lucky to wear casual clothes to work, lucky to have lunch break, he's been checking electrical work all day, etc. Smiled and told him guess that's how it goes. Ooo-ed over Boy's dirty hands like some blonde barfly giggling over war wounds. (Lovely huge work-hardened manly kill-something hands. Miss holding those hands. Want to touch those hands. No! No! Boy is treacherous, dirt-digging sheep. Go back to work.) Managed to get away before dignity completely cracked and fell off. Walked shaking into office and tried concentrating on something else. Like maybe if I look busy and important and responsible he'll notice if he comes in to see me.
1:08 p.m. Saw his van drive past office window. Stupid. Of course he wouldn't say hi, he doesn't like me anymore. Why? Why? Slam dictation tape into slot to begin transcription. Am important with crucial job. Have many highly critical things to do. Love work. Don't need Boy.
1:10 p.m. Can't stop thinking about it. Why would he let small town politics take precedence over me? I'm gorgeous and funny. Oh God. Know he's all over, it's toast, did right thing by deciding not to pine, but still want him. Ugh. Ugh. Hate dating. Hate self. Now have nothing to think about but how nicely Boy kissed -- no! That way lies insanity. Dictation! Think about dictation.
1:11 p.m. Really want cigarette. Force self to focus.
1:12 p.m. Keep making typos all over screen. Have to rewind damn dicatation tape over and over. Fingers don't seem to belong to self at all but to have begun some sort of rebellion where they dance all over keys in some kind of code telling me things that make no sense. Forcibly take control. Am supreme dictator of fingers.
1:15 p.m. Despair. I lurrrved him. Now he's gone and I'll never see or hear or touch or smell him again.
1:17 p.m. WANT CIGARETTE.
1:20 p.m. Finally done with dictation. Nobody in office. Cigarette!
1:21 p.m. Left cigarettes in car. Damn. No, good. Very good girl. Don't need filthy nasty evil noisome candy of Satan. Will power through momentary despair entirely on positive self-talk and force of will. Will be fine.
1:22 p.m. Must have drug of some kind. Will nip upstairs to break room for cup of coffee.
1:30 p.m. Spent seven minutes staring blankly down at sunny breeze-swept street. Am going to be alone for rest of life and wind up creaking in nursing home rocking chair with no visitors being beaten by attendants with bedpans. Brain knows Boy is Fascist idiot, but heart still hurts about it. Really liked Boy. Know he won't call, would force self not to pick up phone if he did call, but wish he would call so at least could ignore him and not feel cast off like old mitten.
3:19 p.m. Head hurts. Brain gradually persuading heart that heart is wrong and brain is right. Body not listening. Want cigarette.
* With acknowledgments to Helen Fielding.
Monday, May 05, 2008
monday bloody monday
Boy is it ever Monday.
Every once in awhile, it's almost pleasing to indulge in a bitter or sour mood. So, to compound my renewed status as a single woman (preemptively chosen -- I'm learning), an abrupt visitation by an evil head/throat/chest cold, and the onslaught of the least pleasant part of my monthly cycle, I have decided to quit smoking. Why? First of all, for obvious reasons -- health and money. Second, if all I'm thinking about is how grumpy I am because my head hurts and feels as though it's stuffed with wool, I am less likely to lose perspective on the other things because I won't be thinking about them.
Besides, having a chest/throat thing going on is a sensible time to quit. My current coughing jags make me sound a little like Darth Vader, and why make it worse?
Hello, Mean Nasty Monday. You're feeling about how I am. Let's be friends and go make somebody miserable.
Every once in awhile, it's almost pleasing to indulge in a bitter or sour mood. So, to compound my renewed status as a single woman (preemptively chosen -- I'm learning), an abrupt visitation by an evil head/throat/chest cold, and the onslaught of the least pleasant part of my monthly cycle, I have decided to quit smoking. Why? First of all, for obvious reasons -- health and money. Second, if all I'm thinking about is how grumpy I am because my head hurts and feels as though it's stuffed with wool, I am less likely to lose perspective on the other things because I won't be thinking about them.
Besides, having a chest/throat thing going on is a sensible time to quit. My current coughing jags make me sound a little like Darth Vader, and why make it worse?
Hello, Mean Nasty Monday. You're feeling about how I am. Let's be friends and go make somebody miserable.
Friday, May 02, 2008
a work-in-progress
The Fundamental Difference between Yes and No
The body says it first.
The cause is the effect,
action undifferentiated from intent –
the blind rooting at the breast
or the blood-filled face
compressed with effort.
Confusion comes with language
and social genuflections, when
word and deed signify
a subtle deconstruction -
but in their reverberation -
the virgin girl pinned braless
to the rough upholstery, the man
watching his wife back down
the driveway rolling gravel
under luggage weight -
the housewife swallowing the always
stillborn argument, the fourth-grade boy
shrugging the shirt's sting into cigarette
burns to dodge the teacher's question -
look to the eyes stitched tightly
at the corners, the planked gallows
in the shoulders, the bloodless
anchor in the jaw.
Look to the rakes forged from
the fingers, the fire flare
that rims the nose, the winched
cords pulsing in the neck.
The body says it first.
The body says it first.
The cause is the effect,
action undifferentiated from intent –
the blind rooting at the breast
or the blood-filled face
compressed with effort.
Confusion comes with language
and social genuflections, when
word and deed signify
a subtle deconstruction -
but in their reverberation -
the virgin girl pinned braless
to the rough upholstery, the man
watching his wife back down
the driveway rolling gravel
under luggage weight -
the housewife swallowing the always
stillborn argument, the fourth-grade boy
shrugging the shirt's sting into cigarette
burns to dodge the teacher's question -
look to the eyes stitched tightly
at the corners, the planked gallows
in the shoulders, the bloodless
anchor in the jaw.
Look to the rakes forged from
the fingers, the fire flare
that rims the nose, the winched
cords pulsing in the neck.
The body says it first.
Friday, April 25, 2008
If the Brakeman Turns My Way
When panic grips your body and your heart's a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind till you're breathing in reverse
And all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse --
When every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out.
Got a cricket for a conscience, always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret --
Hey where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play
Tried to listen to the river, but you couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out.
I never thought of running
My feet just led the way
Mixed-up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the brakeman turns my way
All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From the psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the South
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out
Are your brothels full, O Babylon, with merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight, always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child, then the other way around
The scales always find a way to level out
I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away
Mixed up signals, bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the brakeman turns my way
It's an old world, it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
And I'm a repeat first-time offender
Who has rewritten history
Mixed up tea leaves, phantom pain
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the brakeman turns my way
Mixed up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the blinding rain
And he'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the brakeman turns my way
~Conor Oberst
Raven thoughts blacken your mind till you're breathing in reverse
And all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse --
When every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out.
Got a cricket for a conscience, always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret --
Hey where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play
Tried to listen to the river, but you couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out.
I never thought of running
My feet just led the way
Mixed-up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the brakeman turns my way
All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From the psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the South
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out
Are your brothels full, O Babylon, with merry middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight, always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child, then the other way around
The scales always find a way to level out
I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away
Mixed up signals, bullet train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the brakeman turns my way
It's an old world, it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
And I'm a repeat first-time offender
Who has rewritten history
Mixed up tea leaves, phantom pain
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the brakeman turns my way
Mixed up signals, bullet train
Cars get switched out in the blinding rain
And he'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the brakeman turns my way
~Conor Oberst
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I BEG your pardon?!
This is getting ridiculous.
I did laundry yesterday, which necessitated a trip to the downtown grocery store for quarters. On my way out I saw a guy I thought I knew through work, and said a bright and cheery hello (the guy I thought he was is married, so think friendly not flirtatious). He looked up. Wrong guy. I'd never seen this one before. But I could practically see his ears perk up. Crap.
I hurried out of the store muttering about needing to get my eyes checked. He followed me out (by the way, this guy is in his late thirties, at the least, kind of a hick, pockmarked face, bit of a creepy vibe) and asked my name and said I looked familiar and did I live in town?
I gave him vague answers, thinking, Oh no.
Oh yes.
He proceeded to ask if I were single. I said, "No." He said, "Oh, you got a boyfriend?"
"Yes." No, dummy, what else does "no" mean?
"That's too bad. You're a good-looking girl."
What am I, a prize sow? "Thanks."
"Do you date?"
Whaaaaat? "Not on my boyfriend." (I was too shocked to be as rude as I wanted to be looking back.)
"Oh, so you're faithful, huh?"
Duh, you fuckwit. "Absolutely faithful." (What kind of girl do I LOOK like?)
"Oh. Well, at least you're faithful."
Not that you'd get any anyway, creep. "Yup. Bye."
I got into my car while keeping a suspicious eye on him and thought, I just got PROPOSITIONED. In the GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT.
Sometimes the burka sounds appealing.
I did laundry yesterday, which necessitated a trip to the downtown grocery store for quarters. On my way out I saw a guy I thought I knew through work, and said a bright and cheery hello (the guy I thought he was is married, so think friendly not flirtatious). He looked up. Wrong guy. I'd never seen this one before. But I could practically see his ears perk up. Crap.
I hurried out of the store muttering about needing to get my eyes checked. He followed me out (by the way, this guy is in his late thirties, at the least, kind of a hick, pockmarked face, bit of a creepy vibe) and asked my name and said I looked familiar and did I live in town?
I gave him vague answers, thinking, Oh no.
Oh yes.
He proceeded to ask if I were single. I said, "No." He said, "Oh, you got a boyfriend?"
"Yes." No, dummy, what else does "no" mean?
"That's too bad. You're a good-looking girl."
What am I, a prize sow? "Thanks."
"Do you date?"
Whaaaaat? "Not on my boyfriend." (I was too shocked to be as rude as I wanted to be looking back.)
"Oh, so you're faithful, huh?"
Duh, you fuckwit. "Absolutely faithful." (What kind of girl do I LOOK like?)
"Oh. Well, at least you're faithful."
Not that you'd get any anyway, creep. "Yup. Bye."
I got into my car while keeping a suspicious eye on him and thought, I just got PROPOSITIONED. In the GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT.
Sometimes the burka sounds appealing.
Friday, April 18, 2008
odds and ends
We had an earthquake early this morning.
Now, to people who really have earthquakes, like in California, this one was maybe an earth-baby-hiccup. But around here it's rather significant, because, well, we just don't have them. The earth stays put.
I seem to be the only person around here who felt it. It woke me from a sound sleep, adrenaline shot through my body like electricity, I was sure someone had just landed on my bed and I was thinking desperately how hard it would be to get to Harriet...and then it registered that my bed was shaking, it felt much like some giant person had grabbed up the posts at the foot of my bed and was rocking it around, and I heard all the glass clinking and then I relaxed and thought, Oh. Earthquake.
So, after my initial terror had subsided, I tried to go back to sleep, but of course I couldn't, being shoved around as I was. And then my response turned to annoyance. I was annoyed with the earthquake. I was trying to sleep, for crying out loud. And here it was 5:30 in the morning and I had to get up soon! BLAST you, earthquake!
Needless to say I am quite tired today, having turned in rather later than usual last night for no discernable reason. I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife and didn't feel like putting it down.
[Side note: This spell check doesn't recognize "discernable"; it wants me to spell it "discernible." Fortunately, thanks to online dictionaries -- because I was very disturbed by this; "discernible" didn't LOOK right -- I discovered that my way is also correct. Maybe it's British? This is what comes of reading so many British novels as a child. I learned to spell and write well by reading. You are what you eat. Also my vocabulary is rather better than spell check's, again because I read and it doesn't.]
In celebration of spring I decided to dress up for work today -- flirty, flouncy brown skirt, matching brown-lace-edged brown camisole, lightweight burnt orange shrug (that ties just under the chest -- very cute, very slimming), strappy hemp sandals, big bronze bangly jewelry, makeup.
So of course I was asked out by yet another man old enough to be my father.
This gentleman, though, I actually like -- I won't go out with him, but he's harmless and sweet and has lived something of a rough life and seems to be mellow and tired and worn down by his years. He reminds me of Smoky Lonesome from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe -- quiet and hard-luck and devoted. So I tried to let him down gently. I know, I know, guys need straightforward direct answers or they'll be encouraged, but I couldn't be mean to him. He's kind of frail in spirit, a little broken (though still a man -- he did ask, after all). So I finagled my way out of it, hopefully without hurting his feelings.
Auuggggh. I need to get out more, be seen more. These older men (and when I say older, I do mean old enough to be my father -- in their fifties or higher -- which isn't old when I think about old, but it's old when I'm considering match qualities) seem to appreciate a little more what they see -- a fresh, pretty young woman who will keep a fine home. The men my age tend to be busy with other concerns...and, again, I don't get out much, and I've just dated the wrong guys, the kind that I generalize about and piss off decent men. So -- sorry, decent men; my stereotypes stem from my consistent disappointment in the dating arena. I haven't met you yet, or I already know you but you don't live here.
Sometimes this Old Man Fan Club discourages me -- I really hate hurting people's feelings, and I know how hard it is for most guys to approach a girl, and my gosh, can't I attract someone who didn't graduate high school the year I learned to walk? -- but sometimes it's encouraging too. Like the proprietor of the inn we stayed at in the Caymans for my sister's wedding. He was married, French, courtly, but very very taken with me, gave my father lavish compliments about me, and toward the end of the evening (it was one of those dinners available to all the inn guests, to enjoy good food outside on a tropical beach night and socialize, and so he was of course the host) he bowed to me and said to my dad, "Your other daughter, I know she is getting married. But my money is on this one."
I repeat that to myself, like a mantra, from time to time.
Now, to people who really have earthquakes, like in California, this one was maybe an earth-baby-hiccup. But around here it's rather significant, because, well, we just don't have them. The earth stays put.
I seem to be the only person around here who felt it. It woke me from a sound sleep, adrenaline shot through my body like electricity, I was sure someone had just landed on my bed and I was thinking desperately how hard it would be to get to Harriet...and then it registered that my bed was shaking, it felt much like some giant person had grabbed up the posts at the foot of my bed and was rocking it around, and I heard all the glass clinking and then I relaxed and thought, Oh. Earthquake.
So, after my initial terror had subsided, I tried to go back to sleep, but of course I couldn't, being shoved around as I was. And then my response turned to annoyance. I was annoyed with the earthquake. I was trying to sleep, for crying out loud. And here it was 5:30 in the morning and I had to get up soon! BLAST you, earthquake!
Needless to say I am quite tired today, having turned in rather later than usual last night for no discernable reason. I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife and didn't feel like putting it down.
[Side note: This spell check doesn't recognize "discernable"; it wants me to spell it "discernible." Fortunately, thanks to online dictionaries -- because I was very disturbed by this; "discernible" didn't LOOK right -- I discovered that my way is also correct. Maybe it's British? This is what comes of reading so many British novels as a child. I learned to spell and write well by reading. You are what you eat. Also my vocabulary is rather better than spell check's, again because I read and it doesn't.]
In celebration of spring I decided to dress up for work today -- flirty, flouncy brown skirt, matching brown-lace-edged brown camisole, lightweight burnt orange shrug (that ties just under the chest -- very cute, very slimming), strappy hemp sandals, big bronze bangly jewelry, makeup.
So of course I was asked out by yet another man old enough to be my father.
This gentleman, though, I actually like -- I won't go out with him, but he's harmless and sweet and has lived something of a rough life and seems to be mellow and tired and worn down by his years. He reminds me of Smoky Lonesome from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe -- quiet and hard-luck and devoted. So I tried to let him down gently. I know, I know, guys need straightforward direct answers or they'll be encouraged, but I couldn't be mean to him. He's kind of frail in spirit, a little broken (though still a man -- he did ask, after all). So I finagled my way out of it, hopefully without hurting his feelings.
Auuggggh. I need to get out more, be seen more. These older men (and when I say older, I do mean old enough to be my father -- in their fifties or higher -- which isn't old when I think about old, but it's old when I'm considering match qualities) seem to appreciate a little more what they see -- a fresh, pretty young woman who will keep a fine home. The men my age tend to be busy with other concerns...and, again, I don't get out much, and I've just dated the wrong guys, the kind that I generalize about and piss off decent men. So -- sorry, decent men; my stereotypes stem from my consistent disappointment in the dating arena. I haven't met you yet, or I already know you but you don't live here.
Sometimes this Old Man Fan Club discourages me -- I really hate hurting people's feelings, and I know how hard it is for most guys to approach a girl, and my gosh, can't I attract someone who didn't graduate high school the year I learned to walk? -- but sometimes it's encouraging too. Like the proprietor of the inn we stayed at in the Caymans for my sister's wedding. He was married, French, courtly, but very very taken with me, gave my father lavish compliments about me, and toward the end of the evening (it was one of those dinners available to all the inn guests, to enjoy good food outside on a tropical beach night and socialize, and so he was of course the host) he bowed to me and said to my dad, "Your other daughter, I know she is getting married. But my money is on this one."
I repeat that to myself, like a mantra, from time to time.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
is he yours?
I'm tutoring this kid who lives in the dingy apartment next to the office with his mother and her live-in boyfriend and his younger half-sister. I volunteered to tutor him because he's one of those mischief-oriented kids that still seems to have a good heart, and he gets woefully neglected, emotionally, by his "parents."
It's a challenge in many ways -- J. seems, subconsciously, to have already made up his mind that he's not good in school, and that his life is the way it is and that's how it always will be. He doesn't seem to realize that education is his ticket out. He's getting Ds and Fs in most of his subjects, but he doesn't bring his textbooks with him (from the way he talks, it sounds like they have to stay at school, which I think is weird). I'm not used to kids this young (he's fourteen) being completely internally motivated -- usually adult/mentor/teacher approval still gets kids going at that age. It's saddening.
I don't think he always tells the truth, but usually it's so that he doesn't show himself in such a bad light. I mean, the kid honestly breaks my heart, especially because there's nothing really I can do about it but be there and be firm.
It's the being firm that's the biggest challenge. He's spent the last few weeks trying to rearrange the schedule, and I've had to force myself not to yield, because I know that if I do, he'll take advantage. It means he gets a lot less tutoring time than he needs, but I remind myself that these are his choices and I'm not actually responsible for bringing his grades up and getting him to like school -- not least because I'm not getting paid. It's taking him awhile to realize that last-minute requests won't get him anywhere -- at first he would ask if we could spend our tutoring sessions on different days of the week, and I told him that unless he gave me a lot of time, I couldn't; and then when he tried again I finally decided that I can't rearrange my schedule at all. It's one of those basic responsibility things. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's that or nothing.
Tonight's was funny -- I've told him in the past that I get off work at 5:30, and so he usually doesn't come for his tutoring until sometime after 6:00. I wait. Then today he came in at 5:10 and asked if we could tutor early because he had to leave at 5:30. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or throw something. I told him that I don't get off work until 5:30; that's my job, my boss was still working with a client and I had things to finish up. I told him I'd check with my boss (I tutor him in the office -- the front one, with lots of windows), but I didn't end up interrupting him about it; instead I got a little irritated that this poor kid expects me to cater to his schedule. Sorry, I'm a grown-up. I call the shots.
He kept coming and going for a little while, and then was waiting for a blank CD I'd told him he could have, taking up space in the entryway looking pathetic when our last client came up to the front office to pay. I asked J. if he could come back in a couple of minutes -- I have developed that reticence about talking finances in front of kids that I found strange when I was a kid -- and he pouted and left with the exaggerated slouch of the disappointed child. The client, while fishing around for her wallet, asked me, "Is he yours?"
I must have had a sort of stunned look on my face, because she faltered and said quickly, "Your brother? A friend?"
I explained the situation, we left on good terms.
Now granted, J. looks much younger than fourteen, but even so I don't think I look old enough to be his mother...although in tiny backwater towns, that's probably the norm, women my age having ten-year-olds. Plus with the way I nudge him around, trying to teach him some of the manners his own mother has neglected to instill, I suppose we interact a little that way. And I've been told plenty of times that I'm rather maternal with children (I love kids. To pieces. Even the problem ones).
Still...it was odd. Having committed to chastity from a very young age and stuck to it, I still think of myself in terms of "not old enough" to have kids. Well, more and more as the time goes by it's getting to be, "but I want one," rather like you say, "I want a pony," when you're six. But still. I'm far from motherhood and I know it.
Nice to have a stranger think I'm capable of it, though, when it comes down to it.
It's a challenge in many ways -- J. seems, subconsciously, to have already made up his mind that he's not good in school, and that his life is the way it is and that's how it always will be. He doesn't seem to realize that education is his ticket out. He's getting Ds and Fs in most of his subjects, but he doesn't bring his textbooks with him (from the way he talks, it sounds like they have to stay at school, which I think is weird). I'm not used to kids this young (he's fourteen) being completely internally motivated -- usually adult/mentor/teacher approval still gets kids going at that age. It's saddening.
I don't think he always tells the truth, but usually it's so that he doesn't show himself in such a bad light. I mean, the kid honestly breaks my heart, especially because there's nothing really I can do about it but be there and be firm.
It's the being firm that's the biggest challenge. He's spent the last few weeks trying to rearrange the schedule, and I've had to force myself not to yield, because I know that if I do, he'll take advantage. It means he gets a lot less tutoring time than he needs, but I remind myself that these are his choices and I'm not actually responsible for bringing his grades up and getting him to like school -- not least because I'm not getting paid. It's taking him awhile to realize that last-minute requests won't get him anywhere -- at first he would ask if we could spend our tutoring sessions on different days of the week, and I told him that unless he gave me a lot of time, I couldn't; and then when he tried again I finally decided that I can't rearrange my schedule at all. It's one of those basic responsibility things. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's that or nothing.
Tonight's was funny -- I've told him in the past that I get off work at 5:30, and so he usually doesn't come for his tutoring until sometime after 6:00. I wait. Then today he came in at 5:10 and asked if we could tutor early because he had to leave at 5:30. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or throw something. I told him that I don't get off work until 5:30; that's my job, my boss was still working with a client and I had things to finish up. I told him I'd check with my boss (I tutor him in the office -- the front one, with lots of windows), but I didn't end up interrupting him about it; instead I got a little irritated that this poor kid expects me to cater to his schedule. Sorry, I'm a grown-up. I call the shots.
He kept coming and going for a little while, and then was waiting for a blank CD I'd told him he could have, taking up space in the entryway looking pathetic when our last client came up to the front office to pay. I asked J. if he could come back in a couple of minutes -- I have developed that reticence about talking finances in front of kids that I found strange when I was a kid -- and he pouted and left with the exaggerated slouch of the disappointed child. The client, while fishing around for her wallet, asked me, "Is he yours?"
I must have had a sort of stunned look on my face, because she faltered and said quickly, "Your brother? A friend?"
I explained the situation, we left on good terms.
Now granted, J. looks much younger than fourteen, but even so I don't think I look old enough to be his mother...although in tiny backwater towns, that's probably the norm, women my age having ten-year-olds. Plus with the way I nudge him around, trying to teach him some of the manners his own mother has neglected to instill, I suppose we interact a little that way. And I've been told plenty of times that I'm rather maternal with children (I love kids. To pieces. Even the problem ones).
Still...it was odd. Having committed to chastity from a very young age and stuck to it, I still think of myself in terms of "not old enough" to have kids. Well, more and more as the time goes by it's getting to be, "but I want one," rather like you say, "I want a pony," when you're six. But still. I'm far from motherhood and I know it.
Nice to have a stranger think I'm capable of it, though, when it comes down to it.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
i believe you have my stapler
The stapler in the front office should have joined the Army. From there, it would have been a shoe-in for the Special Forces.
It's invisible.
The consarned thing in real life is the color of oatmeal. This is The Perfect Camo. All of the flat surfaces in the office are either brown or the same bland beige, and it blends right in wherever it sits. I can't count the number of times I have almost pulled my hair out looking for it when it's sitting quietly right in front of my line of vision. And I never see it.
Think about it. Stapler as assassin. There's a future in this, I'm sure.
I just looked around to prove my point, and had to sweep the same area three times before I saw it. Right next to my elbow.
I'm going to hunt up some red electrical tape and give it a bandanna.
Next in Tales from the Quipped: The Story of the Copier from Hell.
It's invisible.
The consarned thing in real life is the color of oatmeal. This is The Perfect Camo. All of the flat surfaces in the office are either brown or the same bland beige, and it blends right in wherever it sits. I can't count the number of times I have almost pulled my hair out looking for it when it's sitting quietly right in front of my line of vision. And I never see it.
Think about it. Stapler as assassin. There's a future in this, I'm sure.
I just looked around to prove my point, and had to sweep the same area three times before I saw it. Right next to my elbow.
I'm going to hunt up some red electrical tape and give it a bandanna.
Next in Tales from the Quipped: The Story of the Copier from Hell.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
thinking
and thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
Although the time for thinking, alone, is just about over. The time for action has arrived.
I'm very much torn between two polar options. First and foremost, though, comes the necessity of getting this stuff figured out. This means therapy, whatever the cost. This also means a trip to a certain kind of doctor, to see about getting my hormones straightened out. My feminine cycle takes me all over the place, usually nowhere good, like maybe a trip to Mordor or a date with Dante touring the Inferno. What a vacation. Time to get this over.
I think I'll put off big decisions until some of that gets settled.
Meanwhile, I have to relearn fun stuff. Finally the weather is getting nicer, which means walks and more time outdoors and vitamin D and all that wonderfulness.
And I have to figure out something with my moldy little hole of a house. It was a good sort of lifeboat considering where I was jumping from, but it's a bit on the rickety, better-off-razed-to-the-ground side, so...I'll try to hang in there till October, when my lease runs out, and then move somewhere new. Again. Goody.
If you're a new reader, you've caught me at an interesting point in life. Sorry.
Things will start swinging upward soon.
Although the time for thinking, alone, is just about over. The time for action has arrived.
I'm very much torn between two polar options. First and foremost, though, comes the necessity of getting this stuff figured out. This means therapy, whatever the cost. This also means a trip to a certain kind of doctor, to see about getting my hormones straightened out. My feminine cycle takes me all over the place, usually nowhere good, like maybe a trip to Mordor or a date with Dante touring the Inferno. What a vacation. Time to get this over.
I think I'll put off big decisions until some of that gets settled.
Meanwhile, I have to relearn fun stuff. Finally the weather is getting nicer, which means walks and more time outdoors and vitamin D and all that wonderfulness.
And I have to figure out something with my moldy little hole of a house. It was a good sort of lifeboat considering where I was jumping from, but it's a bit on the rickety, better-off-razed-to-the-ground side, so...I'll try to hang in there till October, when my lease runs out, and then move somewhere new. Again. Goody.
If you're a new reader, you've caught me at an interesting point in life. Sorry.
Things will start swinging upward soon.
Monday, April 14, 2008
the weight
It's like living in a pressure chamber.
Everything tries to hold you in one place. Compressed, you exert Herculean efforts just to accomplish what a normal person wouldn't think about. Going to the kitchen for a glass of water eventually seems too hard; you sit in your chair, thirsty, but you don't care enough to slake it. No matter where you are, what you do, what you think about, you feel it. The weight. The pressure drags down at your mind and your body, until the best and only escape is a yielding. The one thing you can do well is to sleep. But you never feel rested.
There's no pride in fighting it. You wake up tired, you fight it tired, you surrender to it tired. Even if you work up a momentary flare of anger, a small scorched free-breathing space in which to get something simple, like dishes, done, it collapses on itself in a little while and you survey the results of your effort dully. It doesn't matter. You might hate it, you might hate yourself for suffering it, you're always acutely aware of the abnormality of what you're going through, that other people aren't like this, but you don't see a way to fix it and you barely care. You mind, horribly, but you don't care. And underneath it all is a deep, strangling, inarticulable fear -- fear of people, fear of yourself, fear of the void, fear that there's no out -- and sometimes it makes you restless, irritable; but there's no getting out from under the weight.
Time works differently for the person suffering from depression. A minute is an hour, an hour is a day, a day is a year. You live in a suspension, and the solvent is nothing, and eats you down in a haze of dull pain. Every single endless moment is exactly the same as the one before it, and will be exactly the same as the one that follows. Hope is something for other people. Emotion is something for other people. In here, in your glass tube, you live with the nothingness. That's all there is. The bad part is that you didn't choose it. The worst part is that your choice to make it better won't make any difference.
It's called a psychological disorder, depression. We're fortunate to live in times when we're no longer quite labeled crazy for suffering it. You don't feel crazy, of course; I guess psychologically disordered people seldom feel crazy. But you do feel abnormal. Subnormal. Something is wrong, and you know it, and you don't know what to do about it, and you don't really care.
I've read what other people, more scientific people, have to say about depression, and it's very informative stuff. These articles tick off all the symptoms -- including a few I didn't know about -- and list causes and treatments and perpendicular problems that often lead to, or are led by, the disorder. Interesting, of course. But they don't capture, in any way, how it feels.
It's a debilitating condition. Even when you know that all the things you're thinking and feeling -- about your hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, indifference, insignificance -- are absolutely untrue, it doesn't matter. You don't care because it doesn't matter. You don't want to be alone, you hate being alone, aloneness is frightening, everything you want is symbolized in an embracing pair of arms -- but you don't want to talk to anyone. You seclude yourself because rousing yourself enough even to push the "send" button on the cell phone is too much effort, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth when people ask you how you are -- how do you tell them? there aren't any words -- and you don't want people seeing you this way: You're proud, and terrified, and deeply ashamed, and they can't help, and nothing matters. And the danger with that is that you start to behave purposefully in ways that are self-harmful, because none of it matters anyway, so why not? It might at least let you feel alive for a little while, put the pain somewhere other than where it lives in your head.
This is why depression coincides so much with alcoholism, drug use, self-mutilation, suicide. All those things are bad, but they could possibly bring a temporary relief. A lightening of the pressure. A lifting of the load. I don't know this from personal experience, really, but I can understand the mentality behind it. Even suicide, the final act of despair, is (don't worry, I'm not suicidal) a kind of victory, because you did something, when one of the hallmarks of depression is the inability to do anything at all. It's the wrong thing, but it's something, and it might seem better than living with nothing.
That's not how I feel. I want to live. I'm sick of living my life this way. I'm sick of the dullness, the emptiness, the unending void, the tired listless pain, the isolation, the seclusion, the yawning eternity of every passing moment. I don't care that it's genetic. I don't care that it's the dark side of giftedness. I don't care that all the odds are stacked impressively against me, I'm sick of being this way, I miss that simple joy of living I used to have.
Yesterday's Gospel reading centered around the first part of John 10. Thank God for the Easter Season, when all the Gospel readings come from John, because I love John, and verse 10 in particular caught at me -- slammed me, really, but I've been numb for awhile and only felt it as a kind of aftershock: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
Reading that, I saw the page get all blurry. I haven't had a more abundant life in a long time. I've had an empty, flat, stale half-life. And that's not what God has intended me to live.
So I started thinking about it, only half-listening to the homily. I thought about one of the best verses in Scripture to describe the effects of depression: "All your waves and breakers have swept over me" (Psalm 42:7b). I thought about life to the full. I thought about Luke 9:23: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." I wondered, on a sort of wandering thread of thought, if my cross is depression, at least for the moment. It's heavy enough. I thought about "daily." I thought about Christ falling to the ground under the weight of his cross. I thought about heaving my bone-crushing load to my shoulder every day, denying its power over me, denying its intertwination with the core of my self, denying the force of its inertia, and dragging it after Christ.
I thought about a different kind of surrender, a different kind of fighting. I thought about a lighter burden. I thought about living, and hope, and promises made by a God who cannot break them. I thought about a shepherd calling his sheep. I thought about green pastures and still waters and my soul's restoration. I thought about goodness and mercy following me as I follow the shepherd. I thought about being hemmed in, behind and before, and the freedom that comes from that security, that inescapability. I thought about breathing without effort, I thought about seeing in color again, I thought about joy.
The destroyer has had his fingers at my throat for too long. I've often thought that what we term mental illness or psychological disorder back in Christ's day was affliction by personal intelligences of evil. And Christ drove them out. With astonishing authority. I could cry, sometimes, wishing it were possible to catch at the hem of his robe and be freed from all this, wishing it were possible to hang onto his ankles and beg him for mercy, wishing it were possible to feel him stoop and lay a hand on my head. (And surely I am with you always...) And still the promises are true.
I can bear a lot. I've born this for many years, this internal bleeding of the soul, this crippling emptiness. I've fought it off with laughter, with anger, with companionship, with sheer gut force. Now, though, those tactics don't suffice. My own devices have failed, and I've come to the end of my strength. It's good, I think, that I have; it forces me to lift up mine eyes, and see from whence cometh my help -- my stronghold, my rock and my deliverer, mounted on the cherubim, surging on the wings of the storm breaking over the hills, angry on my behalf, coming for me.
It forces me to community, too. I hate needing people. I hate feeling whiny and dependent. But sometimes I am; sometimes we all are. And that's what people are for. Interdependence. The body of Christ, in its various and surprising forms.
I really hope this doesn't sound like the wandering mind of a crazy person. I'm very much afraid it does. But it's the first breath of hope I've felt in well over six months, and fresh air after being cooped indoors for a long period of time does make one a little giddy.
I'm still tired. I'm still in the pressure chamber. But I know someone has the keys, and I know one of these days I'll be let out. In the meantime, there's the heaving, the carrying of the cross. There's the following. There's the glory of the struggle. There's the shepherd.
There's hope.
Everything tries to hold you in one place. Compressed, you exert Herculean efforts just to accomplish what a normal person wouldn't think about. Going to the kitchen for a glass of water eventually seems too hard; you sit in your chair, thirsty, but you don't care enough to slake it. No matter where you are, what you do, what you think about, you feel it. The weight. The pressure drags down at your mind and your body, until the best and only escape is a yielding. The one thing you can do well is to sleep. But you never feel rested.
There's no pride in fighting it. You wake up tired, you fight it tired, you surrender to it tired. Even if you work up a momentary flare of anger, a small scorched free-breathing space in which to get something simple, like dishes, done, it collapses on itself in a little while and you survey the results of your effort dully. It doesn't matter. You might hate it, you might hate yourself for suffering it, you're always acutely aware of the abnormality of what you're going through, that other people aren't like this, but you don't see a way to fix it and you barely care. You mind, horribly, but you don't care. And underneath it all is a deep, strangling, inarticulable fear -- fear of people, fear of yourself, fear of the void, fear that there's no out -- and sometimes it makes you restless, irritable; but there's no getting out from under the weight.
Time works differently for the person suffering from depression. A minute is an hour, an hour is a day, a day is a year. You live in a suspension, and the solvent is nothing, and eats you down in a haze of dull pain. Every single endless moment is exactly the same as the one before it, and will be exactly the same as the one that follows. Hope is something for other people. Emotion is something for other people. In here, in your glass tube, you live with the nothingness. That's all there is. The bad part is that you didn't choose it. The worst part is that your choice to make it better won't make any difference.
It's called a psychological disorder, depression. We're fortunate to live in times when we're no longer quite labeled crazy for suffering it. You don't feel crazy, of course; I guess psychologically disordered people seldom feel crazy. But you do feel abnormal. Subnormal. Something is wrong, and you know it, and you don't know what to do about it, and you don't really care.
I've read what other people, more scientific people, have to say about depression, and it's very informative stuff. These articles tick off all the symptoms -- including a few I didn't know about -- and list causes and treatments and perpendicular problems that often lead to, or are led by, the disorder. Interesting, of course. But they don't capture, in any way, how it feels.
It's a debilitating condition. Even when you know that all the things you're thinking and feeling -- about your hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, indifference, insignificance -- are absolutely untrue, it doesn't matter. You don't care because it doesn't matter. You don't want to be alone, you hate being alone, aloneness is frightening, everything you want is symbolized in an embracing pair of arms -- but you don't want to talk to anyone. You seclude yourself because rousing yourself enough even to push the "send" button on the cell phone is too much effort, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth when people ask you how you are -- how do you tell them? there aren't any words -- and you don't want people seeing you this way: You're proud, and terrified, and deeply ashamed, and they can't help, and nothing matters. And the danger with that is that you start to behave purposefully in ways that are self-harmful, because none of it matters anyway, so why not? It might at least let you feel alive for a little while, put the pain somewhere other than where it lives in your head.
This is why depression coincides so much with alcoholism, drug use, self-mutilation, suicide. All those things are bad, but they could possibly bring a temporary relief. A lightening of the pressure. A lifting of the load. I don't know this from personal experience, really, but I can understand the mentality behind it. Even suicide, the final act of despair, is (don't worry, I'm not suicidal) a kind of victory, because you did something, when one of the hallmarks of depression is the inability to do anything at all. It's the wrong thing, but it's something, and it might seem better than living with nothing.
That's not how I feel. I want to live. I'm sick of living my life this way. I'm sick of the dullness, the emptiness, the unending void, the tired listless pain, the isolation, the seclusion, the yawning eternity of every passing moment. I don't care that it's genetic. I don't care that it's the dark side of giftedness. I don't care that all the odds are stacked impressively against me, I'm sick of being this way, I miss that simple joy of living I used to have.
Yesterday's Gospel reading centered around the first part of John 10. Thank God for the Easter Season, when all the Gospel readings come from John, because I love John, and verse 10 in particular caught at me -- slammed me, really, but I've been numb for awhile and only felt it as a kind of aftershock: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
Reading that, I saw the page get all blurry. I haven't had a more abundant life in a long time. I've had an empty, flat, stale half-life. And that's not what God has intended me to live.
So I started thinking about it, only half-listening to the homily. I thought about one of the best verses in Scripture to describe the effects of depression: "All your waves and breakers have swept over me" (Psalm 42:7b). I thought about life to the full. I thought about Luke 9:23: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." I wondered, on a sort of wandering thread of thought, if my cross is depression, at least for the moment. It's heavy enough. I thought about "daily." I thought about Christ falling to the ground under the weight of his cross. I thought about heaving my bone-crushing load to my shoulder every day, denying its power over me, denying its intertwination with the core of my self, denying the force of its inertia, and dragging it after Christ.
I thought about a different kind of surrender, a different kind of fighting. I thought about a lighter burden. I thought about living, and hope, and promises made by a God who cannot break them. I thought about a shepherd calling his sheep. I thought about green pastures and still waters and my soul's restoration. I thought about goodness and mercy following me as I follow the shepherd. I thought about being hemmed in, behind and before, and the freedom that comes from that security, that inescapability. I thought about breathing without effort, I thought about seeing in color again, I thought about joy.
The destroyer has had his fingers at my throat for too long. I've often thought that what we term mental illness or psychological disorder back in Christ's day was affliction by personal intelligences of evil. And Christ drove them out. With astonishing authority. I could cry, sometimes, wishing it were possible to catch at the hem of his robe and be freed from all this, wishing it were possible to hang onto his ankles and beg him for mercy, wishing it were possible to feel him stoop and lay a hand on my head. (And surely I am with you always...) And still the promises are true.
I can bear a lot. I've born this for many years, this internal bleeding of the soul, this crippling emptiness. I've fought it off with laughter, with anger, with companionship, with sheer gut force. Now, though, those tactics don't suffice. My own devices have failed, and I've come to the end of my strength. It's good, I think, that I have; it forces me to lift up mine eyes, and see from whence cometh my help -- my stronghold, my rock and my deliverer, mounted on the cherubim, surging on the wings of the storm breaking over the hills, angry on my behalf, coming for me.
It forces me to community, too. I hate needing people. I hate feeling whiny and dependent. But sometimes I am; sometimes we all are. And that's what people are for. Interdependence. The body of Christ, in its various and surprising forms.
I really hope this doesn't sound like the wandering mind of a crazy person. I'm very much afraid it does. But it's the first breath of hope I've felt in well over six months, and fresh air after being cooped indoors for a long period of time does make one a little giddy.
I'm still tired. I'm still in the pressure chamber. But I know someone has the keys, and I know one of these days I'll be let out. In the meantime, there's the heaving, the carrying of the cross. There's the following. There's the glory of the struggle. There's the shepherd.
There's hope.
Friday, April 11, 2008
semi-delicate matters
Right, so as a female I go through That Female Thing once a month. Men, this is the subject of this post. If you don't care to read further, don't. If you do...well, I warned you.
It's not all that gross, really, what I'm going to talk about. It's just that with each peak of the cycle, I've been suffering, these past few months, horribly intense pain. And it's getting worse.
Yesterday I took about 1200 mg of Ibuprofen just to make a dent in the Wall of Horrendous Pain. At once. More as the day went on. But a person's stomach can only handle so much of the stuff before it starts to complain too, and then what do you do?
I'm a little worried that Something is Wrong. A doctor's visit is in order. At least maybe as far as pain is concerned, he can prescribe something a little better. I've lain awake a significant part of the night these last two nights, almost immobilized and breathless, and today I feel tired and sore. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to stand up. It hurts to walk. It hurts to stay still.
I love being a woman. But this part of it is the pits. And it's making me crankier than a bear just out of hibernation who finds that the salmon aren't breeding. Garrrrr. Of course, that's when I'm not sitting around staring blankly at nothing like the same bear who's been shot with the biggest whopping tranquilizer gun in Alaska and it hurts a lot but he can't really move.
It's not all that gross, really, what I'm going to talk about. It's just that with each peak of the cycle, I've been suffering, these past few months, horribly intense pain. And it's getting worse.
Yesterday I took about 1200 mg of Ibuprofen just to make a dent in the Wall of Horrendous Pain. At once. More as the day went on. But a person's stomach can only handle so much of the stuff before it starts to complain too, and then what do you do?
I'm a little worried that Something is Wrong. A doctor's visit is in order. At least maybe as far as pain is concerned, he can prescribe something a little better. I've lain awake a significant part of the night these last two nights, almost immobilized and breathless, and today I feel tired and sore. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to stand up. It hurts to walk. It hurts to stay still.
I love being a woman. But this part of it is the pits. And it's making me crankier than a bear just out of hibernation who finds that the salmon aren't breeding. Garrrrr. Of course, that's when I'm not sitting around staring blankly at nothing like the same bear who's been shot with the biggest whopping tranquilizer gun in Alaska and it hurts a lot but he can't really move.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
so help me...um, what?
People are funny. People are strange.
The unrepresented opposing party in one of our cases was supposed to look over a copy of a document we had prepared. This person was then supposed to come into the office to sign it if the document was acceptable.
Instead, they added an absurd clause to the copy, which they then proceeded to sign and notarize.
Our client brought in the delightful copy, which I looked over.
"Oh, this clause won't work," I said. "I'll have the Boss take a look at it when he gets back from lunch."
I then noticed that the only signatures on the notarized page were the other party's. I squinted, then grabbed the paper up and looked at it more closely.
"Wait..." I said. "Who the hell notarized this? Did they notarize themselves?"
Yes. They had. Now, I might not be a lawyer, but even I know that doesn't work. Because then the language would look something like, "I solemnly swear that all of the statements contained in this document are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me -- me."
It was a good laugh on an otherwise dreary day.
*Please note: I know that "they" and "their" and "them" are grammatically incorrect when referring to one person. I know, further, that in English the gender-neutral pronoun is "he," with the variants "his" and "him." However, I must always protect client privacy, and using "they," "their," and "them" allows me the freedom to tell the occasional story without giving away any aspect of any client's identity. So, in this regard of grammaticality, I plead the Colloquial.
The unrepresented opposing party in one of our cases was supposed to look over a copy of a document we had prepared. This person was then supposed to come into the office to sign it if the document was acceptable.
Instead, they added an absurd clause to the copy, which they then proceeded to sign and notarize.
Our client brought in the delightful copy, which I looked over.
"Oh, this clause won't work," I said. "I'll have the Boss take a look at it when he gets back from lunch."
I then noticed that the only signatures on the notarized page were the other party's. I squinted, then grabbed the paper up and looked at it more closely.
"Wait..." I said. "Who the hell notarized this? Did they notarize themselves?"
Yes. They had. Now, I might not be a lawyer, but even I know that doesn't work. Because then the language would look something like, "I solemnly swear that all of the statements contained in this document are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me -- me."
It was a good laugh on an otherwise dreary day.
*Please note: I know that "they" and "their" and "them" are grammatically incorrect when referring to one person. I know, further, that in English the gender-neutral pronoun is "he," with the variants "his" and "him." However, I must always protect client privacy, and using "they," "their," and "them" allows me the freedom to tell the occasional story without giving away any aspect of any client's identity. So, in this regard of grammaticality, I plead the Colloquial.
life begins again
For some inexplicable reason, I have lately felt this craving to listen to the music of my high school years. Not the music I actually listened to when I was in high school; most of that was the sort of Christian crap that was allowed in my household (with a few grudging exceptions for Steve Miller). No, the music I've been craving is the stuff I listened to voraciously on the radio in other people's cars -- Nine Days, Oasis, Savage Garden, Matchbox 20, The GooGoo Dolls, Chumbawumba, Barenaked Ladies, Train.
There's something about that 90s music. The power chords, the drums, the wacky incorporation of strings and horns and unexpected classical instruments (all synthesized, of course), the love of falsetto, the scratchy grunge voices. I love it. It brings back memories of plaid flannel and huge black sneakers. A time when it was strangely good to be young and cynical.
And I like the noise. I generally prefer the quiet, generally have no background music or television or an electronic whitewall of any kind in my environment, and when I listen to music, it tends to be quiet and melancholy. But periodically, something in my muscles wants to move. Since I hate what passes for mainstream music these days, I tend to look backward. And play it loud.
But none of that has to do with the subject of this post. The subject of this post celebrates the return of Bones this coming Monday. I haven't allowed myself to think about that show since it took its forever-long hiatus since last fall. It hurt too much -- I can't believe I'm this attached to a show, but every week Bones kind of gets me back on my feet and helps me deal with my life a little better. The relationship of joshing, support and affection between Brennan and Booth -- I guess I soak it in like I can live it vicariously. Seeing that kind of love -- the real kind, not the usual television trash -- gives me hope. All those characters have become extremely real to me. It's just good story.
So pondering the show's return to my living room this coming week gives me an internal feeling like spring (which is taking its good. old. TIME here. Mr. Cold Front? Seriously, dude. Head for the poles. You're needed there, anyway, to combat the alarming shrinkage of the ice caps. You have a JOB to do! You can make a difference -- maybe even save the world! Go save it! Stop wasting your time heckling me -- one little person. Doesn't look good on your resume. Get some ambition already).
In the meantime, there's always Simon. Who apparently can read my body language. Since the completion of my bed-spread-size knit blanket, I've had little to do with my hands while relaxing at night and have taken to the various games of solitaire I learned to pass the lazy early evenings camping as a kid. (Not hours and hours of solitaire, and I really ought to be reading something good, but I've been tired.) This requires setting up the cards on the ottoman where Simon is accustomed to sitting.
This new development confuses him. We've been having issues with him jumping up on the ottoman to see what I'm doing, and although he's surprisingly adept at not scattering the cards everywhere, he's still in the way. So I've been gently nudging him off.
Yesterday I was in the middle of a round when I saw him with my peripheral vision go into run-and-jump mode; so I held up one hand, without even looking at him, while I surveyed the cards. And he stopped. And hunkered down in the middle of the floor. And waited.
I felt badly for taking up his ottoman space, so I finished my game and collected the cards and said, "Okay, kitty, you can come up now!" while I sat back in my chair. He came running right over, jumped up, and assaulted my ears with skull-splitting purrs.
Yeah, yeah, I talk about my cat too much. It's nice to have a creature understand me that well, even if the highlight of his day is when I wake up to feed him funny-smelling pellets in the mornings.
There's something about that 90s music. The power chords, the drums, the wacky incorporation of strings and horns and unexpected classical instruments (all synthesized, of course), the love of falsetto, the scratchy grunge voices. I love it. It brings back memories of plaid flannel and huge black sneakers. A time when it was strangely good to be young and cynical.
And I like the noise. I generally prefer the quiet, generally have no background music or television or an electronic whitewall of any kind in my environment, and when I listen to music, it tends to be quiet and melancholy. But periodically, something in my muscles wants to move. Since I hate what passes for mainstream music these days, I tend to look backward. And play it loud.
But none of that has to do with the subject of this post. The subject of this post celebrates the return of Bones this coming Monday. I haven't allowed myself to think about that show since it took its forever-long hiatus since last fall. It hurt too much -- I can't believe I'm this attached to a show, but every week Bones kind of gets me back on my feet and helps me deal with my life a little better. The relationship of joshing, support and affection between Brennan and Booth -- I guess I soak it in like I can live it vicariously. Seeing that kind of love -- the real kind, not the usual television trash -- gives me hope. All those characters have become extremely real to me. It's just good story.
So pondering the show's return to my living room this coming week gives me an internal feeling like spring (which is taking its good. old. TIME here. Mr. Cold Front? Seriously, dude. Head for the poles. You're needed there, anyway, to combat the alarming shrinkage of the ice caps. You have a JOB to do! You can make a difference -- maybe even save the world! Go save it! Stop wasting your time heckling me -- one little person. Doesn't look good on your resume. Get some ambition already).
In the meantime, there's always Simon. Who apparently can read my body language. Since the completion of my bed-spread-size knit blanket, I've had little to do with my hands while relaxing at night and have taken to the various games of solitaire I learned to pass the lazy early evenings camping as a kid. (Not hours and hours of solitaire, and I really ought to be reading something good, but I've been tired.) This requires setting up the cards on the ottoman where Simon is accustomed to sitting.
This new development confuses him. We've been having issues with him jumping up on the ottoman to see what I'm doing, and although he's surprisingly adept at not scattering the cards everywhere, he's still in the way. So I've been gently nudging him off.
Yesterday I was in the middle of a round when I saw him with my peripheral vision go into run-and-jump mode; so I held up one hand, without even looking at him, while I surveyed the cards. And he stopped. And hunkered down in the middle of the floor. And waited.
I felt badly for taking up his ottoman space, so I finished my game and collected the cards and said, "Okay, kitty, you can come up now!" while I sat back in my chair. He came running right over, jumped up, and assaulted my ears with skull-splitting purrs.
Yeah, yeah, I talk about my cat too much. It's nice to have a creature understand me that well, even if the highlight of his day is when I wake up to feed him funny-smelling pellets in the mornings.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
give to Caesar...
I remember last year's taxes. A great big flopping nightmare. Naturally, I waited till the last possible, possible minute before signing up for Turbo Tax online, paid through the nose for it, and spent two blurry evenings throwing papers around until my living room looked like the site of a celebration with oversize confetti.
This year some things changed. Maybe it's that I couldn't afford Turbo Tax this year and decided I'd better get my petuti in gear if I wanted to file myself without too much freaking out. Maybe it's that I only had one W-2 to take into account, and no more Health Savings Account. Maybe it's that I decided to cut to the quick and go for the 1040EZ instead of worrying about itemizations (I never have any that are worth squat anyway).
But it was even MORE complicated than last year -- filing in two states is a PAIN -- and yet somehow it was all streamlined and not terribly difficult. First, thank God for the internet and PDF forms, instruction booklets and all. Second, thank GOD for only one W-2. (I can't stress this enough. Changing jobs makes the next year's taxes suck.) Third, thank God for a couple years in the legal field which somehow makes sorting through the vague bureaucratic language a little easier. Finally, thank God for my mother who listened to my questions on the phone and helped double-check my math.
So I will probably, shockingly, be filing before the deadline. Woo-whee! All I have to do is get a couple of money orders together (ickgh. I hate owing. But I rest assured that in a month or so I'll be getting $600.00 for my efforts, so that's cool) and I'm ready to go.
I like doing things myself when I can, and I suppose in some ways I'm lucky to be making a small single person's income -- the paper trail (paper forest, rather) isn't all that dense.
I must confess I'll miss Indiana's Renter's Deduction. That was always a nice little thing to look forward to claiming.
This year some things changed. Maybe it's that I couldn't afford Turbo Tax this year and decided I'd better get my petuti in gear if I wanted to file myself without too much freaking out. Maybe it's that I only had one W-2 to take into account, and no more Health Savings Account. Maybe it's that I decided to cut to the quick and go for the 1040EZ instead of worrying about itemizations (I never have any that are worth squat anyway).
But it was even MORE complicated than last year -- filing in two states is a PAIN -- and yet somehow it was all streamlined and not terribly difficult. First, thank God for the internet and PDF forms, instruction booklets and all. Second, thank GOD for only one W-2. (I can't stress this enough. Changing jobs makes the next year's taxes suck.) Third, thank God for a couple years in the legal field which somehow makes sorting through the vague bureaucratic language a little easier. Finally, thank God for my mother who listened to my questions on the phone and helped double-check my math.
So I will probably, shockingly, be filing before the deadline. Woo-whee! All I have to do is get a couple of money orders together (ickgh. I hate owing. But I rest assured that in a month or so I'll be getting $600.00 for my efforts, so that's cool) and I'm ready to go.
I like doing things myself when I can, and I suppose in some ways I'm lucky to be making a small single person's income -- the paper trail (paper forest, rather) isn't all that dense.
I must confess I'll miss Indiana's Renter's Deduction. That was always a nice little thing to look forward to claiming.
Monday, April 07, 2008
developments / you knew it was coming...
It's finally here. After months and months of waiting, for what felt internally like years, I can see it beginning. It's everywhere, not quite as subtle, no longer like sorting through a vat of pennies looking for a nickel.
Spring.
Ahhh. This weekend it was warm enough outside to have my coffee, breakfast and journaling sessions on the porch. And sunny. Sunny. Amazing.
Weekend updates:
1. Annie and Harriet
I spent Saturday afternoon playing with my new toy. I did try it at first with the wooden grips it came with (see the picture), but after a few rounds with the .38s it went back into the case and the rubbers went on instead, so now my baby looks more like this. (I just liked the first picture because the blanket they're using for the background totally matches one of the blankets on my bed. Just like home.) If you're interested in a little more info on this model revolver, look here. It's a pretty cool thing.
Of course, the one I learned on, which belongs to my mentor, was a dream to shoot. Perfection. A courteous gun. Mine, being that she's mine, was stubborn and cantankerous at first. Plus I was eight months out of practice with handguns (rifles notwithstanding) and had to get back into the groove, and we had to keep adjusting the sights to fit my eyes. But I did shoot one round where six of the eight shots went through the red. (THAT's my Harriet.)
Naturally I prefer to use the .357s. They have this delightful kick. But they're a little harder to manage with accuracy, and the larger caliber behaves differently with the sights. So...I anticipate lots of practice. (Great big yay.) And I can't stress how WONDERFUL it was to soak in some sun.
2. The Grillmaster's Daughter
My fabulous and amazing parents brought me a housewarming present last weekend: a grill. A nice little portable propane grill that sits easily on the porch.
In my three and a half years of living solo, I've never had a grill. This has chafed in unconscious ways particularly in summertime, when it's too hot to really cook something in the kitchen, and the only thing you want is a hamburger. And they just aren't the same broiled in the oven. Plus many of my cookbooks, particularly my Vietnamese and Thai cookbooks (which rank among my top favorites), have drool-inducing recipes that only work with a grill. I've been staring longingly at the pictures for the past two years, dreaming of the day when I can finally...
And now I can.
Last night's first independent grilling experiment, however, was steak. Thanks to Mom's creative insistence, I have rediscovered Aldi (and I don't have to drive to the suburban strip-mall wasteland of Mishawaka to get there), and they carry individually vacuum-sealed not-too-shabby frozen steaks, some of which I bought last week. I took a four-hour nap yesterday and woke up exceedingly hungry, but without the energy to whip up something elaborate, and I thought, like a little cash register noise in my head, ching: Grill.
While I waited for the grill to reach temperature, I thawed out one of the steaks and narrowed my eyes at my spice racks. I remembered one particularly fabulous meal of steaks prepared by my mother and grilled by my father, and remembered that Mom's simple spice rub was the key to the heavenly flavor. I sprinkled, generously, her recommended seasoned salt and black pepper, and then added a large amount of garlic powder and a few dashes of ground red pepper. I rubbed them into the meat until it formed a thick surface paste with the juices, and threw it on the grill.
Oh MAN. It was incredible. I pulled it off just when the flavor was sealed in, but the inside was still red and tender (I like RARE steaks, the kind they warn you about on restaurant menus, still mooing, as Mom says. I would not stick well by a Kosher diet in that regard). I ate every bite going MMMmmmm. A simple side salad and a slice of homemade bread and I had a lovely meal.
Now I'm going to play around with the grilling a bit more, so I'm anticipating some fun tonight. It's another warm sunny day, and the evenings are lasting longer, and there's just Something About the Outdoors in weather like this. And something about that fantastic grilling meat aroma. (Didn't God talk about the delectable smell of burnt offerings somewhere in the Old Testament?)
3. You Knew it was Coming
It's spring. Really spring. Things are not quite green out, but they're going to be soon. In another week this will be obsolete (Midwestern springs are fast), so, as I do every year (well, maybe not, I can't find it in last year's archives and I'm appalled at myself, I mean, this is a tradition, maybe I quoted it to someone instead), I'm getting it in now. (P.S. scrolling through my archives is weird. So much of this stuff seems to have happened both yesterday and ten years ago.)
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast--a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines--
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches--
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind--
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined--
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance--Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
~William Carlos Williams
Spring.
Ahhh. This weekend it was warm enough outside to have my coffee, breakfast and journaling sessions on the porch. And sunny. Sunny. Amazing.
Weekend updates:
1. Annie and Harriet
I spent Saturday afternoon playing with my new toy. I did try it at first with the wooden grips it came with (see the picture), but after a few rounds with the .38s it went back into the case and the rubbers went on instead, so now my baby looks more like this. (I just liked the first picture because the blanket they're using for the background totally matches one of the blankets on my bed. Just like home.) If you're interested in a little more info on this model revolver, look here. It's a pretty cool thing.
Of course, the one I learned on, which belongs to my mentor, was a dream to shoot. Perfection. A courteous gun. Mine, being that she's mine, was stubborn and cantankerous at first. Plus I was eight months out of practice with handguns (rifles notwithstanding) and had to get back into the groove, and we had to keep adjusting the sights to fit my eyes. But I did shoot one round where six of the eight shots went through the red. (THAT's my Harriet.)
Naturally I prefer to use the .357s. They have this delightful kick. But they're a little harder to manage with accuracy, and the larger caliber behaves differently with the sights. So...I anticipate lots of practice. (Great big yay.) And I can't stress how WONDERFUL it was to soak in some sun.
2. The Grillmaster's Daughter
My fabulous and amazing parents brought me a housewarming present last weekend: a grill. A nice little portable propane grill that sits easily on the porch.
In my three and a half years of living solo, I've never had a grill. This has chafed in unconscious ways particularly in summertime, when it's too hot to really cook something in the kitchen, and the only thing you want is a hamburger. And they just aren't the same broiled in the oven. Plus many of my cookbooks, particularly my Vietnamese and Thai cookbooks (which rank among my top favorites), have drool-inducing recipes that only work with a grill. I've been staring longingly at the pictures for the past two years, dreaming of the day when I can finally...
And now I can.
Last night's first independent grilling experiment, however, was steak. Thanks to Mom's creative insistence, I have rediscovered Aldi (and I don't have to drive to the suburban strip-mall wasteland of Mishawaka to get there), and they carry individually vacuum-sealed not-too-shabby frozen steaks, some of which I bought last week. I took a four-hour nap yesterday and woke up exceedingly hungry, but without the energy to whip up something elaborate, and I thought, like a little cash register noise in my head, ching: Grill.
While I waited for the grill to reach temperature, I thawed out one of the steaks and narrowed my eyes at my spice racks. I remembered one particularly fabulous meal of steaks prepared by my mother and grilled by my father, and remembered that Mom's simple spice rub was the key to the heavenly flavor. I sprinkled, generously, her recommended seasoned salt and black pepper, and then added a large amount of garlic powder and a few dashes of ground red pepper. I rubbed them into the meat until it formed a thick surface paste with the juices, and threw it on the grill.
Oh MAN. It was incredible. I pulled it off just when the flavor was sealed in, but the inside was still red and tender (I like RARE steaks, the kind they warn you about on restaurant menus, still mooing, as Mom says. I would not stick well by a Kosher diet in that regard). I ate every bite going MMMmmmm. A simple side salad and a slice of homemade bread and I had a lovely meal.
Now I'm going to play around with the grilling a bit more, so I'm anticipating some fun tonight. It's another warm sunny day, and the evenings are lasting longer, and there's just Something About the Outdoors in weather like this. And something about that fantastic grilling meat aroma. (Didn't God talk about the delectable smell of burnt offerings somewhere in the Old Testament?)
3. You Knew it was Coming
It's spring. Really spring. Things are not quite green out, but they're going to be soon. In another week this will be obsolete (Midwestern springs are fast), so, as I do every year (well, maybe not, I can't find it in last year's archives and I'm appalled at myself, I mean, this is a tradition, maybe I quoted it to someone instead), I'm getting it in now. (P.S. scrolling through my archives is weird. So much of this stuff seems to have happened both yesterday and ten years ago.)
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast--a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines--
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches--
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind--
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined--
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance--Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
~William Carlos Williams
Friday, April 04, 2008
Weather gray, raw, spitting rain. Cold - low 40s. I drove to work this morning determinedly listening to "Chicago" (the song, not the group) in pursuit of an uplift. One of the aspects I consistently love about that song is its flawless chordal compatibility with the ending refrain of "The Transfiguration."
I miss singing. I sing at church on an almost weekly basis, so I do get the good music in a bit, but...I miss the folk tunes, the indie music, I miss singing Gillian Welch and Josh Ritter and splashes of Modest Mouse and The Decemberists, I miss hymns and harmonizing and relaxing on the porch while somebody else plays the guitar (my attempts at self-teaching said instrument have taken a long hiatus).
I miss my piano. I miss sitting down and getting utterly lost in "Claire de Lune," I miss slamming out the Moonlight Sonata when I'm mad, I miss playing with the fabulous musical imagery in "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin," the delicate longing whimsy in "Wild Rose." I yearn to run my fingertips over the pure flatness of the keys before starting the second movement of Grieg's Sonata in E Minor, Op. 7. I miss the slow building pressure of "Le Cathedral Engloutie." I miss "Nocturne in E-flat major."
I haven't played any of these in so long I don't care to think about it, and my skills have rusted badly, but...I have my childhood upright waiting for me at home when I can finally afford to have it shipped to where I live (when where I live has space that can accommodate it). The piano was such a good outlet for emotion -- and it keeps the fingers strong (once upon a time I could give tireless backrubs; now my hands wear out easily). And playing piano is essentially like riding a bike -- you never forget how. There's just a lot more discipline in getting back in the groove -- like an exercise regimen.
Someday, Gussie Mouseheimer. Someday.
I miss singing. I sing at church on an almost weekly basis, so I do get the good music in a bit, but...I miss the folk tunes, the indie music, I miss singing Gillian Welch and Josh Ritter and splashes of Modest Mouse and The Decemberists, I miss hymns and harmonizing and relaxing on the porch while somebody else plays the guitar (my attempts at self-teaching said instrument have taken a long hiatus).
I miss my piano. I miss sitting down and getting utterly lost in "Claire de Lune," I miss slamming out the Moonlight Sonata when I'm mad, I miss playing with the fabulous musical imagery in "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin," the delicate longing whimsy in "Wild Rose." I yearn to run my fingertips over the pure flatness of the keys before starting the second movement of Grieg's Sonata in E Minor, Op. 7. I miss the slow building pressure of "Le Cathedral Engloutie." I miss "Nocturne in E-flat major."
I haven't played any of these in so long I don't care to think about it, and my skills have rusted badly, but...I have my childhood upright waiting for me at home when I can finally afford to have it shipped to where I live (when where I live has space that can accommodate it). The piano was such a good outlet for emotion -- and it keeps the fingers strong (once upon a time I could give tireless backrubs; now my hands wear out easily). And playing piano is essentially like riding a bike -- you never forget how. There's just a lot more discipline in getting back in the groove -- like an exercise regimen.
Someday, Gussie Mouseheimer. Someday.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
I slept eleven hours last night.
Sometimes you just need that, you know? A periodic crash occasions itself a few times a year, and I usually wake feeling a bit drugged but much better.
I could have slept longer, though. I think fourteen hours would have done it.
Last night I came home, changed into pajamas (I don't understand people who sit around at home dressed to the nines. I wear nice clothes all day, and when I want to relax, I want to do it comfortably -- and nothing says comfort better than a warm fuzzy pair of sweats and my favorite red GCC hoodie), fed the cat, reheated dinner, and watched a couple of episodes of Boston Legal. Business as usual.
Afterward I felt the need to wash dishes...and I couldn't even muster the energy to put away the ones sitting clean in the drying rack. I tried. I stashed two of my Tupperware dishes in their designated cupboards. But my arms didn't want to work. My eyes didn't want to stay open. My spine didn't want to hold itself upright.
I went to bed.
It felt lovely. Today I have that funny pressured feeling behind my eyes that you get when exhaustion hasn't quite left you, or you've slept a little too much, but I tell you, I could do it again tonight and wake up happy tomorrow.
Maybe I will.
In the meantime I walked into a fabulously clean and organized office this morning, thanks to Boss-Man's afternoon away yesterday, during which I overhauled everything. I have so much more room now. Part of it involved admitting I had far too many organizing gizmos cluttering all the flat surfaces, doing the opposite of their intended functions. These I carried up to the supply closet. I also got rid of the typewriter (finally) which I never use because I hate the time-waste of the typewriter.
* * * Tangential remark: * * * Although Indiana, in its desperate clinging to an old-fashioned era that passed away sometime with the advent of modern automobiles, requires ALL of its forms in typewriter format, I have foiled it. I reproduced its forms on the computer, which I learned how to do by playing around with the Michigan forms. I even computerized our oversized mailing labels, which do not comply with any of the sizes recognized by Avery. I HATE THE TYPEWRITER. I don't hate the Idea of a typewriter, but I cannot tolerate the minutes it flushes down the toilet during my workday, when, particularly just before the mail goes out, Time is Of The Essence and any second wasted costs me irreplaceable time. * * * End tangential remark. * * *
I found better shelving for my office supplies, got rid of some unnecessary units, and, in general, streamlined anything I could get my hands on and move myself.
So things seem a little better. Now if I could only work up the energy to tackle the dishes tonight. Whenever I walk into the kitchen they clamor at me.
Sometimes you just need that, you know? A periodic crash occasions itself a few times a year, and I usually wake feeling a bit drugged but much better.
I could have slept longer, though. I think fourteen hours would have done it.
Last night I came home, changed into pajamas (I don't understand people who sit around at home dressed to the nines. I wear nice clothes all day, and when I want to relax, I want to do it comfortably -- and nothing says comfort better than a warm fuzzy pair of sweats and my favorite red GCC hoodie), fed the cat, reheated dinner, and watched a couple of episodes of Boston Legal. Business as usual.
Afterward I felt the need to wash dishes...and I couldn't even muster the energy to put away the ones sitting clean in the drying rack. I tried. I stashed two of my Tupperware dishes in their designated cupboards. But my arms didn't want to work. My eyes didn't want to stay open. My spine didn't want to hold itself upright.
I went to bed.
It felt lovely. Today I have that funny pressured feeling behind my eyes that you get when exhaustion hasn't quite left you, or you've slept a little too much, but I tell you, I could do it again tonight and wake up happy tomorrow.
Maybe I will.
In the meantime I walked into a fabulously clean and organized office this morning, thanks to Boss-Man's afternoon away yesterday, during which I overhauled everything. I have so much more room now. Part of it involved admitting I had far too many organizing gizmos cluttering all the flat surfaces, doing the opposite of their intended functions. These I carried up to the supply closet. I also got rid of the typewriter (finally) which I never use because I hate the time-waste of the typewriter.
* * * Tangential remark: * * * Although Indiana, in its desperate clinging to an old-fashioned era that passed away sometime with the advent of modern automobiles, requires ALL of its forms in typewriter format, I have foiled it. I reproduced its forms on the computer, which I learned how to do by playing around with the Michigan forms. I even computerized our oversized mailing labels, which do not comply with any of the sizes recognized by Avery. I HATE THE TYPEWRITER. I don't hate the Idea of a typewriter, but I cannot tolerate the minutes it flushes down the toilet during my workday, when, particularly just before the mail goes out, Time is Of The Essence and any second wasted costs me irreplaceable time. * * * End tangential remark. * * *
I found better shelving for my office supplies, got rid of some unnecessary units, and, in general, streamlined anything I could get my hands on and move myself.
So things seem a little better. Now if I could only work up the energy to tackle the dishes tonight. Whenever I walk into the kitchen they clamor at me.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
sometimes, it's already been said, and so much better.
I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
~Psalm 118:17
* * * * * * *
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
~Psalm 73:25-26
* * * * * * *
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
~Psalm 27:13-14
* * * * * * *
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits --
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
~Psalm 103:1-5
* * * * * * *
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
~Psalm 23:6
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
~Psalm 118:17
* * * * * * *
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
~Psalm 73:25-26
* * * * * * *
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
~Psalm 27:13-14
* * * * * * *
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits --
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
~Psalm 103:1-5
* * * * * * *
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
~Psalm 23:6
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