Tis is quite early on Day 28. That time when it is still dark but the birds have begun their incessant chattering that is a prelude to dawn. All the while the incessant chatter, the white noise continue to whir and churn through my brain...
Just before 3:00 a.m., I finished Jennifer Egan's "a visit from the goon squad" which recently won the Pulitzer or some other prestigious literary award. Normally, this fact would not be an incentive to read it. The Brit read it and gave it "at least one thumb up." His recommendation* and the fact that the first sentence grabbed me led me to buy it. It's acclaim was, if anything, a secondary reason buttressing my purchase of it. It did not disappoint; in fact, it was remarkable.
The paradox of a remarkable novel for me is my inability to put it down and the fact that I don't want it to end. Also, un-put-downable novels often get finished in the wee smalls, making them difficult to discuss with other three-dimensional humans at the moment of consummation, in the first flush of insight. At least the ones that I know (where oh where is the 1-900 number for a book lover who has the urge to discuss a novel that has her all hot and bothered?).
To bed. To sleep and perchance to dream of the deep voice on the other end of the phone discussing plot points and language and themes and whether it was too stylized.
*The Brit's book recommendations have been spot on. They include: On Love by Alain de Botton; High Fidelity by Nick Hornby; One Day by David Nicholls; and The Corrections and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Day 27, Part II
I realize and appreciate and am grateful for how much better I have it that a large chunk of the world. Just having a series of grey difficult days and when I try to look forward, to look into the distant horizon, all I can see is grey.
Sounding off in this forum helped. As did talking to a colleague, who is also having a sucky week. (What's up with all the douche bag men lately?) My colleague, whose mother tried to cheer her up with an e-harmony subscription, explaining that there are "doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs" on e-harmony. Indian chiefs--what the fuck? The explanation is that Indian chiefs own casinos. When her mother subsequently told her to look up a prospective gentleman on Facebook, my colleague asked if he was an Indian chief. When her mother said no, my colleague explained that she is only dating Indian chiefs. This made me laugh, out loud and deeply, for the first time today.
Then, my brother called me. My brother is one of the remaining non-douche bag men to frequent this great spinning planet of ours, and I believe that he is truly good. But the beginning of his phone call made me want to put down the phone and scream. As does any conversation that starts out with, "if I die." Especially this weekend. But after explaining that he wanted to talk to me about his life insurance policy and reassuring me that everything was okay, it was a nice conversation. Invariably, talking to my brother cheers me up.
Huffington Post also provided some cosmic reassurance and comic relief. First, I feel reassured and relieved to learn that it is not a foregone conclusion that the world will end on May 21, 2011. Obviously, there are no guarantees to how much time any of us have; nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that May 21, 2011 does not mark the date-certain for world destruction and end times. Second, Jon Stewart explaining why Newt Gingrich is not cool, no matter how many presidential campaigns he launches from Twitter also provided comic relief. Isn't the name Newt pretty much determinative of one's coolness quotient?
Purged of hopelessness, I depart my own pity party and resolve to find reasons to smile and laugh today. Picking up my own personal sunshine in about an hour is a great first step.
Some, maybe I still believe in redemption and that "hopey-changy" thing. At least, I want to believe.
21 One Reasons that May 21, 2011 is not the end of the world:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/21-reasons-may-21-not-end-of-world_n_860747.html#s277570&title=21_Our_Milk
Jon Stewart on Captain Beige
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/13/jon-stewart-newt-gingrich_n_861477.html
Sounding off in this forum helped. As did talking to a colleague, who is also having a sucky week. (What's up with all the douche bag men lately?) My colleague, whose mother tried to cheer her up with an e-harmony subscription, explaining that there are "doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs" on e-harmony. Indian chiefs--what the fuck? The explanation is that Indian chiefs own casinos. When her mother subsequently told her to look up a prospective gentleman on Facebook, my colleague asked if he was an Indian chief. When her mother said no, my colleague explained that she is only dating Indian chiefs. This made me laugh, out loud and deeply, for the first time today.
Then, my brother called me. My brother is one of the remaining non-douche bag men to frequent this great spinning planet of ours, and I believe that he is truly good. But the beginning of his phone call made me want to put down the phone and scream. As does any conversation that starts out with, "if I die." Especially this weekend. But after explaining that he wanted to talk to me about his life insurance policy and reassuring me that everything was okay, it was a nice conversation. Invariably, talking to my brother cheers me up.
Huffington Post also provided some cosmic reassurance and comic relief. First, I feel reassured and relieved to learn that it is not a foregone conclusion that the world will end on May 21, 2011. Obviously, there are no guarantees to how much time any of us have; nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that May 21, 2011 does not mark the date-certain for world destruction and end times. Second, Jon Stewart explaining why Newt Gingrich is not cool, no matter how many presidential campaigns he launches from Twitter also provided comic relief. Isn't the name Newt pretty much determinative of one's coolness quotient?
Purged of hopelessness, I depart my own pity party and resolve to find reasons to smile and laugh today. Picking up my own personal sunshine in about an hour is a great first step.
Some, maybe I still believe in redemption and that "hopey-changy" thing. At least, I want to believe.
21 One Reasons that May 21, 2011 is not the end of the world:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/21-reasons-may-21-not-end-of-world_n_860747.html#s277570&title=21_Our_Milk
Jon Stewart on Captain Beige
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/13/jon-stewart-newt-gingrich_n_861477.html
Day 27: A long week of suckiness or Bah-Humbug in May
Day 26: Coming apart at the seams somehow disappeared. It just has been that kind of week. This whole week has been downright sucky--for me and a number of my people. Missing blog posts, bad hair days, far too many people who need to be punched, more men engaging in stupid, weaselly break ups, my sweet girl breaking out in pink spots all over her body (hives). And today is Friday the 13th, and yes, of course, I am superstitious. Most of the time but especially on Friday the 13ths.
I forgot to throw salt over my shoulder this morning before I left for work. Colleague One denied my salt request once I told her why I "needed" it, refusing to indulge my "magical thinking." Colleague Three not only gave me her salt shaker (which was very cute--miniature and glass) but then also followed suit and also threw salt over her shoulder three times as well. Colleague Two just stared at us, very much like one is unable to look away from a horrible car accident or a freak show. One and Two are younger (but often wiser than me when it comes to the ways of the contemporary world), and they eschew such silly superstitions. Three is older than me and has two children, and like me, she (apparently) believes in hedging her bets and taking lucky charms where she can get them.
(And I skipped lunch and am thinking that some Lucky Charms would be "magically delicious" right about now.)
The news this week is filled with atrocities visited on children by their parents and caregivers, the very people charged with caring for them, loving them, protecting them. Two 4-year-old-kids starved and beaten to death by their parents and caregivers. In two different states. A 10-year old boy, who was raised in the politics of hate and division, shot his father, who was active in Neo-Nazism. Tales of twisted parenting that led to twisted adults in my own work. And a father who was sentenced to life without parole for scalding and drowning his two infant children.
On my good days, like Anne Frank, I believe in the goodness of people. Despite all the philosophy classes that I had in college, despite the horrors that I see in my job or read about in the paper. But believing in the basic goodness of people during weeks like this seems like magical thinking, at its most extreme and destructive. Actually, it seems downright stupid and Pollyannish. And I think that I would be better off if I just accepted the basic premise that people are driven mainly by their own self-interest and that goodness is merely incidental to furthering this self-interest.
Wishing once again that I could pick up my sweet girl and drive off into the sunset and find a gig as a lighthouse keeper somewhere beautiful and remote where no one knows me and we can start over fresh, with a clean slate, with no mistakes, no expectations from people or from places. Hoping that tomorrow will be better, brighter, more hopeful but it seems unlikely as family issues, commitments, and bittersweet memories of my dad and loss will dominate tomorrow and Sunday.
I hate this bleak, bereftness of spirit. To have termites in my soul, to be miserable, and not to believe in goodness and beauty and light and spirit. Like the Grinch and Scrooge, pre-redemption and not sure that I even believe in redemption anymore. And that really does suck.
Today's cheerfulness brought to you by:
"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch,
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
You're a monster, Mr. Grinch
Your heart's an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch,
I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch
You have termites in your smile,
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch,
Given the choice between the two of you, I'd take the seasick crocodile!
You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch,
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
"Stink, stank, stunk"!
You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch
You're the king of sinful sots,
Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with
Moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch,
Your soul is an appalling dump heap
Overflowing with the most disgraceful
Assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots!
You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch
With a nauseous super "naus",
You're a crooked jerky jockey and you drive a crooked hoss, Mr. Grinch,
You're a three decker sauerkraut and
Toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!"
AND
Charles Dickens
"External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty."
AND
W.H. Auden
***
"The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good."
I forgot to throw salt over my shoulder this morning before I left for work. Colleague One denied my salt request once I told her why I "needed" it, refusing to indulge my "magical thinking." Colleague Three not only gave me her salt shaker (which was very cute--miniature and glass) but then also followed suit and also threw salt over her shoulder three times as well. Colleague Two just stared at us, very much like one is unable to look away from a horrible car accident or a freak show. One and Two are younger (but often wiser than me when it comes to the ways of the contemporary world), and they eschew such silly superstitions. Three is older than me and has two children, and like me, she (apparently) believes in hedging her bets and taking lucky charms where she can get them.
(And I skipped lunch and am thinking that some Lucky Charms would be "magically delicious" right about now.)
The news this week is filled with atrocities visited on children by their parents and caregivers, the very people charged with caring for them, loving them, protecting them. Two 4-year-old-kids starved and beaten to death by their parents and caregivers. In two different states. A 10-year old boy, who was raised in the politics of hate and division, shot his father, who was active in Neo-Nazism. Tales of twisted parenting that led to twisted adults in my own work. And a father who was sentenced to life without parole for scalding and drowning his two infant children.
On my good days, like Anne Frank, I believe in the goodness of people. Despite all the philosophy classes that I had in college, despite the horrors that I see in my job or read about in the paper. But believing in the basic goodness of people during weeks like this seems like magical thinking, at its most extreme and destructive. Actually, it seems downright stupid and Pollyannish. And I think that I would be better off if I just accepted the basic premise that people are driven mainly by their own self-interest and that goodness is merely incidental to furthering this self-interest.
Wishing once again that I could pick up my sweet girl and drive off into the sunset and find a gig as a lighthouse keeper somewhere beautiful and remote where no one knows me and we can start over fresh, with a clean slate, with no mistakes, no expectations from people or from places. Hoping that tomorrow will be better, brighter, more hopeful but it seems unlikely as family issues, commitments, and bittersweet memories of my dad and loss will dominate tomorrow and Sunday.
I hate this bleak, bereftness of spirit. To have termites in my soul, to be miserable, and not to believe in goodness and beauty and light and spirit. Like the Grinch and Scrooge, pre-redemption and not sure that I even believe in redemption anymore. And that really does suck.
Today's cheerfulness brought to you by:
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch,
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
You're a monster, Mr. Grinch
Your heart's an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch,
I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch
You have termites in your smile,
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch,
Given the choice between the two of you, I'd take the seasick crocodile!
You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch,
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
"Stink, stank, stunk"!
You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch
You're the king of sinful sots,
Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with
Moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch,
Your soul is an appalling dump heap
Overflowing with the most disgraceful
Assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable mangled up in tangled up knots!
You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch
With a nauseous super "naus",
You're a crooked jerky jockey and you drive a crooked hoss, Mr. Grinch,
You're a three decker sauerkraut and
Toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!"
AND
Charles Dickens
"External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty."
AND
W.H. Auden
***
"The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good."
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Day 26: Coming apart at the seams
Somedays, sometimes, too much, too often. I cannot get it together, much less keep it together. Just so tired, so weary, so sick of everything--it pervades my bones, my pores, my spirit. Weariness combined with swells of rage. I want to sleep or pound things with my head or my shoe or just howl. I have howled a couple times, loud and shrill as I drive fast on the expressway. The mad, shrieking howl of restlessness, desperation, weariness part of the wind.
Today, I reason with myself, is hormonally intensified, that it is not a true measure of how these days have been, how I have been. But I don't know. I am so off track. Lately, I cannot even seem to get it up for exercising, which is has often been my salvation, my amazing grace.
Am just trying to be on days like these. To get out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other, paste a smile on my face, engage in the minimum fundamentals and try to avoid screaming. And enjoy the sweet moments. Like lunch in the warm sunshine with good friends. Cool breezes. Listening to an exciting baseball game online at work, filled with twists and turns that alternately led to delighted fist pumping and cheers and frustrated fist pumping and jeers. My daughter standing on the front porch, waiting to go to the park, holding her Hello Kitty purse. Framed by the wrought iron of the porch rails, surrounded by spring flowers that she planted, now in full bloom. She is sunshine made real and tangible. Pops of colour against the lush, surreal green of the grass. Her little face, so much like an opening flower, that it makes my heart ache with pure joy. Even on a day like today. And when she sees me pull into the driveway, her face lights up as her eyes and lips smile at me, I cannot help but smile back.
Today, I reason with myself, is hormonally intensified, that it is not a true measure of how these days have been, how I have been. But I don't know. I am so off track. Lately, I cannot even seem to get it up for exercising, which is has often been my salvation, my amazing grace.
Am just trying to be on days like these. To get out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other, paste a smile on my face, engage in the minimum fundamentals and try to avoid screaming. And enjoy the sweet moments. Like lunch in the warm sunshine with good friends. Cool breezes. Listening to an exciting baseball game online at work, filled with twists and turns that alternately led to delighted fist pumping and cheers and frustrated fist pumping and jeers. My daughter standing on the front porch, waiting to go to the park, holding her Hello Kitty purse. Framed by the wrought iron of the porch rails, surrounded by spring flowers that she planted, now in full bloom. She is sunshine made real and tangible. Pops of colour against the lush, surreal green of the grass. Her little face, so much like an opening flower, that it makes my heart ache with pure joy. Even on a day like today. And when she sees me pull into the driveway, her face lights up as her eyes and lips smile at me, I cannot help but smile back.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Day 25: Why getting older sucks or 196 days until I turn 40
Surprisingly fresh-faced, albeit shamefaced, after my introduction to Blueberry Smirnoff Vodka paired with Diet Lemon Lime Kroger pop last night. My usual liquid crack helped initially this morning and 2 cups of black coffee sprinkled throughout the day have kept me awake, mostly. And no headache, which for me is often the worst part of drinking. Okay, the worst physical part of drinking.
Yet as I sat in my car in the parking structure and put on "my face" before work, I noticed the beginnings of faint lines around my eyes. They match the slight crinkles on my forehead. I don't smoke. I wear sunscreen religiously. I moisturize. I don't drink (that much). I exercise regularly (except the last month where my exercise routine could best be described as sporadic). Not to mention that I currently have hormonally-induced pimples dotting my chin. It seems grossly unjust to simultaneously punish me with the wrinkles of age and the blemishes of youth.
Not to mention that what comes next for me, for women my age, is no better and probably worse. Hot flashes; I already alternate between running a small fan and a heater in my office. On the same day. I recently read or heard on the radio that the three ways to retain a youthful appearance are: (1) Do not smoke; (2) sleep at least 7.5 hours a night; and (3) drink 8 glasses of water a day. Okay, I've got the no-smoking thing down. Drinking water right now--am currently on the first fourth of a 16.9 ounce bottle. Unless, I can count the water in coffee.
I almost never *feel* old; I often wonder if I am in the girl version of Big. How can I be almost 40 years old when only yesterday, I turned 20 and was upset that I was halfway to 40? Such is life; it goes so slowly when we are children. We are in such an awful hurry to get there, to grow up. And then after 20, time accelerates. And we are as powerless to stop the sands from pouring forth. My early 20s were horrible. The highs and lows so dramatic, even more so than now. If you think I am a hot mess now, you should have known me 20 years ago.
For the most part, I have enjoyed my 30s. Like I am started to come into my own, become more comfortable in my skin. Or at least begin the process. Yet, the wheels started to come off in my late 30s, when I realized that it was not really my skin. I don't know; maybe we are more like snakes than we think, and every so often, we have to molt a layer of skin to reveal our truest skin. (Did I mention that I had less than 4 hours of sleep?)
This whole process is about finally discovering what skin I am supposed to be in. To shed the toxicities of the past, to make peace with the past, and to move forward. Striving to become the best, brightest most evolved version of myself. And to find a good eye cream that minimizes fine lines and wrinkles....
"If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHDt2t0oO7g
Yet as I sat in my car in the parking structure and put on "my face" before work, I noticed the beginnings of faint lines around my eyes. They match the slight crinkles on my forehead. I don't smoke. I wear sunscreen religiously. I moisturize. I don't drink (that much). I exercise regularly (except the last month where my exercise routine could best be described as sporadic). Not to mention that I currently have hormonally-induced pimples dotting my chin. It seems grossly unjust to simultaneously punish me with the wrinkles of age and the blemishes of youth.
Not to mention that what comes next for me, for women my age, is no better and probably worse. Hot flashes; I already alternate between running a small fan and a heater in my office. On the same day. I recently read or heard on the radio that the three ways to retain a youthful appearance are: (1) Do not smoke; (2) sleep at least 7.5 hours a night; and (3) drink 8 glasses of water a day. Okay, I've got the no-smoking thing down. Drinking water right now--am currently on the first fourth of a 16.9 ounce bottle. Unless, I can count the water in coffee.
I almost never *feel* old; I often wonder if I am in the girl version of Big. How can I be almost 40 years old when only yesterday, I turned 20 and was upset that I was halfway to 40? Such is life; it goes so slowly when we are children. We are in such an awful hurry to get there, to grow up. And then after 20, time accelerates. And we are as powerless to stop the sands from pouring forth. My early 20s were horrible. The highs and lows so dramatic, even more so than now. If you think I am a hot mess now, you should have known me 20 years ago.
For the most part, I have enjoyed my 30s. Like I am started to come into my own, become more comfortable in my skin. Or at least begin the process. Yet, the wheels started to come off in my late 30s, when I realized that it was not really my skin. I don't know; maybe we are more like snakes than we think, and every so often, we have to molt a layer of skin to reveal our truest skin. (Did I mention that I had less than 4 hours of sleep?)
This whole process is about finally discovering what skin I am supposed to be in. To shed the toxicities of the past, to make peace with the past, and to move forward. Striving to become the best, brightest most evolved version of myself. And to find a good eye cream that minimizes fine lines and wrinkles....
"If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHDt2t0oO7g
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Day 24: In the abstract
Lots of things are a good idea in the abstract. Like a rugged, individualistic woman and mother former governor from Alaska being nominated as the vice presidential candidate by one of major political parties. Or "we the people" rising up and participating in government, finally, at last, modeling its movement against America's first burst for freedom. Or like Amber in Clueless, who Cher described as a "full-on Monet" and explained: "It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess."
In the abstract, I thought it would be a treat to have the afternoon and evening to myself. On Mother's Day. My own personal sunshine going with her dad, on my weekend and Mother's Day, to his family's Mother's Day BBQ. At my sunshine's favourite cousins' house where she was going to get to stay the night. My plans included taking a nap, folding the mountain of clean laundry on the chair in my bedroom, catching a movie, stopping at Kroger, baking a cake, and taking a long, hot bath.
Well, I caught a movie. Prom. Because even though this is my 40th year, I am in reality 12. I planned to see Something Borrowed because I liked the book but made the mistake of reading the review, which I should know better to follow when it comes to romantic comedies. But even controlling for the film critic snob factor when it comes to romantic comedies, the reviewer said it sucked. Big time. But more snobbishly. Okay and I have a secret affinity for the coming-of-age-teen-flicks, even contemporary ones, which are almost never as good as the ones that I came of age on. (Except for Mean Girls and Easy A but I am a cautious optimist, meaning that I like to hedge my bets in case it's the next Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
Prom was good, not 80s caliber required viewing, but good (except for the Winnie the Pooh coming attractions preview that made me teary--come on Winnie the Pooh and Somewhere only we know). Prom had a great soundtrack, reminiscent of the 80s' guru's films. A bunch of groups that I never heard of but liked on initial hearing. Which is how I became a fan of the Smiths. It was the standard plot--good girl falls for the bad-boy rebel who really is just misunderstood and looking for the one woman who "gets" (*gets*) him. (Oh boy, did that plot construct fuck with me in my late teens and early twenties, and again in my early thirties).
Oh, I believe that Prom also played subtle homage to the 80s guru and other defining films of my generation. First, good girl and bad boy are sitting outside the Principal's office on a bench, and it was totally reminiscent of Jeannie and Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller. Second, the quirky, adorable outsider trying to fit in and make his move at the end of high school, named Lloyd, had to be a thinly veiled reference to Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything. John Cusack with blue eyes, a cross between John Cusack and Cameron Frye (Ferris Bueller). Third, two homages to Pretty in Pink, the scorned but heads-up former girlfriend of the golden boy (who was African American) dumps his ass (why are these teen girls and my younger colleagues so much more savvy than my wise ass) and goes to Prom anyway; her head held up high. Just like Andie in Pretty in Pink. And the good girl has to go because she headed the prom committee and is the class president and all, and of course, the bad boy, shows up. Is there just when she has given up hope. And she turns around and he's there. Also like Jake for Samantha in Sixteen Candles (maybe I need to become a redhead). Sorry, should have mentioned that crucial plot points would be revealed (Not really. It was a formula movie and if you could not have told me the ending at the beginning well then you prolly voted for that former Governor of Alaska in 2008).
And yes, I do have a tendency to read into things but I think that I must be right on about these signs of respect in Prom.
But I digress and regress; where, oh where, is my progress. (Yes, am a bit drunk). At the end of Prom when the bad boy shows up, I cried. Fortunately, I was the only person in the theater at this juncture as the dad with four kids had left already. And fortunately, only tears on my cheeks and not the wracking, embarrassing Walrus cry of Annabeth Gish in Mystic Pizza when she realizes that the older, married dude was a douche and that even though she was a very smart girl who get accepted to Yale, she had been duped (And oh boy, have I sang that song). I saved the Walrus breakdown for my driveway (a bit of progress). Spurred along by a Rascal Flats song that just happened to be on the radio, not that I listen to the contemporary country station usually but was flipping through the channels as I turned down "my" (*my*) street. And listened to him sing about never letting her go, drying her eyes, fighting her fight. No doubt showing up at her Prom or outside her sister's wedding or at a New Years' Eve party or at the airport to say that I cannot bear to be without you, no matter what the cost, that I will fight for you, that I will show up, that I will choose you.
(Be right back. I need another drink).
Digressing, regressing again.
Oh yes. Things that seem like a good idea in the abstract (wow, totally sounds like a category on the $100,000 Pyramid which my parent used to watch, one of them would go into the other room so they could not see the answers being revealed. My aunt Peggy also played sometimes). Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Redux, Mother's Day without your 4-year old Sunshine, and being in a relationship with me. All the way "home" (*home*)*, I thought about why not me. And blah blah blah, I know that I have to love me first and perhaps I don't (except sometimes on the floor with soft core porn on the TV). But why not show up for me, fight for me, choose me? In the abstract, I seem like a good idea. Like a Monet but up close I am just a big, old mess? I don't expect flowers or poetry or jewelry or material things (except books and liquid crack). But I do (or in the future since I am off men for a bit) demand passion and someone who will fight for me, show up for me, choose me. I give all that in return and more (not that I am perfect. So not perfect) but I do fight and defend and am always passionate.
I am stuck. Spinning my wheels. Obviously past the coming of age films of my youth but stuck but not yet at the Nancy Myers movie stage. It's rather purgatory. But as my younger colleague aptly expressed, you just have to go through it, feel it, and hope to hell that you come out stronger. Now, I have to go bake a fucking cake. Drunk. I have baked tipsy a lot but never quite drunk. But at least, I am feeling it. Wish me luck....
*Jesse explained what it means when a word is enclosed by * * and I have been trying to use it correctly but believe that I have just failed. Or maybe it is just does not work when it was very much my *home* but is no my *home* and is very much my "home" except for the fact that my daughter lives here and she is always, unquestionably, beyond a shadow of a doubt my *home*.
In the abstract, I thought it would be a treat to have the afternoon and evening to myself. On Mother's Day. My own personal sunshine going with her dad, on my weekend and Mother's Day, to his family's Mother's Day BBQ. At my sunshine's favourite cousins' house where she was going to get to stay the night. My plans included taking a nap, folding the mountain of clean laundry on the chair in my bedroom, catching a movie, stopping at Kroger, baking a cake, and taking a long, hot bath.
Well, I caught a movie. Prom. Because even though this is my 40th year, I am in reality 12. I planned to see Something Borrowed because I liked the book but made the mistake of reading the review, which I should know better to follow when it comes to romantic comedies. But even controlling for the film critic snob factor when it comes to romantic comedies, the reviewer said it sucked. Big time. But more snobbishly. Okay and I have a secret affinity for the coming-of-age-teen-flicks, even contemporary ones, which are almost never as good as the ones that I came of age on. (Except for Mean Girls and Easy A but I am a cautious optimist, meaning that I like to hedge my bets in case it's the next Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
Prom was good, not 80s caliber required viewing, but good (except for the Winnie the Pooh coming attractions preview that made me teary--come on Winnie the Pooh and Somewhere only we know). Prom had a great soundtrack, reminiscent of the 80s' guru's films. A bunch of groups that I never heard of but liked on initial hearing. Which is how I became a fan of the Smiths. It was the standard plot--good girl falls for the bad-boy rebel who really is just misunderstood and looking for the one woman who "gets" (*gets*) him. (Oh boy, did that plot construct fuck with me in my late teens and early twenties, and again in my early thirties).
Oh, I believe that Prom also played subtle homage to the 80s guru and other defining films of my generation. First, good girl and bad boy are sitting outside the Principal's office on a bench, and it was totally reminiscent of Jeannie and Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller. Second, the quirky, adorable outsider trying to fit in and make his move at the end of high school, named Lloyd, had to be a thinly veiled reference to Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything. John Cusack with blue eyes, a cross between John Cusack and Cameron Frye (Ferris Bueller). Third, two homages to Pretty in Pink, the scorned but heads-up former girlfriend of the golden boy (who was African American) dumps his ass (why are these teen girls and my younger colleagues so much more savvy than my wise ass) and goes to Prom anyway; her head held up high. Just like Andie in Pretty in Pink. And the good girl has to go because she headed the prom committee and is the class president and all, and of course, the bad boy, shows up. Is there just when she has given up hope. And she turns around and he's there. Also like Jake for Samantha in Sixteen Candles (maybe I need to become a redhead). Sorry, should have mentioned that crucial plot points would be revealed (Not really. It was a formula movie and if you could not have told me the ending at the beginning well then you prolly voted for that former Governor of Alaska in 2008).
And yes, I do have a tendency to read into things but I think that I must be right on about these signs of respect in Prom.
But I digress and regress; where, oh where, is my progress. (Yes, am a bit drunk). At the end of Prom when the bad boy shows up, I cried. Fortunately, I was the only person in the theater at this juncture as the dad with four kids had left already. And fortunately, only tears on my cheeks and not the wracking, embarrassing Walrus cry of Annabeth Gish in Mystic Pizza when she realizes that the older, married dude was a douche and that even though she was a very smart girl who get accepted to Yale, she had been duped (And oh boy, have I sang that song). I saved the Walrus breakdown for my driveway (a bit of progress). Spurred along by a Rascal Flats song that just happened to be on the radio, not that I listen to the contemporary country station usually but was flipping through the channels as I turned down "my" (*my*) street. And listened to him sing about never letting her go, drying her eyes, fighting her fight. No doubt showing up at her Prom or outside her sister's wedding or at a New Years' Eve party or at the airport to say that I cannot bear to be without you, no matter what the cost, that I will fight for you, that I will show up, that I will choose you.
(Be right back. I need another drink).
Digressing, regressing again.
Oh yes. Things that seem like a good idea in the abstract (wow, totally sounds like a category on the $100,000 Pyramid which my parent used to watch, one of them would go into the other room so they could not see the answers being revealed. My aunt Peggy also played sometimes). Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Redux, Mother's Day without your 4-year old Sunshine, and being in a relationship with me. All the way "home" (*home*)*, I thought about why not me. And blah blah blah, I know that I have to love me first and perhaps I don't (except sometimes on the floor with soft core porn on the TV). But why not show up for me, fight for me, choose me? In the abstract, I seem like a good idea. Like a Monet but up close I am just a big, old mess? I don't expect flowers or poetry or jewelry or material things (except books and liquid crack). But I do (or in the future since I am off men for a bit) demand passion and someone who will fight for me, show up for me, choose me. I give all that in return and more (not that I am perfect. So not perfect) but I do fight and defend and am always passionate.
I am stuck. Spinning my wheels. Obviously past the coming of age films of my youth but stuck but not yet at the Nancy Myers movie stage. It's rather purgatory. But as my younger colleague aptly expressed, you just have to go through it, feel it, and hope to hell that you come out stronger. Now, I have to go bake a fucking cake. Drunk. I have baked tipsy a lot but never quite drunk. But at least, I am feeling it. Wish me luck....
*Jesse explained what it means when a word is enclosed by * * and I have been trying to use it correctly but believe that I have just failed. Or maybe it is just does not work when it was very much my *home* but is no my *home* and is very much my "home" except for the fact that my daughter lives here and she is always, unquestionably, beyond a shadow of a doubt my *home*.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Day 23: Things that ought to be avoided when hormonal or why running with sharp objects is a bad idea
Last night's thoughtful, philosophical post that actually discussed Rene Descartes meditations on how to distinguish between dreaming and wakefulness was lost forever in cyberspace. One wonders how many brilliant observations, how many poetical turns of phrase, how many perfectly articulated and expressed declarations of love have disappeared within its depths. And if that's where all the missing socks also have gone to...
I tried to recreate last night's post on the yearning for authenticity in our bells-and-whistles-plastic, modern society. But to no avail. I am too crampy and easily irritated. But, if you do not have lady parts, you better not suggest that my irrationality or even stronger desire for chocolate is in any way related to my menstrual cycle. Not if you value your man parts.
My first toxic relationship (and did he set the bar) actually tried to convince me that getting kicked in one's man parts was roughly equivalent to a woman's monthly visitor (and what's up with all the tongue and cheek names--a visit from Aunt Flo--or riding the crimson tide--eww gross). It is such a stupid premise that I shall not even try to rebut it. Again.
But I digress. On my best, brightest days, I tend toward the emotional side of the spectrum. For instance, I will cry each and every time that I see certain movies, like Love Story or An Affair to Remember or Tears of Endearment or Same Time, Next Year. It matters not how many dozens of times that I've seen these movies, I weep and always at the same point, like some Pavlovian creature. When Jenny dies and Oliver and her dad try to maintain brave faces because Jenny made them promise to be strong for each other; when Oliver's dad shows up at the hospital and tells Oliver that he is sorry, and Oliver puts his hand up, devastated and broken, and repeats Jenny's mantra: "Love means never having to say your sorry." Or when Nicky sees the portrait that he painted of Terry "Deborah Kerr" McKay and realizes that she did not meet him at the "nearest place to heaven" on the appointed date because she was in a car accident and could not walk. Or when Debra Winger dies, leaving 3 young children, and her son says something bad about her and Shirley McClain slaps him across the face and knocks him down. Or when the stupid theme song-the last time I felt like this by Johnny Mathis--and when George tries to convince Doris to finally leave her husband after they met accidentally, fatefully at this inn along the breathtakingly, beautiful Northern California coast. And this tendency apparently goes back to my kidhood. My mom likes to tell the story of how I would cry at band aid commercials when other kids got "boo-boos." (Pause--for awws or to throw up in your mouth a bit).
On these days, the gray, bloaty, pimply days that try a woman-in-her-reproductive-years soul, especially when single, a couple notes of certain songs can trigger the waterworks or an emotional outburst that is ridiculously disproportionate. This is my 40th year and except pregnancy, I have been menstruating like clock work since I was 13. One would think that I might avoid my triggers on these days, especially the day before and the first day. Make it a hard and fast practice to avoid movies and music that I know is waterwork inducing. But no, no, no. What do I do? I listen to 2 hours of Barry Manilow songs, James Blunt's Your Beautiful, Joni Mitchell's the Last Time I saw Richard, Kate Bush's This Woman's Work, Green Day's 21 Guns. Songs that make me feel melancholy, wistful, hopeless, used, stupid on ordinary days, on my best, most perfect days.
And listening to these songs on a gray, rainy Friday that also marks the first day of my menstrual cycle and killer cramps on a weekend that serves to remind me that I am willfully and deliberately and intentionally breaking up my family, that forcefully highlights my deficiencies and insecurities as a mother and a woman, that brings my issues with my mother into sharp focus, it makes almost as much sense as that former governor from Alaska, rocket scientist, and constitutional law scholar being one of the GOP's front runners for 2012. Or watching Fox "News" for news.
But not even staying in bed with a heating pad, endless quantities of chocolate, the funniest, happiest movies and music ever, and being married to a sensitive, caring man like Alan Alda or Phil Donohue who would bring me more chocolate and tell me that I am beautiful and wonderful and smart and that he loves me no matter what, that he accepts and loves me for who I am, on my best days and on these days, not in spite of my menstrual-induced craziness or general quirkiness but because of it--would "take away these blues." Oh and Nothing Compares to U by Sinead O'Connor should be avoided like the plague.
And that's all I have to say about that...at least, for now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcPTMx2JiA
I tried to recreate last night's post on the yearning for authenticity in our bells-and-whistles-plastic, modern society. But to no avail. I am too crampy and easily irritated. But, if you do not have lady parts, you better not suggest that my irrationality or even stronger desire for chocolate is in any way related to my menstrual cycle. Not if you value your man parts.
My first toxic relationship (and did he set the bar) actually tried to convince me that getting kicked in one's man parts was roughly equivalent to a woman's monthly visitor (and what's up with all the tongue and cheek names--a visit from Aunt Flo--or riding the crimson tide--eww gross). It is such a stupid premise that I shall not even try to rebut it. Again.
But I digress. On my best, brightest days, I tend toward the emotional side of the spectrum. For instance, I will cry each and every time that I see certain movies, like Love Story or An Affair to Remember or Tears of Endearment or Same Time, Next Year. It matters not how many dozens of times that I've seen these movies, I weep and always at the same point, like some Pavlovian creature. When Jenny dies and Oliver and her dad try to maintain brave faces because Jenny made them promise to be strong for each other; when Oliver's dad shows up at the hospital and tells Oliver that he is sorry, and Oliver puts his hand up, devastated and broken, and repeats Jenny's mantra: "Love means never having to say your sorry." Or when Nicky sees the portrait that he painted of Terry "Deborah Kerr" McKay and realizes that she did not meet him at the "nearest place to heaven" on the appointed date because she was in a car accident and could not walk. Or when Debra Winger dies, leaving 3 young children, and her son says something bad about her and Shirley McClain slaps him across the face and knocks him down. Or when the stupid theme song-the last time I felt like this by Johnny Mathis--and when George tries to convince Doris to finally leave her husband after they met accidentally, fatefully at this inn along the breathtakingly, beautiful Northern California coast. And this tendency apparently goes back to my kidhood. My mom likes to tell the story of how I would cry at band aid commercials when other kids got "boo-boos." (Pause--for awws or to throw up in your mouth a bit).
On these days, the gray, bloaty, pimply days that try a woman-in-her-reproductive-years soul, especially when single, a couple notes of certain songs can trigger the waterworks or an emotional outburst that is ridiculously disproportionate. This is my 40th year and except pregnancy, I have been menstruating like clock work since I was 13. One would think that I might avoid my triggers on these days, especially the day before and the first day. Make it a hard and fast practice to avoid movies and music that I know is waterwork inducing. But no, no, no. What do I do? I listen to 2 hours of Barry Manilow songs, James Blunt's Your Beautiful, Joni Mitchell's the Last Time I saw Richard, Kate Bush's This Woman's Work, Green Day's 21 Guns. Songs that make me feel melancholy, wistful, hopeless, used, stupid on ordinary days, on my best, most perfect days.
And listening to these songs on a gray, rainy Friday that also marks the first day of my menstrual cycle and killer cramps on a weekend that serves to remind me that I am willfully and deliberately and intentionally breaking up my family, that forcefully highlights my deficiencies and insecurities as a mother and a woman, that brings my issues with my mother into sharp focus, it makes almost as much sense as that former governor from Alaska, rocket scientist, and constitutional law scholar being one of the GOP's front runners for 2012. Or watching Fox "News" for news.
But not even staying in bed with a heating pad, endless quantities of chocolate, the funniest, happiest movies and music ever, and being married to a sensitive, caring man like Alan Alda or Phil Donohue who would bring me more chocolate and tell me that I am beautiful and wonderful and smart and that he loves me no matter what, that he accepts and loves me for who I am, on my best days and on these days, not in spite of my menstrual-induced craziness or general quirkiness but because of it--would "take away these blues." Oh and Nothing Compares to U by Sinead O'Connor should be avoided like the plague.
And that's all I have to say about that...at least, for now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcPTMx2JiA
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