The caged bird is being a drama queen

Being happy in your present circumstance I firmly believe is an act of will. I do not believe it to be a trait innate to man. We would have never created the things we have were we innately content. Since walking Baloo this morning, wispy clouds of panic, dread, sadness, and despair have started to form around my thoughts. I will drop Ashley off and then I will be alone. Yesterday it was 'yay!' Today I will miss her. I'm sure I will be fine but I wish my Soul Twin were in town so I could go visit her for the New Year or at least talk to her. If I were in Tennessee right now, I am sure I would be craving space, craving my friends, wishing I were somewhere I wouldn't have to make empty promises to visit more often, feeling bad for knowing I don't even make it to the places I actually want to go, and wondering how will I ever be content when I never set a bar I can reach. I am berating myself for the plans I didn't make for this time off and sad because I don't even know what those plans would be.

The caged bird sings because it has boundaries. Because it already knows everything it ever needs to know about life. No one will move their cheese or send them off to make their own way in the world. They can be at peace in their circumstance because they have no capacity to change it. There is a certain freedom in that. There is no 'out there', no opportunity or disappointment over the hill. There is no feeling, 'if only I left the cage every now and again.' It's why they swaddle infants, why the latest craze in curbing dog anxiety is a compression jacket (true story-it's called a thunder jacket). If my boss had been at work today, I would have gone there and until I succumbed to a late afternoon nap, there was a chance I might go anyway just because I really didn't otherwise know what to do with myself. I've let work become a cage. Not unlike a crate for dogs or cage for birds, it's become a refuge. An unsatisfying refuge but a refuge. Something I can be sure of, even if I'm sure it's going to suck. Though it would perhaps have better connotation if I referred to it as swaddling instead of a cage, I think we all seek something, marriage, career, hobbies to provide us a sense of stability in an otherwise forward marching always changing existence.

The poem that inspired the title of this post and the Maya Angelou autobiography bearing the same name evokes images of slavery, being bound and oppressed.

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

What can I say of a time I didn't live? What I do know, unbound with nothing but opportunity before me is that I'm shopping for cages.

WWBD

It seems to be a law in my universe that I must have an object of fixation, something or someone to place at the center of my world to be my point of reference and emotional ground. Needing or seeking this is probably worthy of it's own exploratory post but I am convinced most people have someone or something like this in their lives. Parent, spouse, celebrity, friend, artist, deity, we want to identify with something beyond ourselves.

For the last 6 months or so, that point of reference, that object of fixation has been my boss. I want his mindset. I want his focus. I want his zest for living. I want to emulate what I understand to be his life. I don't understand how he does it. I don't even really understand who he is. It matters to me what he thinks of me. If I know he is going to be in the office, I want to be there. I enjoy his company and watching his frenetic caffeine fueled dispatching of his to do list. I am surprised by the things that get to him. I am amused and obsessed with how he never heats his leftovers, how he recycles and doesn't like to unnecessarily print out things, how he will spend 2 hours riding back and forth on the train to come to work for 3 hours, how undisciplined he is about some things and how disciplined he is about others, how smart he is. He's a walking contradiction with such a fascinating decision flow chart that I could set up shop in his life and simply watch it unfold. I find myself wishing I had a cool spouse that he liked so we could be a part of the fold outside of work. To me right now, he is the world's most interesting man.

I tend to become fixated with people I don't understand. I want to understand what fuels his life because he seems to have something I don't. Even from afar his life seems chaotic and at times, tragic. He's the kind of person who goes on vacation for a week during a month when he has so much work travel planned, he won't be in the office more than 3 days. My head would literally cave in and I'm not even married with kids like he is. There is an animal-like mystery to him. I know Baloo will come to me and will solicit belly rubs and expects me to attend to her needs but I really don't know how she feels about me. I don't even know her capacity to feel or how it does or does not motivate her decision making. It's something I infer. I feel exactly the same way about my boss. When he says 'good job' I'm over the moon for days. That's what fuels my engine and a part of me feels weak because I can't self-generate that feeling, it has to come from someone else. Makes my life harder than it needs to be I think because I outsource a part of my self esteem/worth which puts me at the mercy of things I can't control.

Ironically I go to great lengths to project the opposite. I'll be damned if I let you know you matter to me at all when I care that much about what you think. Don't get me wrong, there are countless people who I truly and honestly do not care two shits how they feel about anything at all and especially not how they feel about me. Countless. But my boss is not one of them. I do care and I do build my work world around him and I do invoke him as a reference point in my personal life as I try to be a more interesting person by doing more and thinking less. In a phrase I think he personifies the adage, 'perfect is the enemy of the good.' I am never going to be him and I value myself enough that I don't want to be him but like all the important people in my life, I will try from time to time to channel him; WWBD (What Would Boss Do). I am glad we had the opportunity to work together, to know one another, and for what I gained personally and professionally from knowing him.

Sister

Oh my God, I am so stressed! Why did I agree to this? My sister, who despite everything that makes her a hard roommate is the coolest girl I know said this to me tonight as she prepared for her trip to Memphis. She's been snapping at me all evening and it's cracking me up. She's going on this trip for me, instead of me and that is a great gift. We cut up her shitty 15% interest credit card tonight and she texted me on the way home from work to tell me she was picking up sushi to ask if I wanted anything. If she were neater and less destructive, she would be a perfect roommate. Those are big ifs but when it comes right down to it, she makes me laugh, introduces me to things I would never seek on my own, and somewhere deep down in her chameleon soul, she even likes me. I like her too though she insisted recently it wasn't important that she likes me since she has to love me. Whatever dude.

Some alibis and some groundwork

Going back to yesterday's post I have a few postscripts to apply. I am a little like God in that I am always the same; whenever someone I haven't seen in a while asks what I've been up to, the answer is always the same. I've been working, every few years or so, I've been moving, and I still have Baloo. There are no significant others or milestones like anniversaries, first days of school, pregnancy, promotions. I just am. On any given day I may have had a strange encounter with an out and about homeless person or old man on the prowl but it's always 65 and partly sunny in Ava land otherwise. Many of my friends are moving forward, they have started families or had them when we met, and they are absorbed in that life and frame of reference for everything they do. A frame of reference I can empathize but ultimately can not relate with. Their closest friends are now people they can share their current life experiences with. Someone who probably has extra diaper wipes, who can relate to the trials and tribulations of marriage and parenthood. I know I'm not that friend for you and you aren't the friend for me who is available to talk every day about nothing at all or who even routinely picks up when I call. That's just not where life is at for you right now. Best we can do is keep our contact warm, see if we weather the transition, and wish eachother the company kindred spirits for where we are at right now.

Also, I'm crabby and I know I'm crabby. I feel I am under siege. Hopefully I will find a way to reset and recharge because I fear I will make decisions, big decisions that are more of a reflection of my need to take a break than they are sound career choices.

I was reading my old blog which because Apple sucks, I can not archive here. I was far more honest there. Perhaps because only Teresa was reading so I felt l was writing letters to an old friend. I don't know if it's nostalgia, narcissm..I just kind of missed those days. 2011 assessment/plans coming soon. It's been real Philly but the countdown begins.

Home Alone

It's going to be great. I will have the house to myself, I will clean things and they will remain that way until I render them dirty. I will control the remote.

I won't know what to do with myself.

But I'd like to try.

I am sending my sister to Memphis in lieu of yours truly. We talked about it on the drive down for Christmas. I really don't want to go. I really don't want to go anywhere. I am feeling very spoiled and very single. I am starting to value the single friend over other friends because we have more time to be a part of eachother's lives. Available to one another. We aren't just footnotes appended to husbands and kids who take precedence. And they should take precedence, but I shouldn't feel bad if I don't want to figure out a way to shoehorn into that. If I don't want to start a conversation because you never really have to the time to finish one. That's what life is for 90 percent of the people I know and I just realized there is a flip side to my gratitude for their efforts to include a relationship with me into an already full dance card of relationships. I want to stop feeling bad because as the single one, I don't visit as often as my relationship status implies I should be able to. I haven't taken a vacation since 2001 and as lovely as it always is to see the people I love and as deeply as I am truly touched to be considered a part of the family, I came for you and you are not available to me. Worse, I am yet another person vying for your attention and time and it's hard to be in the middle of a story or discussion that is interrupted with a phone call, a cry, a tug on the sleeve, a sidebar with the spouse. It's hard not to just drop it. Drop it until the kids start school or the husband is out of town, just push pause on the participation grade in our friendship until you need me again. Better to acknowledge and live that I think maybe than try to make something fit where there is no room right now.

Wasn't thinking this post was going to turn into the Spinster manifesto but I guess that's where I'm coming from tonight.

Sleeping with the light on

When things in my life start to pick up downhill momentum, I start falling asleep with the light on. I'm so overwhelmed I can't fully commit to rest by turning the light off. So I lie to myself as I yield for 'just a few minutes' to my heavy eyes, the light my insurance and assurance I have not given up for the night. I rose this morning cotton mouthed with a headache for the 3rd night in a row, annoyed at the money I waste leaving the light on all night, mind racing and no more prepared to deal.

The printer, the sink, dad's gift, all that is left undone at work, laundry, rebate forms, virus protection for the computer, cleaning house, donating clothing, Baloo's medication, Baloo's new lumps, mom, should I return to Tennessee with her in 5 days for the first time in 8 years, why it's so hard and stressful to 'go home', what it means that I would almost rather not deal with the complication of their lives intersecting with mine, creating another set of obligations to add to the ones I already biff on a regular basis, why it makes me so sad that my boss is leaving, how disappointed I am that I've not left the east coast or visited anyone who doesn't live in New York or D.C., how bummed I am that I didn't meet a great guy here or even a great girlfriend (though I honestly have the girlfriend piece covered in spades--I've got the best out there, they just don't live here). *breath*

It's just been a month or so of losing traction and unfortunate events; personal and professional hiccups that I let snowball into the regressive sleeping with the light on phase I'm currently wading in. I hope after having this cup of weak coffee in my Winnie-the-Pooh cup life will be just a little less daunting, my headache's sharper edges will be blunted through the miracle of caffeine and Sudafed Sinus headache, and something will give way in that list above to make it easier to turn off the light at night and rest easy in the accomplishments of the day.

Well you just picked right up where we never left off

I had a completely different post in mind when I fired up this computer two Tylenol and several hours ago. A post about a guy I could see myself with in a parallel universe. It would either be the most amazing thing that ever happened for both of us or a profound disappointment. But it's not a universe I have to consider, I can just soak up how much he celebrates Ava being Ava and indulge in the occasional daydream when I feel otherwise unwanted.

But instead I'm replaying a reel from bad decision theater of a conversation I just had with a guy I haven't spoken to in 6 years, who was never a friend or a romantic interest, who I in fact found insufferable. That guy, I invited to sleep over at my house for Christmas eve. Jamie Foxx can blame it on the alcohol, I blame it on the terrible headache and the Tylenol. This is the kind of guy who reminds you of his PhD--no he's the guy who actually did mention his PhD during our conversation. He asked if I ever visited New York and when I said I did, asked why I never called when I was there. I told him I didn't have his number nor would I have thought to ask for it, so unless I was supposed to just stand in the street and scream his name, that's why he wasn't aware I was in town. He laughed. He asked about my relationship status but I don't think that's where he's going with this weirdness even though he commented that it was good news I wasn't married, engaged or otherwise attached. (By the way, who says it's good news that you are all alone?) I think he's just trying to visit Philly on the cheap and remembered I was here.

Today I will try to undo last night's mistakes and withdraw the invite. Not because I don't want him to stay. I'm very interested in the story he will bring. He is an interesting and unexpected twist in the sitcom that is my life and I want to see that story play through. It's just too much for this particular week. My house is chaos, my work is chaos, and I am tired.

This is a weird week. I just saw a man in the park wearing yellow socks and black middle aged lady pumps, sitting on the bench sipping his mountain dew. It's possible he is homeless though most have gone to ground during this cold holiday season but he looked otherwise normal until you got to his feet. This has definitely been a weird week.

Ward

Sometimes I make such bad basic decisions, I feel I should be a ward of the state or a ward of someone. Someone to tell me when to go to bed, when to get up. These basic things are sometimes so very hard. I'll be doing okay and one little thing sends me into a tail spin, like the handle falling off the bathroom sink. I can't get around it. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how long it will take me to fix it or figure out it is beyond me. It's been that way for over a week now. I wait until 1 am to brush my teeth because I don't want to have to go in there and see the handle on the sink. It's a very stupid way of dealing with this or anything in life and it's my go to coping mechanism. At least I realize it's jacked up, right? Right?

Something new

Baloo just walked past my sister who was sitting on the floor in the hallway and into my sister's bedroom. I've never seen her walk into an empty room so we both stopped what we were doing and waited. Then we heard the unmistakable sounds of scratching bedding and went to investigate. Yep, Baloo was in Ashley's bed. We have no idea why. Ashley's bed is on the ground and has been for months since she destroyed the second air mattress but Baloo has never attempted to sleep in it. We have no idea what this means but we were amused enough to turn off the light and just see what happened. She is now softly snoring with her butt hole inches from Ashley's pillow. All we could say was "that's new."

I can do ugly all by myself

I'm not single because I have no options, I'm single because I exercise my options. It's not about settling because we all do settle, striking a balance between what we put up with to have the things we don't want to live without. It's about not feeling that I have to give a guy my number just because he asked. The things I don't have, especially THE thing, because I'm not in a relationship are wants, not needs and it passes like food cravings. Kissy face man is irritating me. Why can't that adorable guy at work just ask me out? I am so over the internet.

Moving on...

If I'm ever to write consistently again, I'm going to have to invest in some earplugs. There is no privacy in this house because of the loft style which means every activity is a group activity. If someone is watching TV, we're all at least hearing the TV. It's not an ideal situation for writing. I have something in my head and then I hear the real sad women of New Jersey, Atlanta, wherever and I'm sucked in, not because I want anything to do with the shows but because they are on and they are living breathing train wrecks. You can't not look. I have epiphanies while watching these shows because I know vapid people like those women in real life and it makes me grateful my closest friends are normal.

The door just clicked closed and I am SO grateful to be alone. Being with my sister these last six months (so much for 6 weeks) has been more good than bad. But I really miss my alone time, my deep thoughts time, my couch, my sometimes neat second bedroom. I've been thinking about my 40th birthday-I think it's close enough to begin considering. I think even the people who think I'm as awesome as they come don't really see me married. I don't see me married either. I don't see me with a significant other. I've never been that person and I don't think people really change all that much. But I do want a party that everyone feels obligated to try to come to, I want to feel loved and celebrated, and I want to dance and be merry. So this weekend I entertained the notion of throwing myself a wedding-themed birthday party for my 40th. Not a sad affair, not an event where everyone wonders aloud why I'm single. On any given day, how many of them are happy? Sometimes I wonder if couples don't look so good in public because they feel so good they aren't alone.

Anyway, I know myself well enough to know the 40th birthday bash will never happen. I will probably try to go to work if it falls on a workday or not go to work if I suspect an obligatory office acknowledgement of the day to avoid the despair of 'celebrating' my 40th with people who barely know me. It will all be too much to try to really send it up because nothing is ever enough really when you have an imagination like mine that dreams big and lives small simply to avoid mediocre.

I'm a little all over the map tonight. I feel furtive in my writing because any moment the key will turn in the lock, Baloo and Ashley will burst back on scene, and this gift is done. Already my head is heavy with fatigue but I type on because later it will be even harder. I really miss my space even though I know I will eventually miss her. I'll have to get used to living alone again and I know I will come to this space with a heavy lonely heart. Sometimes there's just no pleasing me.

Open letter vs Actual letter

Dear Kissy face man,

The camera loves you baby. Almost as much as you love yourself. What I'm wondering is why you think it interests me in the least that you are traveling to Philly and staying at the Marriott. That's why I replied with '6' when you asked me to send you a number. I'm glad you thought it was 'lol' funny but I'm for reals not giving you my number. Why you are still trying to talk to me after I made fun of your pictures is a mystery to me. A disconcerting mystery. A 'I-might-go-missing-if-I-meet-you mystery.' A 'I'm-not-sure-that's-really-you mystery.'

------
Actual letters:

To his initial 'hi' a few days ago:

Dude! What is the DEAL with that kissy face you are making? So, so un-ninja. One of the first things they teach you in ninja school.

To his 'send a number' followed by 'lol' when I sent him the number 6:

Also don't give out my number right away. Don't get me wrong, I don't like to drag things out forever online but I at least want to chat a little here. So tell you what, you really want a number, I'll give you a digit for every e-mail-two if you make me laugh or make me think. You're a great looking man so I have no doubt you don't "need" to be on here to have company. I'm pretty amazing myself so I don't need to give out my number to every guy who asks for it. But I do want to know more so...over to you my kissy face friend. (NOTE: He REALLY has to overcome that kissy face picture. It's ridiculous.)
---

Then he told me he was staying at the Marriott. What am I missing here?

Levees and Dikes

Whenever I go out of town something happens in my house, or more accurately something happens with my sister and then something happens to my house. She reflexively rebels against some rule I have with specifically her in mind (like no eating in the living room) and I return from my business trip to a red stain on my rug. She insists it was a splatter instead of a spill (like I care about the mechanics when the result is a big red juice stain) but the physics I know can't explain a large stain like that forming from a mere splatter. Telling me it was a splatter does nothing to mitigate the BIG RED STAIN on my carpet. She also broke open my ice cream-I haven't even had any of it and she violated it with her greedy manic consumptive spoon. So yes, I'm annoyed. But I'm also a little pensive. When I'm here, I'm like a levee, holding her back. Enforcing the rules through presence. She has already spilled juice on this rug before which is why we made the rule. If I let it, this can bubble up into several days of not talking to her because she possibly ruined my rug, and if I don't count all the rent she doesn't pay, I'm still down several hundred dollars in destroyed property in just under 6 months. Don't get me started on the bathroom sink handle that fell off in my hand. I have to figure out how to repair it. 2 years of living here without catastrophic failures, 6 months of Ashley and air beds perforate, shoes I've had for years are reduced to husks, faucet handles fall off, new wool rug is stained. Clothes she's had for mere months are already sporting tears. I don't know if she is in a fight club or something but I do know I can't take another broken or stained thing.

Emotional about edamame

Maybe it's been a rougher week than I think, maybe I'm starting my period soon. All I know is I ordered edamame and he didn't put the order in so all my food got cold while I waited for them and my frustration was WAY out of proportion to edamame's importance in my life. This might have been the third time I've had it ever. But I still muttered expletives as I walked home with the rest of my carry out about f-ing edamame and inept servers named Brett.

It's been a long week.

A quick postscript: I'm also thinking of defriending someone on Facebook. Actually a couple of people because they irritate me so much as people and I so despise their point of view that I find their posts angst provoking. Both are on fire for Jesus types who have taken to proselytizing and social consciousness with the same vigor and zeal they took to the clubs when that was their scene. Irritating. as. hell. Almost daily they post annoying links or comments; one to faith based websites or Fox News (really), the other posts critical social activism quotations or links which seek to make people feel like douchebags for having anything at all or Bible verses. I don't often take the bait but today I did when he expressed outrage that people came out in the 10's of thousands in Australia to see Oprah and only hundreds gathered to protest whatever the fuck is happening with that creepy Wikileaks guy.

The Wikileaks thing incenses me on a couple of levels. First is that it happened at all. That someone violated the trust placed in them and compromised confidential discussions, positions, assessments. That creepy guy can only publish what someone gives him and some ass wipe did. Anyone defending that is just not a friend of mine. I hold some of Facebook guy's secrets, should I just post them on Facebook because all of our mutual friends deserve transparency into the confidences we've shared with one another? Does your new wife need to know what you've told me about her and the girls before? I think she would say yes. I think you would say hell no. Only a profound idiot takes to the streets and tries to twist the fundamental betrayal of telling secrets and breaking trust on such a scale into something grandiose about transparency in government. Bull shit. This isn't Watergate.

So I'm torn. Do I defriend them? The part of me that wants always to be a better person tomorrow than I was today says I should ignore them but appreciate the diversity and divergence of thought they bring because it reminds me not everyone is as smart as I am. And also so I can be aware there are people who may actually think President Palin has a nice ring to it. But I find the way they use their platform so arrogant and annoying, I just don't want to see it anymore. And for those who might be inclined to suggest I just delete my account, I would be done with Facebook entirely if it weren't the best way to know what in the world my brother is up to.

Probably not fair aka this is why I'm single

I haven't joined "The Network" yet, saving that for an in-case-of-emergency-break-glass kind of day when I need a really big boost AND I'm willing to pay for a month worth of 'hey shorty, hit me up.' I did join another free site just to mix it up a little. I have less than zero expectations from this site but it's generating more traffic than the other so the entertainment factor is better for me. PG adult entertainment.

From: Dude
To: Ava
Subject: Hi

Hey,

My name is XX and I’m 28 years old. I am very to the site, and it is my goal to find some new, fascinating, fun people. I came across your profile and it seems to me that we can at least share a conversation based on some of our interests. I am a college graduate that works in (city) as a Manager; I also live in that area. I like women of all ages, races, types…so I don’t pre-judge people. I would love to hear from you soon as my interest is sparked from your profile/pics!

From: Ava
To: Dude

Hi XX,

Thanks for writing. I'm curious what interests we have in common. Are you a manager
of ninjas? That would be really cool if you were.

I am lovin the capital M manager title. I suspect he is a fake user because he refers to his college degree in his profile as the thing that helped him get his capital M manager job. Who says that?

Or this guy. 'Separated' which is a way of saying 'married' so already not really at the top of most women's list. His one picture is unclear and he's doing a crossed arms rapper pose so yet another tick in the hells no column yet he has the nerve to write this:

I cant say or not say Im atracted to you, but I enjoyed reading your profile. even that big toe story...

You sound like a bigger geek than me...oh every female I ever encountered, nicknamed me a geek as if yhey know something I dont...lol

So appreciate a response to my rapier wit and honesty is great but really not appreciated in this case. So...

Lovin' that honesty. Right back at you on the is she/isn't she attracted to me question.
I like that you made the effort to say hi anyway and at least tell me that you enjoyed
the profile. I prefer the term nerd over geek. Semantics maybe but I think nerds don't
usually get beat up in high school and geeks often do. :-)

Old

I was making one of my rare visits to Facebook to accept a friend request from a guy I haven't spoken to in years. A lifetime ago, I wondered if something would ever happen between us but we were not a good match. He's one of the people who made Steven Covey rich and would describe Amway as his business (which it isn't). Not only am I not that person but I kind of reflexively dislike people who are so I would not have been the woman who supported his dreams. I would have been the woman who made fun of them. Still there was a moment in college when if I had been anyone else, we would have at least made out. Can't tell you how many times I've spent hours in a car with a guy and nothing happens. I must give out some seriously conflicting vibes. ANYWAY, while I was on there I saw a high school reunion page. I was clicking through the photos and wow, we're those people. All the women have filled out and though they all look like themselves, we're old now. We would easily invite eye rolling and mockery from people in their 20's with our Dress Barn fashions (why oh why won't they change their name), and EasySpirit wedges. Most of the women are tagged with hyphenated names so we can remember them, the men for the most part are more lined and ever so slightly bloated versions of their yearbook pictures.

We are lucky I think that these things happen over time a bit at a time. Only if we look back can we get a sense of how long ago high school was, how much time is etched on our face and in our bodies. When Baloo was younger and we played fetch, she would run low to the ground at lightning speed, twisting her body, going all out like a catcher jumping the wall. She is still just as excited about fetch but she just doesn't run the same anymore. She sleeps more. I'm sure she still feels like herself; hates squirrels, other dogs, loves street food and affection, wiggles like a puppy, but she'll yelp if you rub her hips too hard. I think the mid 30's are the first time you start to feel and recognize age. I spent a good part of my 20's just keeping up with the other people in the room who I didn't realize at the time weren't any smarter than me, they had just been there longer. Now I'm that person. It's actually a great place to be. I am no longer impressed with the length of time someone has worked somewhere and certainly don't accept it as shorthand for competency unless we're counting not getting fired as competency.

The only area where I think this place in life works against me is in relationships. I'm far less open, and I wasn't terribly open to begin with. To be fair, a good number of my peers paired up in their 20's so the field I'm playing in is littered with more undesirable variables; exes, children, whatever has made us both resistible to the opposite sex if we have neither (exes/children). I continue to get the periodic earnest e-mail from guys 10 years younger and I adore how simply they view relationships. If I love her, it will work. It doesn't matter if I live 5 hours away, it doesn't matter if you get a warning saying your don't meet my message filters for age and distance. It's adorable and annoying because you are usually the same guy going on and on about how women say they want a nice guy and here you are, great guy getting regularly dissed by women who really don't want what they say they want. Can't think of a faster turnoff besides tragic personal grooming.

So anyway, I'm old.

Open letter; Dr. C.

Dear Dr. C (how apt),

Here's the deal. When I come in for a broken ankle, you don't write me a prescription for cough medicine. So today, when I came in for a hernia and you ordered blood work, I was already confused. When you suggested if I fasted we could also get my blood sugar, I was even more confused. I asked why you were ordering the test noting I've never had an issue in blood work or symptoms of diabetes. You said you like to get that blood work when patients are carrying "a little extra weight," because "it can creep up on you." Bitch, I will creep up on you. No immediate family history of diabetes, healthy enough to give away a kidney, the removal of which is directly related to my complaint today, and which incidentally with any risk for diabetes, would have never been approved. I'm surrounded by diabetes posters, there is an illustration of a black man with his shoes off encouraging diabetic patients to show doctors their feet which already annoyed me for its stereotypical bias, and now with absolutely no reason, complaint, or history to support it, you ordered a test and called me fat. Don't think I missed the comment when you were feeling my abdomen noting my muscle was covered in fat. I caught that too. Almost forgot your parting shot about not needing a pap smear because I was so ridiculously low risk. If you weren't so patronizing and passive aggressive I might give you props for deft ninja-like dismemberment of my self-esteem.

Why are you such a bitter hater? Just because you can be mistaken for a teenage boy? Did your boyfriend date a black girl after he broke up with you? I'm sorry about your eating disorder. Not my problem. Women should never do that to one another. Especially heinous to dispense that haterade cloaked in a white doctor's coat. You should have a cracker and check your blood sugar. So annoyed with myself that I didn't call you out on your passive aggressive shit. Next time...both barrels Dr. C. Creeping up on you with a little extra.

Mixing it up

I've been low lately. There's the in-betweens, the dwindling daylight, mercurial weather, lack of companionship, and my growing separation anxiety over having to work in an office without my boss. His presence makes it just a little bit easier to come in. And he's leaving in six months. I'm borrowing that misery well in advance and I know its dumb to do so. Work today was heavy cloud, no rain, thin grey-ish silver lining. When I got the text from a friend in town for work to grab a drink, I was finally home and really just getting into organizing my bookshelf and tempted to decline. I mean bookshelf organizing people, that's some high speed engrossing shit. But I tore myself away and I'm so so glad I did. Had a ball. Reminded me I am capable of laughter and can go to a bar with someone and have more fun than I do alone which had been my habit here after a couple of turns at going out with the girls. Not for me. Too Mutual of Omaha for my taste. I founded this friend's fan club so he gets to take most of the credit for how fun it was but it was also just great to talk to someone who understood. Who I can have a conversation with about the world and the places to go in it. This might be why a girl I know here can't not hang with her nurse friends, though she swears half the time she hates them. They can speak in shorthand about their work. I don't realize I miss that until I have it again and find it so refreshing to be understood and to be able to tell a story without having to provide all the context. In short, it was fun and I'm glad I went. It shook off the funk of the day.

Arg aka Moment of Zen

Ashley is jobless again. Went into work today to learn her assignment as a temp ended the Friday before. Came home tonight and she was posted on the couch, wrapped in a comforter, watching It's Always Sunny while wearing prescription sunglasses because she left her busted eyeglasses in VA. Probably with the friend who scored her pot. Whatever.

My boss is going on vacation to Aruba. What. the. hell. I try to take a week off to wash my floors and do laundry and he's blowin up my phone. I do not understand the concept of vacation. I really don't. Every trip I go on is a chore on some level. It's a break from my life but it's not really a break. Going home is looking for ways to help my parents, going to see most of my friends involves a spouse and children. I never regret going but it's hard to get me there. No one understands this better that my Soul Twin. Soul Twin is kind of my go-to girlfriend because we were truly separated at birth. I'm probably going to D.C. for work this week. We'll have dinner or we won't while I'm in town. We both understand how the other gets weirded out and stressed and sometimes just needs to get going. It's nice to know someone who knows what it's like to be me. We can give eachother permission to do things because we know how the other thinks and why something bothers us the way it does. A lot of my friends stretch me and inspire me, ST does that but she also really gets me. I can call her breathless and out of control stressed over something really, really, insignificant. Really insignificant. Like, I wanted to sit outside today and I missed the sun in the courtyard and now I'm in a bad mood, and how that is just a part of a bigger issue/symptom in my hollow life, insignificant. Yea, we can go a good 40 minutes on that and cover a lot of ground. I'm grateful for her.

I am so restless right now. I wish I had it in me to pick up in go, abscond my responsibilities and obligations. I am tripping over myself mentally. Everything is everything. I feel boxed in waiting for something beyond my control to shake the uncertainty from my life. I want to know where I'm going, where I'll be next year. I want a printer that connects to my wireless router, I want a boyfriend, I want to get off of paper mail all together because this paper if freaking killing me. You can't just throw it away anymore for fear of identity theft and I don't have a fireplace anymore to stage mass burnings of shit I didn't want to come to my house in the first place. I don't feel like I am even treading water right now. I have difficulty writing over the soundtrack of the television and kind of dread coming home because it isn't a refuge. I'm ready to admit an unhealthy obsession with my boss which is really a reflection of my life's emptiness more than a measure of his appeal as a human being or a man. He's a place I can direct energy that returns good energy back. It's unhealthy because like any supplement, it's not meant to replace actual sustenance.

In a few minutes I will head to the gym. Had I gone an hour ago, I would probably be pumped but now I'm half dressed under the covers and enjoying a moment alone in my filthy house. The year is almost over and the worst of the winter is ahead of us. I can't believe how wrong I was about what I hoped would come of Philly. I hate the in-between times.

Imma Be

You've probably figured it out by now but I'm the straight-laced sibling. The one who didn't see the point of drinking underage, who was never even offered drugs, and who into her twenties would not even say the word swear and considered hell and damn to her saltiest language. Times have clearly changed at least as it concerns the use of expletives (fuck, yea!) but at my core, I'm not really a rule breaker and I value people's trust.

As best I can describe someone I'm not, my brother and sister have never been that person. They are great at being likable and to some extent good at deception. They are not as good at hiding 'stuff' but they are good at hiding who they are. They like to plant; make what appear to be spontaneous statements to both gauge your reaction and throw you off the trail. When my sister started smoking (cigarettes) before we found out, she told me this long elaborate story that involved her best friend who had started smoking with my sister cast as the counselor urging her not to and outlining for me all the reasons she would never smoke. She was already smoking. That to me was evil. To go out of your way to deceive. We weren't even talking about smoking. We weren't talking about anything, just on our way back from the store on a random Sunday morning.

When she visited last year Thanksgiving, her clothes and bags reeked of marijuana and when she moved in with her still reeking bags, she tried to tell me, a person who spent my first few years out of college running drug cases, that I didn't know what I was talking about. She may be 23 but she wasn't living like an adult so I started tossing her room. I found what I hoped I wouldn't, including pictures of her in her cell phone actually smoking a blunt. Fucking idiot. I don't know where you all fall on the debate over whether the drug should be legalized but is isn't right now and I don't appreciate her bringing the paraphernalia and the substance in my house, even if she chooses to hide it (badly). The thing about deciding someone has no expectation of privacy while they live with you without bringing them in on the loop--it doesn't make me feel good. Confronting her about it is difficult because it immediately devolves into a discussion about invasion of privacy instead of disrespect of my household and livelihood bringing that shit in my house.

I wish I didn't feel it was necessary. If she were a grownup doing her grownup shit in her own grownup house with her own grownup money, I still want better for her but it has very little chance of fucking up my orbit. But that's not where we are at so that's not how we roll. I toss her shit, and I'm going to start throwing away anything I find that I don't want in my house. She'll know it's me but I want to make her challenge me about throwing out her bong or her weed. I want to have that discussion with her. I want her to tell me why it's worse for me to discard things that can actually get me fired from my home where she lives rent free than it is for her to bring them in my house to begin with. We won't have that conversation though. She'll just know (I hope) that while she lives with me, it won't be a place she can do stupid shit like that and it will motivate her to find her own place. I think I am learning more about how people hide this stuff now than I ever did working this stuff when I was younger. I guess its different when you live it. It's honestly the worst part of this entire stinking deal. The deception.

Woe to you would-be unborn children of mine-I am going to be a REALLY tough mother. Better your aunt than your mother because I will take no prisoners. Like white on rice my friend. I should probably stick to dogs.

Being there

I don't know about you but Thanksgiving at my house, well any occasion at my house goes a little like this. Eating until watching food commercials provoke nausea followed by watching my parents talk on the phone to their extended family. Then I alternate between watching my mother nap between dialysis in her extremely warm room or hanging out with my father in a more temperate wing of the house for whatever he's doing. That's probably just happening here but there is something about just being there, even though we're not doing anything. Perhaps there is a more ideal scene going down somewhere else; decorating houses or trees, camping out for sales, excited about getting that great deal on the thing you know will make someone's eyes wide with delight. As for me and mine, Ashley is out with her friends, my father is sleeping on the couch, my mother upstairs in her sauna, and I am at the kitchen table in my pajamas dealing with the guilt and bloating.

Back to the network?

Other than the haterade out there for my sistas, one of the big problems of the internet as a singles bar is that it gives you too much information out of context and lets each person chose which foot to put forward. Judging by the over 50 thousand people online right now, we probably don't pick out the best shoe to put on that foot. There are quizzes and compatibility percentages and all sorts of ways to sort but I can't think of anyone I know that would have picked the person they are married to now if they saw them on the internet first and read a profile. We try to be attractive to one another but you never really know what draws a person to you at any given moment. Most couples I know don't have a ton of common interests outside their interest in one another yet you rarely come across a profile that doesn't want their prospective mate or date to be into whatever they are into. I don't think it works like that, that you are waiting to be completed by someone who also understands some obscure reference you've put in your profile like it's a treasure map only the right person will be able to read and understand.

That aside, I'm thinking of returning to the network. That's right Lodo, the Black People Network redux. Need to feel the love. Need to have to clean out my inbox everyday because I've got it like that. Want to not have to scroll through a profile to figure out if he's even worth considering on account of his racial preferences for usually everyone but me. Yea, that's probably going to happen again soon. So much more blog fodder on that site. Polish men with bats, foot fetishes, guys who want me to compare myself to a Living Single cast member...and who can forget beautiful Rob?

Also

If the state of a person's soul or character was in any way a reflection of the number of cavities a person has, I would definitely be going to hell. On Friday when I visited this dentist there was much gushing about how awesome my teeth and mouth were and what a good job I was doing. I thought I might even get my name on a plaque or be asked to be a patient ambassador for some wayward dental stewards or something. Today the receptionist called to tell me I had 8 cavities. Not sure that's possible but until I get a second opinion, I'm kind of in a bad mood about it. I was especially annoyed with the non-dentist receptionist schooling me on how cavities form over time and that the kind of cavities I had suggested there was a "flossing issue." Bitch, I have a cavity issue and an issue with you telling me I have 8 cavities, self-esteem issues, work-life balance issues, intermittent back issues, but what I can assure you I do NOT have is a "flossing issue."

Seriously. Who does that? You're not telling me I have high blood pressure and need to lose 15 pounds. It's not like I can floss the cavities away. Shut your damn mouth.

Worth at least 50 words

I don't have the camera and didn't have the tripod to do this justice but it was beautiful.



Then the moon snuck between the buildings...



Meanwhile, the sun was rising.



Only to set again later that night and return the moon to the train station in Philly.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Doesn't it always? Spontaneity, act first, think later, unleash the possibility, invite that encounter, carpe diem, Robin Williams. The hormone fueled cloud brewing overhead would suggest this weekend was a lesson in leaving that day unseized, that whatever is out there isn't necessarily a fated encounter, it could be anticlimactically like the life you fled. That discovery has its own value and impact though not nearly as magical and interesting one as meeting a handsome stranger on the train which would definitely have felt like a reward for breaking set with my normal routine. Instead I missed every scheduled departure, wondered if I did want the trappings of adult life or responsibility for other human beings and took pictures of the moon against the New York City skyline at sunrise.

I was fine with how I spent my time, however unravelled, until I walked into my front door. Sarah Palin's voice greeted me from the television which upset and irritated me in ways given the arc of her exposure lately, will likely provoke a dedicated post. The washer was going which annoyed me. I do both my and Ashley's laundry because I don't trust her with the machine it reminded me that I needed to buy detergent which I was sure she had used copious amounts of in the wrong slots. Then I walked into the kitchen and it was terrible. In addition to the mess, there was the phenom that occurs every single time I leave the house-she cleans me out. Eats every damn thing. It's insane. I left the house near 5 yesterday, returned at 7 today. Just over 24 hours of opportunity, much of which is usually dedicated to sleeping. I have seen her for the first time in a day at 3pm during the weekend. It's like when she knows I'm not going to be around overnight she just goes for broke. In my imagination, I see her locking the door, unhitching her jaw, and just eating until she passes out reviving only to begin consumption anew. Grinds my gears, it does.

She was out walking the dog when I arrived home so I took in the scene, said aloud, 'I need her gone,' changed the channel, and got in the shower, hoping to avoid seeing her while I was in the wrong frame of mind to deal. She came in while I was in the shower, when I got out, she asked me if I had eaten, I told her over the wall that I wasn't feeling well and was going to bed, and she promptly went into the kitchen to put away the dishwasher dishes and clean out the sink. She knows. I know I would not have been as bent if I had not made an effort to have a different kind of weekend and had not encountered so many obstacles in trying to do the same. It's a very frustrating feeling soon to be displaced by whatever this week has in store for me. Still, I did try, right?

That's what I get for trying.

I wanna feel good

A little here and there tonight so let's start with something that's been on my mind for, I don't know, years.

Dear 3rd street Starbucks,

Three, sometimes four people behind the counter at any given time and every last one of you evokes the sense of urgency of an opium den. I get the same mother-lovin plain black coffee every single day. Every day. When I get to the front of the line after you've lingered for a deep thoughts pause between customers, you say 'tall black?' I say yes and then you either stand there and wait for someone five steps away to do the complicated kabuki dance that is filling my cup or you slowly turn around and do it yourself in the careful and determined way a five year old would pour coffee. For the very first time. If you worked at a bar you would absolutely be fired and that's serving a depressant. You are serving speed to people who need speed, who are already irritable because they haven't had any since the day before and you are moving too. fucking. slow. I hate you for being more conveniently located on my way to work. I know I'll get my coffee eventually but not before you serve me a steamy mug of frustration. Not unlike the steamy dump I want to take on your register (right in the ol tip box) in protest. Or maybe just to see if you are physically capable of moving any faster.

Be faster.

Ava

--

So it's official, I'm officially lame. I'm hopeful it won't last but wondering what it means when even a good day-a great day, brings me almost as low as I was high. Preliminary analysis suggests work and even the people at work, can't love you in a way that fills and spills over into your life. Professional admiration, affection, and respect make it a tad easier to get out of bed but they don't make it easier to come home to an empty life. I look forward to this next move for the possibility of extending the co-dependent relationship I have with my boss right now but also for the misplaced optimism of becoming someone better in a new space and place. Like one of these days I'll move and leave the worst of me behind. A recipe for running the rest of my life.

I'm just looking for something to pour my life into. Something that fills me even as I empty myself into it. I struggle with whether to search for it or work on not wanting it.

Best-ies, brown sweaters, and ex-boyfriends

I was kind of wondering about him today. Before I moved here, a girlfriend who believes in signs and wonders and likes to farm her dreams for meaning told me she had feeling I would meet my Mr. in Philadelphia. Somewhere between her and her mother, my Mr. was provided in a vision wearing a brown shirt and it messed with my mind in the same way reading horoscopes at the beginning of the day did when I was teenager.

Knowing this time next year I will be somewhere else, I've indulged in some magical thinking about the time that remains and have decided my magic lies somewhere at the UPS store near my house. My dog has been trying to go in that store since we moved here for reasons unknown, there are likely to be men in brown milling about, I took shelter inside the door well of the UPS store after breaking my ankle, and it is located on the same street that I have twice found significant sums of money. So there. It's a done deal. I may as well get cracking on the seating arrangements.

I was reminded today of why I refused to have weight loss goals while looking through photos on my camera. Why are you so hurtful camera? One good full body shot would be...I don't even know, merciful, encouraging, impossible?


I keep having recurring daydreams of my ex-boyfriend showing up at my office and trying to kill me. Literally haven't communicated with or seen the man in over 7 years. Of course my ninja always prevails but they are kind of disturbing daydreams.

I asked my boss if he was high today after he asked me to do his work (again). I'm probably getting too mouthy for my own good. It's just easier to be tart and incredulous than actually air my grievances and really lay into him. He doesn't have the attention span for that. Even if he does, I can't see investing the energy. I already invest too much of my energy and attention on him. Simply because he's my best friend at work and might be my favorite person in Philadelphia. To be fair, he doesn't have particularly stiff competition, but it's still sad that I miss him when he's not in the office. I think he misses me too. I don't think he really needs me as much as he bugs me-he just wants an excuse to talk to me. He-he. Cracks me up. I think it makes a huge positive difference to have a best friend at work. Lucky for him, I'm also a good assistant to the manager. What do they say? If you're called to be a servant, don't stoop to be a King? I'll just take that and run with it until I decide to take a run at the crown.

Speaking of best friends, I think I'm going to stop using that designation. It was important when we were younger and in peer groups where it just seemed natural to award those titles but as an adult, I think you can honor the sense of history you have with someone without burdening them with the title and expectations of a best friend. Nevermind the caveated introduction 'best friend from high school/college/basic training/Colorado/Maryland...etc). As it stands, those of us who live like gypsies are bound to fall in love over and over again with someone everywhere we hang our hat. Some of those connections last. Some don't. Truly its damn lucky to have more than one person you might consider your best friend for any part of your life. I am that kind of lucky. My collection of best friends are amazing.

My sister mentioned they are looking to harvest eggs from women for use with infertile couples. They being the hospital she works for. They of course pay for them but it appealed to me because things are just not looking good for ol Ava on the will she/won't she live happily ever after with Mr. and damn it if I'm not already 35. So just knowing a piece of me is out there and that further, I helped someone who had everything else, fill this desire, really appeals to me. I have a vague recollection of hearing somewhere that it's worth every cent they pay you because it is NOT a pleasant process but I think it would still be kind of cool. Or weird and creepy. Really vacillating on this one.

Satisfaction

I can see most of my bed now. I am feeling fairly satisfied with the weekend's accomplishments including an hour in the park today with Baloo treeing squirrels. I made a connection between a childhood memory and my love of sky naps in warm cars. I got bummed that I have not perfected the new timing of when the sun floods the patio area in our courtyard. I've wanted every day this weekend to sit in the sun until it disappears and have every day missed that narrow window. I tried harder to dress like someone who likes themselves. I came close on Saturday. Today was a miss on account of some stone-washed Levi's I resurrected that really should have not been disturbed. I bought 2 purses today that were fabulous and ridiculously expensive relative to how much I usually pay. Completely worth it. My neighbor, a dedicated bargain hunter visibly blanched and she didn't even know how much I spent. Weird. I made sausage and peppers, baked some quick bread, and even squeezed in a workout. Today was the kind of ideal day I often imagine is someone's entire enviable life. Today it was mine.

Do I amuse you?

Got a call from a friend after my last post, taking me to task as she often does, but also like Lodo, finding the post hilarious. I won't do it justice but my friend explained even though it was clear I was not having a good day, a sense of humor was still evident. She told me what she specifically found funny and I've re-read the post a couple of times since then-it's honestly a stretch for me to see what could make someone actually laugh. And Lodo, I feel bad for my penis punching comment as you are clearly not alone in finding my inside-out missives on the sad state of my human condition amusing. Only one other time have I been so despondent and been met with laughter. I wrote a girlfriend after my ex sent me an engagement picture and she found my high drama so....I guess over the top, that it gave her deep and satisfying belly laughs. So the upside of my personal despair is the mirth it creates for those around me when I attempt to describe it.

Awesome.

Hater

I'm annoyed with all of you, who in spite what is obviously wrong with you have managed to find someone who said yes. Yes to everything. I'm annoyed that you manage to travel, that you do interesting things, know stuff I'm not interested in learning but hate that you know. I hate that you think you know how I feel, that you can commiserate with me when I know full well your life is more than sleep and eat and you don't understand why I feel like people should be lining the sidewalks cheering when I manage to mail a package. I resent your triumph in circumstances that would (and do) best me. I'm not the person to tell that you've decided to run a marathon. I'll admire the crap out of you and hate myself even more. Totally not your fault but that's totally what's going to happen.

And I hope you resent me too. I hope there is something about me beyond you. Something you wish was innate, like my hateful attitude or my militant streak. Or my legs. Or my street fighting dog. Or my dating (and general) misfortune for its intrinsic storytelling value.

I'm a great friend to those in sorrow and a terrible friend otherwise, especially if you aren't physically close. It's not so much out of sight out of mind, more out of arm's reach and I'm a deeply lazy person. I'm also a service oriented person. If I'm not doing anything for you, I'm not sure what we're doing. Having fun doesn't count. Maybe because what I wanted figured into very little growing up, maybe because I'm just wired that way but if it's not mandatory or exigent, it's harder to make a space for it. Who knows. I don't like feeling like I'm being fit into the corner of a person's otherwise overflowing life. I struggle to understand what I'm doing there. I don't like feeling bad about myself as a result of surrounding myself with people who are doing a better job at giving life a better run for its money. I walked home in a muttering mood in the dark wishing I was the kind of person who considered the night young at 7pm and was annoyed that my cancelled trainer appointment was found time only for me to stay later at work. And I stayed at work because what else was I going to do? I hated the cold and the feeling there was no one to call, no company to be had. There is fur covered brown-eyed company currently willing me with her eyes to de-ass the couch and venture back out into the cold but aside from that...

I'm annoyed with how slow I can sometimes be. That I didn't immediately recognize the gentle brush off from SBJ. I'm annoyed any grey matter of mine is even devoting attention to the notion of continued contact with someone who seems at least on paper to be kind of terrible boyfriend material. I'm annoyed in a very macro sense at times that I'm not white because being black is such a non-starter to so many men I might otherwise talk to. I don't want to be white but let me tell you, it never ceases to sting a little to see my demographic excluded. That part of a person that wants to belong well, just wants to belong. Doesn't want to be left waiting to be picked because of something that doesn't even speak to whether you would otherwise get along. It is what it is though and truly not something to dwell on as there is absolutely nothing to be done about it.

I walk by a condo often. The blinds are always lifted enough to see a bit inside. It's a static kind of messy that I sympathized and identified with. I saw a game console guitar, various plants in stages of death-I wanted to knock on their door and call them kin. I assumed it was a guy living alone and then one day discovered it was a couple. Annoyed the shit out of me. Not sure why.

All this hate is making me sleepy.

Grateful either way

I'm a little melancholy today. I'm trying to power through it with housework and earlier even attempted looking cute as an antidote but no dice. I'm back in my pajama pants and flying the white flag. Those of you out in blogger land with someone to come home to, thank your lucky stars. How does that go, better to have and not need, than need and not have? I am reminding myself of the advantages, the unilateral decision making on things he might object to, the singular agenda, the time to myself, half the laundry, smells, and messes. I know this melancholy will pass but today I'm a little restless and sad he isn't here-if he's to come at all. It is sharply cold out and the dog has diarrhea (result of some ill-gotten gains during a routine sidewalk contraband run). I would love to snuggle into someone else's warmth and would have children with the man who took Baloo out right now. Trying, trying, trying to be grateful either way.

Being Me

I made something good happen today. I suppose I could have taken it for myself because I put the spade work into creating the opportunity but it was better suited for someone else and I was delighted to set it up for them. It feels good to set someone up to shine. To make good connections happen. Whenever my boss asks me how I did something, I usually tell him, "I'm good at what I do."

The cloud in that silver lining-tonight I'm not going to court it. There is some threshold here, between being aware and making awareness a weapon against myself. Knowing that I prefer to unearth opportunities for other people to pursue, that I like especially taking on projects that others have failed, that I like being the go-to all source trouble shooter almost as much as I resent it at times; all those things are thick ribbons of silver lining that like all things in excess, bring storms. This week was a little excessive and I know my boss knew that. He thanked me for something very elementary and simple today. He's trying. Perhaps I'm reaching and my perspective is clouded by my professional and personal affection for him but I think we've hit a good rhythm and this time next year, we'll be breaking in new people and that makes me a little sad. So I want to have fun with him these last few months and let the work fall where it may. I think my work will actually be better for it even if it's not my focus.

This lifestyle-I don't know why I chose it. So much time is spent adjusting only to hit my stride near the end. George Costanza would be proud. Always leave on a high note.

SBJ returns

Lot's of inside stuff going on in Ava-land, much of which is being raised and revealed through work. I'm just moving too quickly to do more than notice that I had a thought about something when something happened that seemed worth coming back to at some time. Typical me. Why chip away at this when I can address it in one fell swoop following a breakdown?

But the good news is SpongeBob Jesus (SBJ) is back. I wrote him a nonchalant WTF and he responded with a witty 'taking it slow.' I believe there was a line in there about blowing my mind slowly so as to avoid an "incident." Witty repartee is right up there with things I find attractive in a man. And by witty I mean silly as you will see from the excerpts below. Worth noting, the phrase "my awesome translates more powerfully in person" can be found on my profile as can the vignette about being accosted on the street by Ethan who freestyle rapped for me. It was under the category 'I'm good at' (getting strangers to freestyle rap to me about Obama and the economy). Also worth noting, SBJ came to my attention because he viewed my profile and he was holding a puppy in his picture so naturally, I checked him out. I had to be raised by suspicious parents. I would have otherwise not made it through childhood because I would have gone with anyone holding a dog.

Ava: I liked your profile. Your Spongebob pants frighten me slightly but I'm sure it's charming in person.

SBJ: So.......What you're saying is........I shouldn't have gone to that job interview right after I took that picture? Maybe THAT'S why I haven't heard back from them yet. I thought they were making all those faces because they liked it. I mean........I thought my look was kind of.......well......endearing. Ya see, the way I see it, "My Awesome Translates So Much More Powerfully In Person."

I REALLY got their attention though when I started bustin' out my freestyle, Obama-Rap. Some people will just never get it.

Anyway...........Thank You So Much. I liked you profile too.

Ava: They DID like it. They loved it. Really. They felt a man who could get his strut on rockin that look was management material. The freestyle rap--I'm not going to lie, it was a misstep, (know your audience-it was definitely a PBS crowd) but it was overall a very good interview. Your problem was that I interviewed right after you and well, like you, my awesome DOES translate powerfully in person and I was the last awesome of the day.

But hey, no hard feelings. I'm on the management track now and pretty soon I'll have the authority to bring on new team members. Play your cards right and my commas and your long ellipses can be gracing the company letterhead before you know it. Don't stop believing.

This is fun. Thank YOU.

SBJ: Well......Shit!

What kinda pants did YOU wear that day?

What can I say? I like what I like.

Paved with good intentions

Okay so maybe we got a little too excited about SpongeBob Jesus. I may have scared him off. I think in the context of the conversation we were having, it was not at all alarming to suggest my favorite baby names. He clearly feels differently about it.

I didn't really do that, it was just funny to write. I haven't really taken a week off of work either. Tomorrow for the third day in a row during my week of vacation, I am going into work. It won't even be a 3 day weekend as I am going in tomorrow to prepare for something that will happen Friday. Maybe the sinking anxious feeling from Monday wasn't an inability to relax but a premonition for how badly this attempt at gaining perspective and traction in my personal life was going to turn out.

A nugget of perspective on how I came to be this way came by way of Snake (my co-worker). I was raging, complaining about the complete lack of boundaries and how sick I was of being consulted about issues clearly outside of the scope of my job. A few minutes later, we were talking about something else and I mentioned that I had been preparing my sister's checks for deposit because left to her own devices, it just sits on the countertop. Snake noted I was 'that person' even in my family. I'm the person they depend on to do something special for their birthday, to research things, to take in siblings, to comfort my mother when she's feeling down as my father asked me to do today. Then later this evening, I recalled my father sometimes coming down to my room when I was in college to talk about the things that bothered him-often about my mom. How I ran the family finances when he was away on an extended absence, reconciling the checkbook with him weekly, how I arranged my classes in college to be able to pick up my sister from school, how I started cooking dinners when I was 12 to help out after my sister was born. I won't say those things should or shouldn't be because they just are. I just think they are useful for me to recall because if it's something I want to change, I should be patient with myself. I can't change something I've been doing since I was at least 12 in one week. I can't even decide if I want to change in one week.

So that's where we stand. No SpongeBob Jesus, work again tomorrow, pause on the introspection and housekeeping.

Boys

I don't know if I believe in jinxing something but I do believe that when you feel the need to talk about a boy, it means there is more to talk about than is actually going on. I believe the big stuff is happening when there isn't a lot of conversation. One day a person is just a part of your life. No conversations about when he's going to call or what it meant when he said one thing and did another. They become a given. Those who have it simply can not appreciate it. No more than I appreciate breathing.

A long preamble to simply say I wrote a guy today that I really like. He looks like Jesus, has a kid, manages 2 pet stores, and plays the drums. He has a SpongeBob watch AND pants and has worn both in public. What can I say? I like what I like. I told him I liked his profile but his pants frightened me, he responded with great humor and wit and said he liked my profile as well. I'm not sure what that gets us but it was nice to have fun. He's already written twice tonight and that just makes me feel good. We are having a good time. Going to try not to get too far ahead of myself since it's physically impossible and a terrible strain when you try.

A rollercoaster day, happy this morning to have heard from a dear friend, welling up at lunch because I don't know how to relax, and finishing my evening with laughter courtesy of SpongeBob Jesus. Thank you actual Jesus and thank you SpongeBob Jesus for finding those ridiculous pants in an adult size and wearing them outdoors. You are so many things not on my list that I've lost count but you are funny and fun to talk with. I hope we can be at least very good friends.

Breaking it down

So I've spent most the last 24 hours with my boss. I thought sometime during the 10 hours we were in the car, we might have that talk. The one about boundaries, or the one about how he hurt my feelings with actions that I interpreted as a manifestation of his feelings about the value of my time versus his, about icing, about please and thank you. Instead we talked about everything from rectal exams to our parents, to continuing our professional relationship by me coming out to work with him in his next assignment. So now I have whatever the least non-committal form of tentative plans to move to California next year which makes me feel good. Good enough to still possibly quit. It's one thing to leave feeling there is nothing for me here. It's another to leave in spite of a perceived opportunity. It feels stronger. Like in the movies when the jerk finally gives you the time of day and you no longer need their attention or want them. Without a bird in hand, you know you deserve and can do better. That's how I want to quit.

I've thought a lot about everything over the past few days and haven't really had any breakthroughs. There are certain truths I stumble across while considering the core angst in play-why I do the things I do, why I feel the things I feel. They give me vocabulary but don't really help me change. I am a student of introspection and I think the practice helps me empathize with other people's humanity, with their 'why' and how wildly different 'what' can stem from the same 'why.' But using introspection as a tool to shape my life...I'm beginning to consider a semester abroad in the school of 'fake it till you make it.' I keep waiting for my desires to align with my motivation and discipline and I keep coming up short. I marvel at what others accomplish and assume they want to do everything they are doing. Few are fortunate enough to have most of their time and life spent pursuing whatever form their bliss takes. What's good for us doesn't often feel good to do.

On the flip side, why am I so hard on myself? I know that no one has the life I envy. The life I envy doesn't exist. Why knowing that doesn't really penetrate that part of me that likes to keep coals at the ready to dump upon my head is probably it's own introspective post. This post has taken several days and I'm back from the Halloween party with my boss and his wife. I had a good time considering that I don't find anything about parties like that appealing. It was cute to watch him with his wife and their playfulness with one another. I think I'm officially unhealthily obsessed. It's too easy to want to be helpful to him. And you know, at their core, people don't respect you when you consistently put the needs of others above your own. Perhaps because the world becomes your parasite. I don't know. I just know I was anxious about being away from work today and I worked over half the day on a week I am not supposed to be in at all. I just wish it were easier for me to relax. I only know how to work hard and I'm not even sure I really work hard so I guess I don't feel like I deserve to play.

Interlude

While I work on denser chewier posts, a little something to nosh on from my (non) dating adventures. One should note that the last 'conversation' I had with this guy, I told him I disliked hyperbole after he described his day as phenomenal. I didn't hear from him for 3 weeks after that and thought the coast was clear. This is what I get for thinking. I wish I had got married young to my first love and didn't have to deal with this world. It gets harder as time goes on to imagine ever meeting someone. But if nothing else, it is blog fodder.

Him: Whats up sexy how have you been?

Ava: Hey there. What's new with you? Just scrambling to figure out a quick Halloween costume before Saturday.

Him: :) Ive been good just workin hard....costume u say hmmm hope its somethin sexy....We should do dinner sometime

Ava: I'm aiming for creative over sexy. Kind of annoys me that even if you want something basic, like little red riding hood, it comes only in a hooker-length skirt.

Thanks for the dinner invite. I think we should talk more so neither one of us has to fake an illness or a death while we are out if we don't click. :-)

Him: So how was your weekend sunshine....So do you have any pet peeves?

Icing

I read T.S. Elliot on the way home from work on my phone and was grateful that he wrote. I am grateful my sister is taking after a bear in the winter and has eaten and retired to her bed. Part of reason I have not posted as often is most nights I come home she is sprawled lengthwise across the couch watching Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, and Family Feud. I can't think over the parade of hot messes suing and counter-suing each other and whether the Smith family will be able to answer for the steal and have their chance at 20 thousand dollars. It just sucks you right in. That's how the lowest common denominator works.

Another frustrating day at work. The enemy within is likely the single biggest obstacle to mission accomplishment. These aren't the moles or the saboteurs, these are the people who don't understand their fundamental role in their organization. If you are a lawyer, your job is not to torpedo, your job is to facilitate. There are so many obstacles and risks inherent in the work, why would you pile on with indifference or incompetence? Go work somewhere else, please. My rage against the machine aside, I also had an epiphany about why I am so down of late. I'm icing. I make things better but I am not necessary. Sure it's not the same without icing but it's still cake. It will work. Like a hamburger without a bun. If you had to do without something, you'd do without the icing or the bun, hell, I scrape icing off of cakes and often eat only one half of the bun, mostly to catch all the mess.

So I'm icing. Awesome. I suppose there are worse things than being unnecessary but it's still not a good feeling. I can't think of a single place that icing isn't superfluous. Which means even if I quit this job, I'll keep confronting my lack of inherent substantive qualities. Except for maybe in a bakery. So I just need to riddle myself what the non-bakery professional equivalent of a bakery is and I'll be all set to start my new life somewhere that I matter. Somewhere I actually hold things together and don't just make things sweeter.

Oh blog how I have missed you!

*insert kissy noises here*

I don't know how long it's been but it wasn't a good time to launch into a multi-part story (which evolves still) about my unhealthy relationship with work. I will surely return to that story at some point in a rage-filled spill of words. When I thought about how long I'd been away and how I was in the middle of an emotional diatribe about everything wrong with my job and my boss, I had an epiphany about why the news always sends people out in the middle of severe weather to describe it. Because it's easier to describe a storm you're in than a storm that has passed. Seeing a person's umbrella turned inside out or seeing the snow pile up on their jacket, that's more authentic than an anecdote from someone inside. Since my last post I have actually said the words 'We need to have a talk about boundaries' to my boss, I have written a post still in draft titled 'Boundaries,' and I have purchased tickets to accompany my boss and his wife to a Halloween party where it is possible we will be the oldest people there. It's a work in progress, this boundaries thing.

I have also joined the ranks of the smartphone users and now understand why people talk about the Droid with messianic reverence. Apple can have the iPhone (and AT&T) (she said as she typed on her Mac). Droid makes me happy.

I've been thinking of what my father said to me a while back about me elevating the humanity of everywhere I work. Perhaps it is a cheap coping mechanism but being helpful and dependable and resourceful for the people I work with makes me proud even if the douche bags are incapable or unwilling to formally or even informally recognize it. I lament and complain and sometimes resent being the first-stop shop for both my bosses and my co-workers (and some people I don't even know referred by others), but I also like being that go-to person. I get annoyed when I feel taken for granted or advantage. And in this job I feel both. More on that later perhaps.

I have seen 2 friends repeatedly this year but I have not seen anyone outside of the Eastern seaboard this year. I have not been on a plane. I think my other friends need to move. Trains are so much better and require much less planning ahead. It's much harder to be away from work when I have so much less to show for the time I am there. It has been a very uneven year with unprecedented demands on my time. I hope this is like my last year in Washington which was low and dark with an amazing finish. Got low and dark covered, time for some amazing.

Take this job and...oh, what can I do to help you?

When I don't write, I get overwhelmed with all the stuff I'm not processing. It cycles back for further reflection, angst, or worry at bedtime when my fatigue won't support my typing or when I'm at work and must actually be doing work. Work has been challenging both in its insidious creep into what I once considered my free time and in sorting through the why of the things that upset me. I noted in my last post that I was primarily twisted with a lack of gratitude but that doesn't make a person well up at their desk. I feel like I'm in high school right because I think I have a crush on my boss and that is why the last couple of weeks have been so upsetting. I hate to use that word, crush, because I am not pining for a married man, I want no parts of him physically, nothing at all like that. I feel he has come to find me resourceful and being resourceful is one of my favorite things to be for someone. I like making things as easy for someone else as I wish they were for me. So we have a dynamic between us that I like, kind of a peer-subordinate relationship with a dash of work wife. He's more aggressive than he is thorough and I have long thought the biggest thing between him and taking over the world is his complete lack of organization. If he were McGyver, he would know exactly how to disable the bomb but would have forgotten his twist ties and chewing gum so he would ask me if I had them or ask me to run and get them. He's still the guy dismantling the bomb and absolutely deserves the ticker take parade that follows but it doesn't occur to him to say thank you for helping. No one will ever know if I hadn't been there if it would have turned out differently, the role of a facilitator is hard to measure, but it all came to a head this week when I stopped helping and started yelling.

...to be continued

The God who wastes nothing aka He makes all things good

I've been making resignation gestures and just like the suicidal ones, they are a cry for help. I think of how much the way I work can be traced to how I coped with my father. I don't think it's a bad thing at all. So much of my achievement and personality was shaped by figuring out my own way to get along in what was a kind of oppressive environment. So much of the calm facade was tested and forged in not letting someone I loved shake me. And even more has come of recognizing that my parents were and remain people like me, with their own issues and crosses to bear. Wanting the best for me doesn't mean they have it to give. They can only give me their best. And they did. And I love them for it.

Lots of stuff to catch up on here so a Cliff's notes version follows:

Work

The center of my discontent here lies with a perceived lack of gratitude. And recognition. But mostly gratitude. Ava X has arrived. I am kind of a militant moody cow at work right now.

Men

Such is my current disposition that I actually replied to a guy who writes like people used to when you paid by character for text messages (e.g. lol wat u up 2) and has a profile picture holding two toddler-sized glasses of wine. Yea, I'm sure we would have tons to talk about.

Skittles

Oh. My. God. They have fizzled fruit Skittles now and *sigh*. My mouth waters when I think of them. They might be the most ridiculously useless food on the planet but I ration them out and turn the bag inside out to lick the stray pockets of fizz. It occurs to me even as I type this, that I may have crossed the line of 'how much is too much' to put out there about myself on the internet but they really are that good to me. I have a thing with fizzy. I used to eat Alka Seltzer tablets until I decided that medicine should not be a snack. I even got a box of Alka Seltzer as a Christmas present when I was in college. Next to me on the bedside table is seltzer water. Why don't I have a boyfriend? He could buy me Skittles and I would want to have his children.

Welcome to the gun show

My arms feel ripped right now. I'm pretty sure I will be sore.

New pajama pants

I want to wear them to work. I love them. It makes me happy to even see them crumpled up on my comforter.

Pissed off overwhelmed woman

9:17, tank top, underwear, sitting cross-legged in bed with laptop. Not speaking to sister just because I'm tired of seeing her when I come in the door and I'm tired of being the only one who does anything around the house, and tired of smelling her when I follow her too closely in the single bathroom we share, tired of the ridiculous amounts of her hair just about everywhere, tired that she doesn't think on most nights to walk the dog or load the dishwasher. I'm tired of feeling taken advantage of at work, my kindness having been mistaken for weakness or complicity. I hope to find a mature way to handle it because I'm drifting towards aggression that is only passive because I'm not actively hitting someone in the mouth (though my hope is that that my words, deeds, and gestures feel like just that). I got pissed when the dog walker couldn't keep herself in check and had to throw in a word about giving as much advance notice as possible on scheduling weekend visits. Bitch, I understand that advance notice is a desirable state, hence my apology about the short notice. Don't act like you are doing me a favor. Either you are available or you are not. I don't need your attitude.

On my despair.com calendar this month is Sanity and the caption reads; Minds are like parachutes, just because you've lost yours, doesn't mean you can borrow mine. I think I've accidentally offered my parachute to someone.

Iron Woman

I got up this morning and treated myself to a fancy drink from Starbucks. It's nice to be the only person on the sidewalk early in the morning. The air was crisp, the stars were still visible, and the darkness cloaked my homeless highwater sweats and bra-less trench coat ensemble. I got back in the house, my dog greeted me like I had been gone a hundred years, and I slipped out of my sweats and back into the bed.

I looked up the calorie information for my drink and it has strange and troubling nutritional content. Never mind that even with nonfat milk, it's a pretty hefty calorie count for something you can't chew, it inexplicably has 1000% of my vitamin A, 200% of my vitamin C, 4500% of my calcium and a likely lethal 600% of my iron. All that for 75mg of caffiene. Yes, I still drank it all but I just want someone to know what happened when the coroner is trying to figure out why an active healthy non-pregnant woman has 600 % of the recommended daily allowance of iron in her system. It's not CSI, it was Starbucks.

I'm stressing about the usual things, procrastinating in the usual way, with the usual churning stomach that brings.

I heart

I love the way my girlfriend laughs. It makes me laugh when she laughs. It's throaty and sincere and you don't understand anything she is saying when she tries to talk. I especially like it when I'm not expecting her to laugh and she does. Something delightful about her laugh. And the way she loves people. Fiercely and with abandon.

I love my soul twin because of the intimacy that comes with being soul twins. That you are talking to someone who really gets you and celebrates with you when you do something ordinary like get up and go to work on time. We draw inspiration from the things we see one another accomplish and talk each other up and down from the floor and the ceiling.

I love that I still have petals and buds from flowers my best friend sent me in college for Valentines Day.

I love my collection of photographs, mostly of trees, sky, and Baloo.

I love that I'm at a place in this job now that I laugh when my boss tells me he would like to meet with me while he's in town and further don't commit to making time to meet. When he asked why I was giggling, I told him I didn't know. I really didn't know but I just found it funny. My resignation letter is in my draft e-mail folder so I guess that just brings out my sense of humor at times. It amuses me that my reaction might have put him a bit off balance. Welcome to the club buddy.

Fly Sexy Superstar

That's right. Those of you lucky enough to know me will know what this e-mail from a 27 year old man child is all about.

lovin that smile..... Damn I need a fly sexy superstar like you :) How can we change that?

And he doesn't even know I'm a ninja yet.

I tire of this

My boss usually says that phrase at least once a week around quitting time. A lot went on today and a lot didn't. I've been wanting to get to this more often but the lowest common denominator in my home life, that being the television is usually on now. That means I don't get that opening in my head that allows for thinking/writing until bed when I should be sleeping. I was short with my boss today and I feel bad about it because I like him and he's sick with a cold or something. I hate that I care when there doesn't appear to be any reciprocity. I've got white lines on the inside of my cheeks from clenching and as I wrote that sentence, I felt my cheeks suck in toward my teeth and had to remind myself to relax.

I'll be annoyed with the concept of Sister Wives until it is followed by the Brother Husbands show.

Starring me.

Don't get me started on the ways in which that show annoys me.

Smug

So I ran into Social Entrepreneur again this evening. He got my e-mail and thanked me for writing him and not thinking he was an axe murderer. My response, 'Let's not get ahead of ourselves.' He laughed. Still unflinchingly not attracted to SE but I think we're going to get along. He's headed off to Aspen on business but he shall call me when he returns so I can show him around a city Google insists he's lived for at least as long as I have. I understand you need some time on target and pretext for extended social contact SE. I'm totally going to call you on it but I suspect we'll both have a laugh about it. Oh how fun.

Rants and Raves

It is not necessary to condemn Iranian President Ahmedinejad's speech at the UN. He is a whack job. You don't give crazy people even more attention, you don't dignify their stupidity with a response. You do exactly what many did while he spoke. They left and denied him an audience. Same thing with that douche bag moron in Florida who planned to burn the Koran a few weeks back. People over halfway around the world died protesting the intentions of that mofo. Really?

I consider myself among that class of citizens whose knowledge of current events is primarily dictated by what is on the front page of links on any given website I happen to be perusing. I am a fan of the short free paper they give out on mass transit, I rarely read The Economist, The Times, or Wall Street Journal unless they happen to be close to where I am eating and I want something to read. Every time I do, I enjoy it, feel smarter for no good reason, and wonder why I don't read it more. I rarely watch the news. I don't particularly care for it. I don't follow any of the pivotal debates that consume popular discourse for weeks at a time and I don't trust that I will be able to gain a fair or balanced coverage of that debate in any media but especially not popular media. My homepage is BBC because at least on the very front page I can expect coverage of the world and not just the UK like US papers usually do (cover just US news). Essentially, I'm about as well read as Sarah Palin.

It's a big world and I have never been enamored with any culture enough to really follow it's history, people, norms, customs to the extent it takes to be truly well informed. My knowledge on most things isn't even powerpoint deep, it's cocktail conversation with someone who knows even less than me deep. It's I avoid poly-sci majors deep. I'm the person for whom a little information is a dangerous thing but I am at least intelligent enough to realize how smart I am not. I'm going to go on the record and say many, many, many, many people are not. And for them and because of them I feel media has a responsibility to not incite or appeal to our fears and our lowest selves. That ignorance should not get 24 hour news coverage. The White House should not be issuing a statement or engaging in dialogue with a backward congregation of 20 people. If the media didn't give them a platform, they would just be an eyesore in their community instead of an eyesore for the world. If ignorance and fear didn't take over the debate over the 9/11 mosque, we might be able to safely have a place of worship and community without worrying about the safety of the congregation. The phenom of finding the dumbest eyewitness for comments on the news has insidiously crept into replacing actual news and information.

In other completely unrelated news, I was out walking the dog last night and some guy who said he had seen me around the neighborhood gave me his card and suggested we go out for drinks sometime. Not my first street solicitation and not my first, 'let me give you my card.' His card said he was President and CEO (another post for another time on why people have 2 titles that kind of mean the same thing to me) of something which didn't move me because all I could gather from the dark was arms that seemed a bit short for his body, a little girth (I'm one to talk), and glasses. But whatever. I finally googled him to see if he was president of his own hip-hop studio or something like that and turns out he's the real deal. Council of Foreign Relations, consulting with the Brookings Institute, doing development and aid projects in Africa...that real deal. President and CEO of something real. Holy crap.

So I felt bad because I had zero interest in having a drink with him until I saw him all over the interwebs being a "highly regarded social entrepreneur" (I think that means you know how to make money doing good works). Instead of being the usual disappointed that some random guy tried to give me his number or get mine, it was suddenly flattering that he had noticed me around, not mistaken me for homeless, and took his chance to get that second meeting. If he had been hot AND not sweeping cigarette butts and Starbucks cups into his dustpan as most of my solicitors are, I would have been intrigued and delighted right away. Now I'm intrigued but still not even a little attracted to him. Thanks to my girlfriend, I did not write him the spastic e-mail I might have trying to convey in my least rude way that I considered him a networking contact vice a romantic one. I just wrote a quick one line e-mail and gave him my number. So over to you, Mr. Social Entrepreneur.