The solstice with the mol-stice

All's well that ends well. I've been thinking about my life in the context of that somewhat trite saying. I started out a few days ago marveling at how much this year has managed to pack in; 2 cancer scares, labs on a plane, me on the same plane dehydrated from crying about the lab on the plane and the general upheaval of moving twice in the same year, attempting to learn a new language, confirming that I had not chosen wisely in following through with this assignment with every hurdle and shitty circumstance that followed, the usual inventory of a misspent year.

Still here I am at the end of the year in the same place I always am; sitting in front of a computer to tell you all about it. In the past I've taken stock, made proclamations and determinations in lieu of resolutions, tried to set goals that might create a momentum towards the person I want to be. Not this year. This year I concede the match. Life wins. Reconciliation between what could be and what is--never going to happen. This place isn't so different than the last place was and with every move and increasing professional demand my circles get tighter, not wider. I'm less and less engaged with anything that would resemble a life outside of my obligations and less and less interested in doing anything about it. Not because the part of me that gets tamped down in this existence is mute but because I just don't have the energy for it all. I don't even have the energy to try because I don't have the mental cushion for disappointment. My best energies are spent now in my imagination where everything is still possible, life's surprises are magical, my skin is the best to be in. Light, laughter, and love. Cameos from all my favorite people, nice well fitting clothes, free from pain, never any bad breath or gas, fabulous hair, comfortable but somehow still fabulous shoes. Better that way I think. The happiest people I know don't even have it as good as I do in my imagination.

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to you (internet).

Living Single

At some point it stops being a show of sassy classy women and starts being eating dinner right from the pot and giving more than a passing consideration to not bathing 2 days in a row.

In a little vignette I like to call 'This is why God smiteth You' I misplaced an important envelope of receipts from my move which if not found, would have put me hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of pocket. Naturally I was keen to find the envelope but in all the shuffling and moving of my first few months here, it was nowhere to be found. One early pre-dawn morning I woke up restless thinking of that damn envelope and consumed with worry about where it could be, not only for the loss of money for the personal information on the receipts. There was a sigh upon my soul and I pleaded that God just please tell me where the envelope was. I think when people say they heard God's voice, it was something like what happened moments after I implored God for my FedEx envelope of receipts. Into my mind popped an instruction; look in the overhead of one of the temporary desks you sat at when you first arrived. I found it there the next day.

I was impressed, amazed, and thankful, for about 53 seconds and then I thought, 'This, Lord? *this* is the prayer you answer? Granted, I would have been all kinds of hurt to lose that money but if I get only one desperate call from the Lord answered, I'd want to use that turn on something like a good husband, healthy kids or healing of unhealthy ones, the lottery... And this is why God smiteth me; because I fill out the 'tell us how we're doing card' after a blessing.

2 Boxes

That's all I literally accomplished today.  Today was a day that felt like a struggle when it started and really didn't improve, save the mailing of 2 (two) boxes.  Some days are so devoid of significant accomplishment that I have to remind myself of something like the 2 boxes just to feed my inner monologue some encouragement.  Hey buddy, that's 2 less things than you started the day with on your to-do list.  High five!

*sigh*  Two boxes....

Hitting my stride

Ever feel like you look funny when you walk? Like your limbs and brain aren't quite in rhythm; your foot falls are awkward, your gait unnatural and self-concious? That's how I feel right now, too aware of myself to be myself. In my mind's eye I'm like Vincent D'Onofrio in Men in Black once he was merely a skin suit for the alien, trying to appear aloof and completely normal, but very obviously not so.

Things here are as I feared they might be. Like most daydreams that I have indulged to justify purchases of items I would ordinarily find useless, my party clutch collection remains pristine and un-used. I had this vision of meeting interesting people, making interesting friends, practicing my hard fought minimum language proficiency discussing capital punishment, globalization, mass media, and religion and family, all while being smartly attired and rocking a series of classy clutches. I'm not sure who I transform into in my daydreams, but that person does not exist. But if she did, she would have some achingly cute clutches to sport at receptions. What I've done instead isn't even worthy of describing. Neither is my attire. I'm pretty much ready to attend a funeral at a moments notice. My attire is almost always appropriately somber. People I barely know have commented on it. People of this culture can be blunt in ways we would consider rude. Whatever haters, I rock black.

There are some special circumstances here that didn't exist in previous stretches but in all other ways, it is a reboot of every other place I've worked. The only thing so far that I've found different is that time just melts away like I wish the pounds would. Every time I blink, another month is peeling away. This is a good thing-I'm actively counting down living in this apartment and dealing with some of the folks here I'm not going to miss. But it is a bad thing as well as it gives me less time to really accomplish anything.

I have moments when I wonder how infectious I could be in creating the kind of office I want to work in; perhaps I think too highly of myself and suppose I have power that I do not, indeed have. I have struggled with this a bit and I realized that I'm done being a worker bee. I set myself back from where I could be because I wanted to fill in some experiences that I wanted to get out of the job just in case I decided to leave. I recognize I was amazingly lucky to inherit the team I did, but when I was calling the shots, we knocked it out of the park. It's been hard since that validating experience leading a team, to work for shitty managers. I have an idea about how things should be done, and I see the impact when things are not done that way. I see people comparing work to prison, people tearing one another down, people stove piping to avoid someone they don't like and whose judgement they don't trust, people jockeying for position if they are so inclined, people distracted from the work by the faculty required to navigate the personalities. It's insulting to spend any part of the long days employing stratagem for how you're going to ask someone a question.

Possible this is textbook (circa 1990) group dynamics with the storming, norming, forming, boring...and six months from now I'll be sobbing at my keyboard as the first wave starts to depart from this place because we were so awesome as a group. Who knows. I'm still keeping my sights set on just getting out of here without getting bit by a stray dog (Baloo either).

non sequitur Epilogue: For old boyfriends stopping by the blog on a summer evening (apologies to Robert Frost)

Not long before I left the U.S. (two days in fact), I heard from someone that for lack of a better term I'll call an ex boyfriend (it was never terribly well-defined but managed to take some years to be done with). He stumbled across my blog in the way that most people do, googling my last known e-mail address and landing here from the old blog. Happens all the time (insert sarcasm here). He was wondering about me as I have wondered about him, as we have all wondered about someone we used to date, and he started commenting on this blog in a way that could be construed as either clever/funny or creepy/scary. It quickly moved offline and we had a brief e-mail reunion before I declined to stay in touch on the grounds that I felt married men should not be pen pals with other women they once suggested marriage to, even though it was nice to know his rock-solid marriage could support such a relationship. I was proud of myself, proud that I didn't even get an ankle caught in the rabbit hole that would be opening back up to him.

What was interesting other than him looking for me and finding this was that he really tucked in and *read* this blog. Not sure if he read it end to end (though if he did, bravo) but it was flattering in a way, perhaps an unhealthy way, but honestly, if anyone reads for (almost) any reason, and keeps coming back, I'm happy as a writer. Why he was thinking of me, what he hoped to get out of re-hashing our decade past relationship, whatever all of that was, I don't know. I just know he kept coming back here for a time. I know at times I wrote about him, I didn't bother looking for those things to hide them from him, they are what they are. We were what we were (at least for me). Either way, it was nice to be sought out. Feels like I won the silent game of chicken between exes who wonder if the other one ever thinks about them. Yep, I'm petty like that.

And I totally won.

After what my pride suffered in knowing him, I hope he won't begrudge this hollow victory I claim, after all, he's happily ever after, right? There's a happy dance associated with that empty victory but the league may penalize me a down if I insist on doing it (is that how it works? I don't know sports).

Ciao

It's been a busy time here with head full of the minutia and limbs busy with the tasks of preparing to move abroad.  This weekend, visiting with my family, I started to get a little sad.  I have cried, I will cry some more.  It seems to be the way I roll, how I commemorate major transitions in life.  It's hotter than I hope it will be on the day we leave.  I worry about that and its possible impact on Baloo's ability to travel with me but it will be what it will be.

When I write, there's a natural rhythm, an ebb and flow.  I haven't (yet) imposed any discipline to my writing, schedule or content wise but it's something I admire in other writers.  However you go about it though, I think all writers wonder how long they should keep on with one project or another, what is a lull versus a sign to move on, etc., and then one day, you know.  You know because you stop wringing your hands about it.  This feels like the last post and I just want to tell you everything I've been writing in my head over the last month or so even though that's impossible.  I want to tell you about today and the letter I read from my grandfather to my father on the occasion of my father's 21st birthday, a letter we just learned existed, a letter still moving through me a bit and making me a little weepy and wishing my grandfather were still alive.  I want to tell you about the man I like and wax eloquent once again about how he'll never be mine or how it wouldn't work out for one reason or another in the tight vacuum of my imagination I always create for these types of things.  I think I'm getting a little better at risking rejection and trading experience over imagination with regard to potential romance but proximity does not serve me with this latest guy so daydream fodder he must be.

When I have been writing, I've been starting (still) unfinished and unpublished treatises on friendship which are really just open letters to specific people I am unwilling to engage directly with.  If I'm being as honest as I try to be with myself here, my reluctance to engage isn't distaste for confrontation, or fear, or even a feeling that the emotional investment in an argument/discussion outstrips my actual investment in the friendship.  I just don't believe talking about it will change anything--more accurately, I don't believe talking about *should* change anything.  We spend our lives contorting to conform to one expectation or another, I don't believe friends should have to try to change who they are with one another and it's okay to discover that you're not as compatible as you initially were or thought you were.  It's like all those romantic comedies where everything is perfectly ok between two people and then the 'one-true-love' enters the scene and it's time to break it off with Mr/Ms perfectly-fine-but-not-for-me.  Since we're allowed to have more than one friend, the challenge is minimal and and really only a challenge with those who are on a different wavelength with regard to how close you actually are and levy BFF requirements and expectations on a relationship that is really in the casual to close acquaintance zone.  My thoughts on this don't lend themselves to clear expression in writing but short story long,  friendship at it's best is a refuge from all of that.

In 48 hours or so, we take to the sky and start a new adventure.  I'm nervous about the logistics of getting there, hopeful that Baloo will make it okay, and already missing my family.  I'm so fortunate to have the family and friends I have.  I'm so grateful that my Mom is here, that her and my father finally get to enjoy everything they have worked for together.  My sister is here, hanging with me in this shitty hotel room (it really is awful--there was something that could have been vomit on the elevator last night) making me a little weepy.  My Dad came over to help me yesterday and told me he was sad but also a little jealous of the adventure that awaits me and Baloo.  I think my Mom is just sad.  My brother wants to come out to party (not holding my breath), and I already have a queue of visitors just waiting for me to set up house so they can experience this next chapter with me.  My Soul Twin will be one time zone away and all the rest of my friends will be short flights away by the fall.  My language has degenerated back to polite phrases and semi-memorized passages about global warming and capital punishment but I'm not sweating it right now.  I just learned yesterday that peanut butter is not really a staple there as it is here and I almost wanted to go MIA.

I don't know if I'll be back to this space in the near term but my 3 loyal readers and especially Lodo and Teresa, I won't leave you hanging.  Your patronage and comments made this blog what it was/is for me.  I had a friend in high school who never said goodbye because you never know what the future holds.  Instead she would say 'see you later' so friends, I shall see you later.

I'll get good at this eventually

Not sure what's going to happen with the blog when I head across the pond.  It might go on long intermission, it might become access controlled, it might just go away.  I've been writing intermittent missives to my e-mail friends during my language journey.  Perhaps e-mail dispatches will become the new blog.  All of this impacts approximately 3 people, including me so not really a big deal.

Semisonic comes to mind this week; "you don't have to go home but you can't stay here."  I don't want to go and I don't want to stay here.  After only a week, my spirit is a little crushed.  Working for 8 hours really is overkill.  We should get paid an 8 hour salary to work 3-5 hours a day.  Get in, get it done, get the fuck out.  Go spend some 8 hour money in our badly needing it economy, get home while it's still daylight, spend time with your friends and family, go to the gym, have a life.  When I was in language, the tasks piled up and waited for me.  I would breeze in on a Friday and just knock shit out and when I was done, peace out.  I wasn't waiting for 5, when I could leave without explanation.  Today, the day stretched out in front of me endless and I got nothing done.  Everything was mind-numbingly boring.  I'm tired of chasing people down, of having my personal life pile up on me, of walking the hard halls in heels (that ends today).

Somewhat random aside; more women need to check their asses in pants.  There is a lot of unfortunate happening out there, primarily in the cases where god did not see fit to grant asses and the pants seem to concave tightly into the back of the thighs.  It's especially tragic to me when it appears a lot of effort is being made to look nice.  All I'm saying is there are too many cuts of black dress pants out there for you to rock concave ass.  Bring a hand mirror into the dressing room.

A man flirted with me yesterday and I wish I had done just about anything else than what I didn't do, which is...I don't know, try to see him again.  Even though I'm here for a minute, even though he said he was a "follower" of some random internet dude's exercise and mobility program and also used the word "voodoo" non-ironicaly to explain how the mobility exercises worked.  We were probably a perfect pair.  After all, I was the one doing deep knee bends in a skirt and suit jacket and letting a stranger wrap my leg in an inner tube.  I could explain how this all came about but I'm not, not because it's a long story but because it's not as interesting as those snippets suggest.

Revisionist History

Once there was a boy who bravely came a knocking on the door of my parent's house.  My dad knew his mom and from his mom, knew he had bad grades.  He wasn't a drug dealer, didn't get into trouble, just had the D average my father's other two other kids would eventually graduate with.  The boy asked for me and my father told the boy he didn't have time for girls, he needed to go home and study.  I was 15 or so when this happened but today was the first I heard this guy had ever come over to see me.

I know boys are notorious hound dogs so maybe I shouldn't give him too much credit, knowing anything resembling feelings were probably protected by an armor of hormones, but coming to a girl's house is something to me, especially my house.  I spent high school and onward thinking I wasn't the girl guys liked, and somehow this story kind of knocked over a domino in my head and made me consider my history a little differently.  To be sure, I was no Lolita, but today I'm realizing between my insecurity, which came off as indifference or aloofness, and my father, and my weird reputation (one guy remarked he was surprised to see me outside after dark because it was apparently common knowledge I wasn't allowed out after sunset--which by the way wasn't explicitly true), guys probably expected to get shut down at the Ava express.  Some tried to board, but the ones my dad didn't turn away without my knowledge, I shut down myself.  All this time I spent feeling undesirable, tonight I wonder if the biggest difference between me and all the other girls might just be that they humor a guy, let him work out the kinks a bit before they decide if he's worth the trouble.  Now my dad tells me I need to cut men some slack when they are trying to talk to me.  After almost 40 years of habit, he wants me to try indulging a pick up.  Lord are they desperate for grandchildren...

So....

I'm thinking I might be an asshole.  There are lots of different types of assholes and I think I might be a combination of an old asshole, arrogant asshole, and snotty asshole with a dash of indifferent asshole.  Just a working theory right now but I'm fleshing it out...  The kids I'm sitting with in my 'you-don't-really-work-here-temporary-desk' are irritating the shit out of me.

In that way

I think I am taking it less personally this time but I am still weary of the pattern.  The pattern being my pathological attraction to people who are not into me in any way.  At least not in that way.  It's so much easier not to take it personally because I want him so badly to have who he wants instead.  This time around it was far more about wanting to be wanted than wanting to be wanted by him.

If I were to attempt to understand or explain how or why I am always the same person in the same relationship status I would say this to me:

You are not ugly but you are not attractive enough to be aloof.  You dismiss guys obviously responding to your looks but you don't give them anything else to go off of because you don't show yourself.  You keep working to deserve someone and that just makes you less and less approachable.

At least that's my best guess.  Guess it doesn't really matter why the rain falls; doesn't make it any less or more wet.

Update

It's finally over.  I passed my language test which should have felt like a million bucks and led to one of those celebratory jumping things people do in movies or TV.  While I can not understate the relief I had to no longer study capital punishment or pensioners in a foreign language--things I don't even read or speak about in English, it was kind of anti-climatic.  One of my favorite quotations comes to mind from How Beautiful With Shoes which I (again) won't do justice but in essence is that danger averted was never really dangerous.  It is true my stomach was in knots, I nearly cried the morning of the test with stress and exhaustion, and I left the test soaked in sweat--my waistband was damp and my sweater was soaked to the elbows with sweat--sexy.  But then it was over and there was no one to celebrate with.  For some reason I thought of the cast of SNL and stand-up comedians.  Specifically how they have a 'party' (i.e. drinks) after their show because you need a way to come down from the adrenaline of performance.  I went home like a sad sack, took a shower and got in my PJ's.  But it's done and I am glad, even if I say stupid things like, 'it couldn't have been that hard if I passed it.'  What-the-fuck-ever, it's done and I don't have to deal with it again for 3 years.  That seems like long enough to forget everything.

In other news, I definitely do not like the man I will be working for and I am increasingly concerned that this assignment borne out of comically amusing circumstance and accepted out of curiosity and a dash of involuntary hope will not change my life for the better.  I will leave, almost 40, even more bitter and tired and probably back out of shape.  I think if things unfold that way, I have no choice but to interpret that as an undeniable 'fuck you' from the universe and will likely conclude I have nothing left here to see.  Fuck *you* universe, I don't have to take that from you.

My boss is a fucktard.  Really.  If I'm lucky, I will figure out a way to limit my exposure to him and it will be as well as it can be.  Already, I plan on finding another office to work out of while I'm still here so I can actually get some work done and not be pulled into meetings about absolutely nothing for "5 minutes" where he waxes eloquent about the same thing he discussed with you 1 hour before (also useless).  He speaks slow and deliberately like he's explaining physics to a 10 year old but instead he's dispensing gems like, 'make sure you have a valid driver's license before you leave.'  It exhausts me to both hold my tongue and submit to the time wasting exercise that is almost every conversation I have with him.  Folks who don't work for him euphemistically say 'he's a talker!'  That's not doing it justice at. all.  At. all.

So now the countdown is on.  About 6 weeks from now, I will be exhausted and frayed and probably smelly and regretful about the choices I make, while simultaneously trying to think up the upside so I don't walk into traffic the night before my flight.  This has been a tough 8 months and it will be followed by another tough 8 months with the chaos of moving and settling in, getting the lay of the people and the land, and the rigors of a new job.  I went to a wedding last weekend and a couple of folks there thanked me for my service, simply because I worked for the government which I thought was weird.  Even when I was military, I didn't care for people thanking me for my service.  It's not service, I get paid to do this.  If I were smarter or independently wealthy, I wouldn't be working at all or at least not working for the government.  I think the nobler the cause, the more heartbreaking the job because noble causes are just ideas of the ideal.  They are rarely embodied by your colleagues or even your nation so as a general rule, it's not a good idea to get wrapped up in them as a raison d'etre.  I think people who live for those kinds of things, the 'true believers' are the most vulnerable because a loss of faith shakes them to the core.  In many ways, it's a tougher struggle to believe in nothing because you have no false comfort or shelter from the inevitable frustrations that come with any job but I think it also makes you more pragmatic and efficient in getting actual things done.

So today, I will find a place to sit away from the fray, politely decline the invitation to socialize with my colleagues this weekend, and try to get some shit knocked out before I leave work at the end of the day to attend to the things that actually matter in life.

What it's like being me these days

About this time next week the uncertainty that plagues me now will be replaced by what I hope is a hand-cramping flurry of text messages celebrating my successful language test.  In the meantime, my task is have as little diarrhea as possible between now and then, a task I have been unfortunately sucking at since I scheduled my test Friday.  I am running myself into the ground with gut wrenching efficiency and it is not helping at all.  It is a 2 hour oral interview and I don't know what we'll be talking about among the dozens of potential conversation and presentation topics.  It's a fucking nightmare lottery.  Human Rights or Family in Society (what?!); Education or Globalization; Global Warming or Mass Media?  By the way, I wouldn't for a minute venture to give a presentation in English on any of those things, even if my audience had zero expertise in the subject.  I have at most 2 things to say about any given foreign policy topic and the first is usually to say I either don't know much or don't care about whatever we're talking about.  The funny thing is that unless you're a Public Affairs officer or designated spokesperson or analyst, most people in any line of work have very little to say publicly about anything at all and as a consequence I think most of us aren't even very prepared to offer unabridged versions of our thoughts in English.  Waxing philosophical aside, I've got to pull my head out of my ass and see if I can pull this out and move on to the next big thing to stress about.  Anticipation--absolutely the worst part.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hate making plans because this is what making plans does to my head.  

Surprise

Huge fan of surprises, not a big fan of people saying they are surprised when I do something that intimates their impression of me is less than stellar.  I realize my own negative self-press is partly if not largely to blame for this.  I'm also going to just put this out there for my single people (who may one day read this).  It is not fair to expect a single person to be more mobile or schedule flexible because they are single.  I'm not going to pretend to empathize with married/coupled life, especially with kids.  I haven't an ounce of authoritative perspective there.  But I do know this life and everything is mine to do. No one does taxes while I study or walks the dog while I make breakfast.  When I broke my ankle, I took my broken ass ankle for several walks with the dog because that shit (literally) still needed to be done.  When my back went out, I ate meds non-stop and literally whimpered with every step.  The thing I hate the most when I have visitors and they leave, is the break from 24/7 me and their help.  Something as simple as getting someone a glass of water or grabbing a ringing phone, that is so nice.  If you have someone, I hope they are at least doing that for you.

Authentically Sad

I have every reason suspect I'm not racing against a happy ending but there is a part of me that wants to be sure to write something before that might (not) happen so as to avoid the type of book I love to hate--the retrospective, it all came together eventually and so it shall be for you book.  That's totally cheating.  Now you know how the story ends.  Shut up.

Breaking up is hard to do--but sometimes you just have to fucking do it.

Sure I wish I could have come out of this feeling good about myself, blameless in the stunningly unprofessional and now defunct student-teacher relationship, but this is what it is.  I always leave parties early and have sleepovers with shit-shows.  She finally showed her ass and it was precisely what I needed to make the move I wanted to make all along, from week 3 when I thought I was going to have to be medicated through this process, until now when I'm trying to take shoddy craftsmanship of her instruction and get it up to code in time to test.  She is so damn lazy and she lies about things she doesn't need to.  She is a very strange, emotionally infantile, highly educated, proasta woman.  I need a goddamn nap.  Ashley wants me to choke-slam her.  I refuse to even daydream about it.  I just want her to never work as a language instructor again.

Strategic hoe-in(g)/whore-ing

Yea, I don't know what it is either, but it's strategic.  My neighbor, D-dog catches me every now and again while I'm out walking Baloo and laid this gem on me the last two times I saw him.  I saw him with an overnight bag waiting for a ride and asked if he was heading out of town.  Strategic hoe-ing was his response.  I still have no idea what it means but based on our last conversation, I believe it has something to do with him hitting and quitting it.  He has three cars, at least one with out-of-town plates so hoes don't be trying to track a playa down.  I guess that's the strategic part.  Also, much like I do with random dudes and anywhere they plan trying to say my name over an intercom, he goes by his middle name with some people and his first name with others.  Gotta keep your hoes straight, got's to have a system.

D-dog is also almost always reeking of alcohol when I see him and when he isn't, like a few nights ago, he spits on the street compulsively and continuously throughout the conversation like he's trying to get the taste of sobriety out of his mouth.  Maybe it's a Pavlovian anticipation of the drink he's about to have.  I just don't think he realizes how much he's doing it or just how disgusting it is.  This is a guy chatting me up about strategic hoe-ing so he probably thinks I'm down for the spitting since I didn't run away after he started in on the strategy of being or sleeping with women without having to pay them.  Naturally, I have his card now and he wants me to write him.  I think dogs are so used to being shooed away that when you just look at them like they are insane, they figure there might be something to work with. My demeanor scares away decent men and encourages weirdos.

Slightly less depressing

We talked a little about regret today; specifically the things we do before we know there's a happily ever after in relationships.  I'm very much in the 'all's well that ends well' camp.  I think it's perfectly natural to want to erase all the intimacies you shared with someone else when you finally have the thing you sought all along.  If you end up locking it down with someone, then to me, everything before it was in a sense ordained.  I'm sure a philosophy major would have their way with that false conclusion based on a false or unknowable assumption but arguing with me while ringing up my iced coffee at Starbucks and living a meticulously examined life are about all that degree gets you so have at it.

Some of the things I would hit backspace on were a bad idea when they happened and I was fully aware they were not great ideas before, during, and after execution.  However, I have a larger sack of regrets for things I didn't do or won't do (risk rejection by someone I actually care about, invite attention based on my appearance, fire my language teacher) so at times I pull a card from the stupid-ass-things-to-do deck and do things like date an asshole, sleep with stranger, go to a concert, buy and wear jeggings.  Regrets mostly give me things to talk about with other women in a weird stacking contest we have to gauge just how bad we should feel about something we can't change or just how singularly awful our particular bad decision was compared with our peers.  Pretty standard female bonding stuff.

What I can not fucking stand on any level, in any forum, male or female, is an assurance from someone on the other side of whatever circumstance I'm grieving that everything is going to be okay or a dose of their perspective from the other side about how such-and-such was worth the wait or isn't really that great, or is really hard work in the same way I would say having a kick-ass dog is hard work even though I was really lucky to get one with such a generally agreeable and considerate disposition.  No. one. cares.  It's like trying to tell me how good a movie ends while I'm watching it but it's a movie you've never seen.

If you're rocking happily ever after, you should know your picture has a tiny-print disclaimer footer that says 'Results not typical.'  I don't want to hear how you felt the same way before you won the love lottery or the actual (and pragmatically more useful) lottery.  And I sure as fuck don't want advice on how you think you manufactured your own luck.  I understand knowing 'why' is a large part of being human and where we can't know, we create explanations, but it's just polite to keep the 'how I created with my own two hands and the power of my will a much awesomer life than you' to yourself.  Also not interested in any sentence that starts with, 'I realize now...' unless it is followed by 'I clipped the wrong wire and we should all run now.'  Everyone realizes something now they didn't before.  Unless it is based on something concrete like 'I realize now there is a more direct way to get to work' it's really just a way for you to share with someone something you are proud of with a subtext of 'what you need to do/think is...' and not at all about the circumstance of the person you are sharing with.  We've all done it and I only remember how irritating it is after I get a dose.  Then I think, 'seriously, I have got to NEVER do that to someone again.  This is annoying.'

Then I totally do it again.

Envy: aka the color of my hater-ade is green

He was just so damn immodest about it I couldn't help but be a little disappointed at his success.  When someone gets lucky, it's just courtesy to acknowledge it.  No one likes a sore loser and every one resents the lucky winner who doesn't acknowledge that it wasn't their superior skill that made them the victor.  What am I talking about?  It doesn't matter really, it could be anything.  Football, Britney Spears, the Kardashians.  Some players are simply better than others.  When a weaker team or player makes a surprising upset, the operative word there is 'surprising.'  Some one is playing above their normal game or someone else is playing below their known skill level.  Either way, the universe resets eventually and the odds even out.  So why am I in a funk and wanting to retreat back into an even less-social cone?  I don't know.  Coming out of such a deep funk, I'm probably not as far away from it as I feel and thus am easily disturbed/perturbed.  My motivation saps easily and even when I'm doing all the right things I know to do, sleeping, exercising, eating reasonably well, I am easily overcome with emotional distraction.  I'm about 10 weeks out now.  It seemed like longer until I thought about it in weeks.

When I feel a certain way, when I can't really figure out what I'm upset about, I try to be honest and say exactly what I'm thinking even if I don't like what I think it says about me.  I don't think he deserved to pass.  I think he had an advantage that he refuses to acknowledge which I find duplicitous, especially because one week ago a person with superior skill was berated and harassed throughout their testing BY THE SAME TESTER and got lower scores than a guy who can not finish a single sentence without being corrected.  If you acknowledge the person who got the same score as you is significantly better, how can you not acknowledge personal bias was a factor in your test?  It's the kind of shit that makes me feel insane.  We are all working hard and it is not without skill or preparation that you can walk into a room and make conversation in a foreign language or even your native tongue.  I can not deny him the things he knows or his preparation.  But it irritates the shit out of me that he's celebrating his skill instead of his luck.  My instructor, who was his as well, said it best, "It's not what you know, but who you know."  This is how it is.

All a big distraction though and nothing I need to let derail or distract me emotionally.  It doesn't matter if it isn't fair, life isn't fair, not even a little bit, and what joy can be had should be had with a spirit of gratitude.  I was grateful to still be here this last weekend.  My sister visited, we hung out, caught up, hung out with my mother on the anniversary of her near death, played a practical joke on my father.  I was glad to be there; to not grieve my family with a sense of loss because I can't hold it together over here or more accurately, I just want to let it go.  There has been some unexpected laughter, some unexpected ease where I anticipated great difficulty (and had every reason to bet on it), and a departure process eerily devoid of major bumps or obstacles.  I don't know if I am finally at the end of my proverbial rope and God has decided to help me see him better lest I doubt he exists at all, or at least not in anyway that is interested in me personally.  I don't know if these things are a mild crest before the final descent.  I do know my curiosity about what comes next is waning and I'm not weathering the bumps with the same aplomb I think I managed before.   Now I'm just tired and largely over it.  I've moved so, so, many times but life isn't like real estate where location matters.  Still, there's a involuntary hope attached to a move.  It's the same feeling I think everyone gets when they play the lottery.  The odds are very much against it but there's a 1:170,000,000 chance it could change your life.

It feels bratty to the point of inviting personal disaster to be this ambivalent about my existence and my continued interest in it.  I recall DFW saying that by the time a person kills themselves, they are just being orderly (i.e. making the condition of the body match the condition of the soul/heart/mind).  There is so much loss in the world, there is so much that could happen suddenly to rip us/me from this mortal coil why do I even host this kind of party in my head?  Why does anyone?  I can't answer for anyone else or explain someone else's motives.  I don't think it's simply selfish or simply self-hatred or simply a desire to exercise control over something as terrifying and otherwise unpredictable as death, or simply unrelenting misery and lack of hope it will change.  It's like asking someone how they came up with a line of prose that touched you or a melody or a motive for murder.  One day, it totally made sense for that person and things just unfolded in a certain way.

What I've realized is that I have some significant tethers, the biggest one of which just started her countdown routine to herding me out the door to pick up her shit.  I am a little concerned how I will handle the inevitable with her.  Though I have friends/acquaintances, with 1.5 exceptions, we're not a big part of each other's lives; they depend on me for nothing and the general level of sharing doesn't normally delve beyond current events.  It's the folks I rarely expect to pick up when I call (and vice versa) and who normally don't call back the same day or even the same week.  But that 1.5--I really depend on them.  I realized a couple of weeks ago that talking/writing is a big part of my closest friendships.  I really don't need to go anywhere or be in the same room or same country. Conversely, if hanging out is your friendship currency, we don't have as much in the bank.  Just like any conversion from one currency to another there is a constant lack of parity and someone is always feeling a little guilty about something; for getting less than they think they should, for getting more than they know they put into it, whatever.  Bottom line, whether I have 1.5 or 15, I have tethers and now I have to go pick up tether poop.

Playing the lottery

Naturally, and as the odds demand, I didn't win.  Somebody has to win, and you have to play to win, as the saying goes.  I didn't stay up to watch the drawing and wouldn't even know what channel they do that kind of thing on but it was fun to do something knowing that a snowball's chance in hell is still a chance.  I don't do it often so it's fun to be delusionaly hopeful once in a while.

Random and not related to anything really, it's not fair to be disappointed in people for what they aren't to you.  Sometimes they are doing it all wrong, saying all the wrong things, not doing the right things, not available, too much in your grill...whatever isn't quite right for you.  I suppose that is why people generally have circles of friends and not just one.

Depresia de primavara

My language instructors insist there is a thing called spring depression; one even took vitamins for it every year when they lived in Eastern Europe. It has been one of those months that felt like a year. I was so very low for days that I actually cried in my bed and hurt physically in a way I haven't since I thought I loved a guy who totally dissed me. The ground is still wet but the violent storm has passed I think. It's weird/troubling/curious to think this time last week God and I were in advanced discussions regarding my suicide matrix and I was earnestly straw-manning exit strategies. It's a very strange thing to be mentally besieged on all sides and then be sort of okay. It was a violent and troubling squall, but apparently just a squall. Huh.

I have finally nutted up as it concerns language instruction and enlisted the assistance of the language professor that takes every mistake as an opportunity for a teaching point and with whom I have the best chance of getting there from here. I think it hurt my professor's feelings and that grieves me on some level but I did tell her six months ago that I was concerned about the approach to language and how incompatible it was for my learning style. She dismissed my concerns and well here we are. I don't know how it was handled and I probably won't be richer for knowing but I do hope it was handled professionally and compassionately. I don't want to have to be angry at her in order to not feel guilty so I'm trying on indifference with a dash of self-preservation. As she would say, this is how it is.

This effin sucks

Totally having some clarity on what goes through the mind of someone who just doesn't want to be here anymore. It's not so much life that gets you down, it's going through life as you that gets you down. That's what never seems to change no matter how much fiddling is done with the other variables. Feeling quite unlike myself and very much like myself today. Maybe I just need a Snickers. Who the fuck knows.

BS Theater

Ever been at the dentist, tipped back, dental bib and spit-splatter shades on, light in your eyes and suddenly found your feet in stirrups and heard a speculum being prepped? Of course not, you're at the fucking dentist, where they do dental exams. Your dentist shouldn't even be able to pick a speculum out of a line-up. So why during my language exam was I asked about my ancestry and animal rights? What the really-OMFG-fuck? What do either of those things have to do with U.S. foreign policy, the situation in Middle East, almost any other fucking thing that is actually real and likely to come up while I'm overseas representing the United States Government? That was some grade A bullshit for real.

Naturally I am angry with myself for just now thinking, 'wait a minute...that was completely bullshit.' I'm primarily angry with myself for even trying to answer those questions instead of politely shutting it down and insisting we move on to something that mattered. I would have been far less annoyed with myself for getting lit up over being hostile in a foreign language than just not being able to answer a question because I haven't thought to develop the vocabulary to discuss the history of slavery in America.

*This* is why I'm increasingly militant--believe or not, I reflexively go with the flow and generally defer to authority, especially when I have no clue what is going on. But when people are assholes, and I have an epiphany much like the one I'm having now, the next time I encounter similar bullshit, my anger at myself and my anger at whatever dick-shit circumstance a current one reminds me of come together to form the 'fuck you' attitude I bring to something that out of context just seems unnecessarily hostile and angry. You know, like when I don't fucking speak some bullshit language and I'm just trying to keep up and make sure I'm paying attention to the verb and tenses and not taking the time after 'Oh shit she just asked me about animal rights, WTF' to think 'What the fuck do animal rights have to do with shit I've done or will ever be doing on behalf of the United States? I don't work for PETA. I totally shouldn't answer this question.' Bull-fucking-shit. People are dicks.

What I think when someone tells me so and so is a great guy/girl

8 times out of 10, my jury is still out on how I feel about the person giving the endorsement so...yea, please don't tell anyone you think I'm awesome because if you turn out to be a douche, I'd rather not risk the association.

Meanwhile

I've been thinking about happiness, what is/isn't, if it can be defined at all, taking naps, sleeping off headaches, and avoiding most social contact. I've kind of made myself an island. A napping island. I've been reading a lot of cracked.com and laughing, been daydreaming about real good things turning into bad things and real bad things turning into good things. I even read this article on happiness and felt like I at least had company and that company was presumably making a living writing (about her unhappiness no less--winning!).

The weather has been great and if it weren't for the pollen, I'd be loving life, but there is pollen so I'm not. The upside is my favorite tree is blooming. It's magical to me in a way that few things are once you're a bonafide grownup. This is a picture of it:

When most of the trees are still bare, this tree seems to burst out of the tangle of mangled branches with little magenta buds. It's really a random tree, not usually elegant and statuesque, able to make do in the messy undergrowth of the taller trees on the margins of parkways and unrecognizable once the leaves come in. But for those weeks when it's one of the few trees with any clothes on, it's just so darn pretty. It makes my heart glad even though everything that grows on this wretched planet hates me, especially in spring.

I've also decided that admitting you have a problem isn't even a 1/4 of the battle. Deciding to do something about a problem is half the battle and doing that thing you decided is the other half. I think I will feel compelled to share that little gem with the next person who says knowing is half the battle. I will think they are an idiot, they will think I'm insufferable and we'll both be kind of right.

Daydreaming my life away

My imagination rocks

The real world simply can not compete. Sorry real world. I had a kick ass daydream today which I naturally sabotaged because my imagination rocks but it is also still generated by me which means there are no happy endings. In real life, long ago in a college physics class, I sat next to this beautiful man--we'll call him Marc. Marc was ridiculously good looking to me, dark hair, suggestive of some kind of Greek or other European heritage. He rode a bike to school back when no one did that and he was just the nicest guy. He sometimes doodled on my paper or corrected my equations when I was clearly off the mark. Maybe he only did each of those things only once but he did do them.

The thing about Marc though was I would get a feeling that someone was looking at me, I would look at him and he would be staring at me. We would just stare at each other and then break the gaze. I didn't feel weird or awkward or anything. It was so completely natural like, 'hey there, of course we're just going to stare at each other for 15 seconds.' I never understood what was going on there but thought it must be something. It's possible he was looking over me at someone else or through me but I thought he was staring at me, that we were staring right into each other's eyes. I could literally stare right into his eyes all day. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before or since.

I don't think about him often but today he popped into my head and it.was.awesome. It goes without saying that I'm not expecting great things to come of my pending trip abroad--I'm never expecting great things and this is not a time to break set with what's been working for me. But man, this daydream was *sweet*.

*Begin dream sequence*

I walk into work the first day and who is there? Marc with the beautiful eyes. Hot damn. And Marc is miraculously single, not gay, and not a man-whore. The eye lock commences and I feel, literally feel, something in my heart/soul/upper GI-tract *click.* This is why I'm here, this is who he is, it is written. Even in this day dream I know this is the one that will end me if it ends, if it turns out to be falsehood or manipulation. So naturally, my daydream skips the rails and he turns out to be a bad guy of some ilk.

Now mind you, this is a daydream. I am awake. I am literally fighting with my imagination, to carve out a happily ever after and can not get there from here. Imagination is a place where labradors can deejay or I could be a multi-platinum hip-hop artist--a place where absolutely ANYTHING is possible.

As my good friend put it, I am "beautifully broken." Seriously, how lucky am I to have someone who means that with all his heart and soul in a way that I can't articulate but know he wouldn't change a single thing about me? That's so awesome. I seriously love that dude. He's the kind of guy who wants feedback on his wedding invitations because they worked really hard to find something unique and in the next sentence is breathless about being able to nerd out on some motorcycle testosterone vrooom vroom something something or a gun. I don't doubt that marriage is all the hard work married people say it is, I have a hard enough time living with myself, but man do I want his heart to swell a million times over making a family with a really great woman.

Something in me is always prepared to be jealous when my friends have made the decision to make someone their 'final answer' but it's just never happened. It's not like I'm thinking, 'ha-ha suckas! Imma be over here marinating in my own filth, wearing cotton underwear EVERY NIGHT, and only shaving when *I* want to! Have fun being married!' They'll probably be living that dream eventually anyway so I'm not really besting anyone. I think I've shed the ideal(ism) that anyone has an ideal existence. There are benefits to the way that all of us live that lead us to chose our present circumstance over another. This is how it is.

In other news

Being inside is awesome. I love being in my house. I love being outside with Baloo on a crisp sunny morning, listening to the storm drain creek, watching her sniff the air. Life is damn near perfect at those moments. Those kinds of moments; beautiful moonrise, leaves crunching under dog paws this is the stuff that makes my life, my life. It is an Edie Brickell, Me By The Sea existence but it has its upside.

Lap pool...of despair

Oh Newman...you're killing me

I write this stuff down so I can know that I felt this way when I feel better. You know, for next time. Because there is always a next time. It grieves me. It's really really hard to insulate myself from bullshit. Really hard. Once I let a little in or feed any of the internal bullshit after midnight, it's like a free for all ass whipping on my soul. I'm not proud of it, I don't think it makes for my best or even good writing, and it's my least favorite dimension in my personality. But it's still mine. It's really peaking right now--at the point where it kind of actually physically hurts. It is not fun. I consider the labrador to be a very important part of weathering this storm and the chief reason I don't have more time to straw man out how to kill myself. Just being honest. She's not up under me absorbing my soul tears, she's down for the night and occasionally sighing but she's here. And if I get up to grab a snack, she'll be even more here.

Odd man out

My Soul Twin back-up plan is a mental crutch. We're not going to live together in the middle of Colorado. Soul Twin has always had and will probably always have a man in her life and one of these men, I think will be the one she grows old with. Truth is, I've had no peers when it comes to relationships among my girlfriends. Either most women are always seeing someone or I just happen to be friends with the women for whom this was/is the case. It's not just that I'm past the ideal 'purchase by' date for manufacturing babies, I've just never been that girl. Mine has been a story of pining since the very first boy I liked in 3rd grade. I know this is a mental virus that will soon pass but right now I just want to eat my sad soup and lament. Even if happily ever after is not for me, it sucks sometimes to not even be considered; you know that PE feeling--hate whatever we're playing but don't want to be picked last for the team.

TV-14

Am I missing something here? Tv-14 is awful for 14 year olds. I realize the world was a different place when I was 14 but I really don't get how most of this stuff is appropriate for 14 year olds. A movie about a gay male escort with the f word merely bleeped out but easily guessed is TV-14? I know I just said I'm not having kids but I do think I might have to raise my kid(s) on a farm off the grid in Montana if I have any because there is a lot of cray-cray on TV and my parental controls wouldn't allow them to watch anything but the news and Sesame Street until they are 18.

Word jumble

Oh Wise One

Don't you just love someone who dishes out helpful advice even when it isn't solicited or necessary? I know I do. Take today when someone suggested I schedule my language test later in the morning after I said I wasn't a morning person. Hmmm....you don't say? The test I'm scheduling for myself at a time of my choosing, I should make that at a time convenient for me? Quit your day job, Oprah! I want YOU running my life if you've got more gems like that. Can't wait to be in a foreign country away from my family with you, you special person, you. It will be like sitting at the feet of Jesus or Buddha. I am in for a *treat.* Maybe you can even remind me to wear a hat and gloves when it's cold or to watch out when I cross the street. I can't figure out if giving advice is your full time job, or you just like to hear the sound of your own voice and want us to feel like we're getting something out of it too. Perhaps you do not have enough to do? Or you just think everyone around you lacks common sense?

Ugh. You are wasting everybody's time.

In Memoriam: Steve the would-be-lymph-node

Oh Steve. You were such a potential bad-ass 24 hours ago. Now you're a discarded fatty mass that almost got your own spinoff sitcom from the Ava show. Prime time is hard, lots of pilots don't get picked up Steve. Don't beat yourself up about it. Just think, of all the fatty masses I'm rocking, you were the one who was recognized for your star potential and plucked out of obscurity. I know you wanted more for yourself but I think you're great just the way you were and cancer doesn't have a thing on you. You rock. Thanks for being you.

So.....

I guess we're back to this leaving the country thing again. *sigh* While Steve was being screened to focus groups, I kind of back-burnered language and worry and dread about this assignment because I figured there may be much bigger fish to fry. When the doctor came in and told me Steve was an impostor, I had about .3 seconds of great relief before the ungrateful '*sigh* Guess I'm going to eastern Europe,' followed by 'oh shit I've got so much to do before I go' thoughts moved into the vacuum Steve left.

Maybe my memory fails me but I think this is the first time I've been crazy enough to think something like "Well, if I have cancer, at least I won't have to go to eastern Europe." I think this is first time I've considered a serious disease having any upside at all. Cry/blood curdling scream/guttural moan for help perhaps?

Need to rally or find the reset button on this because it's an exhausting process without having to drag myself through it. I asked a friend to keep her eye out for a job that might trump this one in terms of people willing to put up a fight to get me. I think that's the last I can give this before just riding the current out there and beginning the countdown to leaving upon arriving. I know, A+ attitude Ava!

Just some random

Good News; Bad News

No matter how this (sick/well) turns out, it's a good news bad news story. I guess it's good enough news that there is an upside for each bit of bad news. Of course I wish it was either all bad or all good but I guess there must be balance. But only me, and for a fleeting moment before she mentally flogged herself for even letting it cross her mind, my friend DJ, and possibly my parents see a relieving upside to being me semi-unwell. Of course I don't get to pick the degree of un-wellness but if you can humor me on such a serious subject, it's not unlike a kid trying to get out of school. In an ideal world, he's sick enough to stay home but well enough to enjoy it. I know I'm not a kid anymore and this isn't kids play. I don't want to be ill and tossed into the valley of poor health. There is a point of diminishing returns on its blog fodder value. However, I'm going to give myself kudos on advanced coping skills for thinking of all the good things that can come from a medical detour of my previously laid plans. A lymph node or two have swelled in protest and are now unhappy and sore, mourning the loss of their brother in arms. I thought Steve's neighbors (I've named the lymph node who started it all, Steve) might be upset after witnessing his sudden and graphic eviction but they have been pretty quiet until tonight. I'm thinking that means antibiotics so glad I'm seeing the doctor in the morning. Fearfully and wonderfully made...fix one thing, make a new thing to fix.

A Full Life

Whenever my computer goes into sleep mode, a slide show from my photos starts. When I saw a picture of me in the plane I "co-piloted" (emphasis on the quotes) when I was 19 or so, it occurred to me that one might get the impression from my photos that I've lived a very full life. If you only knew me through what I write about myself, I'm not sure you would get that impression. In this space, I'm often looking for something that the photos say I have. If nothing else, the pictures are a testament that I'm at least getting around while in pursuit of some other magical life. I think that's why I've changed my attitude about pictures. There are few, very few that I like myself in but I wish I had more because even if I don't feel like I've done anything with my life, the pictures could trick people into thinking I have. It's all about appearances, you know.

For the dog(s)

Oh the places I've been with you sweet, softly snoring Baloo. I have a lot of mental vignettes staring you, a couple of prominent scars courtesy of you, many inappropriate songs I've inserted your name into (e.g. "I'm trying to find the words to describe Baloo without being disrespectfuuul. Damn Baloo!" or my personal favorite "Promiscuous Dog, you teasin' me. You know what I want and I got what you need") but tonight was super fun. You pooped next to the passenger side of that unmarked cop car and I thought, yay. But he didn't notice you, black dog in the dark, he noticed me standing at his passenger door, staring down at the ground looking for your poop. Bonus, I was rocking the ipod so I didn't hear when he rolled down his window to ask if he could help me in that way where it's clear he is not at all concerned if I need help. Caught off guard, I couldn't muster any courtesy and just waved my plastic bag covered hand at him and said, 'I'm picking up poop.' He rolled up his window and got on with his life. Thanks dog buddy for trying to get me shot.

Former friends (aka poking the Bear)

When I first moved to Philadelphia I decided to get in the mix, you know, single gal in city, hanging out with other single gals, doing all that stuff that looks so fun on TV or when you see other people doing it. I'm super glad I did it. It was the antidote to my curiosity about what I was missing out there and the joys and drains of hanging out with women who aren't really your friends. I don't mean that in a malevolent way, like we didn't like each other, I'm just making a distinction between being friendly and being friends. I liked everyone there but no one was dedicating 'Lean on Me' to one another.

I don't have many Facebook friends and even fewer from Philly but one of girls I used to hang out with on the regular, my closest girlfriend there, hasn't said a word to me since I left. She was mad at me for refusing a going away dinner/birthday party thing and I had no interest in fueling her backwards thinking by trying to smooth her feathers about it. When she asked why I didn't want a party, I said since it was my birthday, I should get to do what I want and I don't want to do anything. I was hoping she would have a moment of clarity and realize she was making something for me about her but instead I am pretty sure that was the last time we spoke. It's a shame. When she's not being high maintenance or passive aggressive, she's hilarious and fun to be around.

I've got plenty of Facebook chaff, really I could have 4 friends on Facebook and be set, 8 if I count folks who comment on a status update at least once every 6 months or so. But having on her my friend list feels like being at a party where you can tell someone is deliberately not talking to you. Maybe I'm making it up in my head but I feel like we're in a Facebook detente, she won't de-friend me because she has over 200 friends plus hobbies and interests outside of me (gasp) and I won't de-friend her because it *will* be a thing among the 2 people I met through her that I'm still in occasional contact with. A part of me just wants to call a spade a spade, but nothing that happens in her life happens alone and she will bring in at least her immediate family, the two other people we know in common, and folks I've never met to discuss me ad nauseum in very unflattering terms. No thanks. It's only boredom, desire for distraction, and procrastination that even drives me to think about engaging her to clear the air.

Newman!

Remember those moments during Seinfeld when Jerry would suddenly recognize some odd or terrible going on was the work of his nemesis neighbor Newman? That's me recognizing a spell with depression and anxiety. It's to be expected given the wear and tear of the last few weeks and quickly approaching overseas departure. I guess I've been a little bit in denial about my excessive desire to shelter in place and mounting personal clutter, a hallmark of my particular brand of mental rhinovirus.

I got up and at 'em this morning, fixed a big breakfast, did a load of laundry, ran the dishwasher, walked the dog, and then went back to bed for 3 hours. I just get so tired. Maybe it's the seasons changing as many people seem to be complaining of grogginess but given the state of play in my house, it's probably a mental blue screen of death that makes it hard to get anything started indoors, and really, really, really, does not want to venture out into all the humanity that comes out over the weekend to accomplish the same chores we all save for the weekend.

Because I was at the point were all my easy meal solutions had been exhausted and I had been compelled to eat barely seasoned mustard chicken strips and tater tots last night, I ventured out today. It was awful. So many damn people. So many people it is impossible to faithfully execute your grocery list because people are in the way at every stop. I was in front of a woman in line who was on broadcast with all her thoughts and musings. She had a toddler and a husband with her but if I had not turned around, I could have easily believed she was by herself. The baby barely talked and the husband understood how to use his library voice to speak to someone mere inches from his face. It would have been so satisfying to ask her why she was a: trying to teach her barely-speaking-English-toddler French when it was obvious she was in no way from France and there are far more relevant languages to expose a child to in the U.S., like, I don't know Spanish/Arabic/Mandarin/English? and b: why she needed to use her broadcast voice to ask her daughter questions in French (that the little girl did not answer or seem to understand because I suspect Mommy only pulls this shit in public in long lines so she has an audience). I caught myself actually clenching my jaw.

I got home and sat in the car again, not ready to start in on the chore of putting away groceries and walking the dog. I finally came in, did the needful, walked the dog miserable and tired of walking the dog. I was ready for bed again but I stayed up and watched several episodes of Storage Wars-a show I have never seen before today and not likely to tune into again. Now it's 1 am and I'm all set to repeat today's cycle.

Newman...

A-hole friend

Absolutely everyone needs one of these people. Someone who lets you know just how much trouble something is, not one to make great sacrifice or extend themselves beyond what is convenient for them. These are people I trust in a weird way. I feel confident whatever I get from them is given freely.

So I found out my procedure will involve sedation instead of a little local anesthetic as I had hoped so I will not be able to drive myself home and for a reason that probably has its origins in a very unfortunate incident, hospital regulations forbid me from catching a taxi home. I had a ride lined up but the procedure unfortunately ended up being scheduled while they are out of town so I decided to ask my friend Maybe.

Naturally, he wasn't sure at first and I told him I really didn't need him to be unsure, he could just say no and be sure. As sure as he was my plan B, I had a plan C. He works from home, btw. He decided I was worth missing the weekly sales call if it came to that and then asked me in typical Maybe fashion if it was only a drop off or was I going to need other things like food or something. I assured him no more would be required of him beyond pushing me out of his still moving car. He was relieved and said they had just helped one of their other friends and it was a huge pain in the ass. It will be nice to share this event with him. He's a good guy, he just has absolutely no tact. That's part of why I love him. It's nice to know what's on a person's mind for real.

What me, happy?

I don't know about you but about the worst thing someone can wish for me to my face is for me to be happy. Nothing quite takes the wind out of my sails and makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing in my life. Am I alone here?

It's been a banner day. You know, feeling worse than usual about all that didn't get done on the weekend, overwhelmed and unprepared for the week ahead, less nuts than usual about the chick checking me out in the mirror after my shower. But I was plugging along until I dropped a piano on myself and my dad followed it with an anvil, just like in our favorite cartoons.

I've been at this exercise thing for a couple of years now and it's been great. I'm stronger, I feel better, my clothes fit better, and I kind of like my body. I decided almost that long ago that I wasn't going to gauge my progress via the scale since a number wasn't my goal and blah, blah, boring philosophy. Since I started, my pants are looser, I've had to buy new bras, and things fit that I couldn't even button before. My endurance has increased, I can run for the first time in years and not think I'm dying when I do it. It's been fantastically validating and has kept me motivated to keep investing in myself blah, blah, self affirmation.

I was curious about the number but knew that whatever it was, it wouldn't seem like enough. I never expected it would be more but indeed it is. Either I'm a muscle building mo-fo or I need some serious psychiatric intervention because I have *no* idea what the fuck I look like. Maybe the jackets that I think are zipping up have mangled busted zippers with fat spilling out of every crease and all I can see is a cleaner, smoother silhouette. Maybe I have finally lost my mind and am incapable of seeing myself. It's possible.

I feel a little crazy but the crotch kicker is I did this in front of my dad who is both a man and my dad which makes him the worst person to be armed with this information. First he suggested Weight Watchers which he started (again) 3 weeks ago after gaining 7 pounds in his previous 6 months on the program not attending meetings. I have never ever met a person who welcomes the suggestion that they should join Weight Watchers, AA, or that they look tired, or pregnant. People can not fucking help themselves can they? I was processing this hateful number that I knew better than to view and my dad was rambling on about how I'm the psychology major and what would I tell someone who engages in avoidance behaviors like not opening their mail like I was sitting at the table with a fistful of lard in my hand and a lard-smeared oxygen mask over my face waiting for EMS to cut me out of my bedroom.

That I could deal with. I became frustrated however because he wasn't hearing me and kept at it with gems like 'well when you go overseas, you'll lose weight,' and 'to me, you're pretty and you look fine' but the kicker was when he told me that he just wanted me to be happy and that he and mom had been praying earnestly and fervently on this point. OMFG. You want me to be happy?! What the fuck do you think I'm working on over here? This is fucking happiness factory. I'm just about over your bullshit, just about over work bullshit, just about over things not matching up with some rom-com ending I had in my head bullshit (and gaining awareness and appreciation every day for all the things that come with that 'happy ending' that I don't have to deal with), just enjoying the freedom of late 30's and the clarity it brings as less and less becomes possible and the life you always had becomes the one you think you'd chose.

But since you're petitioning God on my behalf, you know what would make me happy? You not fucking sending me a text message when you think you are dying and then arguing with me for 2 hours when I ask that someone let us know when you're concerned enough to send just-in-case last words via SMS. I mean really. Ask Him to help you understand why that was very not okay. Ask Him to make you a better listener and to not offer me a ziploc bag full of face-sized cookies after suggesting I join Weight Watchers. Can you even hear yourself?

And in all this, driving away from the house on the brink of tears after telling you that you were completely missing the point, wishing it wasn't so late where Soul Twin is so she could talk me down, wishing it weren't so early on the West coast so my other friend could talk me down (they are specialists at talking me down), I'm happy Dad because I knew this story would end up here. This makes me happy. I don't understand what happiness is supposed to be or look like but I do know that this awful evening is great blog fodder so all's well that ends well. I guess God hears you.

Open letter: So you say you don't watch television, eh?

Dear person who 'doesn't watch television',

Big effin deal. I don't murder people or referee dog fighting rings but I don't bring that up when I'm talking about someone who does. I don't actually care if you do or do not watch television but you make such a deal about not watching TV and how it gives you time for 'other' things that you are tacitly passing judgement on people who do watch TV. Btw, for the guy who said that to me today, watching sports *is* watching TV and DVR'ing shows is *also* watching TV so I'm not sure why you made such a point of how little you watch TV since I don't know any sport that lasts for less than 2 hours.

Men more romantic than women?

What do you think?

You made me do this-open letter to Mom and Dad

Dear Mom and Dad,

I can not believe you did it again. I'm cutting you some slack Dad because you did think something was seriously wrong with you but sending your kids a text message at 1 am telling them that you love them and to 'make the best of your youth' is not the last communication I want to have with you. And Mom...you let him drive himself to the ER and not even the nearest ER...I mean, I don't even know what to do with that. Your husband who slept in a chair by your bed for 2 months, that guy, you let him wait in the ER by himself to dwell on his own mortality and send his kids a random 'just in case' last words text message without telling us something was wrong. I could go on and on but let's just stay focused on the message here which is; it is NOT okay to send your kids text messages to let them know someone in their family died, or to tell your family you love them if you are preparing to drive yourself past the closest ER to a military hospital where you will be stopped at the gate and asked to show ID before being allowed to proceed toward the hospital to determine if you are having a heart attack. So glad we had this chat.

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For the record, I only found out about the ER visit after I texted my Dad to tell him I loved him too. My brother and sister still didn't know until I called them this evening. When I called my parents to fuss at them this evening, he was napping so I fussed at my Mom. I was incredulous when she told me he still brought her breakfast this morning. What. the. hell. He got back from the hospital at 4:30 in the morning. God, I know I'm not good at letting people help me--you know, not giving people an opportunity to let me down or seem put out by it, and now I understand that it's hopeless. My mother is stubborn and stoic, my father is a martyr, he wants help but he can't ask for it. I never had a chance.

I was talking to my Mom about how people who constantly seek validation provoke something awful and mean in me, I reflexively withhold. You know how they tell you to never run away from a dog because that just makes him chase? Well, I'm only running away because I'm being chased. Turns out I get that from Mom. Dad has been chasing her their entire marriage. He just wants to know she at least likes him from time to time. I don't know if I feel good that he's the coyote to her roadrunner and there is some kind of beautiful twisted balance in that or if I just want for once, for the coyote to win.

I'm not even Catholic

But every year I consider observing Lent. Some years it's abstaining from something concrete like chocolate or cable TV; some years it's cheesy like giving up giving up things, denying myself nothing, or embracing mistakes. Most years it's nothing at all. This year I think I'm going to give up TV on weeknights. Everything I really want to watch I already DVR so I'm not beholden to the television at a certain hour but as language becomes more a death march than a journey, it's very easy to let the best of the night slip away from me to re-runs of 30 Rock, even though I have the first 4 seasons on DVD. I expect to blog more during Lent (as evidenced by this post) since my practice of the art of procrastination isn't limited to TV watching.

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Boy am I conflicted

I was talking to my Mom today about my pending assignment. I told her how it's all but certain I will not pass the language test the first or second time I take it. It *just* occurred to me that part of me wants to fail to spite my terrible teacher. I couldn't be a better poster child for cutting off my nose to spite my face if I tried.

Anyway, Mom said she had been praying about this assignment. To say my parents aren't nuts about it is putting it mildly. I know how they feel and while there are parts about it, like moving, settling in, not knowing jack shit, figuring out what to do for Baloo, etc, that I dread with every fiber of my being, that kind of thing is not unique to this assignment. I dread that when I go on a business trip. The feral dog colonies are a little unique but also not that unusual for much of the world outside of North America and Western Europe. The job itself could be really fun and interesting assuming the people I work with and for are not total ass wipes.

I told Mom I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing and not going wasn't going to derail my career (such that it is) if something like language disqualified me from going. With that new information, Mom informed me she was going to make a sharp turn in her prayer request as it concerned me. Where she had been praying for God's will to be done, she was now going to ask for God to honor the desire of her heart which was for me to stay. She doesn't know about the lymph node and it's potential to serve as a catalyst for the Ava stays option. That's kind of fucked up right? For a prayer to seemingly be answered in such a fucked up way? I kind of wanted to tell her right then and there so a seed could never be planted in her mind that her prayers were somehow a part of an issue I've been ignoring for a year now. But I held off because I hate for them to worry and that is exactly what they would do. I really do think it will be much ado about nothing but I do consider the opposite too and think of silly things like not being able to work out or losing my hair.

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Does my chiropractor have a crush on me?

I've been going to the same guy for 6 years. A new guy joined his practice last year and I was't real keen on him because he is super friendly and there is simply no reason for that. I don't know you like that, take it down a notch. It's been a few months now and while he is still not my preferred adjuster, I've stopped actively zapping him with waves of haterade when he Ned Flander's me and everyone else within earshot.

He seems to be a big sweet guy, the kind of guy who played football in a small town but still may have been picked on. He's the kind of guy that seems like he would want you to wait for him to get out of the car and open your door. He just seems sweet and maybe a little sweet on me. He gave me his e-mail address today and told me I could send him a list of masseuses I was considering and he would call and interview them for me so I would be more sure I was getting someone who could help me. That's weird, right? I was joking with him about something and he laughed and put his head on my shoulder. That is also weird, right?

He seems to be a nice guy so I'm going to let him interview some local places for me. Saves me some time though I'm not ignorant that this gives him a better sense of where I live since I told him I was looking for some place close. It's a weird move to make if he is indeed making a move but I'll either be out of the country or working through much heavier things in the next 4 months so why not have an interesting guy story to fill out the narrative here?

Junk drawer

Dear Pharmaceutical Company(ies) who market depression drugs,

You know what? I'm good. Going to cope with my body image, self esteem, social anxiety, discomfort with clowns, etc the old fashioned way by eating, or exercising, learning crochet or some other something. I'm not sure if your commercials are made by people actively suffering from depression but I do know I kind of want to end it all when I see them. The music is awful, like sad porn music, and whether the commercial features actors or animation, no one ever looks happy. They all just look okay like, 'Well, now I can manage a close mouthed smile for a family photo but my eyes say I still feel dead inside.' Way not to oversell the benefits of anti-depression medication. If the commercials are anything to go by, seems depression is worse than herpes by a long shot. At least with herpes, I'm living life, I've got a boyfriend, I'm riding horses, there isn't a bathrobe attacking me as soon as I wake up and stalking me even when I'm on Abilify and some other medication that clearly isn't cutting it. Just thinking about that animated stalking bathrobe or dark cloud makes me sad. I guess if you are depressed the best they can do is turn down the volume of suck. Finally, herpes wins a 'would you rather' contest.

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Girl crushes

I love girl crushes. It's so much simpler once you both confess how much you like each other. You just become friends (Hi Teresa@good-grace).

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Where I'm from

I went back to Omaha for the first time in a decade or so and felt like I needed to acknowledge it as one of my homes. I'm not from anywhere but there are formative places and Omaha is one of them. It was our first family home. It was my first public school. I learned to drive there, had my first kiss and first concert, first and second gay dates to military balls. I'm at least a little bit from all the places I've ever been.

Much as I want to hate this place I'm in, I'm from the Washington Metropolitan Area as well. I've lived here longer than I have anywhere else. I bought and sold my first home here, I got Baloo here, I bump into people at Trader Joe's or in the hallway at work that are a part of my near and distant past. I bumped into a guy I used to babysit overseas in the hallway at work a few years ago. I bumped into a guy I haven't seen in several years at Trader Joe's today. Turns out he applied for the assignment I'm jokingly hoping (in very poor taste, I know) for cancer to get out of. Can't make that shit up. He high-fived me because I got it. It makes me feel crazy because I just know that was just a plant to make me take to this page and write about it. I also know if this trouble maker lymph node is semi-serious, I will want to forge ahead and go at the same time I am relieved to have an option to stay. Just feels good when you know where the exits are, I guess.

Mercy

I don't know about you but sometimes I fantasize that one small thing will be fixed in my body and everything will fall into place. Intellectually I know my joints consider their best days behind them and we're really entering a maintenance phase for this body rental. A part of me though thinks of something like this little bump being the clue that unravels the mysteries of all the other phantom ailments. Wouldn't it be nice if all the little mysteries fit into this little bump? It's one thing to not feel well, it's another thing to not know why. Even worse to feel you have to cede your quality of life to just feeling okay because few doctors are truly interested in your wellness. I went to sleep with a pillow and ice on my face last night unable to find comfort any other way. This morning, I woke up at 2 to find my left side feeling normal but my right side rumbling with the threat of another headache.

I've been up since then, drinking tea, doing laundry, taking Tylenol in a vain attempt to get ahead of pain that is already way in front of me. It's almost time for me to get up and I'm finally winding down so today is probably going to be awesome. I have a big talk ahead of me at work and I just have to keep reminding myself that I have nothing to lose. I hate confrontation but I hate wondering what would be if I had just stood up for myself. I'm getting a little too old to endure bullshit without at least going down swinging but I hate to be doing it on a day when I'm feeling less than my best.

It's like telling a stranger

'Maybe,' the blog name for an old and strangely endearing friend of my mine recently had surgery to remove a mass from his lung. He called me the day before the surgery to let me know and told me I was on the list of people his girlfriend was to call if anything went wrong. Last time Maybe had surgery, it was an emergency removal of his gall bladder. When he got out of the hospital, he wrote me a long e-mail telling me what happened. His e-mail concluded with something along the lines of 'I just wanted to tell someone everything that happened, not for sympathy, but just so someone would know. Writing you was like sending a post card to Post Secret.' He had a girlfriend at that time as well but telling someone who wasn't there, well sometimes you just want to tell a story.

Post Secret for the second to last person on earth who doesn't know what it is (I only say that because *I* know what it is and I am usually the last person to get the memo) is a public confessional. No response is necessary or even possible but your story gets an audience. The things people confess are sometimes whimsical but often they are heavy and deeply affecting. Like snail-mail twitter with no attribution. So when Maybe compared me to this book, I knew exactly where he was coming from. He could be miserable, dramatic, throw a complete damn tantrum and I could just take it in without reflexive lament or attempts to comfort or commiserate. I could just ooh and ahh and offer the 'anything' that people always do only once without being frustrated with the expected 'no' in response.

With the time between wondering what is going on and knowing what is going on with the trouble-maker lymph node, my personal post secret community is the best thing going. People who can randomly know something about you but you really don't have to worry about them following-up or even remembering. Maybe, both for his temperament and his very recent experience at the hospital I will probably use make him ideal. Today, he wanted to see and touch the lump and it was just kind of funny. He touched it, laughed and said, 'oh yea, I can totally feel that,' and then we moved on without further comment to a discussion of how his doctor doesn't get any of his sports analogies.

I can not get into an emotional deep dive on stuff like this. A missed opportunity to get the number of the cute boy that I talked to in line at Ross; that I can get sad and emotionally twisted about. But this, no. I just don't like knowing. What it is now, it was yesterday and will be tomorrow. What can I really worry about? I feel about this how I feel about the question of whether I will ever get married. That question will be answered one way or another, it's the wait to find out that wears on me.

Random parting shot; I hate fasting bloodwork. Nothing brings the full attention of my mental faculties to hunger like knowing I can not eat.

Ambivalent

Preparing for this mock language test tomorrow is like asking me to prepare for the rest of my life before Monday morning. I haven't a clue where to start. I am having a crisis of confidence, a consequence of some poorly timed and poorly handled feedback on my progress.

January was a banner month for me. I felt like I was finally able to have something that resembled a conversation in this language. It was still riddled with imperfection but I was starting to find the words I needed even if I didn't always conjugate them correctly or use the correct gender. I felt like I had something I could work with for the next few months and would start making some significant strides. Not so much. According to the experts, I'm far enough behind where I should be that it would be a miracle for me to hit my marks in the time I have left. Seems like something that should have come up before now but I don't want to digress too far off topic to dig into that ridiculousness. It is what it is. It has been a very deflating two weeks and I'm two steps back from the three steps forward I felt I made.

I'm disappointed in an abstract way not to be oozing excellence but I'm more disappointed in myself for not trusting my own instinct about how this was going to play out. I should have found a new teacher as soon my current teacher told me, "That's just the way it is boo," when I told her I didn't think we would get there from here if we didn't spend time on the basics and kept piling on additional information out of context. No, that's not just the way it is, boo. This is not a Bruce Hornsby song and I'm paying several grand a month for one-on-one instruction. I say how it is.

I used my best learning-as-buildling-a-house analogy to come at the importance of a solid foundation from another angle. All I got in response was some urban slang and "This is how it is. This is how it works." So I deferred to her judgement and my desire to just have one thing locked down 3 weeks after moving back to D.C. and literally set myself up for failure. Perhaps I would still be in this position if I had found another instructor who focused on fundamentals and complemented my learning style. I honestly don't think so. I think I would be killing it. But I can't know that so I'll salvage what can be salvaged from this, which is largely an object lesson in ownership. If I'm the one accountable, then we do it my way. I would rather fail on my terms. Doesn't mean I'm immune or resistant to wise counsel but this was a no-brainer really. I never should have doubted myself. Nothing against her as a person but she is not a good instructor and I knew that in the first 3 weeks. Live and learn.

I was talking with a friend today and she asked if I really wanted this job. I responded with my typical 10 minute answer but thinking about it now and trying to distill how I feel into far fewer sentences, the word I would pick to describe how I feel is ambivalent. I had/have no innate desire to go to this place but my penchant for magical thinking, my curiosity, and my lack of more desirable options at the time all came together and here we are. I have often felt anxious with the anticipation of something new but I have never had the ominous feeling I have had (just once) in thinking about this assignment. I was just out walking the dog and something just came over me. A very strong feeling of dread/fear/anticipation of something bad. So now, I am passively open to an out in whatever form it comes. But if it doesn't come, I guess I'll go. All that to say, I'm disappointed that I'm not excelling but as it concerns this assignment, they have no power over me. There will be no crying in my cornflakes if this doesn't pan out.

It's not a tumor!

I can't remember what movie that is from but I do remember that it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who said it. I finally went to the doctor yesterday to discuss a lump in my neck that's been there over a year. It's not something that bothers me and though Ashley has been after me for a while insisting it isn't normal, I just kept forgetting to bring it up because when I am at the doctor, it is for something acute for which I am probably loaded up on meds and not exactly on point during the visit. I like this doctor because she's not one to freak out but she's still all about getting to the bottom of things and ruling out the worse case scenario so I will have the lump removed, etc. I anticipate the prognosis to be good and the diagnosis to be that I think too much and one of my thoughts got stuck. Perhaps a thought about a ninja encounter or a small well of haterade pooling for quicker retrieval.

It's truly not a big deal, but it's one of those things that I really want to skip to the end of quickly. I just want to know for sure what the deal is so I can deal and plan. For now, I've decided not to tell my parents which is hard because I tell them almost everything and we talk often. It's been a hard year and I don't want them worrying for no reason. The upside of the worst case however, is not going overseas to stand guard for 2 years every time I go out to walk the dog for fear of a stray dog encounter. That's kind of a big upside actually. Not sure what outcome I'm rooting for. No one gets out alive after all, right? I think that is funny but I suspect at least 2/3 of you won't find it funny at all (that's literally 2 out of the 3 actual people who read this).

Moving on...

There are a couple of people with whom I enjoy a shorthand dialogue. There is no preamble to our conversations, it's like our minds have compatible wavelengths. I don't have to explain myself. I can and have actually begun conversations with statements like 'I've made a huge mistake.' They don't stop me so they can understand what that means. They just let me talk. That is such a gift. They don't really ask questions unless you count, 'What, Seriously, Holy shit, WTF?' Unless I ask what I should do, they don't really offer advice and they don't ask me what I'm going to do. It's hard to explain but it's more important for them to listen and commiserate than it is for them to understand specifically what is going on in my life. This would-be tumor business, they won't be after me seeking updates, they will wait. They won't call to see if I want to talk about it, they'll let me talk about it or about not being able to find the yogurt I like. I don't doubt for one second that they care.

In other news, I think people underestimate just how much time I prefer to spend alone without obligations or plans. I have a massage today and it's kind of stressing me out because I really want to take a nap right now and I still need to walk the dog and shower. Being unscheduled and free to move about on a whim is also a great gift.

In still other news, my mother who could not even blow her own nose 9 months ago, played Just Dance on Nintendo Wii with me a couple of weeks ago. I was soaked in sweat to the point I actually caught a chill. Her upper lip didn't even get a mist of sweat. I keep looking at her just marveling and hating the doctors who had given up on her. My dad marvels too. He sent us a text the other day telling us that he loved us and was touched by how we came to help when my mom was sick--"not enough to say thanks, but I *am* touched." Love my family. We are so, so, blessed. That was an awful time.

Stupid massage appointment. Have to get out of this warm bed and walk the dog so I can be ready. This is why I hate making plans.