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.