Yesterday was a good day. It was miserably cold (for November - which is the same weather that we’ll consider positively spring-like when it shows up again some time in March.) and we saw the first snow flurries of the season. But I didn’t have to go anywhere, so I cocooned here with the dogs, writing and napping and cleaning the kitchen and baking frozen pizza. I wrote more than 5,000 words, and they were pretty easy to write. On Friday I barely yanked 1,000 words out of my highly-recalcitrant brain, and each one hurt. Yesterday’s words practically jumped out onto the page. That’s a nice feeling.

This whole thing with taking all the Fridays in November off to use for extra writing time, it’s not working exactly as I thought it would, but it is really working. Instead of turning into some kind of writing machine on Fridays I’ve been using the day to decompress, run errands, get my mental house in order. And just not having to be in the cosmic shithole of stress and aggravation that is my job, that’s a benefit in and of itself. Then on Saturdays I can get some writing done, since I don’t have to use that day to decompress.

I’ve also been going out on Fridays, as usual, and that is adding to my mental well-being too. I had a moment this Friday where I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people I really liked. (Of course I’d had a few drinks, so even people I don’t like all that much were seeming more like people I at least sort of liked.) It was just such a cool feeling, hanging out with a bunch of friendly familiar faces, talking about things with people who either share your point of view or will argue vehemently against it and maybe change your mind. I caught a fleeting glimmer of why other people like to socialize. Because for just that moment the world felt like a warm, friendly place. For a few hours I lost that persistent feeling that life is perpetually gearing up to clock me in the face. I relaxed.

I wonder if the world feels like a friendly place to other people all of the time, or at least most of the time? And if it does, I wonder if they know how lucky they are?

I also made more of an effort to pay attention to what was going on around me, but it was really hard. When MyTodd™ and I went out on Monday there were four separate occasions in which he had to point out to me that someone was either trying to say hello, goodbye or converse with me. Which is why, as he explained, people sometimes think I am an asshole. (Which, yeah I am an asshole, but not the kind who purposely ignores you if you’re trying to talk to me. Seriously, I didn’t see you there.) And on Friday someone came up to me and waved at me for 15 seconds, directly six inches from my face before I figured out they were trying to get my attention. Anyway, we’re going to call that “extreme internal focus” and not “criminally absentminded cluelessness” because we’re trying to be nice to me, OK?

Of course it’s never me going out unless I end up having some type of Ludicrous Interpersonal Exchange with someone, and this week’s exchange actually came from a guy that I know, rather than a random weirdo stranger.  (Sorry weirdo stranger guy at the bar who was eyeballing me and seemed to be vying for this week’s most ludicrous exchange, my friends helpfully created a physical barrier between us for most of the evening, and I made sure that I was never alone so you couldn’t get weird with me.)

Anyway, when I walked in I was greeting everyone. That’s a standard social convention to which I subscribe. But of course there’s always that thing when you’re greeting a bunch of people where you know you’re in the friendship stage at which you hug some of them hello and then you end up hugging like two-thirds of the group, but then there’s a few people who you don’t know well enough to hug, and they’re standing there all unhugged-akimbo and it’s awkward. And you try to fuss with your purse or order a drink to cover up how you’re not hugging them, and then it’s all over and the awkwardness is done for another week. Or until it’s time to leave.

Well there was one guy there who I know well enough to have just started hugging hello the last few times I’ve seen him. So I had greeted everyone else and I was going to be sitting next to him, so I was all “Hello <<Name>>!” and I hugged him. And I may have done a little air-kiss thing next to his cheek, too. When we were done embracing he asked me “Are we ‘kiss on the cheek’ friends now?” Which to me is a step up from hugging friends, but I didn’t want to be an awkward asshole, so was like “Of course!” and he said something like “Are you sure?” and I said. “Sweetie, whatever you want! You want a little tongue in the ear action, you can have that too.”

OK so obvious disclaimer here, that was a joke.That wasn’t even a particularly flirty joke, it was kind of a ridiculous joke.

Then somehow as I am fussing with my purse and ordered a drink he segues into “OK it’s decided then, we’re going to kiss on the lips now!” Seriously! And then he kisses me on the lips! And I was all ‘WTF just happened right here?’ in my head, but trying to play it off like he hadn’t just swiped half my lip gloss. So I just laughed and wished a lot that I could sit somewhere else. Luckily right that second he got a call that he had to go pick someone up, and took off. OK, that was weird.

So later in the evening my friend Dave showed up. Now, Dave is a most excellent friend because he’s extremely even-tempered, and he finds pretty much everything ridiculous. So you can totally point out ridiculous things and people to him all night long, and he gets the humor of it, but he just accepts everything with a nice calm way of being. Todd says it’s because Dave’s already seen every freaky thing in the world and there’s nothing left for him to get excited over, but I think it’s also part of his nature. It’s hard to explain, but it’s the perfect foil for my own sense of the ridiculous + tendency to freak out a little. His calm enhances my calm, and I like it. So Dave ended up sitting next to me at some point in the evening, just when I saw this other guy show back up.

Knowing he’d appreciate the bizarre contractual aspect of those kissing negotiations, I started telling him the story. “OMG, when <<name>> came in earlier, I was all “hey” and then he was all “hey, now we’re going to be ‘kiss on the lips’ friends!” and I was all “!!!” and then now we’re apparently kiss on the lips friends! Isn’t that fucked up?” And Dave was laughing that that was indeed fucked up, because he knows I am barely ever hugging on people I really like, much less kissing people I don’t know well. And then as I am sitting there telling him that story, here comes the original guy, leans over Dave’s shoulder and fucking smacks one right on my lips again! And then he says to Dave “We’ve agreed that we’re going to do this from now on.” and then he looks at me and says “Right?” and I am all “Uh huh!” and Dave is laughing his ass off. And I am realizing that not only does this guy think we’re kiss on the lips friends, but we’re apparently kiss on the lips friends every time we see each other in the evening! What? I mean, what prompts that, exactly? How long do we have to be absent from each other for that to kick in? If I leave to pee, when I come back do I have to do another round of lip-kissing? What?

And before anyone says it is some kind of weird hitting on me thing, it’s not. When the guy left earlier it was to pick up his girlfriend, who was then sitting right there for the return-kissage. I think he’s just kissy or something, I don’t know.

And even if the poor man was desperate enough to want to have me in his back pocket as some kind of “break glass in case of not having your dick sucked in six months” emergency ration, and this kiss thing is supposed to be laying the groundwork for that, it’s totally going to backfire, because now I am going to have to dodge him every time I see him! Tiresome! Anyway, that was the Ludicrous Interpersonal Exchange of the evening, for your reading pleasure. Now breakfast.

So I was trying to write up a whole blog post about how challenging I find this “mixing with the populace” thing that some of you citizens call “socializing.” And while—after much therapy, soul-searching, navel-gazing and other forms of pondering—I understand my own weirdo ways of being, I find that when I try to explain myself to others with any level of detail beyond ‘Please remember that I am socially disabled.’ I sound like a complete and utter raving loonytard.

So…please remember that I am socially disabled, and if I look like I am frowning at you and/or ignoring you A) That’s just the way my face looks and B) There’s a 98.9% chance I didn’t see you because I have socially-induced tunnel vision.

That’s all.

So here’s Friday night’s going-out story. (Do I need to preface this with all my situational going-out anxiety and confused/conflicting feelings about being out in the public sphere? I didn’t think so.)

Went out to dinner for Jessica’s b-day at Michael’s. Had a minor melt-down in the early evening due to something really stupid I did on accident, and my inability to accept that I sometimes make mistakes. Yes, even me. Yes, mistakes. Things done wrong for which I am responsible. Unacceptable. Will assess and address this issue later. Maybe. Anyway.

Went out to dinner and it ended up being the four of us. We all left at the same time, ostensibly to go to the bar, but Friend 1 had to take leftovers to her house and Friend 2 had to go home to put her jewelry on. So MyTodd™ and I (in separate cars) made our way to the bar. Midway there he calls to tell me that he sees a bunch of his colleagues’ cars in another bar’s parking lot, so he’s stopping there for a drink. No problem, I go on to the original destination bar without him. (See? See how brave I am become?) I get there and (male) Friend 3 is there, along with Friendly Barkeep. So I am comfortable and feel safe with these people I know, and sit down and start chatting. Unfortunately I am really, really tired. Two days of physically intense photo shoots at work plus the stress of a no-show photographic subject on Friday, plus aforementioned meltdown = me being almost totally (albeit pleasantly) brain-dead and non-talky. I was leaning my head in my hand on the bar, actually. Which caused the Friendly Barkeep to wave his hand in front of my face to see if I was awake at one point.

OK, here it’s going to get all complicated and over-explained and stuff, so if you don’t like that kind of thing… stop reading. Continue reading »

Despite a pretty robust (3/4) lifescore today, and (what is for me) hyper-sociability for the last three days, I am still pretty melancholy today, without really knowing why. I’ve been around people, I’ve been to parties, I’ve been to bars, I’ve been writing, I’ve got laundry done and dishes done and house clean. I don’t know what my fecking problem is, really.

I can say that the editing and revision of a novel is much more tedious and time-consuming than the actual first-draft writing of a novel. Very stop and go, very “crap, does that make any sense with what I said three chapters before?” and stuff like that.

What’s funny is that as I was writing the first draft I made little notes to myself, “research blah-blah, look up the date that such and such happened, find out about xyz” Well today, sitting at the gelateria and writing with Todd doing homework next to me I ran into a psychiatric/medical question that I had noted “ask Todd the correct psych diagnosis for this disorder.” So I was able to stop what I was doing and ask him, and that was an interesting discussion.

For each of the main characters in the book I’ve created play lists. “What would be on their iPod” kind of stuff and also songs that I feel capture parts of their personalities. Maybe part of my issue today is that my main character is kind of depressive and feels out of control and helpless. I’ve been listening to her play list all day to get me in the frame of mind to write her and that’s probably having an effect. I’ve switched over to a more hell-raising character’s list, which may perk me up.

Also, the “delete” key on my new laptop’s keyboard is in the place where the “backspace” key was on my old one. That fucks me up because I am a big back-spacer. That’s irritating, and instead of blaming the keyboard and my finger-memory, I blame myself for being stupid, every time I do it.

Lastly, the gelateria guy asked Todd if I was his wife. Why that should be so funny to me, I don’t know. I suppose most people who don’t know us assume that we’re a couple. But it made me laugh anyway.

Good thing I went ahead and invested in that carpet steamer. Madame Chelsea must have eaten something that didn’t agree with her, as she demonstrated out both ends all over the office carpet. Bless her heart, but that’s challenging.

And of course all I can think is that the GIANT ASS SPIDER in my garden might have bitten her, or that she might have eaten some foliage that was sprayed with the chemicals I used to destroy that fracking thing. This is why I would make shitty mother, because my head doesn’t go to “ate something that disagreed with her” but more to “poison spider bites” and “ingestion of toxic chemicals” and the resultant neurological damage. I was also listening to her chest to see if she might have a collapsed lung or narrowed airway. Whatever. At least I know these things about myself.

In other news, as my very clean bathroom and almost-done laundry can attest, I’ve been very householdy. I also wrote 1300+ words at this silly SLU coffeeshop and hung out with friends while doing so, giving me a total Lifescore of 3/4 today! So yay me.

I am really grooving on this whole “silently hanging out and communally working on our own projects” thing at various local coffeehouses. MyTodd™ was doing homework, another friend was blogging and another was doing something with her photos online. It’s fun. We shoot each other weird and funny weblinks from time to time, but by and large we just work. I get a ton done because that’s what I am there for, and would feel like a slacker if I didn’t do something. Plus I don’t have to worry that maybe I should be doing something different, because I am already doing two things at once, and that’s enough even for me to calm down about it.

I am going to ix-nay that coffeehouse in the future though, because their chairs were uncomfortable, their WiFi served up ads, their food was overpriced and they were crawling with SLU students.

OK that’s all, I am headed for shower and bath time, then joy of all joys… WORK tomorrow.

So what’s weird is that if I go out and stay sober, I will too-often have a rotten time, hate everyone and feel like stabbing somebody for most of the night. That’s no fun for myself or my compatriots. I will wake up the next day and grouse to myself & others in great detail about how not-fun the evening was, and how everyone was a tool.

Conversely, if I take some Lorazepam and have some drinks, I usually have a great time, laugh and chat with my friends, no one irritates me, it’s all good. However I remember pretty much nothing about the evening the next day other than “hey, that was fun.”

But a Saturday morning when I wake up relaxed with a vague memory of fun-having is way nicer than a Saturday morning when I wake up with a crystal-clear memory of how much I hated everyone and wanted to smash their faces in with broken beer bottles.

Is that why people drink? From what MyTodd™ tells me, my reaction to alcohol isn’t necessarily the same as other people’s reactions. And the alcohol alone won’t do it, that just makes me paranoid. And the anti-anxiety meds alone won’t do it either. That just makes me hate everyone in a really relaxed and detached way. It has to be combo anti-anxiety drugs PLUS alcohol. So I am not sure, and I have some vague pangs of conscience regarding “having to drink to have a good time.” Although it’s not so much that I can’t have a good time sober (I do that frequently) it’s just that I can’t have a good time in a large group of drunken strangers, sober. I mean, I think I actually called that douchebag friend-of-Backstreet “overuses the word ‘fuck’ to an almost criminal extent” guy one of my favorite people last night. That’s when I am feeling some nonsensical love toward humanity, and a degree of non-hatred of fucktards that is rarely experienced sober. But I don’t know that drinking and drugging to be able to stand other people is the norm.

Whatever, it was fun last night, from what I remember.

There are so many reasons that I have problems being around people. But as I was out last night I was reminded of one of my least favorite things about socializing.

To wit: for some reason, guys think that it is their absolute unfettered right to publicly critique the appearance of any girl around them and deem it “appealing” or “non-appealing.” No detail is too small for their consideration! Outfits, hairstyles, skin tone, muscle tone, ass fat, cleavage, handbags - they’re all open to dissection, judgment and potential scorn.

And citizens, these are guys that I LIKE, acting this way. These guys are my friends. These are guys who read and are aware of politics, hold professional positions, make house payments, supposedly live in the real world. But they still feel as if every woman who walks into their line of vision has apparently spent her entire life waiting for just such an occasion to present herself to them, and they do not shy from filling out their mental scorecards on each aspect of her appearance. It’s like it doesn’t even occur to them that women exist for a purpose other than visual pleasure.

And these are not above-average guys, either. These are normal, everyday people with no special claim to attractiveness and/or eligibility.

My favorite (of many instances last night) was a guy who was complaining about the lead actress in a superhero movie, because she was unattractive. Her level of not-attractiveness (according to his discerning taste) was such that it made the entire movie unrealistic. OK then. That’s what made it impossible for you to suspend your disbelief in regards to a movie based on a COMIC BOOK. The actress, someone who is professionally beautiful, is not hot enough for you. Ruined the whole movie. Mmmhmmm.

What compounds the confusion for me is that I see the women that these same men are with. They’ve somehow attracted mates, a few of them. And they’re just regular women. Regular looks, a wide variety of ass sizes, weird teeth, imperfect skin, smeared lipstick… regular women. And I can’t figure out if the guys have two standards in their head, one to judge a woman they’re currently fucking (”she can have imperfections, I can’t do any better.”) and another to judge women on the street. (”Not allowed to have imperfections, must be completely hot.”) If this is the case, then apparently the “woman on the street” category is broad enough to encompass you and me while we run to Target to pick up toilet paper AND professional actresses on the red carpet who’ve had 3+ hours of prep time for their photo op.

I don’t know if the guys who do this understand what it feels like as a woman to sit and hear that kind of conversation. It fucking sucks. That casual dissection of the female appearance is just unsettling, stacked as it is on the assumption that women are supposed to be visually appealing at all times and if they aren’t then they’re somehow doing it wrong.

It’s especially disturbing when whatever flaw they’re discussing is one you have. There are some sensitivity issues here. For instance, it would never occur to me, when speaking to a guy with a weight problem or snaggly teeth or bad skin or thinning hair, to start negatively critiquing another guy with the same issue. Honestly, is that something that people really need to be reminded not to do? Like remembering not to say “God, I hate cripples!” when speaking to a person in a wheelchair? I mean, we all got that message when we were about five or six years old, didn’t we? So when a guy is talking to me and starts ragging on the appearance of a girl who is already way better looking than I am, how am I supposed to feel? Does that mean I am invisible, or just someone whose feelings don’t count? Am I supposed to assume that there are two standards, one for the “real” girl the guy is talking to now, and one for the plaything across the room? Because I am across the room from someone, and I know that I don’t look any better from over there than I do close up. So I can only assume that there is someone over there saying awful things about my body, my clothing, my hair. And hey, guess what? That makes me as paranoid as all fuck.

And I don’t understand what’s doing it. What’s made every single outing an adventure in hot-or-not? Is it the InterTubes? Is it Photoshop? Is it plastic surgery? Is it the impossible beauty standard created by already attractive women who are then surgeried and ’shopped into an even more ideal image that is in no way connected to reality? Or is it just man’s innate tendency to be a judgmental douche?

It’s all disheartening. It all makes me dislike other people. It all makes me dislike myself even more.

I suppose that one of these days I am going to internalize and grow numb to the fact that all guys will fuck anything that moves while constantly keeping their options open in case a much-more-perfect specimen comes along. That all guys assume we exist only in an attempt to please their eyes and get their dicks hard. That no man understands there’s more to a woman they see than… what they see. But today’s not that day. And last night was certainly not that night.

For the life of us we could NOT figure out if this guy was purposely working a Luigi look or not. He had the handlebar mustache and everything.

Camera-phone takes crap shots from this distance in a dark bar, but you get the idea.