Funky

Tonight I have:

Freshly washed hair

Freshly shaved legs

Freshly baked cookies

Freshly washed sheets

Freshly painted hot pink fingernails

Somehow the addition of the word “fresh” makes everything better by a thousandfold, does it not? I was not in the mood to do any of those things, the laundry, the cooking, the grooming. But now that they’re all done, I am replete, and life is good. Don’t you wish you could go back and explain to your punk-rock, adventure hungry self that the simplest things are going to bring you the most pleasure?

Or maybe we had to go through the punk rock painful adventures to discover for ourselves what freshly changed sheets will really mean, alone in your quiet house on a Sunday evening.

Define Kind

You say he is kind, but it is not kindness to shut down emotionally and force you into the position of figuring out what he needs from you. There is no amount of sad or ill that excuses routinely treating someone badly when you can possibly prevent it.

Once again Captain Awkward knocks it out of the park. Sometimes people have an aura of haplessness/hopelessness about them that makes you think they’re harmless to you. Like, they couldn’t even get it together enough to hurt you if they concentrated on it. They seem “nice.” But seeming nice (not actively being a raging assface) and being nice (taking care of yourself and not harming those around you, even on accident) are two very different beasts.

You can take home a wounded puppy, and it will be cute and break your heart with its antics, but you have to spend a significant amount of time cleaning pee out of your rugs. And men who are wounded puppies will never grow out of pissing on your floor, not as long as they know you will be there to mop it up.

Cold, Hard Facts

From Animals Talking in all Caps

Consuming Media Consumption

I used to listen to NPR because it made me feel smart. I liked to hear the issues of the day and learn more. I liked to talk to other people about “Things I Heard on NPR This Morning.” Often I was offended, or heartbroken to hear that news, but I appreciated the insightful commentary, and I liked learning new things. Listening to NPR made me feel like a grownup. I liberal, worldly grownup.

I stopped reading the New York Review of Books in 2005 because it continuously made me feel frustrated and stupid. Every article I read felt like an assemblage of knowledge I’d somehow skipped, and therefore an accusation of idiocy and sloth. Why did I not know these things about the situation in Palestine, the history of the Congo? About André Malraux? I felt as if every richly detail-laden article was a rebuke, more knowledge that I should have acquired by now. How did I bumble through the world not knowing the definition of precoetanean?

I think a lot of that came from some internalized inferiority regarding my middle-class education. I went to an OK high school, and found it no challenge. I went to an OK college, and found it no challenge either. I’ve always thought there was some brilliant upper-class of others, the people who really understood what was going on, the people who read the classics and had encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything that ever happened in world history and could also pithily sum up all current events by referencing Molière. And then they’d laugh together and drink red wine and manage their wealth for awhile.

It took me a long time to realize that the purpose of the articles in the NYROB was to educate the reader. That this was not a compendium of facts everyone else in the world knew, it was meant to give readers a framework to understand current written works, and see how they fit into history and (if existing) the body of work already surrounding that particular issue. (It seems strange to me, now, that I didn’t understand that. I think maybe the word “review” was what confused me. That and the aforementioned inferiority thing.)  But gradually, as I became less defensive about those things I didn’t know, I was able to embrace learning as an adult. Educating myself, continuing to gain new knowledge, not because I was playing catch-up with the rest of “educated” society, but just because I wanted to know more things. Knowing things is awesome. And everyone I know is way smarter than me in some area. Everyone has their specialty, and constantly expecting myself to have no knowledge gaps at all is pretentious and obnoxious and stressful, and takes away the joy of learning things from people I trust and respect.

That said, I still listen to NPR, and doing so still makes me feel smart. But now it makes me feel that way not because I am learning new things, but because I can now identify as total horseshit 85% of what the commentators on NPR have to say. Not only do I gain in facts as I age, I gain in the certainty of my own ability to apply logic. So I hear what they’re saying, and I know they’re full of horseshit, and that does make me feel smart. But not in a self-congratulatory, pleased way. In a sad, aggravated way.

Anyway, the point of this all is that my $3.95/month Kindle subscription to the New York Review of Books is the best media I’ve spent money on this year. Yay for learning things, yay for not feeling guilty for needing to learn them, yay for additional facts leading to better reasoning ability. And especial yay for confidence that your brain is going to help you make your way in the world.

Half-Thoughts

A very happy and busy life has been getting in the way of my blogging for the past several months. And that’s just fine, I think. I miss sitting down and forming my thoughts into a semi-choate wordmass, but I will get back to that at some point. For now I just like letting them swirl around in my head, like happy iridescent fish who’ve just been fed.

Anyway, was reading NYROB review of “Boomerang” about the global financial quagmire we’re in. (I’ve yet to read the book, too much on my reading list.) And according to the review the book deals with how the financial crisis played out differently in each country, depending on its moral character. Which plays into a half-formed thought I have, or a few of them, about how a decline in (gasp) morality (ungasp) is part of what has led to our financial undoing. And that decline in personal morality has perhaps followed the decline in organized religion in most of the Western world. (Insofar as organized religion prescribed the ways people were expected and allowed to behave, and most communities’ cohesive religious attitudes formed societies that were self-policing, so this code of ethics was enforced by everyone. The decline of organized religion combined with industrialization thus leading to the dissolution of the sense of community that keeps people acting right.)

Now, far from arguing that we need a return to religion, which I loathe for all its atrocities and hocus pocus nonsensical insistence that everyone abandon logic, I am starting to wonder if what we’re in now is not some kind of proving ground for humanity. Can we move PAST personal morality dictated by supernatural entities and enforced by the mob, to a new kind of personal and collective morality, in which we all act in the ways that best support our society? And to do that, do we have to unglobalize ourselves, and get back to tribes that share core values? Or are there some universal human values that we can agree on? And how many hundreds or thousands of years will it be until we reach that consensus?

But until we reject avarice and irresponsibility and consumption WITHOUT using religion as our reason for doing so, until we just understand that some things are wrong because they make life worse for everybody, I believe things will continue to cycle good/bad (probably with some violence thrown in to get us back to good, before we decline back to bad.) Anyway, that’s today’s half-thought. Maybe some of you will finish digesting it for me, I am on to other things.

Epiphany

So, the bathroom nearest my office gets a lot of use. It’s the only lady’s bathroom on this floor, and there’s only one toilet in there. Also, it’s pretty private, so it seems like every single lady in this building comes here to poop.

Frequently there are Bad Smells in that bathroom, and since there’s poor air circulation, and some environmental nutbags insist on turn off the lights when they leave (the lights and exhaust fan are controlled by the same switch) well, it’s not always a pleasant situation. (I mean, save some energy, sure, but not at the expense of every person coming in after you gagging.)

I’ve also noticed over the years that some women wear way too much perfume. Like, perfume that lingers in the bathroom like a terrible unhappy doom cloud. And I’ve also noticed that lots of times when there is a perfume cloud of doom in there, there’s also a poop-stink cloud of doom as well. My mind drew the natural conclusion and decided for itself that women who wear a lot of cologne also take the stinkiest dumps. I didn’t know why, I didn’t really think about why. Maybe women who wear too much perfume also eat lots of things that make them poop extra stinky. But it became a fact in my head—these perfume-wearing bitches and their stinky, stinky dumps.

After several years, it just today occurred to me that rather than there being a perfume/poop correlation, a more likely explanation is that some women take a stinky poop, then spray perfume to cover up the smell!

I think I had never considered this before because it’s so outside the realm of something I would do. For one, I don’t tend to carry perfume around with me, not feeling that multiple perfume applications during the day are advisable or necessary. For two, although I don’t want to smell poop when I don’t have to, I have always preferred the smell of an honest poop to the smell of poop camouflaged with flowers or pine trees or lemons or some other random thing. Poop rarely improves when combined with other scents.

Anyway, now I am laughing at myself because I have been giving the side-eye to ladies with excessive perfume for years, knowing how above-average stinky their poops are.

Sorry ladies, I guess your poops are probably normal. But also, lighten up on the perfume anyway? kthanx

How Fortunate the Kingdom of the Blind

I’ve long thought how lucky we are that we can’t see what’s coming at us. I think if any of us could see the future, we’d refuse to leave our beds, and just fucking give up. I mean, sure there’d be some industrious bastard who was all “I will rail against my fate!” and they’d make a movie about that guy. Or there’d be some jerks who were all “Better get all my living in while I have time!” But most of us, I think, faced with the truth of what was in store for us, would be utterly unable to absorb it, or believe that life had any meaning or purpose at all. It would be impossible to dream and make plans, knowing they would not come true.

And one of the things about keeping a blog, or a journal, or any kind of record of what you are doing or feeling at any given time, is that of course you can go back and revisit yourself. That’s part of the point of it. Going back  to see a younger, more innocent you. And younger, innocent you might already be jaded and cynical, but truly you have no idea how bad it’s really going to get. And you look back at yourself, and you want to scream out a warning, like you’re watching a horror movie unfold. But it’s too late now, kid.

Sometimes it’s charming to go back and read the fun you were having, and see that you’ve made progress or that you still feel exactly the same. But mostly you look back and you see what you didn’t know, glaring behind the lines.

A year before they went away, an hour before you fell, two weeks before the surgery, three days before you found out.

Every single minute of every single day we are “x” amount of time before the next tragic thing. And thank god we don’t know it, that there are not sands slipping away in hourglasses over our heads. Because honestly, who could go on in the face of it? It is enough to paralyze, even in thinking about it. Which is why, I suppose, I am advised not to think of it.

The Conundrum of the Friendly Pharmacist

You know, I guess it’s hard to be a personable/outgoing pharmacist, because lots of times you’re seeing people who are sick, or who are helping out other people who are sick, and so you’re not seeing them at the best of times. But still, it’s hard to interact with a friendly pharmacist.

My pharmacist: “Hey, how’s everything going, how have you been?”
My outer voice: “Great, fine, just trying to keep cool in this weather!”
My inner voice: “If you look at the fucking prescriptions you’re handing me, obviously things are not all that fucking great.”

Just another reason that being in the Outside World is so tiring. How many nonsensical interactions like that must I perform on a daily basis? “Super! Everything’s fine!” (“WTF, I am on fire.”)

Society is goofy.

OK When I’m Dead

If anyone asks “Was she experiencing any olfactory hallucinations?” you can say YES. Please inform the medical authorities that for the last two days the air everywhere I go has smelled like hot metal. Like an over-heated curling iron. Thought it was at my house, but it’s at work too. Also, my skin has started smelling like sugar cookies. So, whatever the fuck is wrong with me, if they can diagnose it posthumously via weirdass symptoms, please pass on this vital information.

Hot metal and sugar cookies. Also tell them I knew I was dying to death and no one would listen.

Pathos

Drove by the post office this morning on my way to work, to drop off a Netflix disk (actually two, since I had one that was cracked in half and then also the replacement for that one, which is not technically germane to the story, but in the interests of accuracy….)

Anyway, the post office wasn’t open that early, but there’s a row of drive-up boxes where you can insert your mail. There was a lady blocking my way, standing in front of the boxes, which I immediately found irritating because I am a Very Important Person in a Hurry. But then I saw she was limping around in a walking cast, clutching a medium-sized brown-paper parcel. She must not have realized the post office wasn’t open at that hour. She kept staring forlornly at the mailbox slots, looking at one after the other, bending down to peer into them, as if willing just one of them to be somehow larger so she could fit her package inside. Then she gave up and limped off. So sad.

I feel you, lady. Life is like that sometimes.

Best Shoes in the World Year/Pair Three

Meet the new shoes, same as the old shoes

So last week I got my new shoes in the mail from the ebayz. This is my third year for this particular style of shoe, and each year they’ve gotten more expensive. One year there will be no more of them online and I will have to find a new style. But not this year!

It always shocks me to see just how hard I’ve been on last year’s pair. Like, shit, I walked the hell out of these. But considering that when it’s warm enough I wear them every single day, I guess that’s fair. (I have big plans to waterproof the interior soles of these, so my sweaty summer feet can’t corrode them. I think that might work.)

Looking back on a year’s worth of travel and experiences shown on the surface of your worn-out shoes is an odd thing. These shoes have been on my feet at all of last year’s parties, driven with me on road trips and walked with me to work countless times. I’ve worn them to weddings, but happily no funerals this year. A million trips to the pedicure place, five million to the grocery store. I’ve worn them while I was laughing and crying and drunk and bored, and while I received good news and terrible news. If these shoes could talk they’d probably initially beg for mercy, or just to be put down in a peaceful manner, and if pressed they’d tell the stories of what a year this has been. Stuff I’ve forgotten, I am sure. Couches and tables they’ve been kicked under, puddles they’ve splashed through, drinks dropped on them, doctors offices and hospital corridors they’ve wandered around, dogs that’ve sniffed at them, people who have commented on them, all manner of things both consequential and in.

Anyway, new summer, new shoes, fresh starts, blah blah. Hope you carry me somewhere wonderful this year, shoes. Just don’t let me fall down too often, and we will be cool.

Vanishing Points

So it’s July. The entirety of June has passed and I never Got Away. Traditionally I do get away in June, most usually heading to some beachy area of the country so I can be near the ocean for a few days. Usually I drive, and usually I go alone.

This year was different though, and I could not make it happen. Most of my vacation days were sacrificed to causes other than relaxation. Most of my spare money too. So June rolled around and I had about a day and a half of vacation left. Not enough to be beach-bound, not when you live in the Midwest. Last week I took my last remaining vacation day and tried to cram as much goofy self-indulgent activity into it as possible, but naturally that’s nowhere near the same.

What I want is to be by the water. I want to dip my toes in. I want the waves to push me around, never marking the fact that I am there at all. I want that feeling you have when you’re thirteen hours away from anyone you know, and everyone around you quite rightly gives zero shits about you and your life and your problems. They’ve got their own life and their own problems, you see. And you are anonymous, and you are small, and you feel it. I want that. I want to drive for hours and hours and hours and never hear anything but music and my own voice singing along. I want no one else’s thoughts or needs to interrupt my own. I want to walk on the sand and hear the ocean drown out everything else and realize again how timeless it is, and how petty my concerns. I want to be reminded not to care, because it does not matter. I want to regain my perspective.

Want

There is no substitute for driving away from your problems, leaving them behind you, stewing in their own juices back in the big black boiling pot of your everyday life. To realize “Oh, I don’t have to worry about that crap right now. Right now I have to worry about being lost, and finding the hotel, and how much gas do I have and where’s the nicest spot on this beach to lay my towel and where the hell did I put my sunscreen?” Change one set of concerns for another and realize how easily your brain slides into caring primarily about other things. Different thoughts seem urgent, other concerns take precedence. And when you come home and finally set down your sand-covered bags in your closed-up, strange-smelling house and the original worries want to slot themselves back in, you don’t let them right away. You realize that it’s voluntary, letting them lurk at the top of your thoughts that way. You can throw them out entirely, or demote them further down the give-a-shit chain. Your brain unfolds and re-sorts and re-categorizes all that mess. And it happens effortlessly in the background while you’re driving on a stretch of highway you’ve never seen before and singing a song that brings an inadvertent smile to your worn out face.

But you can’t do that if you can’t get away. Well, I haven’t found a method, at least. As long as I am here in these same spaces, the same things bother me, the same problems nag at my mind, I feel my thoughts trapped in a maelstrom of petty, hopeless, negative badness. I care too much and I can’t turn it off, and I can’t reboot my brain to focus on other things. I need to be where no one cares what I think, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks, and no one wants to talk to me, and I don’t want to talk to them. Can’t, in fact, because I am floating in the water and my face is getting sunburned and my hair’s all a mess and it’s the one place where I can actually be totally, unapologetically out of touch. I can turn my face up to the sun and let it burn extra, just because. I can be buffeted by forces truly greater than me and remember that the things buffeting me at home are not so very great, after all.

But not this year. This year we roll right into July, with June’s same old burdens attached, and my brain still crumpled up and cluttered with all of last year’s worries. It sucks. I’d have liked to see all this shit in my rearview mirror for a while, rather than the windshield. This summer is shaping up to be an awful, depressing pain in the ass. I am not looking forward to any of it, and mostly I want to go back to bed for a month or two, or pitch a hysterical screaming fit, or stay drunk more than is good for me, or just throw my hands up and walk away from dealing with any of it. Everything is gray and dense and joyless, and I have a major case of do-not-want that I cannot seem to shake for the life of me.

I do understand that’s not the correct perspective but, unfortunately for me, the correct perspective is laying out on some Georgia highway, and this year I did not have time to go fetch it.

OK I so should not have laughed at this

But I can’t help it. I found this online under the heading “White Girl Problems”

QOTD

Kickass chick on being told she needs to wear “more flattering” clothes.

“I find the most unflattering thing to wear, actually, is a shitty attitude.”

Goddamn, sometimes I love the internet.

For some things, you’re on your own