About Kindness

Is the world really a safe place made dangerous by a few lunatics?

My parents taught us opposing tactics to address the issue.

My father taught me all manner of self-defense, including the importance of never leaving home without a dangerously-sharpened pencil in my pocket. He impressed on me the need to walk with my head held high, and take in all my surroundings, from the street name to how many people are standing on the other side of it and what they're wearing, in case I should need to identify them at a later time. He taught me how to recognize drunks, addicts, and general signs that a person is in an altered mental state or intends to do me harm, and given me sufficient guidance to minimize my risk of being assaulted.

He's a cop.

My mother, a special education teacher, taught me to be kind to everyone. Whenever we went into a store, my siblings and I were supposed to smile at at least five strangers. Whenever we got a smile back, we tended to go above and beyond our "smile quota." We had picnics in the park when we were younger, and on more than one occasion shared an extra sandwich and bottle of water with a hungry person who asked for change. We've made a fair amount of friends this way.

I live in a rough area far away from both my parents, but I still walk with my head held high, a pencil in my pocket, and a smile for anyone who catches my eye. The smiles have gotten me a mild reputation as a kind person with a sympathetic ear, particularly at the light rail/bus depot by my work, and I've listened to a fair few people cry their eyes out because sometimes you just need to get a weight off your shoulders, and an anonymous ear can do wonders for that. I've been accosted by people intending me harm a few times, and been able for the most part to disarm them pretty effectively, and defend myself when that didn't work. Kindness, I've been taught, is and should be my first line of defense and offense against the world. But on the occasions it fails, you should still be able to defend yourself.

On the whole, though, I've helped out far more people than I've had to defend myself from, and even last weekend, I've been the victim of some random acts of kindness. I was buying dinner food, and my card was declined. The lady behind me at the checkout paid for my food. That's only the most recent example. I could go back further and share more, but they're all spontaneous, awesome, and happen in an hour of dire need.

It's so easy to say the world is a crazy, awful place, but, to butcher a quote from my favorite book series:

How many mortals did it take to write all these books? How many hands shelved them, and cared for them, and repaired them, and read them? And it takes just one stupid mortal monkey with a torch to destroy it all, but after so many of them spent so much incalculable time writing the books, wouldn't you say that the behavior of the librarian is more typical of the mortals than the behavior of the arsonist?

So I'm Getting Married

Still talking with Poffle.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. "But he's bad for you, Fantasticness!" "But you wrote him that letter, Fantasticness!" "Didn't we JUST talk about how much better off you'd be without him?"

Call me a masochist, but I just can't stay away from this particular brand of trouble.

Story time:

Anyway, I killed my phone this week. I was walking from my work to my bank (approximately one and a half miles, on a low- to no-traffic pedestrian/bike path with benches on the side every couple hundred feet) and back again because sometimes you just need cash, amiright?!

After my bank run, I go hit up my favorite shop: the used book store! I spend far too much time and money in there, and one of these day's I'll probably just move into the stockroom so I can read everything without going completely broke. An hour and some change later, I head back to the hiker-biker trail to walk back to work, where I owe someone forty bucks for a carton of cigarettes and hopefully can catch a ride home with my bro before we head out to a concert. (My FIRST concert, by the way, excluding Jesus-y stuff, school stuff, and classical music.) I take my phone out of my pocket to check the time, respond to the notifications in my Facebook app, and stick the phone back in my pocket as I cross the street, book in hand, to begin the trek back to work.

A quarter mile down the road, I realize I hadn't actually checked the time, because Facebook. I reach into my pocket and . . .

No phone.

I spent the next half hour looking for it up and down the street between my bank, the trail, and the used book store. I eventually find it with the help of a kind lady in an SUV, who asked me to "Hey! Pick that phone up!"

Out of the puddle.

In the crosswalk.

In the middle of a busy intersection.

On a rainy, spring's eve, East Coast day.

BUT! No one had run it over, and it turned on when I pressed the button, though the screen wasn't cooperating, and I stuck it firmly in the bottom of my pocket and continued on my merry way back to work, book in hand, reading as I walked.

The first thing I did when I got home was update the Facebook, letting everybody know what had happened in perhaps a little too much detail, but the short version was at the top of the post, so there was no reason for anyone not to get the gist of what had happened. "My phone was in a puddle and now it isn't working. I shall be out of contact for the most part for the next few days." Simple, easy to understand, idiot-proof, right?

The SECOND thing I did was log on to Skype, send Poffle a message to the same effect, and hope his stupid butt would forget about me for a couple days so I didn't have to explain that I don't answer to him when I got back in contact with the world.

So there's a Skype message, and a Facebook post, to the effect of "Fantasticness doesn't have a phone right now so don't expect her to answer your calls and texts, k, thnks, bai."

I got a replacement phone today. I checked the messages first thing, because all the texts that were sent to me while the puddle phone was in a bag of rice were simply waiting in the aether for my technology to be powered up again. The same as the voicemail I got.

You know. The one from Poffle?

Received Wed at 7:57 pm:

"Hi *Fantasticness.* It's me *Poffle.* Just got off work and though that I'd call you again and tell you I missed you again; the problem is you're busy again so I'll continue to call you and eventually I'll get through to you. Ok. Love you, have a good night."

Right after that Facebook PSA and the personalized Skype message.

*headdesk!*

ANYwho, apparently, he's been harassing the Bestie lately about Bestie's relocation to my side of the country (I can not WAIT to have someone to book-rant and shop with! That stuff is so much better in person!) and has been saying he and I are still dating.

Um, hello? Did the break end? When? Why wasn't I informed of my own relationship status? Or are you just concerned that someone else will treat me how I deserve to be treated while you continue to be a bass-ackwards chauvanistic mysogynist over in the corner?

So Poffle called tonight, and after I asked him if he normally avoided Facebook and Skype during the week, because he obviously hadn't got my message, he goes "Oh, I just figured you were busy or sleeping because you go to work super early."

Well, that makes sense, but I MESSAGED you. To INFORM you. Because, for some god-awful reason, I feel like that's the courteous thing to do. And you didn't even bother to respond. And you obviously don't care that much or you would have checked it out.

With that out of the way, conversation changes to other topics. Like, the books I'm reading that he's not interested in but, guess what, they're my life. So there.

Side story: We were talking a couple days ago, and I was book-ranting about my series, which I was almost finished with at that point, and he was all "Maybe I'll read them after we get married."

"Excuse me?" When did we say we were getting married? EVER? I mean, we talked about it a year ago, in a really vague "Do you think, maybe, in a few years perhaps, you would consider" kind of way. You know, before you went all psycho co-dependent vengeance-silent-treatment on me and lied to me about when and for how long you were coming to visit me and were rude to my family and awful to my friends, inviting yourself places you weren't supposed to go and really weren't welcome at. And that was A WHOLE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING YEAR AGO!!!

Last I checked, we were broken up. On a break. Doing some serious self-reflection time. When did we agree to get hitched, because I don't remember. You must have drugged me or something. And, also, why is Bestie telling me you're still referring to me as your girlfriend? We are ON a BREAK. 

Or so I thought.

I end up causing a huge fight because I tell him I flatly refuse to marry anyone who hasn't read this series because they're wonderful books and have been influential in shaping myself as a person, and in inspiring me to question myself and my beliefs and my perspectives on the big things in life.

And he tells me I'm being stupid and childish.

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's childish to want to share the things which are important to you with the people in your life, and if someone wants to spend the rest of their life with you, they should want to at least try and take an interest in the things that are important to you.

It's not like I'm asking him to join a religious cult or anything. Just read a couple books. And I'm being childish.

Probably about as childish as someone who spontaneously alters their relationship status with anther sentient creatures from "definitely a couple" to "not talking" to "on a break" to "boyfriend/girlfriend for sure" to "yeah, we're getting married but she doesn't know yet."

So as we're talking tonight and the conversation is winding down, I ask: "So when did the break end?"

"When we worked out all our shit."

" . . . Uh, my shit is not worked out yet. And yours doesn't seem to be either. And you should probably tell me when you change our relationship status, because I'm kind of involved with us, and I'd like to know what I'm supposed to be up to."

"Yeah, well, we're dating, so . . . You should totally send me some pictures."

"Uhmmm . . . No."

"Aww, But please?"

"No. I don't like the way I look in pictures."

"Well, I disagree. You look great in picutres."

"I don't think so. I hate the way I look in pictures. All flat and papery and two-dimensional. I think the best parts of me are things you can only experience in person. They don't show up in pictures."

"Well, that's stupid. You should send me pictures."

Dude. Seriously? I just told you MY opinion on something. Not anything big, but something I feel strongly about. Did you seriously just invalidate my opinion? Really? I should put my beliefs and thoughts and feelings in a little jar and stick it on a shelf somewhere out of your way so you can have what you want. I don't think so.

"No. I'm going to sleep. Be safe. Goodnight."

"Okay, dear. Goodnight. I lo---"

"Yeah, goodnight." Click!

What. The fuck. Am I supposed to do with this? Can I just castrate him and then he won't find a girl who wants him for anything other than sex, and that won't be a possibility, and then I can bully him and push him around and see how he likes being treated like dirt for not having a penis or whatever? Can I just kick him in the nads and be done with it? Can someone geographically closer to him than 3000 miles smack him across the face and tell him to man the fuck up and start acting like a grown-up?

Can someone show him this blog so he knows how pathetic I think he is when he's not mind controlling me with his sexy voice and stuff?

Actually, please don't. This is still my journal. I don't want him to ruin this for me.

I'm really not sure what I'm most upset about. That I'm not being kept up to date on my own supposed relationship status. That I apparently don't have a choice in the matter. That of all the things I could have asked him to do, I asked him to read a book which changed my life and he called me childish for it. The fact that he didn't bother to check his messages to see what I was really up to . . .

There's just so much injustice to choose from!

Anyway, someone wanna help me pick out my dress? I'm thinking skanky patent leather with sharp spikes all the fuck over it so if he so much as tries to hold my hand and drag me down the aisle, he's getting stabbed at least twelve times.

Also, his parents are former ministers, and they would be scandalized!

Damned if I Do, Damned if I Don't

Damn the whole damned thing.

Dear Poffle,

I can't please you, so I'll just go ahead and do what I have to do to survive. You can kiss my ass if you think I give a shit about what makes you happy. You want a doll? Fine. I'll refer you to a couple websites; you can commission a custom cock-sucking, house-cleaning, dress-wearing robot to have dinner hot on the table for you when you get home and your slippers ready for your nasty hobbit-feet by your chair.

That's not me.

It's truly unfortunate that you refuse to accept that I'm doing what I'm doing for my own survival and benefit, and not simply to hurt you.

I have never made any even remotely pseudo-major decisions simply to irritate the crap or of someone who irritates the crap out of me. It may appear to be so, but I'm smarter than that. Rash decisions have long-lasting consequences, a lesson I learned in your bed.

I will not, however, deny that your unmitigated outrage is amusing at the present moment, nor can I claim it as anything other than a silver lining on this storm cloud that is the shit you continue to put me through.

You don't get to decide what I do and don't do. You don't get to decide who my friends are, with whom I can pool resources, what I wear, where I live, when and how I can pursue my dreams, and not tell me why I'm deemed incapable of figuring those things out for myself.

Fuck you.

I can do better.

With infinitely more love and patience than you deserve, and wishing you all the best with that egomaniacal codependency of yours,

Me.

Yes I am Legos and No I am not Really an Inanimate Object

So, waaaay the fuck back in September my best friend (who has previously and shall henceforth be referred to here as Bestie) flew alllll the way the fuck from our hometown of Tattooine to my current city of residence to visit me. He stayed with my brother and I for a week and went home. My brother spent basically the entire visit trying to convince Bestie to stay here but, for reasons the internet has no business knowing, that didn't happen.

My Home Planet

Well, guys.

It's happening.

XD XD XD XD XD XD XD XD

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Party Time: Woot Woot!

So when my brother dips out on me in June when our current lease runs out, I shall either already or very shortly thereafter have a person there to have my back and I'll have theirs.

Like, actually have my back. In a "keep an eye out for each other and keep each other safe without trying to control every aspect of each others lives because I understand and recognize that you're an adult and don't need to be coddled like an infant here" sort of way.

I'm STOKED!!!

In other news, Poffle called me tonight. Just general "hey, how ya been, what's up with you, got any exciting plans" sort of stuff.

I told him.

He's PISSED the fuck off.

Poffle, twenty minutes ago

And it's funny as HELL.

Like, okay, so I told you since it started in fucking SEPTEMBER that my brother has been angling for this to happen for a while now, and you knew, and you treated me like shit and kicked me to the curb (not for the first time in our lengthy and less-than-illustrious relationship) and now you're upset that someone else wants to spend that much time with me. You're upset that I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I'll be living with a (reasonably) sane person with whom I get along very nicely even when we have disagreements and am plotting to use our combined resources to move out of my ghetto, hood-rat-infested neighborhood and move to a decent area. You're upset that I'm comfortable enough in my friendship with someone else to do something wild and crazy together, for more reasons than you have a right to know, and you don't even want to walk around a fucking renaissance faire together because that'd be weird or something?

Seriously

Dude, I'm sorry.

Specifically, I'm sorry you're upset by this, because I know being upset by things sucks but this is happening. I'm also sorry you don't know how to process this (I know that can be overwhelming) but I'm here if you need to talk it out. I'm sorry you think this is a step back for "us" but I'd appreciate if you kept in mind that there is no more "us" since you called time out.

And no, my life really isn't any of your business anymore (thanks for recognizing that, by the way, though I realize you were trying to be petty when you said it) but even though you literally put me through all kinds of hell (and I won't deny I've been just as awful to you at times; you should be aware that that's what happens when you date teenagers) I still care about you and will give you the update on my life since you asked what I was up to, and here's how and why this is happening, and you don't have to like it but please try and understand it.

Also, this isn't about you, Poffle.

Although, maybe it should be.

You see, you're like a little kid. You have this awesome tower of Legos that you had a heck of a good time building, but then you finished with it and went to play on the computer instead. But what's this? Someone ELSE wants to play with the toy you're not even looking at anymore because the computer is so much more interesting? Damn, well, too bad. You're on the computer now, so those blocks are officially none of your damn business.

Better get some ice for that burn.

In the meantime, I'm just going to sit over here and laugh at your ridiculousness.

Pictured: (from left) Poffle, Fantasticness

Excerpt of Awesome: Chocolate Wasted and Candlelight

     There are a lot of strange people in San Francisco, and if you work there, you soon grow used to occasional peculiarities in your customers; but the girl behind the cash register at Ghirardelli's decided that this took weirdness to new heights. Two executives in tailored business suits were sitting at one of the little white tables in the soda fountain area, glaring hungrily at the fountain worker who was preparing their eighth round of hot chocolate. They had marched in, put down a hundred-dollar bill, and told her to keep the drinks coming. On the floor between their respective briefcases was a souvenir bag stuffed with boxes of chocolate cable cars, and the table was littered with foil wrappers from the chocolate they had already consumed.

     To make matters stranger, they had the appearance of junior delegates from opposing sides of a celestial peace conference: the dark one with his diabolic beard and the fair-haired one with his fragile good looks. As she watched, the devil jumped up the second his order number was called and went swiftly, if unsteadily, to take his tray. He grabbed the cocoa-powder canister on his return. Sitting down across from the angel, he added a generous helping of cocoa to his hot chocolate. Then, apparently seized by an afterthought, he opened the canister and shook out a couple of spoonfuls onto the marble tabletop. Giggling guiltily, he pulled out an American Express card and began scraping the cocoa powder into neat little lines.

     "Danny!" She stopped the busboy as he came through the turnstile. "Look at him! Is he really going to-?" 

     He was. He did. The angel went into gales of high-pitched laughter and fell off his chair. The devil sighed in bliss and leaned down for a pass with the other nostril.

     "I don't know what's wrong with them," said the girl in bewilderment. "I swear to God they were both sober when they came in here, and all they've ordered is hot chocolate."

     "Maybe they just really like hot chocolate?" said the busboy.

-The Graveyard Game
Kage Baker 

~~

This excerpt, from book four in my favorite book series ever, is about 24 pages into a massive clusterfuck of intriguing plot.

Clarification: The immortal cyborgs were made immune and highly resistant to any and all know poisons and narcotics, to the point that they could drink straight vodka all night and never get any more drunk than a mild buzz. However, their creators failed to take into account the mild narcotic effect that theobroma cacao has on the human psyche. You know, all those endorphins, the giddy warm fuzzies . . .

So when you're immune to the effects of drugs and alcohol and need to get really baked, chocolate is the way to go.

Seriously, though, apart from the fantastically shameless display of public intoxication, this scene has always been one of my favorites in the series (right up there with the Elizabethan martyr, Victorian espionage agent, and post-modern Surfer/Sailor boy all sharing a body with a holographic pirate). It makes me think, makes me wonder, . . .

What wouldn't you do to escape from the horrors of life?

The Angel and Devil characters above are actually 2000 and 20,000 years old, respectively. I'm in my early 20's. I have to wonder (other than the fact that Ghirardelli's didn't exist until the 20th century) how much it actually took to get these two to go completely off their rockers in public, when they're supposed to be super sly, super sneaky, covert guys and never leave the region of "below the radar."

How much can a normal human being endure before they get to that point?

I was accosted by a young homeless gentleman yesterday. He's only a few years older than I am, but (claims that) he is two years sober following a five-year addiction to hard drugs. His wife has multiple prostitution charges. He's been homeless since he was 18, and his wife is in the same boat. They don't have their kids anymore (well, duh, on that one). He was an English and Philosophy major in a past life, back before everything went to hell.

Really, it was frightening to listen to his story and see how similar our paths are, how easily I could go the same way.

BUT!

He didn't have the shadowy, skeletal pallor of the addicts I pass on my way to and from the bus stop by my house. He didn't have a cloud of bottomless doom following him around like many of the transients who camp out behind the gas station by my work. He actually had kind of a flame in his eyes.

Not like a bonfire flame, you understand. Not some hellish, hopeless inferno.

More of a candle.

It was a really powerful thing to see, in someone who, by all rights, could have easily given up on himself and have society write him off as some other poor sap the system failed.

But he didn't. He has that look, that power, that motivation to get himself out of where he is, to pull himself up by the bootstraps, and his wife, too, and get them to a better place.

I bought the guy a sandwich.

He's so infinitely more inspiring than two lousy immortals getting drunk on chocolate in San Francisco. Really, as amusing as that little scene is, as hard as I laugh every time I read it, it's such a cold, heartless piece of literature. It's horrifying, to look at someone and see them wasting their life and soul away on drugs and alcohol and lack of direction. What does it really take to get to that point? It took these characters two- and twenty-thousand years, respectively. I now know firsthand that we mere mortals can reach that wasteland in less than twenty.

I think that we all have to hit some sort of bottom, so that we can get that direction. So that the direction we can go in is "Up."

Also, please send some good vibes to this guy. I really think he'll recover himself. I think he can get out of the mess he's in. I like to think that, one day, I'll see him on the street, in work clothes, buying some other lost kid a meal because he made it.

He can pass it on.

Fishy Deliciousness

So, I haven't posted anything in a couple of days. I think it's because I've been, if not happy lately, then at least busy and my relatively-normal level of content with life.

Or, in any case, not miserable.

My bestie and I were on Skype last night talking about it, and he informed me that J.R.R. Tolkien used to keep extensive journals, but he would only write in them when depressed. You can read these journals and use them to paint an image of the author, and end up with this picture of a tormented artist in all sorts of emotional pain and spiritual damage, but you would miss the parts where he didn't write anything, long periods of time when everything was going well enough that he felt the need to just bask in the glory of his life and not have to put pen to paper to get his feelings out.

I just finished the second book in my series, which is called Sky Coyote, and it features the Immortal Facilitator Joseph posing as the Native American trickster figure Sky Coyote, a coyote god who happens to be the only friend humanity has among the pantheon of this particular faith. He has to lift an entire village up and out of the annals of history, to rescue them from the coming invasion of white men and small pox. Of course, the natives really have no idea how to cope with their only friend among the gods coming to them, in the flesh, and telling them to get ready to pack up their lives and leave their homes forever. The struggle, and Joseph's response to it, are poignant and insightful.

"Well, I thought-it's just that before You came, I had my own ideas about the way things worked. All that about Father Sun drinking blood and devouring corpses, like the priests told us-I mean, that couldn't be true. He's no more than a monster if He does things like that. I had Him pictures more like a kind of grandfather, loving but stern. Terrible to the wicked, yes, that I could believe. And . . . I thought some kind of higher order prevailed in the Upper World. But from what You say, things are just as bad up there as they are down here. Even God cheats." He gave a shaken little laugh that caught on a sob.
I sighed and shrugged. "Nephew. What did you think, when the priests and shamans told you about us Sky People? When you hear a story, do you believe only the nice parts? Truth isn't like a baked fish, where you can eat the flesh and leave the bones and skin. You have to eat it all."

I don't disagree with any of this. Yes, it's a fictional struggle of a fictional character's actual worldview needing an immediate shift, but that baked fish analogy, in addition to spiking an immediate craving for seafood, makes an uncomfortable amount of sense.

The Truth of anything is what is is, and it cannot be anything else without ceasing to be the truth. That's what truth means. Truth is all true things in their entirety. All of it. Completely accurate. And in order for it to be Truth and not just true, you need all of it.

Thus, the human struggle with Faith.

Anyway, Tolkien.

Were his personal journals really true, then, if he left out all the good bits?

Do we really know the man from his journals if he left out so much of his life? Can we really say we have any idea who this author really was when we don't know his character at the best of times?

If I only post here when I'm feeling down, do you really know me?

I feel like when things are going pretty decent for me, I have less energy and inclination to write on here. No one likes a story that starts "Once upon a time, there live a happy little elf in a happy little forest and he had a happy little life." (<--incredibly vague reference to A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I have neither read nor seen in quite some time.) Does anyone like to read stories with no arcs?

No. Fuck that shit, that's boring.

But, I'm still not writing this for you guys.

I think the reason I don't write when I'm in a good place mentally is because I treat my life like the baked fish. The goodness is the flesh, and it's delicious, and I want to just savor it in all its fishy deliciousness. The bad stuff, the bones and skin, I just want to leave on the plate (my mind) but it'll rot there, so I have to throw it out.

And by throw it out, I mean vent about it.

On the internet.

To strangers.

It's cool, though. I mean, you don't have to go through my psychological garbage if you don't want to, but if dumpster diving is your thing, who am I to stop you.

And occasionally, you find some useful treasures.

Comforting Things

I just finished reread the first book in my favorite series for about the twenty-seventh time. In the Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, is the flagship novel of a beautiful series (The Company) about time travel, immortality, politics, religion, corruption, ethics, and, of course, contains more than a healthy smattering of romance.

I'm a total fangirl.

I first read the first book some six, seven years ago, or thereabouts, and it doesn't matter how many times I've read it (about twenty-seven) or how much of it I have memorized (I once recited the whole first chapter for a project in my freshman English class), every time I go back through it is like the first time.

I laugh. I cry. I fall in love. My heart gets broken. I sit on the edge of my seat, begging the love interest, "No! Don't do it! Don't be a dumbass, Nicholas Harpole, you glorious douchebag!" and he does it anyway and I cringe every single time.

The "father" character makes me roll my eyes as only a chronically-sarcastic absentee-father-who-legitimately-cares-but-can't-for-the-eternal-life-of-him-figure-it-out-to-express-it can.

The "older-sister/single-minded-matron" character has me sighing in exasperation every time she goes off on a tangent.

When Mendoza, the protagonist, falls in love for the first time in her life, my heart aches with happiness for her, and breaks in grief as does hers at the end.

I get so drawn into the story, I forget that I need to eat, that I need to sleep until I pass out holding the pages open. I forget that I have a job to go to and a family to talk to and a house to keep and friends to be there for. I forget everything except the words on the page, the immortal characters immortalized further by the ink in which they were printed. I forget everything except that the words are beautiful and the wisdom therein has yet to fail me. "Arrows you may dodge and fever you may antibody for, but mortal grief is a misfortune you cannot escape." (pg 253)

And I will gladly grieve for these characters again as I embark on yet another quest through the pages of this universe.

There are twelve books in this series, and every single one of them can get me this riled up.

Every.

Single.

One.

There's just something so comforting, so natural about rereading a good book. A really good story, in my opinion, is one that can draw you in time and again and still have you riveted like it's your first time reading anything ever.

It's magical.

So I spent yesterday reading my beloved book, and finished it today after work when I should have been washing the dishes or cleaning my room, and I slept a glorious thirteen hours last night and woke up feeling refreshed and alive for the first time in a week and a half, and maybe longer.

I don't know. It's been a while since I read this series last. I go a little crazy without it.

Please Feel Free to Ignore This Post

I don't think I'm pretty. I mean, I've been told I'm good-looking but I don't see it.

My mom is just a few melanin cells this side of "day-glo albino" and my dad looks like basically any one of the guys in this picture.

As stupid as it sounds to anyone with even a cursory background in genetics, though, I didn't know I wasn't white until I was about ten. I was operating under the assumption that, since all baby animals looked like their mothers, I must look like my mother, too.

But, naturally, when you mix just-shy-of-albino-looking and poster-complexion-for-native-american you get something in between.

So, basically, I'm complexion confused.

I spent the first ten years of my life with this image in my head of how I looked and, when I realized I actually don't look like my mom it shattered my worldview. For the record, borderline-albino plus native american gets you passably-asian.

But I though I was white.

Here I am, thinking I'm white, for all of my life, and when I found out I wasn't I really didn't like the way I actually looked.

The way I looked in my head to begin with is so wrong, so innacurate a picture of what I actually look like, and I intellectually know that, but I can't rectify the error in my head. I actually got in trouble at school once when I was in kindergarten or first grade, in art class. We had to draw self-portraits, and the teacher handed out those ethnic-colored crayons and handed me a light brown one, and I wanted the peach, but she wouldn't give it to me because I didn't have peach skin.

I left the skin of my self-portrait uncolored.

When I wake up in the morning, I still think I have this nice, light, creamy complexion and it's beautiful.

Until I look at myself in the mirror, at which point I go, "Ugh. So tan!"

Not that there's anything wrong with tan, mind you. It's just now how I look.

I also used to be anorexically skinny, and I hated it. There was this girl in my freshman PE class who whold "accidentally" bump into me, bumping me into the lockers, and make snide comments about how disgusting I looked. I thought I looked disgusting, too. I don't think it's attractive for a lady's ribcage to show. I don't think you should be able to see someone's spine stretch their shirt when they lean over their desk. It's gross. I always though the ideal body type for a lady was curvy and soft, like the Venus de Milo.

Of course, if a lady has to choose between looking like that or arms, she should go for the arms, but still. I'm a huge fan of hips and breasts and a gentle sloping waist instead of that disgusting hourglass thing they're always trying to push on us. I just hated the body type I had in high school, for the opposite reason most of my classmates hated theirs.

I've been told, you see, that I'm flat-chested, and that when I wear a padded bra, it's false advertisement. A disappointment, when you find out what's under my shirt.

Somehow, in the last two years, I acquired the Venus look and then kept going. My body doesn't look anything like I think it should, now. Beyond the whole complexion thing, the build of my body is different in a way I never pictured my body being. I'm really not sure how to deal with this.

Back in the day, I was young and cute and precocious. I'm not so young anymore. I'm actually pretty proud to be a passable excuse for a grown-up. But I miss being cute. I miss not looking so tired and jaded, so that my eyes had a little more sparkle. I miss being slender enough that I could slip into tight spaces, and cute enough that just looking at someone would stop them in their tracks. I'm not really precocious anymore; I'm just another angsty twenty-something dissatisfied with life.

I feel like every word that has ever been used to describe me no longer applies.

This little girl T, this sweet young thing that Poffle may or may not be after, she's beautiful in ways I am not, and wish I were. She has this glowing, smooth, peach-toned skin with just a teensy bit of tan that sets her eyes off. Her eyes, my god, they're huge and wide open all the time, and even looking at pictures of her makes me shudder because it's like she's looking into my soul. (Sidenote: I don't stalk her; we're facebook friends. So there.) She has this gorgeous light brown hair that's generally wavy like I wish my pin-straight hair was. I've permed my hair twice in my life, trying to achieve that effect, but it just doesn't work on anyone but her. She's maybe 5'1, tops, but probably 5' even. I could reach around her with one arm, but even though she's so slender, she has gorgeous curves in perfect proportion to her frame, and I'm jealous.

I wish I looked like her.

I've been told I'm cute, but I don't see it. I'm not tiny and pocket-sized anymore, if I ever was, and even if I were the majority of my female friends back when I heard these words more frequently came up to my chin, if that. They're smaller and cuter, and usually smarter (but not always) and generally sweeter of temperament. I don't get how I can be cute when that's what I'm surrounded by.

Poffle's sisters (he has three) are all built the same way as T, more or less. They're fair-haired an -skinned. They're curvy exactly like Venus, and they have jaw-dropping eyes. How can I expect to measure up? Hell, his mother looks exactly like her girls.

My sister, she has dark hair like me, and she's a little curvier than the statue, but has alabaster skin like you wouldn't believe, and she wears her body so well on her soul I've never left the house with her and not seen heads turn her way, even when she's in baggy jeans and overlarge t-shirts.

Chickadee, The Chickadee, is so beautiful inside and out. She always moves with such grace and poise. Just being around her for the few hours I was when I went back West a couple weeks ago, it infected me with acceptance of challenges and grace to survive. Every time I'm in her presence, every movement is a dance. Just thinking about her makes me sigh, for all the inner beauty shining through the broken frame, but I'm so jealous of her and her blessings that it makes me all ugly inside.

I have a tendency to trip over flat surfaces. I walk into furniture in my office all the time, a room in which I've spent a minimum of 27 hours a week, every week, for the last seven months.

I'm so jealous of all these women, these beautiful women with their dancer's grace and fair skin and statuesque bodies. I know I'm okay-looking. But compared to them? They're so beautiful, so kind and intelligent and loved in ways that I wish I was, and never will be. (Okay, the love thing fluctuates, but everything else really doesn't.) I can't stand being around them sometimes, because I feel like last choice.

I can count backwards by lovers, and tell you every time I was second-choice for someone and who she was that I was an acceptable-at-best substitute for.

Beautiful. Fair. Curvaceous. Smooth. Graceful. Talented. Kind. Cute women.

I know I shouldn't be comparing myself to others, but shy of bleaching my skin and some serious bone-reconfiguration, I'll never look the way I think I look the first thing in the morning, before I catch my reflection in the mirror, and after all these years the shock of my physical reality has yet to wear off, but I wish, just once, I could wake up and see my reflection looking exactly how I see myself.

I need to stop. I need to stare at myself in the mirror for five minutes every day and look at myself and just say out loud "You are beautiful, inside and out," but what happens when my body changes again? How do I start over from that? How do I deal with this?

How do I accept the kind of beautiful I actually am, instead of pining to be what I see in my head?

Violations of the Feeble Remainders of my Sanity

I spent the night at a friend's house Saturday after I got off work.

Clarification: at the house of my only real friend in this state. She's also the relative of a coworker of whom I'm quite fond, so there's that little tidbit of trivia which kind of comes into play later.

Her parental units (not her parents, the acting adult supervision in her life, the people she lives with, one of whom is the coworker I'm fond of) were throwing a belated wedding reception for some friends of theirs Sunday morning, and I got to go as my friend's date, and since they needed help setting up I volunteered for that, too, and was all prepared to use this past weekend to get my mind off.

So, I hiked to their house Saturday after work. Through the snowy, slushy ghetto and the housing projects near which I live, at three-thirty/four in the afternoon when it's still light outside, and it's only a mile, mile and a half from my house to hers. Forty minute walk in good weather, tops, and it really only took me two hours in the snow. I also went the long way so I skipped most of the projects, was on a semi-major street most of the way, and by the time the street lamps went on I was at the intersection by the entrance to the neighborhood.

So no big deal.

But there's a grocery store by her house, and I stopped to buy her a box of Hershey's kisses and a small balloon (because, hey. Cheap candy day) because making other people smile makes me happy. It's almost entirely selfish, but not quite.

But almost.

And we go into her room and vent about our shitty weeks, and she goes first and she tears up, and then it's my turn and I tell her about my shitty week and how I can't process anything and should anything else happen right now then I'm just going to curl up and die, and how awful Poffle (the asshole formerly known as PofI) is and how life just sucks and if just one more thing happens . . .

And then I realize she's angling for a kiss.

Which is just one more giant, steaming turd on the massive pile of shit that is currently my life.

Seriously, though. Did you not just listen to me explain in graphic and sometimes vulgar detail how fucked up I am by everything right now? Did you not just hear me say how I can't handle anything else? Were you not paying attention, or do you just not care? Because, either way, I need to know. Also, you and I are each others' only friends here (L is in exactly the same position I am, down to the asshole older brother who is loved dearly but impossible to live with) and I really don't want to jeopardize that by feeling anything other than sisterly love for you, especially when I'm a freaking wreck and you are too and shit just fucking sucks.

So yeah. That really sucked to deflect in the middle of a mental breakdown.

As I'm falling asleep later that night after helping make tons of food and punching out lots of flower-shaped confetti. Poffle texts me. The conversation opens with "How's it going pretty lady?" progresses to the eventual plan to play Magic: The gathering, and then afterwards quickly deteriorates to:

Poffle: . . . wish you were here
Fantasticness: O.o yeah, i hear ya. (<- meant to be sarcastic; sarcasm doesn't work in text form)
P: Naked. ;)
F: Hmm. . . You'd have to seduce me, first and foremost. I recommend starting with some cheesy romantic gesture devoid of allergens (<- again being facetious; still doesn't work over texts; also because I know he forgot I'm allergic to romance aka chocolate, roses, and pomegranate so any gesture he would throw together will probably kill me)
P: Haha. ;)
F: Seriously (<- seriously frustrated)
P: "I love seeing you naked.~ does that count? ;)
F: Nope :) (<- jackass)
F: Fun, but not cheesy romantic (<- and you're missing the point)
P: :(
F: Come up with something creative (<- because you're a douchebag and have never put forth effort)
P: Zzzzzzz
F: Okay. Ttyl then (<- done with your shit for the night)

Okay, so I'm definitely not in the right state to be talking to Poffle, what with a long-ass week, my asshole brother being my asshole brother, and the fact that this conversation happened between 2228hrs and 2345, and I generally wake up around five in the morning, so I'm also seriously sleep deprived, but I own up to encouraging the conversation.

Seriously, though. What. The FUCK. Am I supposed to do with this exchange? You dumped me on Monday. It's Saturday night. I get it. You're lonely. Whatever. But so am I, and I do not appreciate being toyed with this way.

Anyway, the party was AWESOME! Bloody Mary's are really gross, by the way, even with Old Bay on the rim (which makes it a Bloody Maryland.) Mimosas are good, though. I had one, it knocked me on my ass, so I drank water, ate food, took ibuprofen, and was back to normal. And then I DID IT AGAIN! And it was great! I feel like I'm on the fast track to becoming an alcoholic, but it was fun.

Also, if anyone asks, I'm over 21.

So while I'm drinking and eating and helping set up the cupcake tower of doom and wonder I'm also talking to some really cool people and, for the first time in forever, having a fantastic time. I meet the girl who is bartending, and she's funny and smart and cool and likes books and vodka (two of my favorite things). I meet the bride who, several years ago, held the position I currently have at my company, and has an awesome sense of humor and a beautiful smile. I meet the children of another attendee of this party (whom I met once before) and hit it off with her two daughters, 12 and 14, which makes me kind of creepy but, you know what? These young ladies are smart, like school, like math and science, like reading, have great senses of humor, beautiful smiles, the older one is learning to solve Rubik's cubes, and I spent four hours having a wonderful conversation with total strangers I hit it off with, creepiness be damned. These girls also happen to be doppelgangers of people I know and love back home, so, added bonus!

Eventually, the party dies down as all parties do, and I call my brother to ask if he can come get me or if I need to bum a ride home. The conversation was more or less as follows:

"Hey. Do I still need to get my own ride home."
"Can you stay there for a while longer?"
"Uh, probably. What's wrong?"
"Just stay there, okay?"
"No. What happened what's wrong?"
"It's none of your concern. The house got broken into but none of your stuff was taken."
"What?! Are you kidding me? Of course it's my concern; I live there!"
"No it's not. Stay there. See if you can stay another night."
"No, it is my concern. What happened?! Are you okay?!!"
"I'll be there in a bit. The police just left. Just stay there for a while, okay?"
"Okay. But it is my concern. Be safe. I'll see you in a bit."

So, there went all the good feelings of the day.

I break the fuck down in the middle of this party, which thank God is down to only ten people from the earlier fifty. I grab my shoes and my coat and go outside to smoke on the porch. The bartender, H, follows me and asks me what's wrong. So I tell her.

I relive in this conversation every single sucky second of the last week, and how awful I feel, and the fact that Poffle seems to be replacing me with some chick I know from school back home, and how he's spending so much time with the guy he bought the sword for, and how I can't deal with my brother and how work is dead-end and school pressure is building and I can't. fucking. DEAL. with ANYTHING. And EVERYTHING is going to shit, and now, on top of everything else, L is being all weird and my house isn't safe and I don't want to go home to my apartment and I don't want to go back West and I can't deal with anything and by this point I've cried twenty-five times since Monday afternoon and I feel sick with all the saline I haven't cried out of my system and how awful everything is, and this is the final straw and I can't handle anything else.

At least, I try to say all this, but she's talking over me and trying to say kind, reassuring things to me like how when she was my age oh-so-many years ago she felt the same way and it gets better and I need to relax and just keep going and it's all going to be okay and that house (my coworker's house, where the party was held) is FULL of people who love me and care about me and will help me anyway they can, and she has a spare room at her house and if I need a place to go she'll vouge for me with her other roommates and it's only seven minutes away and everything will be okay and---

I must be the only person in the world who needs a solid twenty minutes of silence in which to cry before I can make sense of anything. I need a solid twenty minutes to just rant and rave and scream and cry and wail and get everything out before people start telling me nice things, or anything, or I can't move past the greif and the hurt and the suckiness. Otherwise, all the nice things are just noise interrupting me getting the frustration out and the saline and salt and snot and tears build up and I feel like I need to vomit and eventually I have to or I won't be able to get anything out and it just builds and builds and builds until I snap because I just cant fucking process anything unless I get uit out and fucking EVERY time this week I hit that point where I go on a greif binge,s omething or someone interrupted me and I'm still building all this tension and the boyfriend and the breakup and the brother and the job and the school and the fucking apartment and ASKMFGV EGMWOERMOPIJGMCOGJLA,SFGOXQJIWRGMRTXQOP,FUMRC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~

Five cigarettes later, my brother shows up. We don't really talk.

When H left, I gave her a hug and apologized for banishing her from my greif fest. Then I apologize to the bride and groom for making a scene, and to my coworker's and L's family for imposing, but they let me stay the night so I don't have to go back to my apartment until it's light outside.

My brother goes home.

I turn off my phone and go to sleep in L's room on her bed.

When I wake up to hitch a ride with my coworker to work in the morning (our shifts start at the same time) L isn't there and I feel abandoned.

Work sucks. After work, I'm texting another friend back home, who then goes off on a tangent about now that I'm single I should give him a shot.

Again, did you not fucking listen just now when I told you I can't handle anything else? Also, your friend just dumped me. A week ago. You need to stop. And the answer is no. Especially since you're being pushy, and if you don't cut it the fuck out I won't talk to you anymore.

Wish I could pull that line on L, but I'm her only friend here, and she's mine.

So, if you've seen me on le Facebook this week and I seemed really down, that's what happened.

I feel really numb and vulnerable.

If I was sitting aked in the snow outside my house right now, right across the street from the fucking projects, nothing the weather or the gangsters or druggies or neighbors could do to me would shut me down any harder than the last week did.

I feel really guilty that while I was having a great time at the party, no one was at my house to scare away the theives.

I feel confused and sickened that they left the damn tv, computers, phones, xbox, . . . everything just sitting there. They took some folders off my brother's desk, and a lockbox that had some silver coins in it.

But they didn't take anything you'd think they would have taken.

I feel like...

I don't know.

Nothing, I guess.

~~

I talked to a friend of mine last night, trying to get everything in my head sorted out, and I found out that Poffle spent Valentine's day with all my favorite people back home. I found out that my favorite lady cooked people food, and they all sat around being their dorky, lovable selves and had a good time. I heard it was fun, that people got along, that even though Poffle was there with the cutie-pie he may or may not be angling his dick towards at the moment and the guy he bought the sword for and Poffle was trying too hard to be liked, it wasn't a bad evening.

That broke my heart.

Please don't replace me.

Someone Else's Wisdom

This. Just this.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-that-have-to-happen-before-you-fix-your-crappy-life/

~~~

Dammit, I'm working on it. And you know what? Progress, bitches!!!!

Lost

I feel like I should be angry.

Like, really angry.

So angry that steam starts pouring out of my ears and my face turns bright red like I'm some sort of cartoon character.

And I'm not.

I'm actually kind of an emotional void at the moment.

It's like, I've teared up so many times this week, but I always stop myself before the waterworks really start because my brother is home and I don't want to give him any more "you're soft and weak" fodder to use against me, or I'm at work and I have shit to get done, dammit, and I can't afford to lose my job because I'm in a slump (though, in actuality, my boss is really nice about these things and is letting me have more hours so I can be distracted, even though business is painfully slow at the moment).

All these pent-up tears are making me feel queasy, and my eyes really itch all the time now, and my body aches and I'm super lethargic, but I can't make myself throw up to get rid of it and I can't really let loose with the tears.

I quit smoking the third of the year. I bought a pack of menthols this morning.

We got to work before the gate to the parking lot was open, so I stomped around in the untouched snow with my coffee in one hand and a lit Pall Mall in the other, giggling like a madwoman and freezing my hands because I forgot to leave my gloves in my coat pockets when I got home last night so they hurt from the wind but I didn't care.

They're actually not as cracked and bleeding as I thought they'd be, almost four hours later, but I'm worried that this kind of disappoints me.

I was on the phone last night with a friend I've only actually hung out with four times in all the time I've known him, and got to get a semi-decent cry out. It was a little bit cathartic, but after the phone call was over I was disgusted with how dirty crying makes my face feel so I washed my face and fell asleep watching The Tigger Movie instead of continuing to deal.

I also realized that I'm really pissed off at everyone who keeps telling me "It's good that it's over; you need to get out of that scenario; you can do better; this is unhealthy; I'm proud of you; etc." Blah, blah, blah. I don't care.

You know that expression "Give a man a fish. . ." right?

Stop telling me it's a good thing that this week's horrible events happened. I'm heartbroken, and I don't want to feel guilty for being heartbroken because I shouldn't be heartbroken because PofI is an ass. I know he's an ass. I've learned this first hand, several times now, and apparently it has yet to sink in because I'm still heartbroken but let me be heartbroken, dammit, before the snow finishes melting and I can't pretend it's his face while I crunch the shit out of it, okay?

It's really frustrating. I know y'all, all my loved ones, mean well, but the reason I'm blogging this shit is because keeping all these thoughts just in my head gives me limited space to stretch them all out and make sense of everything, so if something I said at the beginning of one sentence directly contradicted something I said at the end of the next, it's because I'm still unjumbling everything in my brain and I'm not done yet and I'm going to finish getting everything out and be done with it so I can breathe a while and not worry about editing it and proofreading it because this is for me, not you. I know you're trying to help. That's really cool of you, and admirable because even I'm fed up with my shit at this point, but I need time to cry so I can get angry so I can play some Miranda Lambert and then calm down and be a real person.

But I'm not there, yet. And when I do get there, please feel free to crap talk PofI as much as you want to me, and I'll laugh right along with you because I make stupid decisions when under the influence of sexy man pheromones and emotions and other similar drugs, but right now I'm not there yet, okay?

Right now I'm kind of lost.

Please respect that.

Breaking Things

As I'm walked through the snow this morning before my cousin rescued me, and after I arrived back in my neighborhood this afternoon and walked across the courtyard, I was struck by the inexplicable beauty of untouched snow: glistening, smooth and white and cold on the ground, sunlight glittering through the frozen flakes all clumped together.

This winter, the first real winter I've experienced in twelve years, I was constantly struck by how such a simple thing, such a beautiful and straightforward thing, could appear in so many different ways. Sometimes, the flakes are so small and fall so fast, they're like tiny bullets fired into the ground, and they melt as soon as they touch down. Sometimes, they fall slow and steady, laying on the ground like a blanket pulled meticulously over someone you love when they fell asleep on the couch late at night. Once, the snow fell so hard and so fast the flakes clung to each other as they came down, and as we drove home through that particular deluge, thumbnail-sized clumps of snowflakes hit the windows of the car and were so large they took fifteen seconds to melt from the heat preserved in the car by the heater and two people breathing. When I looked out the window at the aftermath the next day, it had the texture of grated Parmesan cheese when you accidentally pour too much on your pasta too quickly and just have this massive pock-marked thing on top of your food.

Yesterday, I didn't watch it fall, but the courtyard in front of my building had waves of snow lying across it, like the sand at the bottom of the shallow part of a river. It was breathtaking.

I broke it.

I stepped on it as hard as I could and crunched through all the beautiful, untouched patches of snow I could crunch through from the street to my front door. I stomped on it and squashed it and left foot-trails of slush in my wake and the slush didn't catch the sunlight nearly as well as the untouched, virgin-pure snow of the morning.

Everywhere I stepped, it crunched satisfyingly beneath my feet before giving way to the weight of my foot and collapsing all the way to the frozen dead grass beneath. Every step I took left a hollow print, like a dent in a car door, and filled with slush and mud and ugly.  Every time I stomped my foot down in the gleaming-bright snow and broke the beautiful surface, I smiled.

I think I must be ill. I take great pleasure in breaking beautiful things, and I really can't remember a time in which I didn't.

Quick! Someone with a background in Psychology! Tell me how breaking things means I'm broken? Because I only break the pretty things; I walked the long way around all the muddy dirty snow piles shoveled to the curb from the street. I didn't step within five feet of the exposed sidewalk, or any other sets of footprints. Logically, it makes more sense to break broken things because why leave a job unfinished? They're already so damaged a little more scarring won't hurt.

But I have an affinity for breaking pretty things.

Why only walk in the untouched snow?

I've burst into tears no fewer than fifteen times since Monday. My eyes feel scratchy and swollen. But stomping through the clean snow? That made me smile. Those particular tears were joyful.

I must be sick.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day

Saint Valentine is recognized by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Western-Rite Orthodox and Lutheran churches, as well as the Anglican Communion, as the name of a third-century Roman priest commonly associated with courtly love since the middle ages. He is the patron saint of beekeepers, affianed couples, against fainting, happy marriages, love, plague and epilepsy. (Really diverse interests this guy had.) All this is according to this Wikipedia article <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine> and since Wikipedia checks their sources, this must be true. However, it is currently unknown whether all this is either one guy or two guys with the same name.

Personally, I don't care how many guys this was; it St. Valentine is indeed two people, they were kindred spirits and might have been soulmates so it doesn't really matter.

What does matter to me is the story of St. Valentine as told to me by my second-grade Sunday School teacher, back thirteen years ago this week. Here's an abriged and Fantastic-ified version of the story:

You see, back in St. Valentine's time, when he was a priest known as Father Valentinus, the emperor of the day was waging war against his neighbors, because that's what all good Roman emperors do. He realized, though, that if young men were getting married and starting families and such, they would be less likely to sign up for military service so they could march hundreds and hundreds of miles away and quite probably die between the departure and the return trip.
The solution he came up with was the outlawing of new marriages.
This, in a nutshell, meant that if you were already married, then good for you, but even if you were already betrothed to someone you couldn't tie the knot. Priests and other public officials who had the authority to bind two people together in holy matrimony were expressly forbidden to perform marriage ceremonies, on pain of imprisonment.
And Fr. Valentine didn't give a rat's ass.
He kept marrying young couples in secret, going out of his way and endangering himself so these pairs of lovers could be together without compromising their honor. He supposedly performed hundreds of secret weddings in the first couple months after the anti-love-law went into effect, and this made the people very happy.
And then some asshole turned him in to the authorities, and Fr. Valentine was thrown in jail.
And he continued to perform marriage ceremonies through the window of his cell, marrying young couples together while they stood on the other side of the bars.
He was, the story goes, imprisoned for several months, during which time he performed hundreds more illegal weddings and preventing all those young men for signing up for military service.
And, again, some asshole turned him in to the authorities, and Fr. Valentine was executed.
After his execution, all the couples he had bound together threw flowers and other trinkets through the window to his cell, thus inspiring the beloved tradition of presenting your loved ones with flowers and candy on St. Valentine's Day. He is celebrated on the fourteenth of February, as this date is believed to be the anniversary of his death.

Anyway, as I was told this story nearly a decade and a half ago, this probably isn't exactly the story my teacher told the class, and may or may not actually be what happened to St. Valentine, but I love this story anyway. It always spoke to me about the importance of love and how much sacrifice love entails, not only for the people in the romantic relationship, but for those around them, as well.

This week, I'm really bitter, and on top of the whole "just got dumped" thing I began my St. Valentine's day by hiking though the snow, slush, and ice for half-an-hour because my beloved brother, whom I live with and for whom I hold in no high esteem at this particular moment, decided at forty minutes until our shifts started that I didn't deserve a ride to work today because I didn't do my "chores" last night, and I could take the bus (which is always late, takes about two and a half hours to get from my house to work on in normal conditions, and might not be running today due to all the slush and ice and snow) or I could call in and it wasn't his "fucking problem."

(I am at work, by the way. Another cousin-in-law-who-shall-henceforth-be-called-cousin-to-simplify-things-and-who-also-works-at-the-same-place-as-my-brother-and-myself very kindly drove an extra fourteen-plus miles out of his way to pick me up and get me to work on time.)

As I'm outside, trudging through the winter through the ghetto on sidewalks with a foot of snow on them (because it's too damn early and too damn cold for anyone else to have already forged the path), snow spills into my shoes, and now my feet are wet and cold and the steel in my steel-toed boots retains the temperature of the frozen water. I'm crying because I'm frustrated and it's been a hell of a week and it's cold and I've spent my entire adult life in a desert up until this point, and what I wouldn't give to be back in the relative warmth and only have to wear a single pair of pants to stave off the elements. I manage to pull myself together, though, and stop crying (which is fortunate, because frozen tears are truly beyond painful in any way I'm remotely used to and it's kind of a rough neighborhood). My cousin, this morning's hero and my knight in shining armor (I am so lucky his wife, my biological cousin, found him and kept him, because this guy is a real saint) makes to across town to where I am and rescues me from the side of the road. He asks what happened, and I promptly burst into tears again.

And I get into work, clock in only eleven minutes after my brother did with a whole two minutes to spare until the official start of my shift, and make some coffee because that's part of my job description and because having been out in the cold for a half-hour, I can already feel myself starting to get sick and only hot beverages can save me now.

As I'm getting the water for the coffee, I glance at myself in the mirror: I am wind-burned, red-eyed, kind of puffy looking, and obviously upset.

So obviously upset, in fact, that the office jerk asked what was wrong (prompting anther sobbing fit), gave me hug, and offered me his spare room and his phone number so I can call him any time I'm stuck and need a place to stay.

This, folks, is what St. Valentine's day is all about.

It's about bringing a little love to people who need some help getting it. It's about making someone smile when they want to cry. It's about giving of yourself to someone else for just a moment, just long enough to make a tiny bit of difference so the next time they look in the mirror they think, "You know what? I'm pretty okay." It's about doing these things for people you wouldn't normally spare a moment's kindness for. It's about letting people in to your heart, or your home, or your arms even when you won't get anything out of it and might be risking yourself in the process.

If this is the one day a year that you go above and beyond for someone else, that really sucks, because that whole "love thy neighbor" thing applies 24/7/365, but if a special day dedicated to putting a little love and affection is what it takes to get you to put some out there, then, hey. It's something.

Happy St. Valentine's Day, people. I'm going to listen to some Metallica and Marilyn Manson, because fuck happy music.

Randomness

So, Blogger has this feature that tells you how much traffic you're getting and from where and what that traffic commences and I have one serious question  to ask you guys:

Who the heck is reading this from Germany?

I mean, I think I'm pretty interesting but not "internationally recognized as a weirdo" interesting.

But seriously, thanks, guys, for sticking with me and reading this.

Also, it makes me unreasonably happy that y'all tend to use PCs and Androids to check out SuperQuest. :) Not that I'm not pleased to be read by a Mac user *koffkoff*Chickadee*koff but I feel a weird, inexplicable camaraderie with people who share my preferences on technology. Which is dumb, but there you go. It's like being Team Potter or Team Malfoy. No one cares. It doesn't matter. But it still feels really really really important.

Speaking of not-so-subtle book references, I got my books today. I have a certain reading list that I have to go through every two months or so to keep my mind fresh, and when I moved cross-country last June I had to leave them all behind. (Except Hitchhiker's Guide. Hence the "42" thing.)

But, I TOTALLY GOT MY BOOKS NOW XD

And so, I shall probably (as I go through them and savor every single nuance of these beloved stories) review and rant about my characters and bore you all with how beautiful and compelling I find them.

But nothing gets me thinking like a good work of fiction, so go ahead and nod and smile and roll your eyes at my sci-fi-inspired rantings when they do eventually happen.

And they're going to happen.

Love you guys!

What I Learned by Becoming a Cliche: An Unusually Long Post in a Weird Format

Monday, 10 February, 2014.

1210 hrs: I'm just off work, and have a mile to walk to get to the bank and take care of a paperwork snafu before catching the bus home. I text a single word, "Hi," to PofI because what I really want to text is "I'm going crazy not hearing from you when I know your life is going great, but I know you're still probably upset with me, and I feel like I shouldn't call you an asshole unless we're on the phone actually talking" but "Hi" is less provocative.

Intermission: I take care of my thing at the bank, ride an overcrowded bus back to my end of town, and decide to take a side-trip on my way home to visit my cousin(-in-law, henceforth my cousin) whom I haven't seen in a couple weeks because my work schedule has been a pain in the ass. We sit on the couch, venting and sharing our woes with one another, because we have that kind of friendship. She goes off about grieving lost loved ones, I go off about feeling abandoned by PofI, and somewhere in this, he texts me.

1525 hrs: I see the indicator light blinking on my phone and see that it's a message from him, time stamped 1503, reading "We need to talk." (WTF is that, by the way? I know we need to talk. I haven't heard from you in a week, of course we need to talk.) Instead, I text back "I don't disagree. Can we handle this by text or do I need to call you?"

Intermission: I wait to hear back, vocalizing the stupidity of that four-word phrase to my cousin as she attempts to advise me to keep my head and catch my breath (I'm currently shaking, trying not to scream because her kids are just downstairs and I don't want to frighten them).

1543 hrs: Reply message: "I'll call you after I'm done hanging with <name>."

Intermission: So, we need to talk and yet you're going to take an indeterminate amount of time to hang out with a friend? Nice.

I spend this period of time split into two people. Half of me is still talking to my cousin, half of me is posting "Anticipation" and trying to keep the hyperventilating to a minimum, because "We need to talk" is always followed by a breakup and I'm not great really horrible at handling rejection. I don't want to just get dumped, and I don't want this relationship to end in shambles.

Background: I met PofI five years ago and was pretty much enamored from day one. It's one of those things where even during the periods of time when things had gone down hill and we were actively avoiding each other, we'd still somehow end up in the same place at the same time. (I think I'm going to take a whole other post to try and explain how my views of romance have changed since I first knew romance was a thing.) But this is the longest period of time I've kept up a friendship with anyone in my life, and though there are some people I've technically known longer, he and I have never gone so long without talking that we're total strangers when we get around to catching up. This is a serious investment of time and affection, and the thought of things ending on bad-enough terms that we never speak again or do go so long without one another that we become strangers is . . . unthinkable. Unfathomable. So innately, horribly wrong.

But I keep cool on the surface and try not to fly off the handle. My cousin decides to put on one of the Twilight movies *retching* and it's disgusting how stupidly naively loyal those characters are to each other, how shallow and hollow their "love" is when a real relationship of ups and downs and minimal lying-on-your-bed-curled-into-the-fetal-position-for-semesters-at-a-time can't keep together at all.

And then it hits me: they're going to fail in the epilogue. (If there are any Twi-tards in the audience, I do not apologize for offending your delicate sensibilities; I also haven't read the books since 2008, just after the last one came out.) Think about it for a minute, though:

     ~Edward and all the other vampires in his "coven" just kind of . . . are. He and his "siblings" go to high school after high school after high school, collecting caps and gowns like they're going out of style (and I really wish they would) but they really don't have any direction or purpose in their eternal lives other than not getting exposed as vampires. (Carlisle, the doctor "father," is the only one with purpose, and he has spent his entire living and undead existence saving lives however and whenever he can.)
     ~Bella is two-dimensional. She's a typical teenager who doesn't get along with her parents (having recently been one, I can tell you for a fact this doesn't make her special). She spends half the first book mooning after some guy she just met in a town she just moved to and he spends all that time avoiding her because she smells delicious and he can't read her mind (which would be a bit boring, anyway, but that's hardly the point). She doesn't have life goals: she doesn't ever talk about wanting to go to college or starting a family or traveling the world or any of that until and unless he brings it up, and then she just convinces herself to agree with whatever he says.
     ~They are each the first person the other had any sort of romantic interest in, apparently, and he's been around over a hundred years and she's never been anywhere but Phoenix, Arizona (a nice city and all, but a little stale after a while) and Forks, Washington (which is super freaking tiny). If it took him that long to develop an attraction for anyone, he's quite possibly only with her because he's tired of being the only one of his coven who isn't paired off with someone or he's tired of taking crap for it. She, frankly, has been brainwashed by Disney. Sure, by the end of the last movie they're all married and parents and stuff, but how long do you really think it will take them to realize that maybe rushing into things was a bad idea? Personally, I give them five years, at which point their daughter will be at the "fly the coop" stage of life and that's a little much to be happening all at once, ya know?

But as I'm watching this movie, I realize that that is exactly the direction I'm heading, except I know that's not what I want with my life, which gets me to thinking:

What do I want with my life?

I finally start calming down enough to talk with my cousin like a rational adult and she gracefully puts her own broken heart aside for a while to help me sort out the pieces of mine.

Do you love him? Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt, he is always the last person I think of when I fall asleep at night, and the first person I think of in the morning when I wake.

Are you in love with him? Definitely. Sharing the same space with someone is never as comfortable as with him, and even the silences are normally pleasant (except when we're both determined to behave like grumpy children).

So where is this going? Eventually. . . Somewhere. Not entirely sure where, exactly, but somewhere.

And where do you want this to go? . . .

Seriously, I had no answer for that one, so I had to stop and rethink my life.

On a personal level, I know I want to do something positive and make an impact on the world. I would prefer to do this through my art, the fine and noble tradition of set-building and light-and-sound design and all other things technical-theatre related. I want to get my Bachelor's degree in Technical Theatre, go to Seattle or San Diego or Chicago or, really, anywhere vital theatre is happening and at least some measurable chunk of the population gives a crap about it. I want to build sets, and act, and direct and make people think about the big issues, and even if they never make a decision about something one way or another, at least they'd know it's something they have to think about, and I will have been part of the spark that started that thought process.

If I can't do that, I think I'd like to teach theatre, or travel the world, or write novels, but I can do all of that in addition to my "Plan A," too. If that doesn't happen, I'd probably become a phlebotomist so I can draw blood and tell people I'm a professional vampire. I always hate getting shots, so the very least I can do is make them less miserable for others.

But that begs another question entirely: Where, exactly, does PofI come into that?

Answer: He actually doesn't have to.

But I want him to.

In the course of this conversation, I finally came to several conclusions I've always been aware of but still been trying not to reach for a while because the full impact of them scare the crap out of me. The conclusions are as follows:

     ~At some point, I want to be a mom. And by some point, I mean several (at least five) years from now, pending the completion of my degree and my (hopeful) eventual worthiness to that most holy of titles. And by mom, I mean either by biological means (ouch) or by adopting into my heart and home any younglings in need of safety and love.
     ~I want to eventually have the kind of home which is the exact opposite of what I grew up in. I want a home that is warm and welcoming and comfortable to be in, the kind of place my friends can come over to and stay if they need a couch to crash on, and the kind of place my not-yet-existent nieces' and nephews ' and childrens' friends can come over to when they need a sanctuary from the awful world. I want the kind of home people can be themselves in, and my family can have dinner together around a table every night and no one feels out of place.
     ~I don't have to have someone to share these things with, but I want someone.
    ~I want a partner to share these things with. Not a husband or wife in the traditional sense, but someone to help me create the kind of home I want to have. Someone to lean on when I need some support, and who can lean on me when they need any. And if our lives are completely separate and all we share is a home and a family and the joy we put out into the world, that's enough. And as much as, at this point, I'd like that partner to be PofI, if it ends up being someone else, or no one else, I'll survive.
     ~These things are more important to me than a career in theatre, and if I have to choose between the two farther on down the line, I'll suffer no qualms dropping the art for the works of heart. (Because rhyming is cute and cancel out the suckiness of epiphanies. So there.)

My cousin's husband comes home, we gather 'round the table for dinner, my cousins and their two children and I, and we talk and laugh and joke and eat and after we finish, we pile into the car to go to their six-year-old daughter's basketball game.

[Sidenote: Have you ever watched eighteen four-to-seven-year-olds playing basketball? It's adorable. If you can manage to pull it off without coming across as someone with an unhealthy interest in chidlers, it's guaranteed to perk up your day. But don't watch pee-wee basketball if it's going to get you in trouble. I don't want you to get in trouble.]

1826 hrs: I finally get that call. PofI is audibly sick, and it breaks my heart that, had he been sick last week, I could have taken care of him and made soup for him (virtually the only thing I can cook and not mess up), and there's nothing I can do right now except get this stupid conversation over with. I hate when my loved ones are in distress and I can't help.

We're on the phone for maybe half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes. However long a pee-wee basketball game is, minus the first fifteen minutes and the last five. During the course of this conversation, we are both apologetic. We both admitted our wrongdoing, begged the other for forgiveness, and decided on a plan of action which involves couples therapy eventually, because we both want to make this work, but outlining what we want and need in a partner. For me, it's what I discovered in those realizations I listed above. For him, he needs stability for his child. [Sidenote: that chidler is adorable!] Neither one of us thinks the other is asking for anything irrational, but as we can't really do the whole counseling thing from opposite sides of the country, the current plan of action is all we've got.

The plan of action, by the way, is a five-part series. We each have short- and medium-term goals to carry us through the next five years or so, in the hopes of becoming better individuals. (Mine are to get into school for the short term, and get my degree and start my career for the medium term.) The only shared plan is, toward the conclusion of our medium-term plans, moving closer to one another and testing out being partners when we (theoretically) have our respective shit together, which may or may not work out for the long term, but at least we have somewhere to start, right? We also agreed to keep up with each others' lives and be supportive and open as much as we can, and call each other out sooner rather than later when we mess up, because we're human and that's what we do.

We're on a "break."

I'm not exactly sure how I'm doing. We've talked on the phone since, and texted randomly and liked every other Facebook post the other has made, but it still feels really weird. Actually, I'm not sure whether it's weird not to be "a couple" anymore or if it's weird that we seem to have switched off whatever switch it is that gets us so freaked out about each other. It seems easier now, if that makes sense. Or not.

I keep thinking of a thing a newlywed, ready-to-birth-her-first-child-literally-any-second-now friend of mine said when I asked her how she liked married life. "It's easier, I think. Than dating. The pressure is off. I don't have to be worried anymore that what I do or say is going to upset him, and he doesn't worry about that stuff with me anymore, either. We're married. He's not going anywhere, and neither am I."

Maybe this whole "dating" thing really is a crock, and we as a culture put too much stock into being with another person for the rest of eternity. Not that being with someone is, in and of itself, a bad thing, but that we've kind of made it the thing, the only thing, and the thing that defines us as we get older. I mean, how often do you hear, "Oh, she never remarried." "He's just a bachelor past his prime." "She's an old maid." "He'll never find anyone." or any of those things?

Too. Freaking. Often.

I think that, for me, anyway, being in a "relationship" with someone puts me in this place where I subconsciously start thinking to myself "Okay, now I have someone, and I'm going to keep them forever come hell or high water and this is it, and we're going to be together forever, and I better not screw this up, so-"

And it causes everything to get screwed up.

I'm pretty sure I'm also not the only one who does this, either.

You know who you are.

You have to let go of that.

I have to let go of that.

It's a bad thing to hold on to, and it's messing you up.

Stop trying to force the damn boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Work on the "best friends forever" thing, and if you never put a ring on it but still smile and hug and laugh and try your damdest to make the world a better place together and support one another, why the hell should the stupid label matter?

And why should you only have that kind of friendship the way society tells you to have it?

I'm going to try and be done with that.

I'm feeling kind of down, but I'm not depressed. I'm alone, but not really lonely. I'd give anything to collapse into someone's arms right about now, but I'm still standing, god dammit, and I'll stand alone until being alone no longer scares me because, in becoming the dumped-the-week-of-Valentines-cliche, I've realized so much of what is important to me and what I really want.

And why should anything else matter.

. . .

But the next time I get a fucking "We need to talk" text, I'm going to reach through the damn phone and punch your lights out.