Still here.

So is my favorite song. So is my favorite songwriter. That has to be good, right?

School days

Soon, for the monkey. Beginning the 24th of August, just like the big kids. I can’t imagine days in a row with time to think… but they shimmer on the horizon like a domestic Xanadu.

Meanwhile, I write down how to make an armadillo while she sleeps, while Brian reads his webcomics or saves a corporate infrastructure or something before bed. Karmically speaking, even minus one beagle and plus some depressive episodes, I think that once again, I’m way ahead of the game through absolutely no virtue of my own.

And there appears to be a rather creepy movie on TCM.  Ah.

ETA: The creepy movie has just segued into creepy movie about a mom dying and leaving her seven children who pretend that she’s not dead so they won’t be separaaaa… nope. Not watchin’ that.

Memed! Anonymously memed!

Well, I know who memed me, but I can’t tell ya. State secrets, national security… you know, the usual. Being this important is hell sometimes.

Here goes:

1. I can’t believe I’ve never been to London. Seriously, it’s amazing, considering that I have practically 400 years of British history memorized (the juicy bits, anyway) and have no trouble understanding any dialect even remotely like English. Damn. This sucks.

2. Every time I think about the night I got so drunk that I woke up on a couch next to someone who had been hitting on me and had to check to see if my tights were still on I still cringe. Fortunately, they were, and there was no way in hell I could have gotten them back on in the previous night’s state of intoxication. Not that I would have minded sleeping with him, really, but I would have minded missing the fun. Wait, I might have been engaged at the time. Oh well.

3. I wish I’d met Lyle Lovett when I had the chance.

4. I have never felt so out of place as when I was a bridesmaid at my best college friend’s wedding. Not only was I the only non-Christian among the wedding party, I may well have been the only non-virgin. And thank whoever is up there for that, because I was able to render an educational service involving a banana to my beloved friend that none of her more saintly companions could have. Just goes to show you, every good girl needs a go-to whore on the roster.

5. Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls are my guiltiest pleasure. I don’t have food issues, you know, the “bad food” crap, it’s just that Swiss Cake Rolls have no redeeming value whatsoever. They are the trailer trash of pastry: sickeningly sweet cheap chocolate coating over a usually stale chocolate cake wrapped around some unidentifiable white semi-solid sugar product. And they rock my fucking world. We can’t even have them in the house or I’ll eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6. I hope my mother knows how grateful I am for her letting me make my own mistakes while always being there for backup. Although I wish she’d given me a heads-up about the batshit bipolar guy from California.

7. In my darkest hours, I secretly blame my screwy neurochemistry for my dysfunction. Actually there’s no secret about it. As far as dumb things I’ve done in my life or bad choices, that’s a hundred percent me – and that’s no secret either.

8. Being really, truly on my own and broke as hell changed my life forever. I can’t say it was completely a conscious decision, but partly, and it gave me time to figure a lot of things out – like what I wanted to do with my life, my vocation, my values, my bad habits, and the list goes on and on. It was time to just live for a while with no expectations. I highly recommend it.

Whew.

I’m tagging Lorelei, Banshee and Polly. Because I lurv them.

Ambivalence as a lifestyle: looking good, sort of

First example

I hate that she voted for this war. Hate, hate hatehatehatehatehate… but Obama is looking more and more like a talking head to me. I could be totally wrong – but I don’t see anyone there. So:

I guess. Damn it. I’m staying drunk come November.

Second example

I’m reading that Miss Pettigrew’s Day Off is pretty much a goopy chick flick with a patina of BBC faux-class. Okay. But it also has this:

Ciaran Hinds – one of my super-craggy secret boyfriends. What to do?

Working my way back into posting

Tough, because most of the things on my mind are related to awful family matters – which wouldn’t have been a problem several months ago, but now some of my kinfolk actually read this thing. But I miss the outlet, and now that some of the shock and stress has dissipated, it feels a little more natural again.The other thing I want to start doing is commenting regularly on the blogs I read. I hadn’t realized until the last few weeks how much this network connects me with some truly fabulous people, and really, I’d like to be a better member of the community. Plus my tags need some serious help…

Anyway, since digging around in the muck and sewage of my deepest fears is way fucking exhausting, I thought I’d make a list (love lists) of my lesser fears, from phobias to mere shudders.

I. Am. Pissed.

Which is a good thing, better than being numb or trying to remain numb. I have a hunch that shock, horror, disgust, sadness, and all the rest of the merry crew will be following eventually… but right now, I am furious, and not at the broken faucet or the husband’s whistling or the persistence of mismatched socks.

My displacement switch is OFF.

How I know my therapist is good

1. She extracted relevant information so smoothly and naturally I didn’t even realize how quickly she decided what was important… until afterwards, when I also realized she was exactly right.
2. She asked several questions which made something pop out of my mouth that I didn’t plan to say.
3. After they popped out, I realized they were true.
4. I was so busy rehashing the session in the car on the way home that I missed my exit.
5. While rehashing, I was moved to say things like,”God damn it, no!” And “Why do I keep on accepting the pile of dog crap?” Loudly.
6. She pointed out the very real difference between “calm” and “detached.”
7. She talked about the awful dissonance of responsibility without authority.
8. She didn’t let me self-edit.

I think it helped just to hear someone objective say that, yes, in fact, there is some crazy shit going on, and no, it’s not me. This time, anyway.

…and a little more about me, me, me.

In the past few days, I have developed many symptoms of acute stress disorder, or as I think of it, Don’t Startle Me or I’ll Stab You With This Spatula Syndrome. These include:

• the previously mentioned exaggerated fight-or-flight reflex,
• nightmares, or,
• an inability to sleep,
• a feeling of unreality,
• constant “mini” panic attacks,*
• a new aversion to the color red,** raw meat, and closed doors,
• and most disturbingly, a recurrent image that comes up whenever my eyes close.

But never fear – my intrepid shrink is aware of what’s happening, and tomorrow I will be therapist shopping for the first time since college. I have three recommendations… oh, the flutter there will be in the local psychiatric community. Whom will she choose?

Time alone will tell.

*these include a sudden rush of adrenalin and light perspiration, which I resent strongly, being philosophically and vehemently opposed to sweating in any non-sexual context whatsoever

**and yes, I’ve changed the color of the theme, for now, but I hate all these other colors

How I am

I’m failing miserably at answering e-mails – but I am so grateful to everyone. Someone who knows who she is told me,”Don’t forget to lean on the people who love you.” So here’s my personal status report, plagiarized shamelessly from the lovely Lorelei:

I am leaning, baby. I am leaning like it’s the Leaning Olympics and my grizzled old leaning coach, tragically robbed of his own dream of leaning gold, is shouting from the sidelines,”Lean, you glorious bastard! Lean!”

In fact, right now I’m going to lean until I become horizontal and lean into sleep for a while.

This is how I feel today: I don’t know why