The Slice

I had a dream a few nights ago that I interviewed for a promotion at my work. They told me I got the job, so I was super excited. I went into my new larger office and had no idea really what to do. I sat at my desk and shuffled papers around trying to figure it out. I left my office for a minute, and when I returned, my friend verypretty was sitting at my desk and doing the work like a champ. I was told I had actually been demoted and was now her assistant. The next day she turned into my old boss, and the office turned into my current office, and I wanted to go back home and cry.

(My old boss is great. My friend Aurora is great. Dream world is just weird, demoralizing and manifesting my imposter syndrome that crops up every now and then. Booooo.)

Work has been pretty dull lately. My brain has a lot of time to wander, and it's not always to good places. I found myself sleepily giving myself a pep talk the other day about, "Hey, what if you actually took the time and gave it your all to writing? What if you looked over some of the short stories you started back in college and actually tried to make them into something?"

It was enough to wake me up in that moment, but knowing me, I won't actually do that. It's funny it came up at all, really, since I don't tend to like writing fiction much anymore. I liked the creative writing classes I took, but nothing really seemed to stick in terms of lasting passion. If I write fiction at all these days, it's in the form of poetry because I find I like telling really small stories and stringing together pieces and phrases rather than writing long form. I would still like to write a non-fiction book (and have several ideas for research projects), but I don't know. I'd like to think that this is just my aesthetic, but really, it's probably more of a convenient excuse because I'm impatient and don't want to devote the time I would need to make it happen. There are a million different distractions and only so much time and blah blah blah. So it goes, I guess.

I have figured out I can take notes on my phone, though, so I've been doing that instead of writing all over post-its and hoping I don't lose them. (Yes, I know. Welcome to the 21st century.) We'll see if anything comes from it.

EDIT: Wait, hold up. This is better than everything I just said.

I keep meaning to update about Utah, but my sinus infection has come back full force (with prednisone completely out of my system and round seven of antibiotics finished on Monday), and I have felt pretty tired and awful. Still, here's a start to that. If I don't end up finishing it in one go (and you're still interested), come back for edits and updates. (Also, if you're friends with me on facebook, you'll have already seen the avalanche of pictures. Haha, oops.)

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EDIT: And wow, I think that's pretty much it.

Actually, I feel like writing now. Strange.

(I'm in a Calvin and Hobbes kind of mood. Bear with me.)

It's kind of funny to me. Well, lots of things are kind of funny to me. I tend to do a fair amount of things because I find them funny. Sure, I am perfectly capable of being serious (and don't cross me if I'm being deadly serious because you won't like the results), but I spend so much time oscillating between depression and boredom that when I'm in a relatively even-keeled mood, I try to amuse myself as much as possible. I'm not saying I'm always successful in this endeavor (since I still waste a lot of time being bored, looking for better ways to use my time and/or berating my time-management skills), but I like looking around for things that will make me laugh. For all it's vast uselessness, the internet is pretty handy in this regard. If you can't find some obscure trivia to look up, person to stalk, game to play, person to talk to, old commercial clip to watch, or whatever else on your own, the internet will most likely have something on it that will suck up your time and make you forget life for a while. Well, now that I put it that way, I might as well say that if Marx was alive, he might have called the internet the opiate of the masses (and that's not necessarily a good thing if you actually want to get anything accomplished in life), but it's not like communism was really successful and you get my point.

Anyway, every once in a while, it strikes me that while I am definitely grateful for this technology that allows me to stay connected to a larger number of people than I would otherwise (because let's be honest, if we only communicated through letters and phone calls, I wouldn't have met a fair number of you much less gotten to know you in the limited way I have), there are a lot of things and people I don't miss. For all the connections I have made, lost links, cherished companions, new friends, long distance relationships, family I wouldn't see otherwise, and more, there are certain people I have lost contact with purposefully that I do not regret in the slightest. In fact, I reach points like this where I realize how long it's been since I've talked to these people, and my heart lifts in my chest. It actually leaps with relief when I think about how, even if the internet gives me the option to track them down (or I already know where they are), I never have to interact with these people again if I don't want to.

On some level, it's still sad to me that it turns out that way, that I can't have a good, lasting relationship with everyone I let in my life. I don't tend to open myself up easily to others, and connecting in any sort of satisfying way has always been difficult for me. It's not that I don't want to have friends or be close to people. Quite the contrary. I'd love to have some sort of storybook friendship where I could call someone up in the middle of the night and tell them things if I needed to. I'd love to be able to drop everything for someone else because I know they would do the exact same thing for me, no questions asked, any time day or night. Alas, I have learned that this isn't how life works. You can't really expect that from other people, but that's okay, too. Other people have their own lives happening, and on some level, it's pretty silly and selfish to put that much emphasis on friendship. I mean, I wouldn't be able to live up to my own sky high expectations, and there's no reason for me to expect that of others. In the end, you do what you can for people and hope it comes back. Even if it doesn't, why worry about it?

But I'm getting off topic here. I guess what I mean is it's especially hard to lose friends when you're kind of iffy about making them in the first place. Occasionally, I will still have long-dead conversations pop into my head, and I'll want to solve them, to talk with the person even though I'll probably never see them again. These are the moments I don't especially enjoy being conscious and living with a brain that's constantly talking. Sometimes I wish I could switch things off for a while, just long enough so I wouldn't have to rehash arguments and conflicts that should have never seen the light of day again.

Fortunately, there's a flipside to all this, and that's those moments like these-- where I'm sitting quietly by myself underneath my ceiling fan with the windows all open, nothing but the TV playing in the background, and I realize that I'm miles and miles, nay, years and years away from who I used to be and these people I used to know. After all is said and done, in the silence of my home, I occasionally feel very blessed in that I have somewhat figured out that, even if there's still a lot I have to do and many more things I am responsible for, I control the great majority of who still gets to stick around, the people I actually want in my life as opposed to the people I used to surround myself with because it seemed "too mean" to tell them to go away.

Maybe it was cruel to banish them, maybe at first. Maybe there's a better way I could have done that, softer things to say, a more tactful turn of phrase. Maybe I could have made things a lot easier for myself from the get-go, recognized these issues long before I did anything about them or convinced myself it was okay when I knew deep down it never would be. I did a lot of it the wrong way. I failed. I made mistakes, and it could have been different. There are so many possibilities and paths life could have taken, but all I know is despite them all, I've ended up here, firmly entrenched in myself. So far as I can tell, that's not a bad thing. I am who I am; no one has to come with me if they don't want; and I'm fine never seeing some people ever again.

I don't miss the past one bit. Bring on that horizon.

Good lord. Have you had a dream so many times it seems to alter your memories?

Yeah.

Flippin' "I'm in school but somehow forgot to go to all my classes until now" dreams. I know this must be fairly common, but I've gotten to where I'll wake up wondering how I managed to graduate high school. Even better because lately, they wake me up at 4:00 in the morning. Bleh.

Uh... anyway. I'm really tired. I apologize to anyone who tried to talk to me today. I'm pretty sure I didn't make any sense at all. If I did, it wasn't very interesting. I'm good at being self-deprecating for no reason when I'm exhausted. Sorry.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

EDIT: Before I go to bed, I'll say I'm feeling increasingly like this lately--
I'm never going to eat it.
Get it together! Ah, I still can't do anything right. Yee-ikes. Good night.

There's no time for both.

It gets harder and harder to tell the difference. I used to have many conversations about how certain seemingly opposing interests are actually two sides of the same coin. They repel each other, but they are also intrinsically bound, spinning away from each other back to back in near perpetual motion. Nothing can go on forever, though. You either need more fuel for that passion or it flashes and fizzles out leaving behind the burns of lessons hard learned. I haven't found a surefire way to keep that going. What do you do when you've had nearly everything on your list, but you still wind up with nothing? What makes you stay alive?

Burning the list, I guess. Starting from scratch with little expectations so you're not surprised or disappointed if nothing happens.

I will not say it is getting any easier. I sit here and wonder what I am doing, if I'm going in the right direction, if there is any way to know when there are a multitude of possibilities and so many places to get things wrong. I say a lot of stupid things and feel immediately foolish, like I should take them back; but I can't snatch things out of the air and shove them back in my throat once they're out, just as I can't squeeze other people's necks to prevent them from saying things I don't want to hear but must. I can't change what's happened, but moving forward breeds uncertainty.

My mantra for the past year has been, "It is what it is." It doesn't really solve anything. I try very hard to believe that acceptance of specific inevitabilities is better than fighting the tide, as if that will somehow prevent these pensive mood-swings and make things dull but predictable. Still, I've believed in impossible things my whole life without really having any reason, and lots of strange things happen without provocation and despite my approach or reaction to life anyway. I'm not sure these concepts play well together or if everything is mere coincidence, and jumbled at that. Such is the non-specific opposing forces/sides of the coin debate that continues to be just out of my reach.

I'm still struggling a bit, but I know very well there are certain things you can't go back to no matter how much you miss them. It's never the same. Life waits for no one but definitely knows how to stage a surprise exit even if you're nowhere near ready for it. Best to move onward and upward, thumbing your nose at the things you can't do anything about. Whatever that means will sort itself out in the end.

You can fall in love with something every day.

Every day that something can also break your heart.

A few things from other places that have resonated with me lately--

A Softer World's take

Qwantz talks about being angry

Celebrities with messed up teeth (I heart Steve Buscemi, in case I've never mentioned that.)

Lastly, a poem I hope to understand better one day--

"Starfish"
Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

Oh, Cupid
with his arrows bud

shoots at bystanders, and when struck
they seize and tremble
with love hard won

you would too if you'd lost
that much blood

EDIT: Not going to make a new post for it, but this is fantastic.

I found the eyeglass cleaning cloth I thought I lost in a bar while out with Peter tucked away in a pocket of my purse. Ha! Got to love it when my drunk self does something nice and thoughtful instead of messing things up.

I got more work today! It's not enough to pay the bills yet, but I'm grateful for the experience! Also, I'm still working on applications that might not go anywhere! <3

I spent way too much time reading this comic the last few days: Girls with Slingshots

And I'm having a beer! Woo! Happy Friday, all!

EDIT: Oh, and I think I'm funny.

(7:39:18 PM) NerdKatie24: just got like 3 random text messages from 3 totally different people
(7:39:19 PM) NerdKatie24: wtf?
(7:39:20 PM) NerdKatie24: ahhh
(7:39:35 PM) Chicken Hippie: ummm did someone put your number in a bathroom?
(7:39:46 PM) NerdKatie24: 3 different people in 3 different cities?
(7:39:54 PM) Chicken Hippie: a lot of bathrooms?

Diesel Sweeties Believes in Love

Another day, another billion things I should be doing. Oh well. Yesterday was fairly productive. Today could be more of the same.

This comic made me go kiss my cat.

Um... I have other things to say, but I'm having trouble putting them into words. I'm now two days behind on poetry, but if I don't catch up, I'm not going to hold it against myself. I'm sure you won't mind all that much either. Lots of things are happening and not happening, and I'm trying to keep up with it all without getting too self-absorbed in the process. I always find it difficult to take care of myself without feeling that way, though. Oh well. Got to get to it and hope for the best, I guess.

Maybe, perhaps, I suppose we shall?