Culture and the Emotional 8-Year-Old

OK, first things first.

I did not complete my novel for NaNoWriMo. I crapped out somewhere around 28,476 words. Ah well. Other things took precedence. Things like assuring that I had registered for employee benefits for 2002, cleaning the apartment for houseguests, entertaining said houseguest, and dealing with traumas (both personal and other).

Apparently, no one else on Team Cincinnati or the Team NOLA offshoot finished either. But if we add up all our totals, we did complete the 50,000 word quota. I think we should combine our output into one big screwed up novel, and declare ourselves winners.

Of course, the fact that we even attempted this ridiculous undertaking means we're all winners, right? So let's take this as a learning experience, salvage what we can from the previous month's insanity, and resolve to get 'em next year.

Despite the fact that I am without a completed crappy novel on December 1st, I'm happy with my results. I am 28,000 words further along than I was a month ago, and many of those words do not suck. I am determined to continue with the project I have begun, despite the lack of contest, and am glad that something got me off my ass and started me writing. If it hadn't been for this, I might still be sitting on the same set of notes for the next five years. And now... I'm halfway to being finished. It may be crap, but at this point, I don't care. I'm thrilled at where I've gone so far, excited about the chapters that came out of the blue demanding attention, and cannot wait to see where I end up. (Once I get past the next 10,000 words or so. My narrator is well on her way to a Very Bad Place, and I don't look forward to revisiting those little landmarks in my psyche.)

OK. So other than me not completing my novel, what else happened this month?

My apartment is, for the most part, clean. I can have people over without much embarrassment. The kitchen sink is clogged, the toilet has broken loose from its connection to the floor (it's now officially the rodeo bathroom), and Ma Huang has finally bent the drapery rod into a point where I took down the green curtains, but otherwise it's not bad. The 8 billion boxes of clothes are gone, the stuff to give away has been removed, both televisions are hooked up and functioning. (I am now the ultimate slacker goddess because I have a TV and VCR in both my living room and bedroom. I can now watch my Saturday morning cartoons in bed if I so choose. Yee-hah!)

My sister has joined the world of the bloggers. Check her out at Mom on the Run for the trials and tribulations of being a working mom and wife in the process of questioning where the hell she is in the scheme of things. I'm so proud of her. It takes a lot to get out there and write what's going on in your head, and she's been amazingly honest in her first two posts. It just reminds me how lucky I am to have such a cool family. You go, girl. I hope that writing stuff down helps you as much as it's helped me.

(Oh, and a brief correction. My sister has decided that her name is Sydney, her husband's name is Steve, and the kids are Allison and Amanda. Oops. Shows you what I know. Guess I didn't watch enough Darren Star dramas on Fox to know the correct pseudonyms for my own family.)

Roger Mexico visited over Thanksgiving , and it wasn't long enough. He tried to spend time with everyone he knew, and four days just wasn't enough for that. I barely had time to talk to him, and he stayed with me for most of the trip. When is your next vacation, babe?

I am now officially almost done with my Christmas shopping. I love you, Amazon. I also love you, Best Buy, for putting this incredibly comfy desk chair on sale so I don't have to sit in the steno chair of death anymore.

OK, I guess that's about all that happened in my absence. Onto current affairs....

I attended my company "Holiday Gala" tonight for the first time, even though I've worked there for over two years. Why has it taken me so long to attend a company function, you ask?

Well, for one, company holiday parties are pretty much lame. The last holiday party I attended was when I was working for the customer service division of a credit card company. We had our holiday party in January. It was a formal affair at the Omni Netherland Plaza Hotel, and the highlight of my evening was catching another employee (who was a morning DJ for 97X) doing the Electric Slide. I approached him with every intention of busting his indy cred, and he retorted by mentioning he'd seen me in the balcony doing "YMCA" by the Village People. Humiliated, we both wandered off to the bar.

This year's holiday shindig was at the Museum Center, which I haven't been to in years. I talk a good game when it comes to culture, but for the most part, I only do the cultural thing when free tickets land in my lap. ('Cuz I'm poor like that. If money were no object, I'd be at every local museum, the ballet, the opera, or the symphony whenever the notion crossed my mind. I'd be the social butterfly I want you to believe I am.) So when I received my invite in the mail, I decided I should go, if only as an excuse to hit the museum circuit for free.

There was no indication how to dress on the company invitation, so I decided to wing it, which meant yet another set of Warner Bros. corduroy overalls. I looked like an eight-year-old trapped in the body of a thirty-three-year-old. Oh well.

Thankfully, I didn't run into anyone I worked with. I saw a guy who quit last week, and a bar friend who apparently works security at the museum, but I was mercifully spared from the small talk I was dreading. Instead, I grabbed a glass of merlot and headed off to the Cincinnati History Museum. Wow. I'm not a big history buff, but the displays were fascinating. The miniaturized of 1940s Cincinnati was amazing, and the timeline walk of the settling of the Ohio Valley was intriguing. (Although the eensy Native American part of me was irritated by the fact that there was a treaty signed that said the white man would not settle north of the Ohio River, and like all of those treaties, it was ignored and the Native Americans were ousted in less than fifty years.)

After the History Museum, I headed off to the Natural History Museum, in search of the displays I'd seen many times as a child. (The Natural History Museum used to be on the other side of town, and I remember going there a lot as a kid, either with my parents or through various school or Zoo programs.) Kids, it's all there. The polar bear? The big lump o' lead that you couldn't lift? The cave? The allosaur skeleton? All that and more. I spent quite a few minutes listening to a volunteer extol the virtues of the local bat population while displaying a big brown bat (which isn't all that big, by the way) that was handraised by the museum (which means it wasn't the one who got into my apartment two years ago) before heading off to the advanced level of the cave. Hell, I used to spelunk for fun when I was 11. I could easily manage the twists and turns of a manmade cave, right?

I think I was holding up the line, because I wanted to check out everything in the cave. I found myself identifying formations under my breath. ("Stalactites. Stalagmites. Helictites. Gypsum flowers. Heh. I rule.")

So who's up for a field trip to Mammoth Cave? The hard trip? C'mon kids!

My superiority was short-lived. The Ice Age exhibit quickly put me in my place, when I was unable to identify the difference between a grazer and a browser. Oops. Subtle differences in the molars of the herbivore escape me, apparently. But the glacier walk was very cool.

The dinosaur exhibit, as always, overwhelmed me. I'm sorry, that's a partial apatosaur femur? Whew.

Yep. I'm a big kid trapped in the body of an adult. I even got my picture taken with Santa.

Of course, if emotional age came into it, I doubt they would have served me so much merlot.

Progress Report: Day 2

I am happy to report that things got off to a great start, and then...

I spent Halloween at Zappagirl's, with the plan of starting at midnight and stopping when I passed out on the keyboard. We ate pizza, we drank too much coffee, we started watching Sweeney Todd in Concert but got distracted. (I was having a hard time concentrating on it anyway, not to mention the fact that I shouted "Doogie!" at the screen every time Neil Patrick Harris had a scene.)

Around 11:30 or so, Zappagirl retired for the evening, and I started to prepare to start. I organized my notes for the hundredth time, pulled out CDs to listen to while I typed, and snuck down to the kitchen for a last minute smoke. I spent the next ten minutes staring at my reflection in the kitchen window repeating the words "You can do this. You can do this." over and over, setting the timer on the coffee machine, and trying to decide how I would wear my hair for the jacket copy photo.

Deluded? Me? You betcha.

Once the clock hit midnight, I started typing at a frenzied pace, stopping briefly to change CDs. I quit at 3 am, and checked the word count. 2245. Whoo hoo!

I rule. I am unstoppable. I am invincible. I may even be bulletproof at this point, but I don't feel like testing that theory.

Even though I was still brimming over with ideas at this point, I decided it would be a good idea to stop and get a few hours of sleep. Unfortunately, my brain had other ideas. Starting this story seemed to have opened a new channel in my brain, and I lay there awake letting my head run loose. And when I did finally get to sleep, I ended up having bizarre dreams that woke me up every few hours.

Inspired by my first night's success, I went into work in a great mood. That lasted about 15 minutes. I got completely slammed, policy changes crept up that affected the way my work load, and I just ended up having a crappy day. When I finally left the office at 8 pm, all I wanted to do was drink a few beers and go to bed. (The only good things that happened yesterday: getting to see absolutely adorable Halloween pictures of my nieces, and getting carded at the convenience store when I stopped to buy the adult beverages. Honestly, I don't look my age, but I also don't look underage. Guess the clerk didn't notice the numerous grey hairs from where my dye job is growing out. But I'll take compliments where I can get them.)

I decided to compromise and allow myself a drink to unwind before I started working on installment #2. My body, however, had other plans and I woke up on the couch at 4 am with not a thing written.

Crap.

So here it is, day 2 and I'm already behind schedule. Part of me is very discouraged by this, but I'm determined to not get too worked up about this. I have all weekend to write, except for the breaks when I'm going to see Monsters Inc. with JohnnyB on Saturday and Rent with my mom on Sunday afternoon.

So I'm headed off to Zappagirl's tonight to write my brains out tonight, while she indulges in kamikaze knitting. Yeah, we're really exciting people.

If anyone is interested, Musashi is posting his installments on his website as he progresses. The first part is an absolute hoot, and I feel very envious because all I've written so far is boring exposition. Gaaah. (And Musashi and I seem to have a weird synchronicity going. We've both mentioned Kierkegaard in the first 1500 words. Odd.)

I've set a goal of 10,000 words by Monday. Hopefully I'll make it. I need to get ahead of schedule, or I'm not allowed to watch any TV next week. Who decided to schedule this thing during November sweeps?

On Your Mark, Get Set...

Happy Halloween, everyone. As you're bingeing on chocolate from your treat bag, let me tell you a very scary story....

It's down to a matter of hours.

Starting at midnight, I'm officially allowed to start writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. (And thank you for all of the supportive emails that I've received. Nice to know at least someone thinks I can pull this off!) Part of me is very excited and is ready to start right now, and part of me wants to crawl into bed and hide under the blankets until it's December.

I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be. I have a plot, I have characters, and many of the scenes have been preliminarily planned in my head. I've been carrying around a couple of books about how to write your first novel in my bag. (No, I haven't read them. Are you kidding? I've been too busy panicking.) I've written an outline on 3x5 cards, and placed them in the order that I think they should go at this point. My 7th grade English teacher would be thrilled.

But the nagging doubts are closing in. I'm afraid I won't be able to figure out where to begin and will spend three days struggling over the first sentence. I'm afraid I won't have time to work on writing with my job and day-to-day household duties. I'm afraid that my cat will not take kindly to being ignored and tear down the curtains in protest.

I'm afraid that I'll end up becoming a hermit, turning down all social plans to spend my nights slumped over the keyboard wrestling with plausible ways to get my characters from point A to point B.

I'm afraid that I'll spend the entire month living on Pop-Tarts, Hot Pockets, coffee, and Diet Coke. Oh, wait. I already do that, don't I?

I'm afraid that I'll not have enough time to take breaks to watch Buffy (next week is the musical episode... cannot... stop... laughing...) or go see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Or Monsters, Inc. Why are all the movies that I have waited for all year coming out now?

I'm afraid that Roger Mexico will arrive in town for the Thanksgiving holidays to find me a raving lunatic living in an apartment not fit for human residence, and will run away screaming from the scary woman in the bathrobe muttering about word count and denouements. I'm afraid he'll decide to spend his entire vacation sleeping on Andy's couch.

I'm afraid that I will stay up countless nights toiling over my creation, only to have my computer crash moments before the deadline.

I'm afraid that I'll finish the damn thing, think it's actually pretty good, and let other people read it. I'm afraid that they will think it's a big steaming pile of poo, but will tell me how great it is just to placate me.

But most of all, I'm afraid that I'll give up by November 5th and go drown my failures in too many pints of Bass Ale.

I'm sure that everyone that signed up for this month of insanity is having similar bouts of paranoia. I guess that's why the folks that are running the contest recommended signing up with a buddy. Things always seem easier when you've got someone who can relate to your situation, right?

At least I've got a few partners to share my frustration. Besides my friend at work, Musashi from Destroy All Monsters and Paisley in New Orleans have decided to share in the fun. Or what I'm hoping will be fun, at least. And we've all decided that this is a sure sign that we've all lost our minds. Oh well, I suppose it will keep us out of trouble for a while.

At least until December 1st. And then there'll be a whole months worth of mischief to catch up on.

The clockwatching continues, and the butterflies in my stomach have obviously been doing crystal meth.

NaNoWriMo Who in the What Now?

It's finally happened. I'm certifiably insane.

I can't think of any other way to explain what I've just decided to do, unless my daily plethora of vitamins, herbal supplements and antihistimines has combined to make me more loopy than usual.

I'm going to try to write a novel. In one month. Yeah, that's right. 50,000 words in 30 days.

It's a contest of sorts. Back in June 1999, this guy in California decided he could probably write a novel in one month if he got other people to try as well, and asked a few of his friends to attempt it with him. 21 people started the project, and 6 actually finished. The following year 140 or so signed up, and 29 of them made it to the 50,000 word count. This year over 2000 people have signed up, including me.

Granted, I have no idea what I'm going to write about. Plot? Characters? Setting? Beats me. I'll figure it out before Thursday. I hope. Right now, I'm still trying to convince myself that this is an attainable goal, and that I'm not going to sputter out around word #24,872. 50,000 words in 30 days breaks down to 1667 words a day, and if anyone can babble nonsensically for 2000 words a day, it's me. The question is whether I can babble nonsensically for 30 days solid and cobble it into a workable story.

And yeah, I know the story's gonna be crap. I don't expect to be writing the greatest work of fiction the world has seen since Ulysses. But then again, Kerouac supposedly wrote The Subterraneans in three days and nights (with the help of a lot of Benzedrine).

Personally, I think I'll just stick to the coffee, thanks.

I'm not alone in my insanity. One of my co-workers has also signed up, and she hasn't got a clue what to write about either. And I'm trying to get a couple more folks to play with me. Maybe if I get a few more people to suffer along with me, I won't feel like I've just done the dumbest thing ever by signing up for this.

It's not like I didn't have enough to do with my free time. Between work, getting the apartment cleaned and presentable for houseguests (Roger Mexico is visiting over Thanksgiving), keeping Ma Huang from tearing down the new curtains, occasionally making time for social events, and sporadically writing here I don't have a lot of open spots on my dance card. And Christmas is right around the corner. Guess I'll be doing that last minute shopping, just like I do every year.

I suppose this means I'm going to have to budget my time more efficiently. I may have to tape all of the TV shows I watch on a regular basis and save them all for December. I may have to hide my Blockbuster card from myself for a few weeks. I may actually perfect those powers of invisibility that I've been working on for the past few years.

And I will probably end up drinking all of the coffee in the Greater Cincinnati area. Yikes.

So just a forewarning. I may not be the most prolific blogger over the next month (yeah, like I am now), but I'll be popping in from time to time to keep everyone updated on my progress (or lack thereof). The entries will probably be much shorter than usual, so I'll most likely change the settings to show more than one post at a time. I'd really hate to have my readers scroll down for 5 minutes so they can read one lousy paragraph (which will probably read, "AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! I am soooo stuck. I can't do this. What kind of crack was I smoking when I signed up for this bizarre form of torture?")

I just want to see if I can actually do this. I've been rehashing the same plot for over ten years now, and at times I feel like I'm never going to accomplish anything. Maybe if I start fresh and turn off my inner editor, I can pull this off and be able to say I finished something. Maybe this small accomplishement will give me an extra boost of pride and determination, and I'll actually feel like I can get somewhere on the "real" novel. And by announcing my participation in this fiasco, I'm obligated to at least give it the old college try.

So if you see me stumbling around next month mumbling things about word count and plot points to myself, you'll know why. Kindly give me a cup of coffee and point me in the direction of my home. And if you see me on December 1 yelling, "I DID IT! I DID IT!" then buy me a beer and give me a hearty pat on the back.

And for those of you who'd like to join me in the insanity, go sign up. The deadline is Monday. C'mon. It'll be fun. Agonizing, yes. Frustrating, yes. But when it's all over, we'll be able to look back and laugh - probably from how bad our finished products are. What have you got to lose besides a month of sleep?

C'mon. I dare you.

The New Roommate

I really had no intentions of being gone for so long. A few days turned into a few weeks without me even realizing it. Somewhere I got it into my head that my next post was going to be on my computer (now that I finally moved it out of Zappagirl's hallway), but it took longer than I expected to actually get online and up and running.

Now that my computer is a few feet away from my futon, I have no excuse to not post on a regular basis. Well, except writer's block, lack of motivation, and the ever popular "I had a really bad day and I was freaking exhausted and all I wanted to do was drink some Sleepytime tea and go to bed."

But not tonight. I'll let the Sleepytime steep while I tell you about the other new addition to my household besides the computer: I have a new kitty.

Waaaaay back when, some of you may recall that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's cat had kittens. A litter of six. One black male, one black female, one grey female, and three males with seal point Siamese markings. We all set about claiming our kittens for when they were ready to leave their mother. Hsu Lin, the black female, went to a relative of Rosencrantz's. Roger Mexico took one of the seal points and named him Bowie. A former DJ friend of ours took another of the seal points, but had to give him up when he moved. (His cat has found a new home with Tammy and her family.) JohnnyB is giving serious thought to taking John the Baptist, the black male (so named because he was the first to venture into the wilderness, and he meowed at everything new he encountered; it was decided that he was testifying to the bookcase...and the computer desk...and the litter box...). And Epiphany, the grey female, will be staying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

The third seal point? He was mine.

By conventional senses, he's not a normal cat. Due to a neurological disorder (probably resulting from a large litter and a very small mother carrying them), he has difficulties with his back legs and stumbles rather than walking with a cat-like grace. He has a slight tremor when standing still. Upon first meeting him, I remarked that he looked like he'd had too much caffeine. ("What, like you?" Roger Mexico added while Bowie dozed in his lap.)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern took him to the vet to see if there was anything physically wrong with him, and he came back with a clean bill of health (aside from the unsteadiness). I immediately claimed him and named him Ma Huang (after the herbal stimulant).

But then Elvis passed away in January, I wasn't sure if I was ready to bring a new cat into my life. I was still in grieving mode for the cat that had been a part of my life for six and a half years, and a very small part of me felt responsible for his escape into the hallway that resulted in his untimely trip to the SPCA. What made me think I could do any better with another cat?

(These thoughts were during the time when I was going slightly insane, and was blaming myself for everything. But sometimes letting go is a lot harder than you think.)

But I finally decided I was ready, and paid a visit to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's, cat carrier in hand. Getting him into the carrier wasn't a problem. Listening to him yowl all the way back to my house wasn't a problem. (Funny, I'd never heard him make a sound before the night I came to pick him up.)

Getting him out of the cat carrier? Now that was a problem. I would have figured that with all his complaining, he'd be anxious to get out of the big plastic box, right?

Think again, hotshot.

I opened the door and waited for him to come out. And waited. And waited. I put food in front of the carrier. Toys. Anything I could think of to coax him into his new environment. Given the fact that he was making a big adjustment in moving from a two story house with eight other cats to an apartment with no other cats (but probably the lingering scent of the previous feline resident), I didn't want to traumatize him by forcing him out of the carrier when he wasn't ready.

After five hours of waiting, I gave up and took off the top portion of the carrier. He stepped out, sniffed about for a few seconds, and cowered in my lap.

Great. He's finally home, and he's terrified.

He eventually went to explore the bathroom, discovered the litter box, and promptly hid in it for the rest of the night. The following morning, I coaxed him out of the litter box, only to have him hide under the couch for the entire afternoon. Zappagirl came over to watch him while I went to a play with my mother, and she didn't even see him until I got home and we started moving furniture.

After about 24 hours of playing hide and seek, thought, he decided the apartment wasn't so bad after all, and decided to explore his surroundings and eat all of his toys. Yes, you read that correctly. You know those wand toys with the feathers and ribbons at the end of the string? Apparently the ribbons taste pretty yummy, because he managed to pull them off within a day. And I guess the tail on the little fake mousie tasted good too, because that was missing as well when I left for work the next day. Needless to say, all edible toys have been taken away and replaced by jingly plastic balls. Hartz is making a fortune off me.

A week later, and things are going much better. Most of my furniture is low enough for him to jump onto, he doesn't dive under the bed anymore when someone comes down the hall outside my door, and the change in diet (IAMS rather than Science Diet, because Kroger's carries the former) doesn't seem to have confused him all that much. He seems to have gotten used to the idea of being a solitary kitty, because that just means he can monopolize more of my time. The only problem I can see is that he's extremely jealous of the computer, since every second I spend on the internet is time I could be petting him.

Well, that and he's fallen asleep on my robe in the middle of my bed, and I don't want to wake him. Awwwww.

Guess we know who's boss around here, huh?

Aftermath

A week later, and I'm finally starting to get my feelings sorted out.

I've spent much of the last week alternating between following the news and walking away from the television, unable to take any more. After a while, you can't continue to watch the same tragedy over and over again, no matter what angle they show it from.

I still feel numb. As I explained to Roger Mexico the other night, it's as if someone slapped me across the face hard without warning. All I feel is this overwhelming sorrow and sadness for thousands of people I've never met.

Oh yeah. And guilt.

I feel guilty about being so strongly affected by this horrible act of terrorism. I don't live in New York. Everyone I know in New York is OK. Even the people I don't really know in New York (but read on a regular basis) are OK. So why am I still bursting into tears at least once a day? I can't even watch VH1 for fear that they'll show the Sting clip of "Fragile," recorded the night of the attacks. Or - even worse - the tribute video of the makeshift memorials and posters of the missing and the rescue units with Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" playing beneath it. That song has always choked me up, but the shot of the fireman pinning the American flag to the back of his jacket before he joined the search gets me every time.

I almost feel unjustified to be carrying around this much sorrow for something that happened miles away from me. And I feel afraid to say what I feel about the way this atrocity, because what I see around me frightens me. The unity and compassion that has resulted in the national disaster has been amazing and awe-inspiring, but some of the "patriotic" reactions of my fellow Americans makes me wonder if we have learned anything from this past week.

Over the past week there have been reports of violence against Arab-Americans. There has been a lot of over the top patriotism where people around me have pretty much proclaimed Americans to be superior to every other nation of people on the face of this planet and are ready to send in ground troops and begin air strikes without any direction.

"Bomb first, ask questions later," they say. "Let God sort 'em out. We'll show 'em what happens when you fuck with America."

Believe me, I'm all for justice being served. But there's a big difference between justice and vengeance. Charging in blindly and laying waste to whatever stands in our way is not justice. As this letter so clearly points out, this may not be the wisest course of action.

But of course, to say something like this out loud is unpatriotic. It makes me a bad American because I don't approve of bombing Afghanistan into submission, or because our president's use of the word "crusade" makes me apprehensive. It makes me a horrible person when I wonder if we, as a nation, would have reacted as the rest of the world has if it had happened in another country.

If the attack had been on the British Parliament or the Arc de Triomphe, would Congress have taken time out to sing "God Save the Queen" or "La Marseillaise?"

But then again, according to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, I am a bad person. And this is partially my fault.

These are men of God? If so, I fear for the future of our world.

But just when I've lost all hope that the entire world has gone mad, a small gesture reassures me that there may be hope for the human race yet. My resident manager left a note tacked to my apartment door this weekend that just completely blew me away, and I'd like to share it with you:

"I must admit that this is a letter that I never expected to be issuing, but feel that I must. In the wake of the past week's events, I have been stopped in the halls, in the parking lots, and at my door. The distress, the sadness, and even the fear in the eyes of my neighbors has caused a grief in my heart, and at the same time a renewed gladness of the diversity that exists here at [the apartment complex]. We are truly a community of man, a community of various cultures and religious beliefs.

"The terrorist acts that have caused such sadness throughout the world has not left this community untouched. I have been made aware that some of you have friends and/or family missing in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Our hearts and prayers go out to you. I am painfully aware that for some, bigotry is being aimed in your directionon the streets, or at your place of worshp, and to you our hearts and prayers go again out. I am also aware that all of us have in one way or another been affected by this atrocity.

"My family is very much in agreement that a great act of terror was done to the American People, but in our hearts we are firm that and even greater act of terror was done to the Human Race. We are all one people sharing a very small planet. We are diverse and we are very different. We are white, beige, brown, black, and many colors in between. We are Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and many other beliefs. We are gay and straight, and all the things in between. We are men and we are women, we are young and we are old. As different as all those things can make us, we are all HUMAN. One race, one earth, one place to live.

"Although at times we have our disputes, my family is so grateful to live in a place, as small a portion of the world as it is, that we are one. To that I want to thank my Goddess, that each and every one of you has been brought to this corner of the map. To share yourselves and your cultures.

"Again to all, I hope that you all realize that your personal safety is important to us. No bigotry of any kind will be permitted on these 5 acres. Perhaps these 5 acres can begin to make a change."

And after I sat at my kitchen table and read this (and cried...again), I began to think perhaps we, the community of the human race, will get through this. Perhaps, after we complete our own personal mourning periods, the nations of the world can work together and something good can come of this awful loss after all.

And that thought alone is enough to get me through another day.

Brothers Unaware

I apologize in advance if this post seems disjointed or meandering. I'm still having difficulty trying to get all of my ideas in order.

At 8:45 this morning, a commercial jet crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. I was unaware of the tragedy at that moment. I was stuck in traffic on my way to work, cursing the gridlock on I-75.

At 9:03, a second plane slammed into the south tower, exploding into a massive fireball next to the smouldering tower beside it. I was pulling into the parking garage at a rather unsafe speed, desperately looking for a spot close to the stairwell.

Hell of a way to start the day, I thought. Understatement of the year.

Within a minute or two on the floor of my department, I was briefed on what little was known about the tragic events in New York. Suddenly traffic and parking woes didn't seem like that big of a deal.

In between frantically trying to do my job, I sent out a panicked email to Geekman. I knew he was somewhere in New York, and I wanted to make sure that he and his loved ones were OK.

Trying to get information from the news websites proved nigh impossible, since everyone in the nation with internet access was trying to access CNN at the same time. I gave up, and turned my radio to NPR in hopes of getting information.

At this point, the rumors started. Some turned out to be true, some not. The Pentagon had suffered a similar attack (true), the Capitol building was on fire (not true), there had been another plane hijacked (true) and it was heading directly for the White House (unconfirmed).

(Even though I don't read it much anymore, I read the thread at Three Way Action. It's a pretty good example of what was going on in pretty much every single office in the world today. The disbelief, the support, the wild rumors. They had to roll the thread over in a matter of hours. Frightening.)

Zappagirl called shortly thereafter. Timmy had called her around 10:00 to make sure she was aware of the disaster, and she continued to call all morning with updates from the television. (Well, when she wasn't calling complete strangers in foreign lands.)

All throughout this, I didn't know how to feel. Disbelief, at first. Things like this don't happen in real life. This was something out of a rejected Die Hard script. Bruce Willis was going to show up any minute and kick some terrorist ass, right?

Disbelief gave way to shock, then fear, then sadness, then anger. And I didn't know which one was the right thing to feel. I'd heard from my friends, they were all safe - a great relief. But what about all of the other people?

Somewhere on the east coast was a guy sitting in his office, looking at the massive pile of work in his in-basket, thinking about how much he really didn't like his job all that much, trying to decide if he wanted to get a salad or chicken lo mein for lunch. And then suddenly, he was gone.

And there were thousands more just like this guy. Just regular working Joes and Jills, going about their daily business, trying to decide if they should take their kids to the zoo this weekend, planning for vacations and weddings and new houses and futures that disappeared in flames fed by jet fuel, in a devastating wall of soot and ash.

And miles away I sat in my office listening to news reports, thinking of those thousands of people that I would never meet. Maybe I never would have met them even if things had gone differently this morning, but their anonymity didn't affect me any less. Each one of them was someone's child, someone's mother or father, someone's husband or wife or lover or friend. Gone in an act of terror and evil, taken away by a faceless enemy that wouldn't even give us the satisfaction of knowing where to place the blame.

It made me feel very small and powerless, because in actuality there wasn't a whole lot I could do to make the atrocities being suffered in New York and Washington any better. Suddenly nowhere was safe, not even where you work. Not even the Pentagon.

The only contribution I could think to make was to give blood, which apparently was a pretty popular thought. The phone line to Hoxworth was busy, and there have been stories of four and five hour waits at New York hospitals to donate.

(I will keep calling. I will get in there and let them poke me in the arm with the Very Big Needle. I will get my thank-you juice and cookie.)

But for now, I'm stuck watching endless footage of the horrible events on CNN, and trying to deal with the fact that I now have yet another negative moment of living history to pass along to future generations. And that bothers me a lot.

I don't like the fact that most of the history I've wiitnessed is related to horrible tragedy. Yes, I can say I saw the first man walk on the moon (OK, I can say I was in the same room...I was 16 months old, so I wasn't paying much attention to the TV). But I can also say that I remember when President Reagan was shot. Or the Iran hostage crisis. Or the Oklahoma City bombing. Or the LA riots. I can remember where I was when the Challenger exploded (in my dorm room, skipping calculus). I can remember where I was when the Columbine shootings took place (at work in my parents' store). I can remember putting off going to the hospital to do my research on my patients for nursing school so I could stay at home and watch President Bush (the other one) announce the start of the Gulf War. I can remember sitting at the Warehouse on a Monday night, then in my office downtown the following day while the Cincinnati streets erupted into riots.

This isn't the kind of history I want to pass along to my sister's children. I don't want to feel this kind of anger. I don't want to live in a world capable of creating this kind of violence and fear.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who has lost someone in this horrible national tragedy, whether I knew you or not. When it comes down to it, we're all part of the same big huge family, and my heart hurts just as much for you whether I know your name and face or not.

Baby, I'm a Star

My sincere apologies for the extreme lateness of the fireworks project. It will be posted as soon as Zappagirl and I have a chance to compare notes when one or both of us isn’t busy or exhausted. If it’s any consolation, I just finished watching the replay of the TV simulcast and made notes on things I wasn’t able to write down because I was too busy staring at the sky with a blissed out smile on my face.

Soon.

But probably not in the next 24 hours, since we’re going to see the Cincinnati Pops tonight. The Smothers Brothers are appearing with them, and I’m looking forward to it. My parents introduced me to their comedy at an early age, and I was probably the only person in my fifth grade class who could recite most of Was It Something I Said? verbatim. And it’s the Pops. It’s culture. It’s an opportunity to get dressed up and go to Music Hall.

We’re not only the beautiful people, we’re cultured. Yeah, baby.

I’m also supposed to go watch the Green Bay Packers opener with my former boss at Tickets in Covington. (Tickets is the official headquarters of Packers fans in Cincinnati.) I’m not sure if I’m going. On the one hand, I used to go every weekend and had a good time. But on the other hand, the last time I went the team had a spotty season and I spent most of November threatening to burn my Brett Favre jersey in effigy. It all depends upon how I feel in the morning.

Friday night was fun. Rosencrantz and I went out with Tammy and Trish, her ex-sisters in law to karaoke night at the Silverton Cafe.

Yeah, you heard me right. Karaoke night.

At the risk of losing several coolness points, this wasn’t my first time. I went one night with a friend of mine years ago, and I spent my entire night flipping through the book looking for something to sing and claiming I wasn’t drunk enough to sing. Meanwhile, my friend was signing up for his fourth song of the night. (Interesting story about that night - I was serenaded by a local sportscaster, who stopped in after the late night news to sing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” He then attempted for the next five minutes to convince me that he’d never sung karaoke before, but couldn’t come up with an explanation why the DJ knew exactly what to play when he walked into the bar.)

I also used to go to Longworth’s with Nash on Thursday nights, and one night they got me drunk enough to sing. It only took a few pints of Bass and a couple rounds of Red Headed Sluts (Jägermeister, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice - it’s the only way you can even get me to consider drinking Jäger). Well, that and Jeff stealing the slip of paper with my selection on it (which I’d been debating turning in for a hour) and giving it to the DJ. When my name was announced, I muttered something about killing Jeff before the night was up and went onstage to mumble my way through “Common Disaster” by Cowboy Junkies. A safe bet, I figured. Margo Timmins has a lovely voice, but she only sings like five notes.

I’m not comfortable with my singing voice. Yes, I know that that’s a common thing, but my fears shouldn’t be this bad. I spent my entire high school career in the music department. Musicals, show choir, choral ensembles. I even took a solo to district competitions one year. I took music theory, can read music. I know I can carry a tune, but I still think my voice is icky.

So karaoke is a confidence exercise for me. I have to have enough faith in myself that I can select a song that I feel confident about, and then get up in front of roomful of people and prove that confidence to them as well.

So yeah, I sang. “These are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs. I’d settled on that one after I eliminated the songs that had notes that were out of my range for the evening. So no Sarah McLachlan or Dido for me. There was no Fiona Apple on the list, and no one can sing “Constant Craving” on key except k.d. lang. I briefly considered singing “Like the Weather” but decided against it when I blew the tune of the opening line three times in a row in the bathroom. (Yes, I test out songs in the bathroom to see if I can properly sing them. I am such a loser.) So “These are Days” was the final decision. I probably would have done better if I’d picked a song I’d heard recently, since I realized mid-song that I couldn’t remember how the bridge went. Ah well. There was a little voice in my head calmly repeating the words “Fake it. Fake it.” I followed that advice and improvised a melody that sounded vaguely like something Natalie Merchant might sing. Apparently it worked, since Rosencrantz said she didn’t hear me mess up. Or maybe she was just being nice. Or maybe it’s been a while since she heard the song as well.

And oh, I forgot to mention that it was a contest. There was money riding on this. This meant I was up against people who thought they were better than everyone else in the room. And no, I didn’t have any illusions of winning.

OK, just a tiny little pipe dream. Wouldn’t that have been a great ending for this story?

But it wasn’t fated to be. But I think I did OK, seeing as how it was only my second time doing karaoke, it had been 17 years since I’d sung anything solo, and I’d previously done a shot with Tammy for luck. A buttery nipple (Bailey’s Irish Creme and butterscotch schnapps). My high school choral training kicked in and screamed at me “You idiot! You’re getting ready to sing BY YOURSELF and you ordered a cream based shot? Now your throat is coated, and stop looking at those cigarettes because they aren’t going to help your situation at all.”

I reminded the choral instructor in my head that this was the Silverton Cafe, not OMEA state competitions and there were no medals for my high school letter jacket at stake here. And then I lit a cigarette and went off to find a glass of water to try to clear my throat. A compromise.

But anyways, I didn’t win. Neither did Tammy (Trish had decided not to do the contest, since she had run out of songs she knew well enough to sing.) The honors went to a girl named Jenny who belted out a dead-on cover of Alanis Morrisettte’s “ThankU.” (She hit the first high note in the chorus and Tammy and I both agreed that the contest was over and we had a winner.) But I feel like I didn’t completely humiliate myself. I was just happy that I’d been able to find the confidence to actually do it. For those of you who have never stood in front of a microphone with an audience turning their full attention to you, it’s pretty scary.

But good god, the endorphins are so worth it. As a reward for having the stones to try (OK, actually as a defense mechanism from the harrowing terror that your mind is plunged in), your body sends a wave of happy hormones coursing through your bloodstream. I got off stage and I felt so incredibly relaxed and suddenly invigorated. You’d have thought I was smoking something other than Sampoerna Extras.

We’re already talking about going back. Rosencrantz also has singing issues that she wants to conquer, and Tammy and I have decided that we are going to win one week. We’re determined. It doesn’t matter which of us it is, but Jenny must be defeated. The grand prize of $50 will be ours - at least it’ll cover our bar tab. I have a list of songs to practice for the next time.

So if any of you hear me warbling an off-key version of “Thank You” or “Walking After Midnight” in the next little while, now you know why.

Catching Up with Myopic

Happy Labor Day weekend, all. Hope everyone has big exciting plans for the three day weekend. (For those of you who have jobs that honor national holidays, that is.)

Thanks to all of you who welcomed me back with open arms after my missing-in-action period. I was worried that you'd all abandoned me, but I was wrong. Your supportive emails really mean a lot to me. I've had a rough summer, but knowing that people out there are rooting for me makes it a lot easier. Today's mail included a very sweet email from my mom, written before she and my dad left for a week in sunny Florida. I love you too, Mom. You made me cry. Thankfully only Zappagirl was here to witness it.

Oh, who am I kidding? Anyone who knows me knows I cry at the drop of a hat. I sniffle during Hallmark commercials. But it's nice to be crying for good reasons rather than bad reasons.

So, I've got some catching up to do. Where to begin?

First off, my condolences to Musashi in regards to his legal tussle with Toho Co., Ltd. Seems that they didn't findSurvivor: Monster Island as funny as the rest of us, and they sent him an email threatening a lawsuit for infringing upon their intellectual property. He took down al the links and graphics, posted his response to them and created a new t-shirt for The Destroy All Monsters Legal Defense Fund. Big business has no sense of humor, folks. The weekly updates were hilarious, and most people I knew were much more interested in whether Godzilla got booted off the island than which sniping moron made it through another week of the Outback tribal council. I suggest that the suits at Toho go out, buy a dictionary, and look up "parody." Geez.

Apparently Cafe Press has decided to offer messenger bags to all of their stores for a limited time, because suddenly everyone I know is offering screaming yellow bags with their logos emblazoned on the flap. Argh! Which to buy? My basic black bag has seen better days, and it wouldn't hurt to have a new one, but I don't know which one to buy. By the time I decide, they won't be available anymore! Maybe I'll just buy one of each. Right after I win the lottery.

Oh, wait! I get my tax check this month, don't I? Hmmm. Since I've already decided I'm going to blow the entire check on things I want, not stuff I need, I'm makeing a list of places to spend this money that the government was kind enough to send back to me. Geekware. DAM stuff. Cool stuff from Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash - I've been eying the Buddy Christ dashboard figurine for a year and a half now. And how cool is that Clerks lunch box?

Speaking of the View Askewniverse, Zappagirl and I attended a sneak preview of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back a few weeks ago. Omigod. Kevin Smith is soooo my boyfriend. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard in a theater. (Actually, I lied. It was the first time I saw South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.)

Not that my love for Kevin Smith is a big news flash or anything. After all, my pager message was Dante's lament (from Clerks) for months. I have the Jay and Silent Bob action figures, still in the original packaging. (But probably not for much longer. Toy geeks be damned, I like to actually play with my toys rather than marvel at the mint condition which the plastic packaging maintains.) And I own two copies of Dogma. One was a previously viewed copy from Blockbuster (that rack is dangerous when I've got extra money), and the other was...ok, I'll admit it. I bought a bootleg from a street vendor the week after the movie was released in theaters. One of those "sneaking the camcorder into the theater" tapes. The quality is awful, the sound is even worse, but it kept me happy until the film was available for rental.

The only thing mising from the new movie was a plot. (Sorry, Kevin. I may love you, but you aren't perfect.) But for fans of the other four movies, it's loads of fun. Inside joke after inside joke, a return of characters from every other installment of the New Jersey saga, and Morris Day and the Time! Whoo!

(Note: If you do go to see the movie, stay until the credits are over. You'll understand when you see it. And sing along to the Afroman song while you're reading who the best boy was.)

Ummm...what else? Oh yeah. After catching VH1 Storytellers and MTV Unplugged 2.0, I am happy to announce that R.E.M. and I are back on speaking terms. I still miss Bill Berry, but I've been guiltily grooving in secret to the stuff they've been doing since I broke up with them during Monster. Thanks to Roger Mexico for showing me the error of my ways.

Speaking of Roger Mexico, I am extremely jealous right now. Since he moved to Pennsylvania, he has been to see Air and Depeche Mode (with Poe) in Philly, and just got to see Coil at Convergence 7 in New York. (This was Coil's first ever performance in North America. Lucky guy.) And in the next month he is going to see Current 93, and probably has his tickets for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in October. The only concert I have attended this summer was the Kingston Trio set at Taste of Blue Ash last weekend. The show was great, but the weather was less than cooperative. It rained. Hard. Zappagirl and I looked like drowned rats, but we managed to make friends with everyone sitting around us by offering Riesen candies to the entire crowd in the bleachers. Yes, that's right. Strangers with candy.

I'm serious about this one, folks. You want to get the people at a crowded social event to be nice to you? Offer them chocolate covered caramels. They'll be your best friends for the rest of the night.

The weather looks to be much better this weekend, which is a good thing. Because, as anyone who's ever lived in Cincinnati knows, Labor Day weekend means one thing: the WEBN fireworks.

For those of you out-of-towners who are looking at your computer screen with a perplexed look right now, I'll try to explain. Back in the late 70's, WEBN decided to thank their listeners with a fireworks display over the Ohio River. It was a huge success, and is now in its 25th year. The pyrotechnics are first rate (Rozzi's Famous Fireworks are simply the best in the business), the show is usually about 30 minutes long, and the entire thing is synched up to a specially mixed soundtrack. There's been usually about a million people on the river watching in any given year. It's something that has to be witnessed firsthand at least once to be believed. (If you want to get an idea of how big a deal it is, check out the portfolio on the Rozzi's site. At least 4 of the 6 stills are from past Riverfests, as are both of the QuickTime movies.)

A lot of people are adverse to going to Riverfest because of the crowds. Getting a good spot means getting there early (some people stake out their claims early in the morning), enduring a lot of people, Port-O-Lets, overpriced soft drinks (beer booths were banned back in the 80's after someone overindulged and got himself good and dead), and sitting around doing nothing waiting for 9:05 pm to arrive. I haven't been in almost 10 years, since the year I was at a cookout in Dayton and we decided at the last second to drive down for the show rather than watch them on TV. We broke every speed law in the known universe, but managed to get there 15 minutes before the show started. (And then the batteries in our radio died, since we'd used up all the juice listening to Rob's Xymox CD.)

But despite the claustrophobia-inducing crowds and the ickiness of Porta-potties, not to mention the mind-numbing thought of listening to entirely too much Led Zepplin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Zappagirl and I will be attending the Boomsday festivities this year. (The bad pun is WEBN's, not mine. Yeah, they still refer to the month after September as "Rocktober," too.) Why, you ask? To entertain you, of course! While we are downtown guarding the small patch of land we will be securing with our blanket, we will be keeping a play-by-play record of the Riverfest goings-on. Hopefully, we'll get it posted on Monday. It'll be just like you were there...except you won't have to smell the ripeness of the crowd after sitting on Serpentine Wall for 6 hours.

So while Zappagirl is at work tomorrow moring, I have to go to Krogers and run errands. Buy bug spray, so we don't get gnawed on by the mosquitos. Stop at Tobacco Discounters and buy cloves, since we're both running low. Get some travel-friendly snacks, so we don't have to pay $3.50 for stale nachos. Find playing cards. Wash out the blanket, which stil smells a little funny after the downpour at Taste of Blue Ash. Find out where the Park and Ride stop is this year, so we don't have to deal with the street closings. Make sure there's film in the camera.

And Riesen. Can't forget the Riesen.

Voices in My Head

WELL?

well what?

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF? AS TO WHY YOU HAVEN'T BEEN POSTING? IT'S BEEN A MONTH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. YOU POST THIS ENTRY WHERE YOU SAY YOU'RE ATTEMPTING TO STAY SANE, AND THEN YOU DISAPPEAR?

i know, i know.

THAT'S JUST LIKE YOU. YOU'RE REALLY GOOD AT STARTING PROJECTS AND NOT FINISHING THEM. COLLEGE. YOUR SCRAPBOOK. YOUR NOVEL. CLEANING HOUSE. YOUR LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY AMAZES ME SOMETIMES.

gee, thanks for your support.

SO, ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR READERS WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST MONTH? IF YOU HAVE ANY READERS LEFT, THAT IS.

i have readers. geekman emailed me today, wondering when i was going to post again.

WHOOPEE. ONE READER. YOU'RE BURNING UP THE INTERNET.

my parents read. my sister reads. zappagirl and rosencrantz and paisley read me too.

FAMILY. FRIENDS. YOU KNOW, IF YOU'D ACTUALLY PUT YOUR MIND TO IT, YOU COULD HAVE LOTS MORE READERS. BUT THAT WOULD MEAN YOU'D HAVE TO PUT FORTH AN EFFORT, AND GOD FORBID YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING THAT DRASTIC. SO OUT WITH IT. WHAT'S BEEN SO DAMN IMPORTANT THAT YOU'VE NOT BEEN POSTING?

well, like i said in my last post...

ONE MONTH AGO...

...yes, one month ago. i've been going through some rough times. it's not been happy fun time in myo-land.

OH BOY, HERE WE GO AGAIN. MY LIFE SUCKS, POOR LITTLE ME, BOO HOO HOO. YOU WHINE A LOT ABOUT NOTHING.

may i continue?

OH, SO SORRY. DIDN'T MEAN TO INTERRUPT YOUR PITY PARTY.

so i've been trying to get my life back together. to figure out what's wrong in my life.

AND? WHAT, PRAY TELL, IS MAKING YOUR LIFE SO HORRIBLE?

well, you, for starters.

PARDON ME?

you. the critical voice in my head. the voice that tells me that nothing i do is good enough, that everything i do is wrong, that i'm substandard.

YOU'RE DELUDED.

no, i'm not. you've been telling me all of this for years, as far back as i can remember. you told me i was lazy, uncoordinated, stupid, ugly. you told that i've wasted all my potential, blown every chance that was given to me. you've made me feel like something is wrong with me because i'm not married with three kids and a house in the suburbs, because i've never wanted these things. you've made me feel like a failure because with my intelligence i should be doing something more substancial than an entry level corporate position. you've made me feel ashamed of myself because i have financial problems. you've made me feel worthless because i'm over thirty and still single and can count the good relationships i've had with the opposite sex on one hand. and somehow you managed to convince me that i should keep all of this to myself, because no one would really care all that much about my insecurities.

AND WHY SHOULD THEY? EVERYONE'S INSECURE, EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN PROBLEMS TO DEAL WITH. AND YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SPECIAL THAT EVERYONE SHOULD STOP WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND FIX YOUR PROBLEMS? HOW OLD ARE YOU? FIVE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AT THIS POINT?

i am.

HA. AND HOW ARE YOU GOING ABOUT THIS?

well, for one, i'm not listening to you anymore. i'm not believing what you tell me. you've been screaming at me through a bullhorn for most of my life telling me what a worthless piece of crap i am, using every failure in my life as proof to back up your arguement, and i'm personally getting tired of getting kicked in the head, so to speak. i've been concentrating on standing up for myself, treating myself better. and guess what? i'm starting to eat and sleep like a semi-normal person for the first time in years. i'm not homefree yet, but at least i have some idea of where i'm going.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. AND THIS HAS WHAT TO DO WITH WHY YOU HAVEN'T POSTED?

well, a lot of it was that i didn't want to continue to post about how crappy my life has been every day whiule all this was going on. it would be like reading the complete collection of lyrics from the Smiths. and part of it is because i've been hanging out with zappagirl doing other non-computer related stuff.

WATCHING TV, IN OTHER WORDS.

well, yes. and reading. trying to let my brain destress after mentally beating myself up for thirty or so years. and other things too. zappagirl decided i needed a project, so she bought me a latch hook kit, and i worked on that for a while.

AH, LATCH HOOK. HOW 70'S. THE ARTS & CRAFTS PROJECT FOR UNARTISTIC PEOPLE.

shut up.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?

you heard me; shut up. i've been writing a lot as well, but it's not exactly been postable stuff. it's been more like therapeutic letters that i never intend to send.

AWWW. DID SOMEONE HURT WITTLE BABY MYO'S FEELINGS?

shut up. yes, there are people in my life that have done and said things to me that really hurt me, and i've let their actions go by without a mention because i considered them my friends. actually, i take back that "never intend to send" part. there's one letter i keep rewriting over and over, and there's a pretty good chance i may actually send that one, because i don't think that person is even aware of how much he's upset me. i've been trying to be more honest about my feelings lately. the positive side is easy. although i don't think hallmark makes enough cards to convey how thankful i am that zappagirl and rosencrantz and roger mexico have been there for me during all this. i want to throw them all a party or something.

but confronting the negative...that's been a little bit tougher. part of me doesn't want to tell him how i feel because i could end up losing his friendship over it. not that he's really been much of a friend to me lately. at first i thought he was keeping his distance because he was uncomfortable with me being slightly insane, but now i'm not so sure. he's said some really hurtful things to me, and doesn't seem to have much consideration for my feelings, and i don't seem to be all that high on his list of priorities.

BECAUSE THE WORLD REVOLVES AROUND YOU, RIGHT?

no. i don't expect to be the center of his universe, but a little common courtesy would be nice. and lately i've not seen a whole helluva a lot of it from him. is it too much to ask for a little moral support from a friend? apparently he's too busy to return my phone calls. or answer my emails. but that's a whole 'nother story. i'll take this up with him later. i can't keep carrying around all this resentment. i'm going to pop a blood vessel in my head.

look, i'm tired. i want to go eat something, maybe drink a beer or two, and watch South Park. can i write some more later? about something happier, maybe? something that doesn't sound like a therapy exercise?

YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO. BUT I'M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH ON THAT WHOLE "WRITE MORE LATER" THING.

oh yeah? watch me.

Blue Period

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you out there. "Where the hell have you been? Why aren't you updating? What's going on?"

Sorry. I've been involved in a little side project: trying to stay sane.

It's no secret that I've not been a happy camper lately. I've always been a bit on the depressed side, but lately it's been worse than usual. I've mentioned it here before. People that know me outside of this site have commented on it. "What's wrong? It can't be that bad. Smile!"

If only it were that easy.

There are so many things in my life that make me happy. I have the best friends that anyone could ask for. I have a loving family. I just got back from a fabulous vacation. And yet...something feels terribly wrong, horribly off kilter.

Maybe it's just that I don't deal with stress very well. And I've had a heaping portion of it on my plate these days. My job frustrates me on a daily basis. Many of my friends have pulled up roots for greener pastures. I still occasionally have problems dealing with the loss of my cat. Monetary woes. Ailing family members. Dealing with friendships that went bad. The realization that I'm not a kid anymore, that it's time for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, that I need to start planning for my future (you know, further than the upcoming weekend). The whole being single thing. The unending battle with the bathroom scale. The list goes on and on.

And underneath it all, the lingering notion that somehow most of it is all my fault. Somewhere I made a wrong turn, zigged when I should have zagged. If I'd just done one tiny thing differently, I'd be working at my dream job, driving a nice new car, with the freedom to visit my long-distance friends whenever I wanted. I'd have money in the bank, I'd be thin and beautiful with hair that actually does what I want it to do. I'd have infinite inspiration and motivation to write, boundless energy to complete everything on my Life To Do list, an incredible man who loves me and understands me. Elvis would still be stalking air molecules in my apartment. I'd have finished my master's degree, I'd have thousands of devoted readers, and would be sitting at home working on my Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

So where did I go wrong? Did I give up on a job too soon? Did I pick the wrong major in college? Is this all because I didn't write that paper in my high school British Lit class? Did I make the wrong friends in the third grade? What did I do?

And of course sitting around mulling all of this over in my head just makes things worse, because I do start blaming myself for everything. I try to put my finger on what the problem is, and it appears that, to steal an album title from Moby, everything is wrong. I've bought myself a first-class ticket on an around-the-world guilt trip, and there don't seem to be any ticket agents who will let me get a refund.

So I sit and blame myself, which kills any motivation to do anything to fix my problems. And then I berate myself for my inactivity, my apathy, and add that to the pile of Reasons Why I Suck. And the cycle continues in a giant Mobius Strip of Self-Loathing.

And I feel hesitant to talk about this with the people that care about me because they shouldn't have to deal with my problems. They all have their hands full dealing with their own problems, and the last thing they need is whiny little me, unable to cope with normal day-to-day life. Some of them have dealt with much bigger crises in their lives and have been able to move on; my problems look downright insignificant compared to what they've overcome.

As I explained it to Roger Mexico, sometimes I feel like I'm in a car with faulty brakes going down a treacherous hill. Sometimes I have control; sometimes I'm just watching helpless and waiting for the inevitable crash.

Part of my head knows that I'm being ridiculous, that things aren't as bad as I'm making them out to be. Unfortunately it's hard to hear the Voice of Reason clearly when you're plummeting down the side of a mountain in a car you can't stop.

And online tests like this one are just a bad bad idea when I'm in this state. (According to my results, there's a very high probability that I may be schizotypal. Or I have borderline personality disorder. Or avoidant personality disorder. Or there's a good chance it's just that I'm paranoid, dependant, and obsessive-compulsive. Lovely.)

So I'm trying to dig myself out of the hole I'm stuck in. I've talked to friends about what I'm going through. I've done massive research online. I've started writing about things that upset me and frustrate me and frighten me. I've analyzed my reactions to situations and relationships in my past. I've started taking herbal supplements to boost my serotonin levels. I'm trying to do whatever I can by myself before I give up and seek shelter in professional help and prescription antidepressants.

Not that those options I'd attempting to avoid are bad. It's just that the idea of wading through referrals to satisfy my health insurance provider, trying to find a therapist I trust, and dealing with freaky side effects from drugs are scary prospects. Not to mention costly and time consuming.

I've made some progress. The 5-HTP does seem to help make things a little more manageable; I"m not as much of a big sobbing mess as I was before. I'm starting to sort a few things out. I'm starting to believe that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train. I feel like I've made a few awkward baby steps towards being normal (whatever that is), and no longer feel like I just want to curl up in a ball and die.

Well, most of the time. I'm far from hunky dory at this point, and there are still some moments when I lose all sense of the world around me, when it's just me inside my head telling myself that it's all a lost cause.

Most of the people around me have been very supportive. Others have just looked the other way, in hopes that if they ignore the situation, it will just go away. Some people have no idea where my head is at, and think it's just something I can snap my fingers and change. I wish.

The woods are a very scary place at night. I know the footpath out is around here somewhere.

I really must stop writing about this now. Focusing on the problem for too long just making it worse. Moderation is the key at this point. Let's move on, shall we?

I saw something on the internet earlier this evening that really pissed me off. It seems that Roger Mexico's former bandmate has moved on to another musical venture, which is all well and good except for the fact that her new band is performing a song that Roger Mexico wrote, and he's not getting the credit. The music is now attributed to the New Guy.

I could be overreacting here. There's a ridiculously small chance that maybe he did write new music to go with her lyrics, but for some reason I seriously doubt it. I couldn't confirm or dismiss my suspicions because I was unable to download the mp3, so I'm just assuming at this point. The best I could do was send an email to Roger Mexico alerting him to the situation. Hopefully he'll have better luck than I did with downloading the track in question.

This bothers me a lot. I'm not so naïve that I believe that no one in the world has ever stolen material from another source and passed it off as their own. But it's a completely different story when it's someone you know, when you know how much work they put into it. Theft is always a much bigger deal when it happens in your own backyard.

What amazes me is the stupidity on the part of the alleged perpetrator. Just because Roger Mexico has washed his hands of his former band and moved out of the city doesn't mean that he's completely ignorant of what's going on. He does still have friends here, you know. Friends involved in the local music scene that might possibly recognize a song he wrote. And making the song available on the new band's website is kinda stupid. Um, hi? Do the words World Wide Web mean anything to them?

But until I'm 100% sure that I'm right, I'm holding back from registering for the new band's forum to make any formal accusations. (I refuse to link to their site, since I don't want to send any extra traffic their way.) But if my assumptions prove correct, I'm half tempted to register merely so I can jump in, point my virtual finger at them and post "Thief! Thief!" in giant flashing red letters, and get the heck out of Dodge. I'm not big on the flamage thing, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Great. Now I'm depressed and angry.

But at least I updated, right? That's progress.

Crash and Burn

(Written in the Philadelphia airport)

So here I am, waiting at my gate. Time - 7:40 am. Time my flight departs - 2:25 pm. 6 hours, 45 minutes. Argh.

Not that I had much choice in the matter. Given the office politics going on in Roger Mexico's department, he had to be at work by 9:00, and I had no other way to get to the airport.

I think I maybe slept for 20 minutes last night, which is worse than not sleeping at all. It's just enough downtime to piss off my tired body.

The cats, in their nightly attempt to kill each other, knocked over a rack of CDs at 5:00 am this morning. To me, it sounded like a gun shot, and I started checking my body for holes. It was literally that loud.

So the first thing I did upon "waking" was make coffee and take my multivitamin, and now there's a war going on inside me. Body exhausted. Brain wired from the caffeine. Hands shaking from wired brain and lack of sleep. Stomach nauseous from taking multivitamin on an empty stomach and moving vehicle.

On the way to the airport, NPR did a story on improving the short term memory of air traffic controllers to avoid runway mishaps. The last thing I needed to hear while my body was fighting to stay awake was a rundown of airline disasters and near misses. Yeah, that won't make me nervous at all.

I could have done without the two traffic near misses as well. Some idiot nearly ran us off the road on the way to the airport. Roger Mexico leaned on his horn, while I just tried to get my heartrate back to normal. And then at the airport a BMW almost plowed into us in his attempt to find a place to atop in the white zone.

("The white zone is for loading and unloading...)

Great. Now I'm quoting Airplane! in my head. Hey brain, why don't you just throw the airport scene from Rain Man into the mix?

(Charlie: Ray, all airlines have crashed at one time or another, that doesn't mean that they are not safe.
Raymond: Qantas. Qantas never crashed.
Charlie: Qantas?
Raymond: Never crashed.
Charlie: Oh, that's gonna do me a lot of good because Qantas doesn't fly to Los Angeles out of Cincinnati, you have to get to Melbourne, Melbourne Australia, in order to get the plane that flies to Los Angeles!
Raymond: Yeah, Melbourne is the capital.)

Lovely.

There were some things that could have gone better on this trip. I could have successfully tracked down Crew. I could have reminded Roger Mexico to get film for his camera so I'd actually have pictures. I could have slept somewhere that wasn't the site of Kitty Smackdown. I could have done without the two days where I was almost too depressed to move, feeling generally worthless, worrying Roger Mexico to the point where he badgered me with questions about my well being.

But overall, I'd say it was a good trip. I got a bit of exercise, saw two good movies and one OK one, got some writing done, finished reading my book, ate pretty well, got to sightsee in a city I'd never been to before, had a fabulous 14 hours in NYC, and managed to untie at least a few wires in my head for a little while.

And, of course, I got to see Roger Mexico.

With the physical distance between us, our friendship has shifted to new levels yet again, and I suppose it will take me a little time to adjust to it. At times there were uncomfortable silences and nervous tensions in the air between us, mostly due to the stupid things going on in my head. I'd told him extensively about my mental state before the trip. I didn't want to worry him, but I knew if one of my moods hit it would possibly trouble him. I know I'm no fun when I'm in that state, and I was worried about being an ever-present burden that he had to put up with for the week. I became obsessive about trying not to make myself a nuisance. I did the dishes constantly. I tried not to interrupt him when he was working on music or watching TV or listening to music. I tried to will myself smaller, attempting to make myself as much of a non-presence as possible so I wouldn't interrupt his daily routine.

In essence, my moments of insanity ruined what could have been a great visit. And i didn't even have the decency to explain why I was acting so crazy. What parts of it I can explain, that is. There are some parts I haven't figured out, and some parts that I'm not ready to talk about. My mouth doesn't know how to make those words yet. And I'm not so sure if he's ready to hear some of the things going on inside my head.

I'll try to tell him as much as I can in an email sometime this week. I owe it to him.

It's really hard to be in this situation; part of me wants to tell him everything and accept the mental support he wants to give, and part of me stubbornly refuses to discuss things, too worried about what his reaction would be, preferring instead to act all weird and quiet.

What the hell is wrong with me? I can't even talk to one of my best friends without getting bitchy and defensive. I can't have a relaxing vacation like a normal person. At times, I can't bring myself to like me.

And tomorrow i go back to losing my identity in the corporate world. And all the problems I didn't pack with me on the trip are waiting at home in ambush, and I haven't got a clue where to begin to deal with them.

It was nice to pretend they didn't exist though, if only for a week. It was nice to make the real world go away for a little while.

Time check. 5 hours, 25 minutes. My, I write slow.

How long before I learn to deal with Life effectively?

(I'm doing better now. Chalk a lot of it up to the insomnia, but I was really in a self-degrading mood this morning. I'm home now, safe and sound. I feel bad for Roger Mexico that I was so moody and such a pain to deal with all week. Hopefully it didn't mess up our visit too badly. I'm not saying things are perfect right now, but I'm not in the same frame of mind as I was when I originally wrote this post. I'm not sure how to completely fix me, but I have a few ideas, and a few pages of the instrction manual are a bit clearer now. I've figured some things out, but I'm not quite sure how to apply the knowledge I've gained.

Baby steps. I won't get there tomorrow, but hopefully I'll get there eventually.)

Winging It (Part Two)

(Blogger has decided I babble too much in my posts - just like in real life! - so I had to do this post in two parts. Check out the archives for the first part of Myopic and Roger Mexico's Excellent Adventure in New York.)

We moved the car uptown, and again found a spot located near where we would be for the evening. I don't know what we did to appease the parking gods, but I'm not complaining. After walking around Midtown for a few minutes, we decided to have dinner at Ishihama, a Japanese restaurant that seemed to be reasonably priced. I was starving at this point, since I'd only had a hot dog from a street vendor all day. I darted off to the bathroom to change clothes, telling Roger Mexico to order me a Diet Coke. When I returned, my drink was waiting for me and Roger Mexico was grinning slightly to himself. "I ordered us an appetizer."

"OK. You gonna tell me what it is?" Obviously, it wasn't any of the sushi, since Roger Mexico is a vegetarian. After a few minutes of me questioning him, he finally told me.

"I ordered the hijiki. It's seaweed. I ordered cooked seaweed."

After my mind stopped retching, envisioning green slimy salt-water smelling stuff on a plate, I agreed that I would least try it. (Roger Mexico seems to have a talent for making me try food I would otherwise not consider. He's introduced me to tofu, Thai food, and every fake meat product under the sun. He even made me eat a mushroom on my pizza the other night.) And after the server brought it to the table, I hesitantly sampled it. It wasn't green or slimy. It was fabulous. The only thing that distracted me from devouring it was the arrival of the miso soup, which was quite yummy as well.

I ended up ordering the yaki udon (pan fried noodles with chicken and vegetables), which was equally good. I decided to forgo the chopsticks, though. My chopstick dexterity leaves something to be desired, and at one point I ended up dropping a bite of hijiki into my soup. Roger Mexico had never braved chopsticks, so I passed on my somewhat shoddy knowledge until the waitress brought the Ugly Americans utensils they could handle. I ended up only being able to finish half of my meal, and left the restaurant with a happy little "I ♥ NY" bag full of Japanese noodles for the next day's lunch.

After dinner, we walked up to Times Square (which must be viewed at night to get the proper effect), and after staring at the pretty lights murmuring "Wow" like a couple of slack-jawed yokels, we took the subway back down to SoHo for the Add N to (X) show at the Knitting Factory.

I'll admit, I wasn't too thrilled about the show going in. I'd heard of the band before, and I'd allegedly listened to one of their albums at Roger Mexico's apartment months ago, but I couldn't recall anything about them. (To be honest, most of the music I listen to at Roger Mexico's is stuff I've never heard. Listening to music with him is like Electronic Music 101. Before the show started, I was corrected on my pronunciation of both "Moog" and "Theramin." I never said I knew everything. "That's why I keep you around," I remarked.) To his credit, the band rocked. Not that I'm going to run out and buy the entire Add N to (X) catalog, but I was pleasantly surprised. The only letdown was I missed the encore of Iggy Pop's "I Wanna Be Your Dog" because I was in search of the bathroom.

We hopped the subway back to Downtime, which as far as I can tell houses music performance space during the day. Some of the floors had been converted into an industrial/goth club (Albion/Batcave, from the two so-named clubs that were no longer in existence). Three floors, three dance floors with different formats. Whoo hoo! The main dance floor was a bit too techno-y for our tastes (and the dancers onstage were laughably bad. Ooh, look! Goth vogueing!) The second room seemed to be a living shrine to Andrew Eldritch, since every song was either by Sisters of Mercy or a band that sounded just like them. Don't get me wrong. I like that music, but in small doses. I'm all about the variety thing.

So was Roger Mexico, apparently. He suggested we go check out the "Not Sisters of Mercy Room." Good choice. The music in the third room varied from Frontline Assembly to 80's alternative (Alphaville! Adam Ant!) to Lords of Acid, so we decided to stay there. I lost him on the dance floor during a Depeche Mode song, at which point I realized there were about 10 tall guys with little or no hair on the dance floor, all wearing black shirts. And they all danced like Roger Mexico. I gave up and started dancing on my own. I would have been out there all night if it had been up to me, but Roger Mexico yanked me off the dance floor at 2:15 am. The day had finally caught up with him, and we still had a long drive ahead of us.

The radio selections were equally as bad on the way home, so we just gave up and turned the damn thing off. We were both excited about the great day we'd had, but exhaustion was sitting in the back seat, poking us in the back of our heads. "Hey, at least I'm not hallucinating yet," Roger Mexico remarked, and launched into a story of a practically non-stop drive from Pittsburgh to Denver he made when he was 16 where the lines on the road criss-crossed in front of him. Great. How reassuring. Thanks, dude.

(Actually I can't say anything, since I used to hallucinate police cars and hitchhikers on a regular basis when I drove home exhausted from 1470 West in Dayton.)

We had to pay a toll to get back into Pennsylvania, and I decided that all of the tolls we'd been paying were actually fees to get out of New Jersey. We'd never had to pay to get in, but we paid tolls to enter the Holland Tunnel and to get home. Coincidence? I think not.

We'd considered going back into the city the next day, but we ended up sleeping late. After sending off an apologetic email to Crew (who'd tried his best to track us down, but was unable to reach us since we'd ditched the scary hotel and I didn't have my cel), we went to WalMart to buy a replacement taillight bulb for Roger Mexico's car, and stopped off for hot fudge sundaes at the local ice cream place. Big exciting times, people.

And now thanks to Blogger eating my post a billion times (thank you, copy function, for saving what I wrote) and trying to watch The Mists of Avalon on TNT, it's nearly 2:00 am, and the alarm is set to go off at 5:30. My plane isn't scheduled to depart until 2:25 pm, but Roger Mexico has to take me back to Philly and still manage to be at work by 9:00 am. I feel bad that he has to get up early and drive me so far, but unfortunately there's no other option.

I don't want to sleep. It means my vacation is over.

It'll be good to get home, though. I miss all my friends back in Cincinnati. (And their cats.) I miss my car. I miss LaRosa's pizza. And in 16 hours or so, I'll be on my way to Zappagirl's for coffee and Bring It On therapy.

Guess I should attempt to get a few hours of sleep. After I repack my luggage. Argh.

Aw, crap. Now TNT is showing Excalibur. I'm never going to get to sleep. Good thing there's still some coffee left.

Winging It (Part One)

So you want to hear about the big trip to New York? Well, let's see. Where to begin....

The original plan was to get up at 8 am so we could be on the road by 9. Yeah, right. Neither Roger Mexico nor I are morning people, so I had a feeling that our morning would start a little later than that.

I was awakened by the words, "Go wake her up, Bowie!" followed by a cat being thrown on my stomach. Oh yeah, that beats a beeping alarm.

Before we left, I checked my email to see if Crew had replied to arrange a meeting while I was slumming in his city. No email. I sent him a quick message letting him know that we were running late, and if he could get back to me within the hour, we could still pull off the tentative brunch plans on Sunday.

No such luck.

After stopping at a somewhat dubious yard sale on the way to the expressway (Roger Mexico is in the market for a bike, since there's an upcoming music festival taking place on his street, making driving to work nigh impossible), we hit the road and attempted to find a decent radio station to listen to on the drive. The best we could do was a station playing Hootie and the Blowfish. (Which led to both of us reluctantly admitting that we actually owned copies of Cracked Rear View. Our alternative cred went out the window for a few minutes.) Other than that, the drive wasn't too bad. We hit the Holland Tunnel about an hour after leaving the apartment (minus the yard sale stop).

There was a $6.00 toll to actually enter the Holland Tunnel. They charge you to go to New York, folks.

After a few wrong turns (we ended up having to follow a detour into Brooklyn), we found our way to NoHo, where our hotel was located. Remarkably, we managed to find a metered parking spot about a block away. After feeding the meter all of the quarters in our pockets, we set out to explore. We had vague plans at best, and decided we'd just wing it without a map. We walked past CBGB's, which Roger Mexico would have completely missed if I hadn't said anything. (In his defense, it's not like there's big marquees or anything. It's a pretty unassuming little place; I almost missed it.)

As we were walking along, Roger Mexico reminded me that if I wanted to stop anywhere, I just had to let him know. "I'm fine," I replied. "At this point I don't care if we go anywhere or do anything. I'm just jazzed that we're in New York."

Roger Mexico wanted to go CD shopping, and both of the stores he wanted to check out were in the neighborhood. We stopped at the first one, Bleeker Bob's, and didn't find anything he was looking for, so we continued on. After stopping in Washington Square Park to watch a street performer (who got in trouble because he was amplifying his show), his friend from the Evil Cruise Line joined us. We had to drop off another Evil Cruise Line employee before we could do anything else, so we headed over to the piers.

All I can say is I'm glad I didn't have to do any driving. Intimidating is a word that comes to mind. That word could also be applied to the ship that Evil Cruise Line employee was being dropped off at. I knew cruise ships were huge and all, but my first sighting of one up close was overwhelming. Of course, I was the only one in the car who thought this, since I was the only one who hadn't spent several months working on one. To them, it was no big deal.

On the way back to the Village, Roger Mexico looked up from the copy of The Village Voice that he was looking through. "Hey, Add N to (X) is playing tonight at the Knitting Factory! Do you want to go?" He looked like a five-year-old who'd brought home a stray puppy. I had thought we were going to hit a dance club, but I agreed. At the very least, I could say I saw a show at the Knitting Factory, which was pretty cool in my book.

We found a place to park (with no meter!), and continued with the CD shopping. Roger Mexico did manage to find two albums that he was looking for at Other Music (the red-headed stepchild of Tower Records), and set off to find a cafe where we could all have coffee and chit-chat. Well, the boys chit-chatted. They were busy talking shop (keyboard programming) and reminiscing about last summer on the Evil Cruise Line. I sipped at my coffee (which was disappointingly lukewarm), and spent my time pretending to know what they were talking about. Much nodding and smiling was involved.

Roger Mexico's friend spent a few months in India, and he and a friend are putting together a documentary on the festival they took part in. We stopped by the friend's studio and got a look at a few of the rough cuts before we walked back to the car to check into the hotel.

We had already been warned that the hotel was equipped with a community bathroom for the entire hall to use, but it was considerably cheaper than any other lodging we'd found. We weren't expecting the Hilton. What we weren't expecting was a glorified closet with a bed and walls that didn't reach the ceiling or floor. Or the folks hanging in the lobby that looked like they were answering an extras call for the part of "Derelict #1" on NYPD Blue. Thankfully, the desk clerk let us take a look at the "room" before we checked in. I get the feeling he'd done this before. We respectfully cancelled our reservation and returned to the car to consider our options. We could spend the extra bucks and get a reasonable motel in New Jersey, but that would cut into our fun money; we could drive back to PA and change clothes there for the evening's festivities, but that would be an awful lot of driving for a few hours of night life; or we could change clothes in the car and continue on with our plans. Yeah, that's the ticket. (Actually, I opted for changing clothes in the bathroom of whatever restaurant we selected for dinner. I'm not above changing clothes in the car, but the outfit I'd picked out would have involved me flashing the entire neighborhood. No thanks.)

With this change in plans, we would have enough money to go to the show at the Knitting Factory and the dance club. For the thousandth time that day, "We'll wing it" became our motto.

(Blogger seems to be telling me that I've written too much, so I'll be following this with another post continuing my oh-so-exciting escapades in the Big Apple. Hang tight. There's more to this story.)

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...

Today has not gone as planned. This is partially a good thing, and partially a bad thing.

The original plan for the day was to go to work with Roger Mexico this afternoon, to get a look-see at what he does all day. After that we were supposed to attend a department cookout, where I would meet more of his co-workers.

Roger Mexico called this morning to inform me that he was going to have to work through his lunch and he wouldn't be able to pick me up for the sightseeing and the cookout. He was having an extremely bad day, and was going to be spending the majority of the afternoon running cable in the Arts Center.

I was a little bummed, but decided to spend the day having Girl Time and just relaxing. I'd take a long shower, let my hair dry naturally instead of subjecting my follicles to the hair dryer, paint my toenails. (I've just discovered the joys of painting my toenails. It always seemed like such a frivolous and girly thing to do, but then I realized that was the point and now I'm hooked. I'm so glad I remembered to pack nail polish.)

And so I spent the entire afternoon doing nothing of any consequences. I took said shower, painted my nails blue, made a baked potato and herbal iced tea for lunch, hit the internet, listened to the Beastie Boys, watched some guilty pleasure TV (The PowerPuff Girls, Animaniacs, the end of Adventures in Babysitting, Emergency Vets - I love this show except when they can't save an animal; then I have to change the channel), read a little Harry Potter (by the way...Zappagirl? If you're looking for your copy of Sorcerers' Stone...I forgot to tell you I borrowed it.). Later I made some popcorn and a pot of Mocha Java and watched the end of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. I didn't guilt myself that I should be out walking or touring historical sites or doing anything productive. It was absolutely relaxing and wonderful.

(Except for the fact that the 3-week old English mastiff puppy on Emergency Vets had to be euthanized. I cried. She was so cute.)

Roger Mexico was worried that the change in plans would ruin my day. I tried to make him understand that this is exactly what I needed on my vacation; a chance to unwind. Not that I wouldn't have minded spending the day at the university with him, but this wasn't a bad contingency plan.

Roger Mexico called later in the afternoon with yet another change in plans; he had to go out after work with some departmental bigwigs, and even though it was a semi-social meeting, it would still be official businesslike and it would be best if he went sans guest. Again I explained to him that it wasn't a big deal, and we could go get a beer after he got back. Plans weren't cancelled; they were just postponed a little.

After reassuring him, "Yes, it's alright. No, I'm not upset. Yes, I'm having a good vacation day," about a billion times, I went off to clean up the kitchen.

I feel awful for him. I'm having one of the best weeks of my life, and Life dealt him a junk hand of a day. It's obviously frustrating him, and he's upset and worried and there's not a damn thing I can do to help. He's always been there for me when I've had these kinds of days, and I'm trying to return the favor.

It's difficult to accept that the best I can do for him is lend a compassionate and caring ear while he vents. I want to do more for him, something nice to make his day better, but given the fact that they roll up the streets in his neighborhood at 5 pm and I have no transportation, my choices are kinda limited. If I had more money, I'd run across the street and buy him a good bottle of merlot from the wine shop.

And yes, I know that alcohol is no solution to a problem, but sometimes dulling the pain of day-to-day living by getting tipsy is not a bad thing. (See, if he was a girl, I'd recommend a bottle of red wine and a viewing of Bring It On. It's worked for me recently.)

We've always said that only one of us was allowed to go crazy or get depressed at a time. Guess my ride on the emotional rollercoaster is over for the moment, and he's waiting in the turnstiles for my seat.

And watching from the observation deck on this ride is no fun.

Oh well. We'll go get a couple of beers tonight at the pub across the street, and we'll talk out whatever he feels the need to share. And tomorrow morning we leave for New York City, so we'll hopefully have a good weekend. My vacation is almost over, and we're going to have fun if it kills me. This good time's got to last us a while.

So, until he gets back, I'm going back to Girl Time. I think there's some fettucini Alfredo in the freezer, and I bet Jeopardy! is on somewhere.