All-points Bulletin for the Universe:

I have had enough.

Seriously, where is the hidden camera?

I have had the worst year. THE WORST YEAR. It zigs when I zag. My words come out wrong and at inopportune times. I clasped my hands together yesterday and was horrified to realize that I lack any kind of supportive touch, for myself and for other people, that I maybe don't have the capacity for it right now.

I am in the most TERRIBLE headspace I have been in in years. I am not fun, not fun at all. I am not enjoying myself, and the effort to make the opposite be true is exhausting me. I am dredging up every possible thing I know of to make this not be true, including typing mantras on the cute little sticky note application on my macbook, and I am failing miserably.

I am, among many things, a fighter, a scrappy little girl, kind of like a chunkier Kristy Macnichol on Eight Is Enough. And what looks insane to others, i.e., the outside world, often makes perfect sense to me in my brain, such that I'm willing to go to the mat for it long past when its shelf life is expired. But right now I'm kind of slap fighting with myself and it is unattractive. It is sad and silly at the same time. I am on overdrive such that when I opened up my grades today and saw that I had earned a B for all of my troubles related to the trip to Vietnam, I couldn't even cry, although the whole experience at this point makes me want to sob, it was so awful (not the trip itself - the aftermath. Do not trust how you tell the story of your beautiful personal experiences to cold and unkind people, if you can help it.) I could not fire up an e-mail to my dean, detailing all of the ways in which I felt wronged, all of the ways in which my instructor's impressive credentials were wiped out for me on so many occasions, like when she commented on my "undies", maybe, but most of all on the last day I hopefully will ever see her, when she said, "Dental care isn't sexy. Not like facial repair surgery."

I have had both, a lot more than you ever will unless someone smart knocks your teeth out, lady. And I'm here to tell you that a doctor sewing up a tiny little face IS NOT SEXY. Especially when it's yours. Even if it's on the front page of the goddamned newspaper.

So there you have it. I am an unattractive, ravenous, morally outraged ANGRY WOMAN ON HER PERIOD. I have cramps that are currently ripping across my midsection, I am pissed off and I need a break. I need something SO GREAT to happen to me right now, and I don't think it will.

Also, I am mean and I don't want to help you (the universal you, so please whoever you are do not take this personally.)

I want the person who just found this blog by googling "if it flies, floats or fucks --- rent it, paul mccartney-heather mills divorce" to trip and fall, because you, sir or madam, are disturbed.

I want the democratic primary to end, so we can get on with the business of things and with our lives. It's proven two things: hatred of women and people of color is alive and well. And I'm afraid that the results of the general election will prove the same, with much more destructive results. May I be wrong.

I just got my financial aid refund, which means I've officially mortgaged my future, and I immediately bought a purse I've been coveting. Ergo, I have a shopping problem, and I don't care.

I do not want to meet my obligations this weekend. I want to clean my room. I want to lay in the yard, in the sun and the grass. I want to build this new site I've got on my mind and maybe even read a book that I feel like reading. I want to remember what it is that makes all of this bullshit worth it. I want to be able to talk to you if I feel like it, and not if I don't. I want a cheeseburger. I am not that hard to please, so I would like the other stuff to stop. Just to stop. I want to stop feeling disappointed and disappointing. I want to be a nice person again.

Yesterday I sent the last shred of good thoughts I had out into the universe via the United States Postal Service for someone I have cared about for a long time. Do not ask me if it was closure because if one more person asks me that I don't know what I will do but I wouldn't be the guinea pig there if I were you. I could not think it was pitiful because it was so long in coming that I had to do it, because I needed to honor something inside of me that was true and real for someone else, while I still could. I smiled a real smile after I handed the package over, because I knew it was beauty I was capable of at one point although I don't really think I ever will be again (I'll lie and tell you I do but I don't, not really, and I can't tell you the kind of fear that can instill in a full-to-bursting heart and soul.)

I had the hope of years in ink and paper in my hands and I handed it over. I gave it away to a short woman in a blue jacket, because I truly didn't want it anymore. I don't want it. I didn't care what the recipient would think of it, really, although I obviously care very much. I can't help how I feel. I did, however, want it gone, wanted it to fly away where it might finally have some positive benefit, no matter what, where it is in no way about me.

My blog friend Jen Lemen is in Rwanda right now. In an effort to neutralize this terrible, terrible feeling that I feel, what I sent to my old friend was a copy of her zine, "Let's Learn How to Help Ourselves and Others." I had read it over and over because I believe that what Jen has accomplished in a few short months is amazing, and it's the stuff like this that makes me think we can do something really great and useful with our time here. I sent it to him because he's one of the people I know who I believe to be most capable of taking creative efforts and using them to make a difference on a profound level, and I hope with all my heart that that happens. The book is meant to be passed forward, really. It's not supposed to stop with you, and I surely didn't want it to stay in these hands that are so struggling with what it is that they're meant to do, with where they're meant to go.

I do not want the lessons I've learned from what I've chosen to love and to devote my time to to stop at this bottleneck. I want the year to get better, sure, because it would make me much easier for other people to be around and make my nights a lot easier to get through, but if it can't I hope some good comes out of it. If it doesn't it makes an unsatisfying point.

Donations may be made to Jen and Odette's project at Jen's ChipIn site. Pitch in if you can, and even if you can't, certainly spread the word.
 

Comments

[Genie]

"I am an unattractive, ravenous, morally outraged ANGRY WOMAN ON HER PERIOD."

You need this as a bumper sticker ... possible a t-shirt, but let's not go crazy and make a tattoo of it.

I also need your mailing address (you can email it to me). For now, I wave my pompoms for you and tell you "Go team!" and "Fuck those guys!" and "you just call out my name, and you know wherever I am ..." ah you get the idea ...

Hugs to you. I'm glad you're writing still, even though I know it's hard to do when one's brain feel so BLECH.

[joanna]

You are such a terrific writer, Laurie. Really. Honestly. Truly. Just chill out for a bit, okay? The end of the school year wreaks havoc on everyone's mind and heart. Once you've finished chilling, go talk to your professor about your grade.