LaurieWrites

Nobody's Business

Sunday writing in bed, a candle burning and it's raining really, really hard. It's kind of perfect, actually.

I have so much stuff to do. Stuff stuff stuff. Tomorrow's a big "things are due" day and although I'm kind of worried about all of that - mostly because my profiles are in shambles and I don't have the sources I need or the quotes I need or the interviews I need - I really have to grasp on to the big picture here, and realize that it always gets done, it's always over, there's always something else that comes along right after and in the in-betweens there are many, many moments to breathe and eat and sing. I find myself singing a lot lately, which is nice. I'd kind of stopped.

I sometimes wish I'd been natured or nurtured to be a calmer person, although if I lost the buzz and the adrenaline who knows if I'd then be some boring lame person who talked about floor tiles like other people should care. I've been in a mood that makes sense given the dates, because unfortunately I am a girl, plus when I get this overloaded with work I tend to gravitate towards the white noise enhancers in my brain. It's an unfortunate pattern. I was driving to my friend's house yesterday and realized that damn, I was in a foul mood. And unlike other periods in my life where the foul mood was so much the state of being that it was the rule, it struck me as an unusual and annoying exception. So of course I chalked it up to chemistry and moved along.

It has to be chemistry when I vacillate every other second on the same topic, when I get the urge to tell uncomfortable truths and reopen conversations that are long dead with people who no longer care...when I start second, third and fourth-guessing decisions I made in all grown-up solidity and good sense and self-preservation. When Pop-Tarts seem like a reasonable all day sort of food. When I want to show John Kerry (God, remember him?) how real flip-flopping is done and do things that are, quite frankly, self-destructive. When I long for the grand gesture that is not to be confused with the creepy, weird gesture, please. When I start thinking is this WHAT IT ALL MEANS? Is this ALL IT IS?

Chemistry. Chemistry makes me stupid and steers me from my path. Chemistry tells me to take risks, to ignore propriety and sense and the art of the long view. Chemistry also might make things more expedient sometimes, but I don't really need my own reality show. So I stopped myself, literally, got hold of myself and was like hey little girl, you need to just stop it right now. You need to be smart and you need to be quiet and you need to just SIMMER DOWN.

My grandmother used to yell that at my cousins and me when we were little and we'd act up, either separately or together. I always thought the image of myself as a pan of soup going from boiling to flat was amusing...still do, actually.

So I made a French press of coffee and put myself to bed to work (alone, sorry!), which is the best way I know to simmer down these days (and isn't THAT a sad departure from experiences past? This was not supposed to depress me!) I talked to my funny and refreshingly straightforward friend Eli, who always makes me laugh and tells the truth. And although I haven't been reading blogs with any consistency since school began to slowly consume my brain, I stumbled across Sarah Brown's post about regrets, which was timely. I like her take on the subject. 

This sounds like a downer, but it’s actually kind of fun. There are the obvious ones that stand out at first, but it’s the careful combing of your life’s back stairs that makes this interesting. The main rule is your regret can’t be an undoing. Think of the Mark Twain quote, “Twenty years from now, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do, rather than the things you did.” If you ignore this rule, this game quickly deteriorates into My Life’s Bad Romantic Decisions, or Why Did I Ever Say/Do/Ingest That, which I suppose are both valid games, but not nearly as fun. I mean, sure, there are two or three people in my life that I honestly wish I’d never met, but you have to respect the Back to the Future rules, and accept that you dated this guy or were friends with that girl, and you are where and why and how and who you are now in part because of that. It’s not about beating yourself up; it’s more of an inventory of the ships that you allowed to set sail.

• Not having the guts to tell people to back off when they've gotten in my personal or psychic space because I'm afraid of confrontation or hurting feelings.
• Not buying a house in Dayton when I totally could have.
• Not performing in more plays in high school or keeping it up in college.
• Not living on campus
• Not having the nerve to ask the difficult questions because I was afraid it would end when it was over anyway. It took so long to catch up, and the feelings of stupidity, how they linger.
• Leaving the hospital and vacuuming the carpet.
• Uttering dismissive words in the Santa Fe that night instead of taking the risk to say how I really felt.
• Any time I've held back from singing, dancing or otherwise expressing myself because I felt stupid.
• Not seeing Duran Duran on the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour.
• Ripping up the cards I haven't sent.
• Sending that e-mail.
• And that other e-mail.
• But not that one.
• Not seeing my grandmother more.
• Training myself to believe that my feelings don't matter.
• Being mean to Shannon Mitchell in high school.
• Not articulating exactly what I wanted because I thought it was clear.
• Not playing sports/being more active as a child and in high school.
• Sitting on the couch & eating ice cream in some kind of delusional fog the year after I came home from Ohio and gaining the weight back that I worked my ass off to lose.
• Any time I stopped an exercise program.
• Not going for the second interview at the other store.
• Not learning how to play an instrument or write a song in spite of several flailing attempts.
• Not getting my finances in order in my 20s and early 30s.
• Not seeing more of the world (working on it.)
• Letting that mortgage broker scare me to death.
• Any time I whined.
• Any time I yelled. Yelling isn't necessary. I don't really yell anymore.
• Any time I complained about my dog wanting to play with his ball. Or have food I was eating. Or had an accident. Love what you love, people. Make space for it and nurture it and know that if it's that important in your life - if it brings you happiness and makes time for you - even if it's an animal that depends on you for food and therefore has an ulterior motive - it's precious.

And I guess that's it, the major regret you - or I, at least - want to avoid - not loving what you love while you have it to love (even if it's just you or your very life itself,) forgiving it its imperfections, living large and loud in ways that make sense for you and don't bum other people out. Because it's all wispy here, ephemeral and strange and not at all about what we think it is most of the time. It's real easy for me to get caught up in the person-made constructs, in the day to day stress and logistics and ImustIhaveto kind of things. It's so dumb to do that, it's so not what the real spirit and joy of life is about, because honestly, a lot of it doesn't matter. And I'm not talking about flaking out, not at all, or saying, "OOH, I don't have to pay for my car anymore because that's not about the spirit and joy of life! And I'm just going to sit on my ass in a field of flowers and pick them and hand them out to people in the airport!" No. I'm just talking about staying mindful of the big picture, of the things that really matter, and not getting caught up in the stupid minutiae such that it jams up your brain for the important stuff. I've been there a bit lately and it's showing.

If there's a theme for my list of regrets, it's fear and laziness, whether it's physical or emotional, and fear especially sucks. Fear-based thinking and acting sucks, and when it's all - whatever it all is - said and done, it won't have done anyone any bit of good. It'll just have held things back, and I can swear to this, it doesn't love you back either in any way, shape or useful form. And if you have any sense, yo, you really only want things in your heart and head that love you back, I promise. 

My parents leave town, my dog has a seizure. And also it's a weekend where I have a load of work to do, and errands to run for a big old trip. This seems to be the theme of 2008 so far. It sucks.

These are things I have thought since this happened at noon yesterday, Eastern Standard Time, AFTER he began thrashing around in the terrifying way that this BASTARD DISEASE causes him to do, and I flew to the kitchen, found the valium syringes, and gave him the injection with the CAP still on the syringe. You know where this injection goes, right?  Let's just say you could consider it a mini-colonic. Or as a man at the vet said to Punkin, not to me, "What's she trying to do to you?"

THANKS, thanks invasive stranger man. Like he's not already pissed off enough and like I'm not already cringing with guilt as he squats endlessly around the yard because now I've probably wrecked his intestinal tract, even though he passed the stupid cap.

Anyway, the thoughts:

• I am a crappy dog person with no business having an animal in my charge.
• THIS IS NOT FAIR. LIFE IS NOT FAIR. LIFE IS HORRIBLE.
• My dog hates me and loves my parents and therefore goes into neurologically-altering grief when they leave, therefore triggering the seizures.
• This in SPITE OF the fact that I spend countless hours throwing the ball, the "doughnut" made of tennis-ball material, the jack, etc. etc. And also maintaining a regular schedule of food and medicine, seriously.
• This in spite of the fact that I (MEMEME!) brought him home from that Ohio kitchen, and didn't leave him there for some BAD PERSON to pick him up and deprive him of this life of luxury. Hello!
• Why am I not at the beach instead? If I were always at the beach where I belong, and THEY were here using their magic seizure-prevention superpowers, this would not be happening.
• My dog does not hate me. God hates me. The universe hates me.
• We're stopping at CheeburgerCheeburger on the way back from picking up back-up valium syringes at the vet. (um, one for him, one for me?) We're stopping there because I deserve a cheeseburger and a milkshake for my troubles, dammit. And beyond "deserve?" Want.
• I wouldn't take his valium, no matter how much of an emotional wreck in need of relaxation this experience makes me. This is proof of how much I love my dog. I wouldn't even THINK of becoming an addict and stealing his valium, because he might NEED IT.
• I'm so well-adjusted.
• Yes, the universe hates me, and is making me pay for every vile, unpleasant, rude and unfriendly (let's not even get into UNCHRISTIAN) thing I've ever done.
• Clearly this is all about me.
• Also I'm stupid, because God and the universe have better things to do. Like define "superdelegate" and be in the room supporting the enthusiastically-caucusing people of Wyoming.

I was in no way promising rationality or maturity in those thoughts, by the way.

This is me, the last time this happened in early February, when I was once again not at the beach but spent four days handling the aftermath of a (thank you, inattentive God and universe) much-worse episode that I don't think I could have handled again, for real. I share it because if I took a picture of myself right now (up inexplicably early for springing forward day - thanks, adrenaline.) it would be exponentially more frightening and even I have some shred of pride left.

I took this on Saturday night, three days after it happened. It's amazing what happens when you really don't go far from the couch for a few days. Frightening. I call it "Slovenly - a self-portrait."

Pretty, right?!? Wrong, but true, for good or for ill.

Altogether I think I handled this one better. I'd read a ton last time on message boards and veterinary websites (three days recovery time, remember.) about how your reaction to these - in people or animals - can have an impact on recovery time. So instead of trying to pry his mouth open in denial that his jaw is locked or going "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH PLEASE STOP," I was as quiet as I could be, ran up to get the valium, shot it, and then just sat next to him and petted him and kept him from bumping into stuff until he stopped. And if I had to say what kind of impact it had, I'd have to say I have no idea. It was a little better for my blood pressure, anyway, which I guess has its benefits.

I'm just tired of them. I'm tired of them for him and tired of them for me. Yes, me. Sorry. This didn't happen for years, and he has such a lovely little life, otherwise. Just...no fair.

Lists ahoy

I had put this whole post together, painstakingly I tell you - mostly photos summarizing February, for Leap Day because why wouldn't I post on Leap Day given that the next time it rolls around I could be in a world without blogs, having forever missed the opportunity to post on February 20-effing-9th. And after all this painstakingness, FUCKING (sorry. Only word that fits.) Firefox shut down and ate it. Firefox was all, "Suck it, mama. You're mama's so ugly in your town it's not Halloween, it's YourMamaWeen."

I heard that last week and I laughed for minutes. It's so dumb and yet so enjoyable.

Anyway, if I'd had tears in me at that point of the post explosion I would have cried. I did not, however.

I was blowing off all manner of academic and paid and "paid in clips" assignments to write the post, because February was such an incredibly hectic and photo-filled month in which I posted very little of consequence, as it turned out, and I wanted the pictures to tell the story, at least for my sake. I might try it again but it's a little late at this point.

So here I am. It's March 3. I leave for VIETNAM IN TEN DAYS, oh saints preserve us oh my LORD. I am so not even ready, but given that I've not been ready for even a trip out the door until it actually happens for my whole entire life, this really isn't that much of a newsflash. As much as it makes my life a daring adventure or nothing (or in my case a severely disturbed MadLib) it will not do on this trip. It's one thing when I'm heading across the county and forget my phone or my phone CHARGER or the particular battery for the particular camera that I need for whatever I'm headed out to do (this happens to me, without fail, because I am an idiot stick attention deficit moron. But otherwise I love me.) End up in Vietnam without my right camera battery or charger? I'd lay down in a rice paddy - they grow in the city proper in Hanoi, amazingly enough - and weep.

My story partner is a 19 year old guy who walked across Taiwan last summer and made a documentary about it, probably at the same time that I was prone on the beach sucking down Coronas and taking pictures of my toes. He's got the right amount of youthful idealism to balance me out, and we're getting along fine. Although when he suggested camping, as in "hey it'd be cool to camp on the road to HaLong Bay when we're out covering our story," I got a little peaked. I do not camp at home, just because I never have. I haven't ever. My family didn't and I never really hung out with people who did. I generally enjoy the experience of sleeping indoors, I have to say. I sleep out on the deck at the beach in the summer because the sound of waves, to me, is magic, but then I'm on a deck chair and not the ground.

When Jeff suggested it I was like, hmm. Camping. Vietnamese camping, in unknown territory. Um, okay. I guess if you're going to start, it doesn't really matter where, and now that I'm ripping open the super value meal of my life with my teeth I may as well take it to the wall. I was telling a friend this and she said, "'Camp' is a four-letter word in my world, sister." I guess we'll see how it all plays out.

We're assigned to the industrial corridor story, which will indeed have us heading out to Halong Bay, a beautiful place that's on the Gulf of Tonkin between Vietnam and China. I'll be able to pretend to see CHINA, people, and it'll actually be a body of water away. How cool is that? The bay is a United Nations World Heritage site that was apparently in the running when they redrafted the wonders of the world a couple of years back, although apparently it didn't win.

Anyway, the highway winds out of Hanoi to Halong Bay about three hours east, and our story covers what the industrial growth along this corridor is doing to the area, including the environment. We're going to drive out there the day or so after we get to Vietnam, and it turns out that you can spend the night on junks in the bay. Junks, like in the Little River Band song! And like in Lancelot Link!

My cultural immersion should go swimmingly. Please understand me when I say that I have no idea where I'm going. I have no earthly comprehension of it and I love that.

Posting may be weird again this month, but as I get myself together for this trip I'm going to try to get in the game with NaBloPoMo, mostly because I love the Lists theme for March and my brain could use a daily organization exercise. I've been making a lot of weird lists about music lately, so maybe I'll go with a theme within a theme? I don't know.

Oh, and about the design. Yeah. I had the new black one up, and I kind of liked it, until I talked to my friend Annett who actually reads this page on a regular basis and tells me nice and completely unwarranted things about the way I do go on about my LIFE and mySELF and blahblahblah. Annett is one of the greatest people I know and not just for that reason, I swear. It's because I swear I always laugh with her - as in always always. We make each other laugh. A lot of people do not make me laugh, at least not for the right reasons. When they do I follow them around until they get used to me and agree to be my friend. That's the deal here. So when I called Annett said, "Oh, hi, it's my GOTH FRIEND! I was going to call you and see what was wrong." She kids, she kids, but then when I said that I liked the embossed leaves at the top, she said, "Ghosts! They looked like ghosts!"

So you know, I went all perky with the butterflies, which I can stand because of those moody swirly things and a shade of warm red that makes me really happy. So there you go. Enjoy the warm fuzzy while it lasts. Soon I'll be back to my usual anger with a side of Diet Coke that makes me such a joy to be around.

I'm such a liar. ;)   

Inoculated

I've had my shots.

Apparently there are some health risks inherent in traveling to parts of the world you've never been to before. Yesterday I had to spend $150 on vaccinations for the (rapidly approaching, shoot me please I don't have time to travel 10,000 miles twice and still get all my shit done, help me oh God why am I doing this? Oh, right.) trip to Vietnam in March. I've already spent a zillion dollars on a new camera (Nikon D80, sorry there's been no birth announcement of THAT baby yet...I am such a blog slacker, but honestly I'm still making friends with it), and an expedited passport, and I still have to deal with the not-small issue of whether or not I'm going to buy a smaller laptop because taking my Macbook seems really, really stupid in addition to all the other very heavy stuff I'll be carrying.

Did I mention how frail I am? And also that said center of my universe Macbook is currently not working? That yesterday I plugged it in and it was all, "Haha, you expect me to work? Because you have no time for me not to? And that you might care that every ounce of information you need to conduct your life is inside this dark, hellish screen? HA! Way to take me for granted, stupid human."

If my cute little Apple Store genius man does not tell me in approximately one hour and 45 minutes that this is a result of a suddenly-faulty charger, please brace yourself world for the screams.

Seriously, I cannot freak, all the while I am currently freaking. But this was not supposed to be about that. Shots. Yes.

I went to the campus health center yesterday which houses an International Travel Clinic, all capitalized and shit, because we are a major four-year research institution. It was actually a fairly good experience as those go that involve getting stuck with needles. I waded through the sea of apparently rapidly expiring college students littering the waiting room, flu germs swimming in the air, to go to the second floor and meet with a real-live doctor. She told me I needed a Hepatitis A shot, a combo cocktail of "Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis", and a series of typhoid vaccine pills. Pertussis is Whooping Cough, which apparently is making a comeback in adults who "haven't had boosters", in case you were fresh out of things to worry about this fine winter's day.

Me (because I must torture the people with my pressing need to know): What is WHOOPING cough?
Doctor: Well, it's an upper respiratory condition that results in a cough with a WHOOPING sound.
Evil voice inside my head: Well, YEAH.
Me (see above): I'm just not sure what WHOOPING sounds like. I remember my grandmother talking about it but no one I know has ever had it.
Doctor: I'm not sure I've heard it, because I'm an internist. The pediatrician here has seen cases. 
Me: Probably best to avoid it, regardless.

She also said that I need to acquire insect repellent that has at least 25 percent DEET, which will probably set me spinning because again, frail. (I just made myself laugh. Rock.) Also, she mentioned Immodium, and wrote me a prescription for Cipro, the anti-Anthrax drug, which you're supposed to take if Immodium doesn't work and you've somehow stumbled into the jaws of intestinal death.

There's really not a better way to feel all warm and fuzzy inside before noon than to have someone say things like, "Eat no fruit or salad" and "insect-borne diseases can be really serious so you need to take precautions." I have no idea what Hanoi will be like. I'm not afraid of it, not at all, but I have never traveled to Asia and much of what I read tells me to literally and figuratively fasten my seatbelt. It's really exciting, but I don't want to do anything stupid or get sick and ruin my time and more importantly my ability to work while I'm there. A good chunk my work for the semester will be based on what I do in Vietnam - pictures, footage, interviews. I have to be at full strength.

It's not like we're sleeping in the open air, it's a hotel that has a home on TripAdvisor and everything. But without going into too much nauseating detail, dude, I have the worst stomach in the WORLD right now. This is not an unusual circumstance, not at all, but I am a mess. It's quite possible that Vietnamese food and water will improve my situation. But 20 hours on a plane will not, so I'm actually looking to go on some kind of pre-trip gastric IronWoman training program or something. Google has so far not been forthcoming with that.

The shots weren't bad. I am the best little soldier, really, which is a result of having scalpels and needles wielded in my direction since I was six weeks old, I'm pretty sure. Seriously, you think this sense of humor is organic? Listen to doctors and nurses and admissions types ramble on for most of your formative years and you'll quickly learn to go to your own happy place.

The nurse yesterday told me to wiggle my toes, first on my right foot and then on my left, which I thought was some kind of accupressure technique for blood flow, but it turns out that there I go, complicating things AGAIN. After it was over she said that thinking about your toes takes the focus off the needle going in your arm. It could be the ADD, but I am completely capable of wiggling my toes while still directing the majority of my energy to the sharp thing puncturing my skin just a few feet north. Just sayin'.

She told me my arm would hurt from the tetanus, and it does.  I took one typhoid pill last night, and have to take three more on alternate days through the end of the week. That is a live vaccine in a capsule, and has to be refrigerated. It's a very involved process but it's kind of interesting, actually, to read about all the terrible things that can possibly befall you when you venture off of your continent.

I had terrible nightmares last night that I was in some kind of grave medical distress and my mother called an ambulance that somehow never came. Most dreams can currently be interpreted to reflect an unmet or rapidly approaching deadline, which is the current (due tomorrow! At least a draft!) story of my life. We leave for this trip in three weeks, and believe me I am really excited, and additionally a little bit overwhelmed. I'll just be relieved when we touch down in Hanoi, and not just because it's a 15 hour plane trip to Korea and then five more to Vietnam. I'm really ready to get this show on the road.

1st February

I just dropped my dog off at the vet and my heart is breaking and I am terrified, but after 24 hours of pacing and panting and post-seizure behavior that makes no damned sense to me, I am sleep-deprived like Britney Spears minus a paparazzi boyfriend to carry my big ass purse and triple venti latte, and I didn't feel like I could carry on with him here on my own for the rest of the day. I was up with him for most of the night, pointing him in the right direction when he got lost in the living room and massaging him with a wet washcloth (don't ask, the Internet told me to do it.) I know he's old and this has been going on for so long, but after the debacle in September I just don't think I can go through another mind-altering loss on my own.

So sad for Britney by the way. Sucks. I hope she gets some help, and I'm also so sick of the patronizing quotes from Federline on every possible webpage. I'm not even saying HE said them that way, because I don't know, but it's just the way the gossip pages - like, coughcough CNN and MSNBC entertainment? Not even the Enquirer cause I don't read that shit - skew things so misogynistically.

I didn't want to take Punkin in to the vet because I was afraid it would be too jarring to remove him from his familiar environment and occasionally when he could calm himself last night he'd come sit by me or I'd lay him on my chest (the heartbeat thing works for dogs like it does for people, very comforting) and he'd stop breathing so heavily. But it didn't last and this morning he was up and pacing again at 7 and wouldn't stop. I needed to ask for help from the vet because I need to mentally regroup plus CANNOT miss my multimedia class today. It's the first one and if I lose ground at the outset it just doesn't work. Plus I need to go buy bolt cutters at the Home Depot, as in a continuing string of crushing near misses and totally avoidable aggravations, my parents drove to Louisiana with the key to the old storage unit in the glove box...and I need to vacate the unit yesterday.

If there's a silver lining here, it's that by the end of the day I should be able to help you cut through metal to steal things. I am so ever-increasingly handy.

Some distractions, therefore? Sure, why not?

1. Speaking of Silver Linings, all in caps, Rilo Kiley's song of the same name is my current aural addiction. Oh man. Video here. I'm way partial to Jenny Lewis and gospel choirs...and hand claps and triangles.  What can I say? Love it.
 

2. Conversely, Sheryl Crow is on the Today Show. She's singing "Every Day Is a Winding Road," and she sounds absolutely terrible. Like scary bad. Superbad? Whatever. This is really upsetting me, because it is a day of upsets out of proportion to the stimulus (hi, really tired.) I've always been a Sheryl fan, have to say this is not one of my favorite tunes...if she was tired or her voice was worn out, I'd have said go with "My Favorite Mistake", but then again I'm not in charge of the world, including multimillionaire rockstars. Their bad. 

3. The remaining presidential candidates and their Muppet avatars. Go on. You really, really wanna.  Also, lol at John McCain and Ron Paul especially.

4. Maggie's found some awesome Valentines. Am partial to the Say Anything ones, of course, with I Want to Barack Your World a close second.

5. BlogHers rocked the Clinton/Obama debate last night in LA. There was much discussion (which helped to distract me from my dog freakout, but not enough) and I loved Erin Kotecki-Vest and Katy Chen's video work.   Blogging CAN be journalism and people who don't get it just don't get it.

6. New YogaBeans. A riot, as usual.

Okay, that's enough.  Oh, wait, except for this post, almost three years old now...the source of my eternal sidebar photo, which I always think about changing and then I don't. Maybe someday, but Wonderdog, indeed. I just wish it wasn't so hard sometimes, this whole loving people and animals thing.

How stupid ARE PEOPLE?

So I'm still dealing with the story that's slammed headfirst into DC-area news for the past month, about Banita Jacks, the woman who killed her daughters and lived with them in the house until the Federal marshals came in to evict her and found them all and she said the devil made them do it. Not her, them. This might lead to the conclusion that you even have to watch out for your mother, but I'm still more afraid of the devil I DON'T know.

That said, I do not have children, but if I did, I am ever more certain that I would never hire a stranger to watch my child. I've never been the type to think I'd say it, because I've always thought I'd be open to babysitters outside of my family if it was someone I trusted, but what the HELL?????

But after more questioning, police said Torres said Elijah was injured in a game in which she bundled him in a closed sleeping bag and she jogged through her apartment with the bag slung over her shoulder.

Going through one doorway, Torres lost her balance and the bag struck the door frame twice, police said. When she opened the bag, Elijah was pale and not breathing, according to the police report.

God bless you, Elijah, first of all, because this was not fair or right or just on any level, and this is why when people say "everything happens for a reason" to me it makes me want to smoke or drink heavily or lay inert on my couch watching Rock of Love marathons for the rest of my days, because EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON, RIGHT? Who CARES? I'm watching Bret Michaels kiss 15 women for a REASON. Leave me alone.

It's just the wrong thing to say to me, as it is patently illogical. Sure it happens for a reason, but it needs to be amended. "Everything happens for a (sometimes shitty, totally nonsensical, overtly upsetting) reason." If my baby died in a sleeping bag because someone else was an idiot, if anyone mentioned anything about God's will or a reason to me, I'd probably be in jail, and the reason would be aggravated assault.

Anyway, this was NOT A GAME. Games are fun. Games do not involve you being shut up in something that makes you NOT ABLE TO BREATHE. Had she never heard of PLAY-DOH? GO FUCKING FISH? Sorry I'm yelling, but this little kid will never be ABLE TO YELL AGAIN. Consider it one for him.

This sucks and I don't know why this one stuck out for me amid the sea of bad news on MSNBC and CNN and in the local paper and everywhere else. But the thing is that I just do not understand grown people who don't have any possible level of sense or intellectual functioning, to the point that babies die because of it. It is quite possible, as the article stated, that this woman didn't mean to kill this child, and "initially lied about the boy's injuries because people would think she intentionally hurt the boy if she told the truth." Perhaps she is too stupid to have any idea that putting a baby in a BAG, and then swinging him AROUND, and JOGGING inside, is a bad idea, and therefore didn't have the capacity to reason. I don't know. I could never sit on the jury to decide it though, because I don't know how I'd be unbiased. Um, hi Ms. Torres. Let's have you climb into this bag right here, and I'm going to demonstrate how I throw you over my shoulder. Really hard. Like into a door jamb.

The story is also notable for this part, which interests me the journalist and not just me the hater of fools who kill children:

The arraignment was televised under a new state program designed to make the courts more open. It was believed to be the first arraignment in the state at which cameras were permitted. The state previously allowed cameras during a few criminal trials.

That is a big deal. Minuscule compared to the loss this family suffered, and the knowledge of how he died, but still notable.

I don't even know what to do anymore. But I do know it's the stuff you can never foresee that's the most frightening, which in and of itself isn't terribly comforting. And I also understand nanny cameras, totally. As opposed to surveillance as I've been in the past, I'd say it's a worthy investment because as the commercials blather on about, peoples' kids? Priceless.

Silly, stupid CONSTITUTION

Who thought it up, anyway? Like, what has it got to do with anything, really?

Don't worry - Mike Huckabee's got it under control.

Freaking leave EVERYONE alone

I was going to make some kind of lame, ironic comment on the whole pitiful, abusive, depressing situation involving a certain young celebrity from Louisiana (I know, you're like, 'Which one?', right? Where the hell is Hannah Montana from anyway?). To do so I was going to link to this dude, which I did several months ago when Britney's life began to completely fall apart.

But then, as is YouTube's way, I got sidetracked, and found something probably even more appropriate, so meta it hurts. Because this is just...just beautiful.

My favorite commentary on this whole mess is still Craig Ferguson's. You want truth about something of this nature with no bullshit? Ask an addict. Also, next time your life is fucked up, even if you went and made a public figure of yourself or maybe have acted out in a major way to call attention to it, ask yourself if you'd like someone to take several pictures of it happening. Because I don't know about you, but my friends try to grab my camera to delete pictures of themselves for much less serious reasons. I just think that anyone in pain is a sad, sad thing.  I didn't think the videos of Anna Nicole were funny, and I don't think that the Britney coverage is funny or even particularly interesting. It's just another life, messed up and painful, it just happens to belong to a young woman who went a very peculiar path.

I haven't been around any 12-step meetings for many, many years, but one thing I did take away from that experience was "there but for the grace of God go I." Call it karma, whatever, but it just isn't cool.
Leave her alone. And please make that K-Fed lawyer SHUT IT. He's even invading the pages of the Washington Post (please stop it, Washington Post, with the celebritology overload) and I just can't stand it. Write another 1,000 words on the caucus(es). Tell me something I don't already know. Please.

Hoping for more good ideas, and people who have them.

"You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea."

Bhutto, Benazir Prime minister of Pakistan (1953–2007)

From Learning to Give, via Lisa at BlogHer.

You don't really care for music do you

I've been crying off and on for two days. I don't really know what happened, and it hasn't happened in so long that I'm really not pleased. I mean I know my hair is all fucked up and needs help, but really. Just driving down the road to go shopping the other day I was all tweaky about a variety of things and started to feel very weird and bad and self-edit my thoughts and feelings as I am prone to doing so athletically lately. And a frighteningly intense and very specific memory of a neck and a lap popped into my head from out of absolutely nowhere and my heart broke in half over something totally useless and very ancient, and I started crying and crying, I guess because it was so visceral? And then I told myself I was a jerk for crying, which didn't make me stop crying at all, much like when assholes hit their kids and then yell at them to stop crying about it because they'll give them something to cry about, which you ALREADY DID YOU ASSHOLE. My brain is an abusive parent. Great.

All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. It seems like maybe I ought to have a little bit more to show at this point, but that's a flimsy point to prove.

My dear friend and I discussed it and yes, it is a combination of birthday and holiday blues, a comedown from the concentrated variety of stresses from the past few months and the usual stuff that I can't explain to anyone, really. School was good but it was just...a lot - and it's something no one can really understand because they didn't live it. I get some reactions like "Oh, wow, why are you so busy?" because really it's not like I've gone to basic training or something that seems like it would be that difficult. Still, it was the most intense, demanding thing I've done in a very long time, if ever. This is especially because I just brought it, for lack of a better term, and worked really hard in a compressed period of time to do better than mediocre work, because mediocrity in this case just seems like such a waste and besides I really really hate it as a matter of principle.

Last night there was a meltdown involving differing family expectations (oh please, save us all from those) that triggered another attack of something horrible, and holy mother of God there resulted some deep, pathetic sobbing that hasn't been seen in years and demands that Christmas be cancelled. I seriously stated that I wasn't participating and would like it cancelled, a request that was completely ignored, of course, because no one plays along when I really need them to these days.

Then there's everyone linking to this video which just flattened me completely, and isn't December difficult enough already? (I can't even explain the sobbing), and then...

Then. I'm reading this book. It's called "Love is a Mix Tape", by Rob Sheffield, who writes for Rolling Stone. Rob's wife Renee died almost 10 years ago, suddenly at 31 from a pulmonary embolism. He's moved on to New York after trudging through years of grief in Charlottesville and is now remarried, but this book is an elegy to a woman who loved music and him and with whom he loved music. It is a jewel of a book that I've been waiting to come out in paperback for almost a year, although now I wish I'd gotten it over with and bought it with a coupon in hardcover just to support a book like this.

Shortly after the car breakdown the other day this book made me cry in the passport office, just the sheer emotion, beauty and humor with which he writes about her. I felt lonely for him at the time and co-opted my own lonely place when reading about it, which wasn't much of a stretch. I feel really pissed off that Renee died and that I didn't know Renee and that I don't hang out with more people like Renee. I also think I started feeling somewhere around, oh, the second chapter like no one would ever love me like this again, and quite possibly how maybe they never have, and how sad that was because what's all the fuss about over other things that don't matter at all? THEY DO NOT MATTER AT ALL and we spend so much time on them at the expense of the important things. So when I hit the part that really touched me in the passport office I really wanted to scream really loud, but I tried to act all normal sitting on my hard black plastic chair, like the tears were just a natural response to being in a public agency, which really isn't so far from the truth.

Rob is killing me softly. It was just too much, with the words and music and the way he expresses himself about love and grief and coping with kindness after someone dies or really even at all. First of all, the book is set up in a way that couldn't miss (for me), since every chapter starts with a mix tape list and includes an explanation of how that tape or those songs worked together. Specifically, also the mixes relate to him and Renee in some way, too, which is fascinating to read, especially because in the 90s I was into similar music and have a similar relationship with the culture on a grassroots level that he and Renee had - not that I've dj'd at an indie station like they did, but I've stood on the sidelines of that kind of life and have much the same mindset where it's concerned, where you personalize your relationships with the artists and the tunes so they really are your constant soundtrack whether you realize it or not. I also tend to run in smaller circles of people who get it, although that's something I've gotten away from in recent years. So anyway, I enjoyed his reflections on the music so much.

See, I wanted to date this guy not too long ago. It seemed like a distinct possibility which is pretty cool in and of itself given my complete lack of attachment to anyone for years and an accompanying terror of  interest in putting myself out there again, because it generally becomes such a terrible experience for whatever reason in the long run that I trust nothing where this kind of potential relationship is concerned at this point, especially myself. I love what Rob says about "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Uh no. If it doesn't kill you, it just maims you and leaves you for dead, generally speaking. It's kind of funny when you read it, actually, but you have to have an appreciation for the darkness along wit the light.

Anyway, I knew something was wrong with the situation although a lot of it seemed like it was really right, because this guy is great. So great. And in an alternative universe it could have been fabulous (Alternative. Could have been.) He just - and this sounds so bad and like it really shouldn't matter so much - doesn't get music, not at all, and that seems to have an impact on complementary world views. I don't care that he doesn't play it, and in fact, do you play an instrument? GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, because you will scorch the very earth I stand on and leave me for dead, you rogue harmonica or whatever player. I mean, not really, but really. But not really. I'm a bit ambivalent about the whole thing at this point. Maybe that's just the price I'll pay, I don't know, and I'll always be that person, "she fell in love with the drummer, another and another."

It doesn't really matter, I just didn't understand this person who is not moved by music in general, who considers it "background noise" and doesn't think to turn it on. I lived with a person like that once, who was pretending to be my boyfriend at the time because he couldn't stand to be without a woman in his domestic situation and he foolishly believed that I was the type to be a placeholder. He listened to radio talk shows and got pissed when I put actual music on. I "took him" to his first concert at the age of 27, and although it was kind of sweet and mildly fun, it just didn't work. If you're 7, I'll dig taking you to your first concert. At 27 it just didn't work. Maybe that does make me a jerk, but for me it was like cooking someone I'm dating the first meal he's ever had so he can learn to eat whereas I've already got it down to a science (and oh wow do I, in that case.) Too weird, too much responsibility, something I don't have the patience for, a trip I need you to already be on with me, not that I help you kick off. It's not something I want to be responsible for, it's just something I really want to do, and that I do indeed do all the time, talk about, and constantly acquire and experience for the rest of my life, all hunter-gatherer like.

The thing is that Rob Sheffield weaves the music into his and Renee's life together so you know it was a hugely important thing for them, and you don't really have to be a music geek, per se, to understand it. It's definitely the third party in their relationship, but like others of that ilk it takes nothing away from them. It adds. It gives them a base for the rest of their common language, as he calls it.

Just gorgeous, a lot of this book. This is the passage that finally did me in, about the night he finally told her that things were shifting for him from friendship to more:

"The minutes dripped by, each one totally bending and twisting my shape. We eventually stopped getting up to flip the tape, and just listened to dead air. I could feel serious changes happening to me the longer I stayed in Renee's room. I felt knots untie themselves, knots I didn't know were there. I could already tell there were things happening deep inside me that were irreversible. Is there any scarier word than "irreversible"? It's a hiss of a word, full of side effects and mutilations. Severe tire damage - no backing up. Falling in love with Renee felt that way. I felt strange things going on inside me, and I knew that these weren't things I would recover from. These were changes that were shaping the way things were going to be, and I wouldn't find out how until later. Irreversible. I remember that we discussed The Towering Inferno that night, the scene with Steve McQueen, the valiant firefighter, and William Holden, the evil tycoon who owns the hotel. William Holden asks, "How bad is it?" and Steve McQueen answers, "It's a fire mister. And all fires are bad!" That's the last thing I remember before I fell asleep."

So go read this book, especially if you care about love and music (please care about those things, I don't know what else you should care about more, really) - and if you've ever made a mix tape or been in love and lost it - at all. It is not all pathos, I promise, although I can't promise it won't make you cry. Still, it's the most interesting and well-written story I've read in a while, sort of an anthropological study of an art form and how two people relate inside of it. 

Yes it's sad but in this week of weirdo breakdowns it actually gives me a particular sort of hope amid the sadness, that maybe I can fix what's broken, although I don't know why I'm extrapolating that from this man's experience exactly because I've not had a loss myself of this magnitude. But I do know from sadness and on that very basic level I can relate to his words and be happy for him that he was able to rebuild and reinvent and recreate, because that's what life really is, a daily act of reinvention. And after he got happy with someone else and in a different city, he was able to write this ode to a woman who apparently made him unafraid to be with her, and in that way seems to have made him less afraid to face the world. He also made me feel really good about holding out for someone who gets it, even if it's decades and decades from now, as it may well be...and equally sad for other reasons. But the bottom line is it's well-written and it speaks to something I can't really grab ahold of yet. When I know, I'll probably, clumsily, try to share that too.