The Lunatic You're Looking For

I am done apologizing for getting sick. I get sick. I don’t want to. I try to stop it. I try not to let it happen, but it does, and you know what, fuck it. I get sick. Ill. Unwell. Instead of making my back hurt or my nose run or my heart beat irregularly, it makes my brain malfunction. Run overtime. Fill itself with unnecessary thought.

I have spent half my life trying to make up for it, for those short periods when my disordered brain causes problems, but I am done with that too.

I get sick.

When I’m not sick, I’m amazing. And that’s all that matters.

Because There's Always Time for Art . . .

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?-- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash-- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. 23-29 October 1962 Reposted from Poets.org, which I browse when I need to be inspired.

Lost

I still miss you. It will stop someday. Someday, with any luck, I will wake up and won’t remember that I miss you. Maybe. Someday.

Even more than you, I miss the person I was when I was with you, the person who was so confident and sure of who I was and what I wanted. I saw life laid out before me, waiting to be explored, to fill me with awe and wonder, each turn leading to something new and fantastic. I can’t seem to find that woman anywhere. The worst part is that I think I know where she is.

I’m just not welcome there anymore.

So I’ll keep wandering. All the way to Mexico if I need. And maybe someday, with any luck, I will wake up and won’t remember to miss me.

Can't Take Direction, and My Socks Are Never Clean

I should have left sooner. I always should leave sooner. I’m never very good at goodbye. At the very least we could have salvaged our friendship, but I’m not so great at that sometimes either. We needed to take care of ourselves. I saw it just as much as you did, but I was afraid. Afraid that if I left, you would take it as a sign that we were never meant to be, that we were better off apart than together. And you did. Anyway. We really just needed time. We just needed to heal. We each had to figure out for ourselves why the truck had missed us and killed her, and we weren’t strong enough to do it together. But that was all it meant.

I hope you’ve found it. The reason.

That there is no reason. It just happened. It is just the way the universe works, and we have no control over such things. It’s taken me a long time to get here. Probably too long. I’ve destroyed a lot in the meantime. Love. Relationships. Myself. And all I’ve figured out is exactly what I knew all along – there is no reason. I control nothing other than myself. It’s a hard, clobbering fact that I have spent my life trying to teach myself. Sometimes, I am a horrible student. Sometimes, I refuse to give the right answer just because I don’t like the way it’s been taught to me.

Sometimes, I fail. On purpose. Just so I can be right in the end.

Maybe the Wizard Can Help

I need to go home. I have responsibilities to other people. Obligations. They are depending on me. Always depending on me. I am not ready to go.

I’m not writing.

I have not been able to write for some time now. I mean, I’ve filled up steno pads and the pages of various journals with the ramblings of a crazy woman. Even thrown a few of those up here. But to write, to sit down at the computer and put my thoughts on the screen and be able to do nothing else for hours, let alone days at a time . . .

It’s been years.

I can hardly take it anymore. I am carrying the weight of too many words unsaid. I feel numbed by their force, pressing me down, keeping me down.

I could always write with you. I could always write better, more honestly. But I’m not writing. Not even now. Here. With you.

I am not ready to go home.

I am not ready to go home because I know my home, but I just can’t find my way back.

Hey, I'm Not Trying to Be Nobody

I’m in Texas. Have come to see my dearest friend. I’m wearing a cowboy hat that makes me feel only slightly self-conscious and that I only tried on ironically because I am, after all, in the great country of Texas, but my friend told me it looked great on me (which was not the reaction I expected to get from a woman who has only to raise an eyebrow to portray her disgust at how wrong I look in something I think makes me look fabulous). She insisted I buy it. Was adamant about it, and I had to get it. So I am now sitting on the bed, writing, and looking fabulous in a cowboy hat in Texas and only feeling self-conscious about the fact that I am not wearing it ironically.

Practicing My Purpose Once Again

I stand outside, smoking a cigarette. I’m sure I reek of paint and pot and sweat, and I lean back against the brick wall, exhausted, and blow smoke into the night air. One foot against the wall, I think to myself I must look pretty cool. Like a James Dean poster. Or a Marlboro ad. I hope my friend comes out and sees me. Standing here. Relaxing against the brick wall and smoking a cigarette. She should come outside and see me right now. Take a picture of me, standing here, as if I don’t notice she’s there, taking a picture of me. The kind of picture that would end up being on the jacket of my memoir and would make people want to buy my book simply because I look like the kind of badass bitch who could write a really awesome story. The kind of bitch who has lived a really awesome story.

Yeah, she should come outside and see how cool I am.

Occupation

Michael is one of the men camping at College Green Park with me. He lost his brother in the Afghanistan war just over two weeks ago. Michael, who just passed the bar, lives across the street, in one of the homes bordering College Green, and while he could go home any time, he says he's not leaving the park until things start to change. Across from him sits a teacher whose name I did not catch. He is bald and has the slightly sunken features of a chemotherapy recipient. He teaches social studies to middle school students, and tells us he is here because he believes health and the ability to live a life free from illness is a basic human right as opposed to being a business. In other words, health is not a good to be bought and sold and traded.

During a discussion by a gentleman from Veterans for Peace, a young man stands and identifies himself by name and rank as a Marine and veteran of the war. He tells the group of his time in Afghanistan, how they bombed a house on bad intelligence and instead of killing combatants, the Marines mistakenly killed two young children. In response, the people of the village waged an attack on the Marines, who were then ordered to take the village. The young corporal's job was to lead a squad on house-to-house searches, "But I could see how this was just going to keep going," he tells us. "We made a mistake. These people were just protecting themselves and their families from us." He and his squad sat down and had tea with one of the homeowners instead.

Stronger

I needed this today. Love Kelly Clarkson.

Just the Way I'm Supposed to Be . . .

Have been in tears three times already this morning, which you know, might sound like a bad thing, and I do have to admit that it’s been a little unpleasant and caused my ocd symptoms to flare (I’ve already had five cigarettes, and I’ve not been awake long enough to breathe in that much non-smoke-filled air), but the melancholy was just my brain working through whatever it needed to work through so I could reach this point.

I get to write now.

Lesson #3

We're all assholes.

Some of us just have a hard time admitting it and moving the fuck on.

Foremost Expert in My Field of Study

The personal is political. It’s true. Correct. Logical. Whatever.

But the reverse is also true (Read post-structuralists). The political is personal. Just like business is personal. Just like every mother fucking thing that happens in this world both is and is not personal. It isn’t personal because it is just the way the universe works. People die. People get fired. People make laws that have nothing to do with us personally. But it affects us, everything that happens in the universe, maybe to different degrees under different circumstances in different settings, but that is exactly what makes it ‘personal.’

Everything. Every single thing we encounter is processed through our own ‘personal’ point of understanding.

There’s just no way around that.

So when I talk about my own story, talk about my own reactions, reflect on my own understandings, I am not being any more self-indulgent than the rest of you, nor am I filled with an inordinate amount of self-conceit. I am just choosing to converse about the only thing in which I am truly an expert. When we are finally conscious enough, we understand it’s the only expertise any of us really possess. It’s all personal.

Having said all of that, I've been using this blog as a personal sounding board, an open studio of sorts. It's a bit of a departure from where I started when I wrote years ago, but it's working for me. And I intend to continue being self-indulgent and exploring my own thoughts and whims in the hope that I will be able to use my specialized knowledge of the subject to make sense of the rest of the world around me.

Because the rest of the world is fucked up.

Time Wasted

I’m not successful. Which means I must be a failure. That’s the opposite of success, right? I am not successful because I do not have money. Because I could not afford to pay for my own place and a car and insurance to drive that car. I am not successful. I am a failure. Because I don’t have money.

I wasted my life getting an education and raising a child and caring about things and loving people and writing stupid little stories I will never publish, when all this time, in order not to be a failure, I should have made more money. That would have made me successful.

Not happy. But at least not a failure.

Never on Time

Listen, I really want to come down and I am not stalling or just blowing smoke or anything. I’m just doing what you said and taking care of myself. I’m finally starting to feel a bit stable and just trying to tie up some loose ends so I don’t feel any undue anxiety while I’m there. 

We both know how I get when I start to question myself and feel bad about myself, how I try to take care of you to the point of excess and then you get irritated with me for thinking you need to be taken care of which is not actually what I’m thinking because I know better which is actually why I love you so much because you’re so damned independent and don’t need my help, but I just start to feel so worthless and doing good for you makes me feel worthwhile, so when I’m feeling good about myself too and love myself too, then I can offer you what you do need – my friendship and my love – without smothering you with my fear.

See, I’ve been trying to learn.

Growing. Even if it is a year or even ten years too late.

. . . As Crazy Does

So I’m thinking about trying an open mic night. Standup. Yikes! Even thinking about it. But maybe I could do it. Try it at least. Not that I’ve been incredibly funny as of late, at least not on the ol’ blog where I’ve been sorting out thoughts that are okay to have on the page (well, marginally) but when said aloud in polite company get me medicated or hospitalized or at the very least stared at with great suspicion and/or derision. Back to standup – I think I’m actually feeling crazy enough to try it. At least give it a shot.

So now I have to start writing.

It always comes back to the damned writing.

Obsessed

Not a good morning. No phone. Out of contact with most everyone I care about. Feeling annoyed. A little sad. And irritated. And lonely.

Doubtful.

Feeling doubtful this morning. I could deal with the other things, flip them, use them to write or get out of the house and wander the neighborhood, but doubt . . .

Having to convince myself that the choices I’m making are the right ones, even though I’ve already convinced myself over and over again. And then one more time for good measure.

But I have this problem. Empathy and education, the ability to understand the validity of the other arguments – other than what I am arguing, other than the choices I am making, other than the life I am living – these things make me question myself. Constantly. Like I am on some mad dash to eradicate ignorance from my life. A race I know I will never finish because there will always be more to know.  

Always. 

And I will always need to know it. At least that's what my mind keeps telling me. Over and over again. And once more for good measure. 

Flying Chihuahuas

An owl tried to steal Manny’s dog last night. Wicket. The dog’s name is Wicket and he’s had an eventful week, including having his head pried from the jaws of a much larger dog while camping this weekend. And last night right after little Wicket, a cockapoo, had finished his business, he started to wander toward the back of the yard into the shadows when Manny and I both caught sight of something that seemed much too large to be swooping in out of the sky, but did indeed swoop in out of the sky toward the tiny white cockapoo in the shadows, then upon seeing us, swoop back toward the sky and take perch in the neighbor’s tree.

Manny immediately put his dog back in the house and we finished our cigarettes and watched the owl watching us. I’m pretty sure it’s the same owl from our campsite this weekend that stayed in the tree over my tent and called out all night, as if to tell Wicket he was coming for him.

I told Manny this would be a perfect time for the neighbors to let out their dogs, three yipping Chihuahuas. We’d know the owl got one when we started to hear the barking get further away.

“Why does it sound like that dog is in the tree?” he mocked and we laughed at the thought, but our consciences got the better of us and Manny went to inform the neighbors of our new predatory tenant. We’re not always assholes.

What I Really Want to Say I Can't Define

House is quiet. Morning. Not making the mistake of turning on the television again today. Maybe later. Maybe not.

Let’s see how this goes. I need to write. Write write write write write fuck it just write and I am having trouble with the typing today although autocorrect has taken care of almost all of it for me and that is lovely too much automation maybe maybe not.

Been talking to Manny’s friend Adam a lot lately because I hang out with Manny all the time and he hangs out with Adam, and anyway we’ve been having the same conversation it seems in different ways. Maybe that’s just the linguist in me: maybe Adam sees them as very separate and distinct conversations, but to me they have all been about the same thing and that is the search for meaning and whether or not searching for meaning is the same thing as searching for god. It’s a difficult conversation for the two of us to have because we disagree on two fundamental levels – first of all, Adam tells me that my trying to make meaning of the world is strictly a spiritual (he uses the word ‘religious’) enterprise. 

I tell him that business is his religion.

He doesn’t like the statement and I can tell he doesn’t like the statement so I start to back off a bit. Then I remember that I taught students like him new ways of thinking in my comp classes. Even the ones who thought I was an idiot.

I got this.

I am the authority in my subject; Adam is a dabbler. I wouldn’t try to lecture him on economic theory. Okay, I would. But only insomuch as most economic theory is only a piecing together of sociological, or political or psychological theory and is therefore nothing more than the study of humanity for economic gain. I think he’d tell me that’s a reductionist argument, and I would agree, but again – diametrically opposite levels – I wouldn’t view that as an inherently bad thing. Mostly, I think, because I am willing and able to understand both the complexities and simplicities of a thought. That makes not a bit of sense.

I lost track of the thought.

So clearly, the statement was false or at the very least incomplete as if to say I can understand the thoughts, I just don’t have the language to express them, which is an argument many linguists and philosophers discuss often – are we able to have a thought if we do not have the language to express it. It’s the other thing I think Adam and I disagree on, whether or not meaning is made or found, or both. It’s a discussion of a priori knowledge. In other words, do we find meaning first or language first? If we find meaning first, is our expression of it limited by the language available to us and if so, is the knowledge consequently corrupted? And if it is the reverse, if we can find no meaning without the language to understand it, is our knowledge constricted by the language we already possess?

These are questions that keep me up at night. Keep me thinking. All the time processing the world around me – from the inane television commercial that suddenly raised the room’s volume by fifteen decibals to the squirrel that peeks out at me from behind the big oak each morning when I walk. These are important questions to me. To a lot of people, I think. More people than realize it. More people than will ever even consider the questions. But I have. And I can contribute to the conversation. And I think I have a lot to share.

So why should I be spending my thinking time trying to solve problems other people are perfectly capable of and content in figuring out?

I know how that sounds and I really don’t care anymore. It feels good. I used to not care and I don’t know exactly how I let all that doubt creep back in again, but I’m seeing more of it each day and remembering the intelligent, articulate, educated woman who doesn’t understand why the uninformed, inarticulate, uneducated people about me believe I am the one who is wrong, just because we don’t think alike.

Back to the Question

Just got off the phone with you.  I was washing the last of the dishes from camping this weekend and thinking about the questions I’ve asked you over the years that you haven’t answered.

It still amazes me how you can always get me to be so honest with myself, but you brush my questions aside as though I hadn't asked. And I always let you. Even though you are the one who taught me not to avoid them, how to find the answers, to get the damned thing over with so I could stop wasting years living a dishonest life. Even if it hurt. You taught me how it was going to hurt anyway – that’s just how life works.

But the joy is greater when you are honest, when your subconscious mind is clear to sleep at night. It saved my life, that advice. More than once. Rather than have the obsessive thoughts stuck on repeat in my brain like  a cassette stuck in the player of your old fiero, it’s easier to answer the questions and move on. Move on. That’s what you taught me. 

You can’t move on until you answer the questions at hand. Well, you can, but then you keep having to come back to them anyway, so you might as well just answer them and then go forward. That’s what you taught me. Sometimes, it is my undoing, but overall it keeps my life simple. Even though my mother would argue otherwise. Maybe a few other people too, but I think their lives are complicated, so . . .

Unshaped

I sit on a lawn chair that straddles the firewood strewn about the ground. My friend sits next to me on an old van seat, beside the bearded dude, the one who it turns out knows my friend’s brother in the farming town somewhere around here. Where the rest of this group lives. My friend’s friend is at one of the picnic tables with the mother of the toddler and a couple who look like they may have been awake since their teen years. The toddler hovers near the campfire. Mostly. Sometimes he meanders to the woods’ edge, and a few times past the parked cars and into the gravel road. The child’s mother lifts her head off the table once or twice to ask after him, but otherwise leaves him to his adventures.

Across from where I sit is another picnic table and another group of twenty-somethings, all with the same high, broad forehead. Similar narrow jawlines, thin lips. The man and woman at the side closest me sit with their backs to the table and to the two men on the other side. All of the men wear baseball caps and the same long, unshaped hair, two of them towheaded. Aside from the bearded dude on the van seat beside my friend, the pig-tailed chick at the second table is the only one interacting with us at all. The rest of them, including the sleeping dog on the other van seat pay little mind to anything outside their own group and the blunt being passed around.

Wow, this is so dry. Trying to write about this all day and it’s just been so slow going so carefully choosing my words, each word, all day today. It must be time to edit. To make things sound amazing and brilliant. Confidence. Keep the confidence. I started to waver and was going to write something qualifying about that, like as brilliant as I can be or at least like I want things to sound. I needed to let the sentence stand. Not just let it stand but stand behind it. I have talent. I have been telling myself otherwise or at the very least letting my failure and lack be proof that I have no talent but I know that isn’t true. I have the talent. 

There will be no failure. No more lack.