3 posts from December 2007

I'm flying across the United States tomorrow, heading back to one of my very favorite places, Asheville North Carolina.  And while really, I'll just be crossing a couple timezones, it really feels like I'm going to travel back 16 or 17 years to revisit the end of my childhood.  Middle School was a surprisingly happy time for me.  It was the last time I was part of a large-ish group ofclose-knit friends.   We were united by our school-system determined to be above-average intellects, our youth, teetering on the tightropes of pubescence and our love of exploring downtown Asheville after school on Fridays.  We had each other, we had the town, we had Rebecca Sulock's basement.  The world was ours.  Now I'm thirty, on scrambling around the safety-net of adulthood, and I'm headed back.  I know it's not gonna be the same.  Our entire gang of friends are scattered as far as Oregon, New York City and Puerto Rico.  I'm definitely not going to see most of them and likely will not see anybody.  Except Tami.  Throughout the years, we've had long-distance blow-outs and reconciliations.  We both needed to be saved by each other at the same time, and each let the other down when we were 18 and our lives were falling apart.  Now we're thirty.  Hot-Damn! we are thirty years old, with dogs and (in her case) kids and degrees.  We pass for responsible adults.  And I think we've learned, over the years that we can't expect to be able to save each other, or be saved by each other.  We have to do that on our own.  But we can sit together, once again and hopefully over and over, and look each other in the eyes, and pray like hell for ourselves, each other, our families and this crazy world we live in.  

Barely into my winter break, a whole 4 weeks with no exams, required reading, lewis dot structures, hybrid orbitals, sine functions, nada, and what did I do?  I succumbed to the icky nasty yuckness that has been going around.  I got the friggin flu.  And yes, you could say I asked for it.  I had felt it coming on for several weeks, and I gently but firmly closed the door on the illness with plenty of fluids, decent sleep and wellness formula.  Then it was break time.  The combination of no daily responsibility and nerve-racking family crisis, made me decide that this was a good time to go out drinking like I hadn't drunked in a while.  A couple times even.  Then, yup.  I felt like shit and only half of it was a hangover.

So since then, and we're looking at a whole week now, give or take, I have been layin low.  I've read prolly 1500 pages of Maeve Binchy in the last week.  When I used to work in bookstores I always thought of her books as "old lady books" because that's pretty much who bought them.  And I can see why, they are endearing stories of normal people's lives, just a little it saucy, and of lives that are far from perfect, but with a very definite rose-colored quality. Everyone has tea, all the time.  Things have a way of working out, for the alcoholics, the neglected wives and children, the sad lonely mistresses, and the hard working caterers.  And you know, I absolutely love them. 

Before, I scoffed

at books that didn't challenge or defy.  I always wanted to read something that would set me on edge, add to my anger of an unjust and truly fucked up world.  And I don't want to completely hide from those things.  But I'm not above a little comfort. 

Maybe I'm going completely soft.  But I wonder how un-soft I ever was.  I wanted to read fictionalized accounts of how fucked up things are, things that would evoke emotional response, as well as give me some kind of historical or cultural understanding of something outside of myself.  But I've always avoided the news, politics, real stories of war.  I've always ended up twisted up and paralyzed.  Freaked out.  And now, well, yes, I am at a point where I am willing to admit, I want, I need to be comforted.  Perhaps this is part of the self care stuff I have heard so much about.  "Survivors lack skills in self care, they [you] need to learn to comfort themselves."  So I admit, I like to read comforting books that are written with the purpose of being comforting in mind.  Granted, I'm not reading Chicken Soup for the Soul, and I hope it never comes to that, but I can relate now with the desire to take in a novel just because it feels really good to read it.  Only after dealing with debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, for the last six months (I can't believe it's been that long) do I get it.  Did I think that people who seek comfort in flowery books (other than classics) were trying to deny the ugliness of the world?  Yes, yes I did. But only now, I want to forgive myself for not being willing or able, or strong, or self sacrificing or....whatever enough to take on all the ugliness of the world.  Is it possible to try to find comfort in media and still live genuinely?  I hope so.  I don't want to pretend that the world fine, that there is no need for panic.  Not all of the time.  But sometimes yes, because I need to be able to figure out how I am going to interact with that ugliness, how I am going to try to make it a little better.  And I'm gonna need some energy to do that.  So when it's time to relax, I'm gonna read Maeve Binchy.

So now I get it, and I'm sorry for the way I've acted.  I'm sorry for scoffing at people who bought books with warm and inviting scenes of flowery gardens and cottages on the front.  All of you, who I have mocked behind your backs, I apologize.

I've never had a blog before and it's been years since I've kept a journal.  I think the last time I wrote on a regular basis for the sake of self expression, I was 13, and most of my entries were about a cute boy.  I've been resistant to starting a blog for quite a while.  In part, cuz I wouldn't necessarily want people reading what I write.  But if no one reads it then what's the point, eh?  Oh, but it's a journal.  So no one has to read it.  It's for you.  Well.  Maybe I want people to read it, just not everybody. 

Namely, I don't want my father to read it, because I am much more comfortable with him not participating in my life, including him not reading my blog.  So if I ever decide to go public with this, well here's a little wish out into the blogosphere that he not read it.  And if you happen to be my father, and you are reading, I ask you to respect my privacy and read no further.  Fat chance that A) he'll respect my privacy and B) He would read this post first, since it will be at the end of a long scroll.  Whatever.  So, yeah, I guess that brings me to a big reason I have not kept a blog, or for that matter, am generally wary of participating in the new social media web2.0 world.  I am afraid of being stalked by my father who I am estranged from.  Not just on the internet, in general, but the internet makes it easier.  My stepsister type person (my dad's not remarried, but his live-in girlfriend's daughter) friend requested me on facebook.  I think my dad put her up to it.  "Maybe you could draw her out, you know." Hmf.  I would much rather be left alone.  I suppose that is a lot to ask.  If my kid had refused to speak to me for 5 years, I would be curious too, about what they are up to, I suppose.  But I hope that I never do the kinds of things to my hypothetical someday kids that my dad did to me to make me decide (woo-hoo for recovered volition and agency) not to have me be a part of their lives. 

But all the fear and anxiety aside, it is kinda neat having a blog.  My partner is a professional blogger, and deeply embedded, even an expert, on new social media web2.0 stuff.  And while I doubt I'll be reporting on widgets and startups and silicon valley rumors, it's nice, really, to be able to participate in what I largely regard as "his" world. 

You know, if ever I could think of a good reason for openID, it would be to be able to single handedly block someone.  If I could just find out my dad's openID and them block him from ever seeing any of my participation on the internet, that would be awesome.  But I don't know that it could really work that way, but if it could, whew, that would be fuckin rad. 

K, now I gotta learn me some HTML so I can do cool tricks like embed photos in my posts and stuff.  that would be awesome.