...And watch the worms slip by, slip by.

Death Cab for Cutie's I Will Follow You Into the Dark has been in my head all day. Morbid morbid morbid. Actually, I feel like the lyrics are pretty stupid (If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied, Illuminate the 'no's on their vacancy signs...) but it still gets to me.

I went to Jew services with my parents tonight. They left our Reform congregation a few years ago because the rabbi's a shallow idiot, so they now belong to the Conservative temple even though they're both quite non-religious. I actually liked the service a lot. Very casual, comfortable. Too bad it's out in the 'burbs.

About 20 minutes ago I realized I don't actually have my improv class tomorrow. "Independence Day break." I was really looking forward to it, too. I emailed everyone to see if they wanted to do something in the afternoon, anyway, but considering only maybe four of us actually live in the city, I don't expect a positive response. Maybe I'll call a friend to play. I've had enough family time but I think it's good that I spend time with people right now. Keeps me from slipping into my old depression habits while the sadness is still looming.

I got a cute new bra on clearance at Target. I think it's the cousin of this one, but dark grape with a fun print, and it fits me extremely well. Retail therapy. I also took a picture of the tackiest bra ever while I was there. I totally would have bought it for someone as a joke, but it's $13. That is too much for a joke. Then I spent the rest of the Borders gift card my grandpa gave me for my birthday on The Portable Dorothy Parker. When I grow up I want to be Dorothy Parker. She's fucking awesome.

FAUTE DE MIEUX
Travel, trouble, music art,
A kiss, a frock, a rhyme--
I never said they feed my heart
But still they pass my time.

The poem that seems currently most appropriate:

CONDOLENCE
They hurried here, as soon as you had died,
Their faces damp with haste and sympathy,
And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee,
And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed.
Gently they told me of that Other Side-
How, even then, you waited there for me,
And what ecstatic meeting ours would be.
Moved by the lovely tale, they broke, and cried.

And when I smiled, they told me I was brave,
And they rejoiced that I was comforted,
And left to tell of all the help they gave.
But I had smiled to think how you, the dead,
So curiously preoccupied and grave,
Would laugh, could you have heard the things they said.

I could go on and on. Oh, Dorothy, perhaps I shall read you until I go to sleep.

Super

and now the brother is back in serious depressionville. I need a big supportive happy thing right now, dammit. Preferably a fireman or superhero. I know how to rescue myself, but it would be very nice to be rescued by someone else.

I hereby dub one of my female college friends "Sunny" (unless she requests otherwise) for her solar-cell fetish and glowing personality. Her boyfriend has a thing for mosquitos but I fear calling him "Buggy" might give the wrong impression, so for now he'll just be "Sunny's boyfriend."

Sunny's boyfriend (who I know a little bit and like) is asleep on my floor. Sunny called last night and we both actually had the time to talk for the first time in weeks when completely randomly he text messaged her asking for my phone number. Apparently he was stuck at O'Hare after his connecting flight left before his storm-delayed plane arrived and they weren't flying him out until 1 PM the next day. I was wide awake and more than happy to have a diversion from Word Racer and general mental and emotional dwelling, so I picked him up at 1 AM at the airport. I was giving him the quick in-car neighborhood tour and pointed out my favorite diner.
"Want to go? I haven't eaten since 4," quoth he.*
We all know how much arm twisting it takes to get me to a diner late at night.
Even though my dog had been in the car with us, the second Sunny's boyfriend stepped foot in my apartment, he went ape-shit. The dog, not Sunny's boyfriend. Barked his fucking head off and actually tried to bite Sunny's boyfriend. I locked him in his crate. Still barked like crazy. The only time he'd shut up is when I'd be holding him or looking him right in the face from just outside his crate. Not good at 3 AM. I feel bad for the neighbors (or at least the neighbors who aren't the nice but idiotic pseudo-frat boy across the hall from me while he does his summer internship in Chicago). I ended up having to bring the damn dog into the bathroom with me while I washed up and brushed my teeth and then re-locking him up for the night because I don't trust him to not try to attack Sunny's boyfriend in his sleep.

I need a shower really badly. Yesterday when I was going to shower before going back to my aunt's for shiva the hot water was brown. Not just for a minute until it ran through and not just in one faucet. So no shower. I'd shower now (the water is back to normal) but I fully intend on falling back asleep as soon as I'm done writing and my hair would end up sideways. Maybe I can wring the grease out of myself instead.

Last night at my aunt's house my sister was cranky and bitchy. She hates mingling with people she doesn't know well and was tired and sick of being with the family. I ended up talking a lot to my 16-year-old cousin who is extremely awkward but a good kid and his immediate family treats him like crap and everybody else ignores him so I felt bad. I also got to spend a little more time with my 29-year-old boy twin cousin with whom I frequently share glances and eye-rolls at family functions. I often feel like we're the only ones able to see in three dimensions. It's not that we don't both love the whole family and operate within the accepted and expected parameters, but we are able to see those parameters and beyond them. That sounds really elitist, but then again, I'm really elitist.

Hmm...the boyfriend's alarm just went off. And here I'd hoped to go back to bed and sleep another hour now. Still, nice to have a person around, even a person who prompts the dog to go psycho.

*Quotes and "he said" always sounds so weird and formal in a blog, but "He was like, 'want to go?'" just sounds dumb in writing, so fuck it, I'm going hyper-formal. Black tie, if you will.

Funeral was good. Family is good. I like cousins. Cousins are good.

Mourning morning*

Didn't finish the transcript but I'd accepted that pretty early on yesterday when I realized there was about an hour more of tape after I finished the first hour. 10 pages typed single-spaced of raw transcription. Still feels like the thing to do, and I'll try to get it done in the next few days, but it was too much. Him came with me grocery shopping and hung out until I kicked him out so I could go to bed. For as much as I like being alone and purposefully didn't see my parents yesterday, it was nice having someone around, particularly someone I've known forever and am comfortable being smelly and mopey around.

Now I'm off to the funeral service thing. My legs are gross from picking at old razor burn (why is it so comforting to pick at scabs when one is upset?) but I showered, and that's more than Jewish mourning guidelines expect, so fuck shaving and makeup and such. One of the really Jewy things to do is tear the garment you're wearing when the person dies and basically wear it for the next week. My family doesn't do that, but I was wearing a wifebeater with holes in it when my parents called and it just seemed appropriate, so I ripped out a piece of it and have been wearing it safety-pinned to the inside of my clothes. Ritual can be very comforting and I like having grief-guidelines, since it's pretty easy to get lost in ones own head. My family (particularly my sister) would make fun of me, but I'm entitled.

Ok, walking the dog and leaving now.

*I'm grieving here; let me have my pun.

Thanks to all the supportive, wonderful people who are being supportive and wonderful.

The service is tomorrow. I spent yesterday at my parents' house. We moped and ate and slept and watched tv. My parents called about a million people to say my grandfather had died. My brother's at his camp thing and being really weird about this. He's mostly just refusing to talk to us but then he gets really snippy. I know he was already in a crappy place emotionally and that everyone deals with grief differently, but he's still not allowed to be mean; we're grieving, too.

Grandpa. May 12, 1916 - June 25, 2006

Grandpa died. Very peacefully, holding my father's hand. Just got the call.

"I heard 'em. Fuck 'em."

Parents called. Grandpa's now unconscious and on a morphine drip and his blood pressure dropped. My dad's pretty sure today will be it. Makes sense, as it's grey and rainy. My headache broke, so I'm functional again, but I'm not sure if I want to go see my grandpa at the hospital today or not. I kind of like having Friday be the last time I saw him, since he was up and sarcastic. Do I really want to be there when he actually dies? But my aunt and uncle and one cousin and parents and sister are all going to be there, so maybe I want to be a part of that and with the family. I don't know. Maybe I'll try to transcribe more of the tapes of his life story from his 90th birthday party and see how I feel after that. I would love to have it done in time for his funeral. Is that weird? I've been thinking it for weeks, how it would be nice to have his life story as told by him for his death.

Joke my grandfather told on Friday:
An old Jewish man gets on a bus and goes to the back and sits down. The bus driver tells him he has to pay the fare, but the man just sits back and ignores him. "Buddy! You gotta pay!" But the man just sits there. "Pay or I'll throw you off the bus!" the diver yells. But the man keeps ignoring him. A woman on the bus goes up to the man and says loudly in Yiddish, "The bus driver says he's going to throw you off if you don't pay the fare." And the old man says back to her, "I heard 'em. Fuck 'em."

That's the joke.

migraine. again.

Shit. Head exploded. Not surprising. I've been beating it down for days and it finally won. No class, no party, no driving, no seeing grandpa. On max dose of all drugs. Been asleep for probably 19 of the last 21 hours. Shit.

up, down, all around

Thursday night was rough. We were all saying our goodbyes, calling the people who couldn't make it in so they could talk to him while he was still vaguely lucid. My brother is at a politics summer program in DC and was too upset after speaking to my grandfather to come back to the phone and talk to us for almost an hour. One cousin flew in from Atlanta and another couldn't come in until Friday morning and we feared it would be "too late." I slept at my parents and my mom and sister and I watched a weird movie and cried while my dad spent the night by my grandfather's side. Friday morning, my grandpa woke up more lucid and functional than he's been in a week. He was telling jokes. He talked about going back to his apartment in the "retirement community." Weeks ago I'd accepted emotionally that he might go at any minute but might not go at any minute, so I was mostly just glad to see the better version of Grandpa with cousins. My aunt was pretty much wigging out, not sure what to do or think, which was only complicated when the woman from Hospice came in to get the papers signed so he'd be formally admitted into the Hospice program. They only admit you into the Hospice that's in the upstairs of the hospital for five days (since the assumption is you go for just your last few days of life for the emphasis of the care to be on comfort as opposed to healing). After five days they extend it for one day at a time. The Hospice nurse was talking about if he wanted to go home or to another Hospice facility as we tried to explain he was supposedly going to die momentarily as of the night before, but now we weren't so sure. Somehow my aunt got caught up in the fact that the name of the Hospice program wasn't the name of the hospital and wasn't the off-site one my grandpa's doctor mentioned earlier when he thought it would be weeks instead of days. She was convinced that they were trying to pull a fast one on us. She couldn't wrap her head around the whole situation. When we were in the elevator she suddenly remembered her friend's mom who'd died recently apparently rallied and seemed much better right before she went. Somehow that made my aunt feel better.
My mom had to be home by 1 to pick up my sister and my friend from out of town was coming, so I went home and showered and put my laundry away until my friend showed up. We immediately had to go to my cousin's (the one from my mom's side who lives in Chicago) to get his keys so I can check up on their apartment while he and his wife are on vacation. By the time I actually got to spend quality time with my friend, I was completely out of it. We hung out and wandered around these funky shops by me. I found very practical and reasonably cute clearance underwear at the lingerie/sex shop. Feeling comfortable in there and being able to shop for "panties" has to be a strong mark of the platonic-ness of our friendship. It's nice. He got a shmancy cigar at the impressive cigar shop. Then we headed over to Goose Island brew pub and tried all of their current beers in a sampler thing and ate good food off the menu that was dollar off after 9 PM. He had to leave at 7 AM this morning to drive as much as possible towards Wyoming, so we were in bed before midnight, and having slept no more than 5 hours at a stretch in maybe a week, I was grateful. It was really nice and really good that he came, since he's one of my favorite people on earth and it was comforting to have him around, even for just a short time. My family tends to stress me out and it's been particularly stressful lately and I do have friends and people I like a lot here to take my mind off things but this particular friend is the kind of person who's really good at just sort of being there when I'm curled up into a little ball of goo.

I should go back to bed; I have a long day ahead of me. My acting improv class is at 1 and then I have to run home, walk the dog, and head over to E's graduation party for as long as possible before heading back to the hospital. I've been looking forward to this party for weeks. I'll finally get to put faces to all of E's stories about people and get to watch them interact, which is more or less awesome. E's also been really supportive through everything lately so I want to be able to celebrate her for a few hours. Partypartyparty.

Cleaning and dying

I LOVE THE MAID SERVICE. Two maid people have been here for over 3 hours and I have an apartment again. I have a floor. I have a desk. I have a table. I have a bed. They organized my shit and put all my papers that were everywhere in a few neat stacks on my desk. My clothes are all in the closet. They're just finishing up in the kitchen right now. For as awkward as I feel having a maid service, this was amazing. Maybe the next time I have them come back I'll have been able to do some actual organizing first and then they can really clean all the nooks and crannies and shit, because today was just the big huge overhaul. Now I need to shower and collect all of my laundry and head over to my parents' house. My grandpa was moved up to hospice today for what they expect to be the last few days of his life, so I'm taking my sister to go see him when she gets back from work tonight. She has an absolutely horrific sense of direction so she wants me to go with her, which means being at my parents' when she gets home and driving from there, so I figure I'll take advantage of having to be there and use their washing machine and let the dog run around.

I've actually been wandering around the lakefront parks with my friend Him and my dog for the last few hours since I needed to keep the dog out of the apartment while they cleaned. It was very nice. A bit hot, but very nice, and the dog got lots of exercise, which he seriously needed. He knows when something's wrong with me and he's been all kinds of restless and clingy and whiny. Poor puppy. It was also good spending some quality time with Him. We've been friends for more than ten years but there have been ups and downs and it's an odd dynamic, but today was quite lovely. Yay for lovely.

Sleep's not happening. I hate when I get like this. One can only lie awake for so many hours, even with a snuggly dog.

tear-jerking

I spent another 3+ hours at the hospital with my grandpa today. He didn't want to do or eat anything and didn't want to have to make decisions and could barely talk and slept most of the time. It was awful. Actually, it wasn't so bad before my aunt and my mom came because it became clear to me very fast that he just didn't want to be bothered with questions so I went with the method of sticking the straw in his face and if he didn't want it he could refuse it, repeat with apple sauce, burger, etc. He refused everything solid and only took a few sips of juice so I let him sleep. Then my mom came and started asking him what he wanted to do, eat, etc. and he got annoyed until she picked up on the "don't ask questions" method. An hour later my aunt showed up and went through the same dance again. We all want so badly to be able to do something but our bumbling and fussing about gets understandably annoying after awhile.
Plus, my grandpa hates making other people feel put-upon. Last night as I was saying goodbye and he was tired and having trouble talking he squeezed my hand and said "I'm sorry I can't say thank you more." It was one of those moments they put in movies to make you cry, except this was my dying grandfather saying it and meaning it.

My mom called tonight to let me know that by the time everybody left for the night, my grandpa was doing much better. They'd put him on a low dose of morphine yesterday to help with his breathing and he'd said during one of his more lucid moments today that he wanted the morphine only at night because it was making him groggy, so they took him off of it and it made a huge difference. It had been making him feel completely drained to the point eating was too much of an effort to be worth the bother which is why he was so completely out of it and miserable, so once it was all out of his system he was back to his former level of not good but lucid. It helps that he's a doctor and his brain's stayed intact because he can recognize what's working and what's not. It also has to be unimaginably frustrating watching all of us stooges running around trying to decide what he needs and clearly having no clue what we're talking about while he and his MD lie there helpless.

The cleaning service people are coming tomorrow. Hallelujah. I really need to be throwing things out and shoving my clothes either in the closet or laundry bag and gathering up my cleaning supplies for them to use, but I'm feeling like a useless lump. It's slightly different from the depression version of things when I'm also hanging out in the "Pit of Despair"* but I'm sad and worried and I'd rather curl up into a ball and play computer games and poke my dog. It's very very good they are coming and that Codenamelessfriend is coming and I have lots to do Saturday. Forces me to do things, even though I just want to hang out and let myself feel sad. I don't want to be consoled or hear the standard comforting crap. I'm sad and that's ok. It can't interfere with my life long-term, but for the short-term, it's perfectly acceptable.


*To be said like the albino says it in Princess Bride

Why I am cool

Reason I am cool: The #1 hit on the US pop charts the day I was born was Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's Ebony & Ivory.

What was yours?

Spent 3 hours at the hospital with my grandfather this evening. He has a new bracelet; it's a magentaish purple and says DNR in big black letters. He's very ready to be done living. His body is still adequately chugging along and he's not in any pain, but he can't do anything and that makes him very unhappy. He's even lost his sarcasm. He just says wearily how tired he is of all of this and that he doesn't want to have to make decisions anymore. Holding hands is about the only thing that seems to be bringing him any joy. I think I'm going back tomorrow until my aunt and uncle (who's coming in from Connecticut) show up in the afternoon.

Burn baby burn

This is my local library branch. I hear if you set enough books on fire, people stop being gay. Look out, true crime section; I've got a match with your name on it!

Escape

TO MY FRIEND WHOSE BIRTHDAY IT IS!!!!

Migraine went away, now the pressure's back a bit but only a bit so I can't complain. Oh, wait, I can ALWAYS complain. I'm talented like that.

I NEED TO GET OUT OF MY APARTMENT. Except it's now almost 11 PM so there's not really anywhere to go. Call me if you are awake and local and want to play in a non-alcoholic low-key sort of way (I don't want to tempt the headache demons).

College friend who does not yet have a code name is coming Friday on his way through to work a music festival in Wyoming. I am excited. This is also just the inspiration I need to call the cleaning service people and actually use my birthday present from my parents so that maybe he won't cry when he sees my apartment. He's been here before, but right now it is particularly bad again. There's mold in my bathtub. It's gross.

Dog's chewing on himself again. I need to drag him back to the vet because his allergy pills tend to make him throw up but he's clearly quite itchy and snarffly. Poor little creature.

My friends (with the exception of E, who is clearly very good at maintaining communication) have all stopped updating their blogs. Is it due to my personal blogging plight? Or do they just suck? [Hint hint hint.]

Dizzy. Migraine. Weather + Womanhood = DEATH. Hate hate hate. Hello concerned snuggly attention-whore dog. You smell like butt. Too broken to do anything. So bored. Fuck you, barometric pressure. No, dog, I do not want to play.

Debate and Concord

Humid and uncomfortable, even in my apartment with the AC and fan going. Should break into rain soon, which is good, because I feel the pressure in my head and it's not exactly pleasant.

Had my improv class today. I was late thanks to the stupid work they're doing on the stupid El. It's scheduled to go on for the next four years, so I should probably learn to plan around it. Very annoying. Class was good. Our regular teacher was back and we did "environment work." Lots of pantomiming crap and being "aware of the space" and such. Probably a bunch of BS, but you can't see the light unless you drink the Kool-Aid. BB was still being very friendly. I hate that when guys get like that and you don't have a more direct reason for disinterest than "I think your boring and unappealing" you end up having to choose between acting cold/bitchy and risking "leading him on." I went for the cold/bitchy method, and I think by the end of the day he got the point because he emailed me again but this time said "I hope we as a class can get together and see a play some time in the coming week." Yay for the phrase "as a class." No problem hanging out with him with other people around--he seems like a nice guy--it was just the trying to spend time just the two of us that I wasn't so keen on.
I went out for food with people again after class. Almost the same group as last week but without the 42-year-old aluminum guy (he was at a wedding) and another one of the females from the class came. She's 22 and just graduated some small college around here with a degree in psychology. She was actually the first person I talked to the very first day while waiting for the class to start, but I still don't have much of a sense of her. We ended up at some small bar & grill sort of place after both Mexican restaurants on the block were closed, and the food was surprisingly good. I had a steak sandwich on a burger bun and we shared this fantastic goat cheese appetizer thing. Not cheap, but totally reasonable for the quantity and quality of the food and I had a Blue Moon, which is the perfect hot summer day beer. The stand-up comedian (henceforth dubbed SUC) and I ended up in an entertaining and somewhat heated debate about censorship and using derogatory racial slurs. He's of the camp that thinks we should use words like nigger and kike to take away their derogatory power, but he also then believes that means everyone not only has the right to say them but should say them. And not just the ones about your own ethnic groups. His argument is that if it's ok for Chris Rock to say "honkey" and "cracker," then it's ok for racist white people to say "nigger." It was fun. SUC's clearly a smart guy, but I get the sense he's used to people being more or less stupefied by him and his arguments because he was clearly unprepared for counterpoints. I love making people take that step back and go "...oh." But it didn't dumbfound him, which was excellent. Smart people make me happy.
Turns out the Model is also quite intelligent, and she has the same kind of crazy lucid dreams I do. It was very exciting being able to talk about the awake frustrations of not being able to fly places and having a secondary semi-static reality that people don't understand. One of those conversations where both parties keep saying "Exactly!"

I got one of those BikiniTouch trimmer things for $5 at Walgreens, but I put in the battery and nothing happened. Tried a different battery, still nothing. It came with a "60 day limited warranty," so I was going to send it back for one that works, but the "postage and handling" fee is $6. It'd be cheaper just to buy another one. So annoying.

I think my dog melted. (That sounds like the set-up for a joke..."Yeah, now he's a big wet poodle." Oy.)

Club Grandpa

I went with my sister to see my grandfather in the hospital this afternoon. He didn't look so good. He's covered in bruises now. You can clearly see his pacemaker (which he's had for years) under his skin. It's creepy. He's still cracking jokes, though, which is good. He told us that they're having a medical pow-wow tomorrow with/about him where they will decide what to do or "get the formaldehyde." It's kind of a shame his body is doing so much worse than his mind, because he's completely frustrated and not enjoying his uselessness and ready to be done with it already, but it's still so clearly Grandpa in there, it's hard to accept him giving up.

My sister half-jokes that she's trying to win points to get into "Club Grandpa." It's hard to get a sense of him and he doesn't really have a sense of her. He's the kind of person who sits back and lets people socially and emotionally come to him, and my sister does the same thing (though differently). There are a lot of blaring personalities on that side of the family so it's hard to get noticed unless you make the effort. I always made the effort. My sister and mother seem to resent the fact that they have to make the effort in order to get noticed. Reminds me a lot of myself as a teenager with trying to look my age. I have a young face and I'm very short, so people think I'm much younger than I am. I used to struggle a lot with being taken seriously or at least seen as the age I was, and I knew I could wear more makeup or dress differently so people would stop mistaking me for 12, but why should I have to change myself for people to see what I already am?
Ooh, that was pithy.

I can't it's already the weekend. Harder to keep track when there's not much separating the days of your week. Odd.

more about my grandfather

Photo of my grandfather from April when I wanted an image of him for my phone so he decided to stick his tongue out at me. I think it's my favorite picture of him ever.

I'm at my parents. After I left last night, apparently my grandpa fell or walked into a wall or something and went back into the hospital. Looks like most of his recent spills and disorientation have been low blood sugar problems thanks to his diabetes medication and a slow kidney or something like that. Even though as 90-year-olds go, he's doing damn well, he's pretty depressed by his own frailty and may be giving up. About an hour ago I was thinking about him and about my college essay and trying to keep a record of everything we know so that we can share it with others in a lesser version of immortality. I'd taped him telling his life stories at dinner one night and again at his 90th birthday party, so I started transcribing them. I'd like to get it all down while he's still around to ask questions and clarify and fill holes. But transcribing takes a crazy-long time and it's already a crazy-long chunk of recorded material. I've gone through about 25 minutes of it straight through typing everything I could. I think I have about two hours taped. I should probably intensify my efforts.
Right now I'm feeling sad. I keep thinking about yesterday and sharing watermelon with my grandfather right out of the disposable tupperware from his fridge. My dad always makes a big to-do about food presentation; his salad bar creations come out gorgeous and take-out always gets transferred to real plates. My grandpa was worried I'd be offended by the informality of the watermelon presentation. I explained to him that, at my apartment, I drink orange juice out of the apartment and I was just impressed he had metal silverware.
"Yeah, Susie [my aunt] did that," he laughed. "She did this whole place."
"I should get her to do my apartment next." We understood: all the nice formal things are swell, but we lack the inspiration or need to create them for ourselves. Watermelon tastes just as good (and sometimes better) with two forks and a shared vat.
My aunt and my dad have always had very strong personalities. Their mother did, too, as did my grandfather's girlfriend of the past decade. I always ascribed to my grandpa the characteristics of the people who surrounded him. Turns out I was wrong.

That's all for tonight.

90

What's the last Free Concert XRT brought to The Cubby Bear? I need to know this in order to win tickets to the free Soul Asylum concert. Very important.

I spent the evening with my grandfather at his apartment. He's 90 and very annoyed that his body doesn't work the way it used to. He's still got his mind and isn't in pain beyond the occasional back twinge (his words, not mine), but he's been so healthy and strong for so long, he doesn't like the frailty thing. He was complaining about the number of pills he has to take. It's about the same as I was on at one point in my general migraine/depression/hormone crap battle. He said he wished he was 20 years younger. 20 years ago he was 70. That's pretty damn impressive. He also thought I was this amazing wonderful person for going over there. Nice to get wonderful person points so easily. I mean, what else would I have done? Played Word Racer? As I said to my grandfather, he is a much better conversationalist than my dog. No offense to my dog. It's also odd to see my grandfather deteriorate, but while I like him and like having him around, it doesn't seem that sad to me. He's 90. There's something very inevitable about death and mortality at this point, and he's lived one hell of a full life. And there's still the Unknown of Death, but it's lost its element of surprise, which I think is what scares me far more than what it's like once you die. Then again, I'm not the one who's falling apart.

There's no crying in baseball

Yesterday, Houston beat the Cubs while the White Sox defeated the entire state of Texas. Sad but not surprising.

mmm...pizza

Urg essay. I have like five different starts to it written and none of them want to go anywhere. Where's divine inspiration when you need it?

My grandfather's apparently not doing great and I was going to visit him tonight but my aunt is there and said he's going to bed soon and he had a rough day so don't bother. While I do actually believe he's going to bed in an hour (even though it's only 6 PM) I wish she'd let him talk for himself. If I get old and people start trying to talk for me, I will beat them with my cane. I always got mad when I was little and my dad would answer for me. Unfortunately, when you are 4, people don't expect you to make all your own decisions and if you try hitting them (never mind the complete lack of a cane) you end up in time out. But just you wait for me to be 104...look out world.

New thrilling adsense discovery: if I'm at, say, a coffee shop with free wi-fi, my ISP is different so I get money for clicking the ads on here. I actually got $2.14 yesterday from clicking my own crap. That put me over $50. I'm kind of excited by the whole prospect of getting money for something so silly. [Insert offensive Jewish money-grubbing joke HERE.]

I need to go to Target or something to get more naproxen sodium (generic Aleve). I go through that junk like it's vitamins. The last doctor I asked about it said the amount I take shouldn't give me an ulcer as long as I always take it with food, but I do worry a bit.
Haha! Worry! Ulcer! I made a joke without meaning to!


M called yesterday to invite me to some open house thing for this class he's taking on ontology. It sounded interesting but vaguely cultish, and I ended up spending too long at the coffee bar so I couldn't really go anyway. It's through these people, which confused me even more. Maybe I'm overly skeptical (ok, I am overly skeptical, but I mean in this particular instance), but seminars on general "life-improvement" without obvious mission statements make me nervous. Like the church "youth group" in high school I was always being invited to that "played fun games and they didn't care if you were Christian or Jewish or whatever." They didn't care because no matter what you were they'd try to "save" you. Is it really so awful to be a skeptic? So maybe I don't have M's universal hope and optimism. I'm too mushy on the inside for that. It's the coconut/melted M&M thing again. We hypersensitive-types require a stronger shell.

What the hell is wrong with my dog?
Don't answer that.

I actually painted my nails last night. I was doing my toes because I've been wearing flip-flops and thought my feet looked too boring and while I was waiting for them to dry I did my hands. Pretty lousy job of it, but whatever. They are pink. Not bubble gum pink or anything, but I still feel like I deserve a cookie or something for purposefully putting pink on my body. I chose the color because it looked best with my skin. I'm mentally putting it in the same category as lipstick, which is also allowed to be pink for the same reason. I'm still a ways off from turning into a girly-girl, but you should be proud of me, anyway.

Hmm...need food...I guess now that I'm not going to my grandpa's I should call "Him" back (I love that people are getting code-names for my blog...seems so ridiculous). I'm just a touch resentful that when Him has a girlfriend I don't hear from or see him for months, but the moment Him is single again, he wants to hang out all the time. It makes me feel like a fair-weather (or in this case, foul-weather) friend. I hope that doesn't sound bitchy or like I don't want to be his friend at all (especially since I know he reads this), I'm just trying to be honest about how I feel. I know a lot of people do the same thing, since the significant other is their top priority, but here is where I need a clip of Eddie Murphy as Donkey (from Shrek) singing "But you gotta have frieeeends..."

Ooh, or I could just make myself a frozen pizza, which sounds really good right now and is already paid for. Home Run Inn and Reggios are my favorites by far. I did a personal taste-test with a whole bunch of the cheaper-end frozen pizzas and those were the clear winners. Freschetta was surprisingly crappy, and Red Baron was fine but nothing special. Tombstone and Jacks (both owned by Kraft, interestingly enough) are cheaper but worse, and I'm steering clear of anything more than about $4-5 a pizza. Home Run Inn even comes in a personal pizza size, so I'm not paying for more pizza than I can eat. Yes, I am cheap. Back to the Jew jokes.

Trying to write an application essay

I'm at a coffee bar near my apartment. Free wi-fi. Out of my apartment. Really good iced teas so I'm not drinking coffee but I get a little caffeine. Hallelujah. I actually came here with the hope that a different environment would encourage me to actually finish my application essay. I find the essay question very interesting, but I'm not sure what direction or stance to take. Here, I will post the question for your viewing pleasure:

Improvements in consumer-grade technology and its relative affordability have provided opportunities for students to create and distribute their art, their films, their writings, and their music in ways previously unavailable. Though it was once far too expensive for an individual outside of the professional world to make a "film", for example, many young people now engage in scripting, shooting, and editing their own works. Aspiring journalists write and publish their own e-zines, blogs, and on-line journals. Self-managed musicians create and distribute their own CDs and promote themselves. And we all know about podcasts...…
With so much ready access to the technology tools that help produce and distribute these creative works, and with so much work being produced and distributed "out there" (some of it not very good, by the way), how will you make your work stand out? For the moment, forget the technology and what it has done for you and your art form. Tell us, instead, about your ideas. What themes or concepts do you want to explore through your work? What do you want to make your "audience" think or feel? What do you want to make them aware of? Why are you interested in your ideas? Why should anyone else be interested in them? Have you already begun to explore your concepts through your work? What do you hope or expect Nameless College to contribute to the development of your ideas? What is the first thing you want to do at Nameless to explore your ideas?

Big heavy question. Do I go with the honest but incredibly arrogant answer that I simply think I'm smarter and a better writer than 99% of humanity? Do I talk about having a sense of what the market actually desires? Get into a whole thing about reality tv and creative non-fiction? I started writing about that last bit. I stated that the current national obsession with reality is our collective desire to understand and explain ourselves, falling into three categories: "That's just like me," "I wish that was me," and "At least I'm not like that!"
It's an interesting point to make, but I don't actually think anything is that simple. And I'm pretty sure that's not the best way to treat an application essay. I need to find a way to say "I have ideas but I need to learn more and I think you could teach me." Make my ideas sobrilliantd and briliant enough without letting the egotism creep through. Which is much harder when I try to answer the part of the question about "What themes or concepts do you want to explore through your work?" and "What do you want to make your "audience" think or feel?" I want to be understood. To have someone understand and appreciate the shit inside my head. For them to externally validate my internal experience. But then there's that great furry paradox of wanting to be special. To be somehow more interesting and complicated and brilliant than everyone else, at least in some particular area. I want to make a dent in people's lives, but not because I think I actually have something so important and dent-worthy to say. Rather because I want to rationalize and define my silly little existence and somehow go beyond myself in a more permanent way. Like Shakespeare or the crazy guy who took a hammer to the Liberty Bell. I don't remember his name, but from then on there were dings in the Liberty Bell. That's fantastic and really fucking funny. I'd rather do something a bit more productive. Like write something that effects people. I don't mind if they don't know my name, but if they know the name of my work, that would be good. Quote passages to express things they themselves are incapable of expressing so well.

Oh, tangent. Semi-tangent, because it does answer the question, but I can't really say that shit, can I? And still expect them to want me as a student? Urg. Help.

excitement, guilt, and pain

A big hearty MAZEL TOV to E who graduated COLLEGE today!

The Cubs won their THIRD game in a row today! I don't want to jinx it, but World Series, here we come! Awww...poor Cubbies.

excerpt from an email I got today from BB (I started the class email list last night):

I didn't make clear yesterday that I wanted to passalong some job leads for you, but felt a bit awkward doing that in front of everyone, being that this might have embarrassed you.

So I feel a little bad, except that he had plenty of opportunity to make his intentions clear without "embarrassing me" and I'm fairly certain having a palsy does not necessitate a complete lack of social grace. Maybe that makes me insensitive, but I generally expect people with any sort of handicap to be able to function in the ways not directly effected by said handicap. I'm happy to have patience with his physical difficulties, it's the regular ol' annoying guy stuff that pisses me off. Like if a blind person was also a complete airhead, the physical handicap doesn't really work as a valid excuse for the stupid.
Anyway, I had a much better time going out with the larger class group, and I don't think I'm looking for another teaching gig right now. I'll be nice in my response, and I do feel a little bad (and maybe I'm just saying all this crap to justify my actions), but whatever.

Perhaps it is dangerous that I am now blogging in relative anonymity, as I no longer feel obligated to make myself sound like a decent human being.

I filled an entire garbage bag in about 10 minutes of going through crap on the surface of my apartment and it looks almost exactly the same in here. How many more garbage bags will I need? I think we need to start a betting pool.

My grandfather is back out of the hospital. Yay. I should go visit him tomorrow.

My head hurts. Could it perhaps have something to do with the long list of things I consumed yesterday that tend to be my triggers? I was eating edamame. They were delicious, but soy is on my trigger food list. And this was after drinking coffee and before drinking beer. Not to mention the soy sauce with the sushi, and who knows what else in the sushi that may or may not get along with my brain.

meals

Oh, sweet, sweet diner food. I had whatever you want to call a meal eaten at 10 PM with my best friend from junior high. It was really nice, even if we've each had not-so-nice major life events in the past two weeks. Maybe because of it. I've got Simon and Garfunkel's Old Friends in my head now. I'm not sure how much more he'd be ok with me saying and I know he reads this. I should have asked him. Him- how do you feel about being blog fodder? Mmm...blogfodder...

My teacher didn't show up for my improv class because apparently his father died. We still entertained ourselves for almost two hours playing games we'd learned in the previous classes and elsewhere in our lives. The Boring Beast (BB from now on) asked again if wanted to go out for coffee. I didn't have a valid excuse not to, but I didn't want to make one up because I was hoping to hang out with people from the class in general, and him included would be fine, just not exclusively. I tried hints and even called my cousins to see if they wanted to come meet me at the street festival that was happening. No luck. But as we exited the building, there was a group from the class still chatting outside so it was pretty easy to join them. BB kept asking if I wanted to go and I kept saying I was perfectly fine right there. My hints grew less subtle and he remained oblivious. Oh, and it turns out he's only 28. I would have guessed 40s. Hmmm. Eventually, he said he was going to head down to BluesFest, did I want to come, and while I actually did want to go to BluesFest, I didn't want to be unclear in my "hinting" so I said no and he left. Another member of our class works at a sushi place and invited us to go with him for sushi and beer. Four of us ended up taking him up on the offer. I'd actually been to this place before and I like their sushi very much. I ate a whole lot of this one kind of roll that has salmon and cucumber inside with avocado and a dollop of tobasco on top. The flavor combination is fantastic. The guy who works there picked up the bill, which was extremely nice and unnecessary. So I got to know my classmates better. The one who's the sushi place manager grew up in New Orleans and his family is still there but he's now been a stand-up comedian for four years. He's about a month older than I am. The other guy with us is 42, a native New Yorker, and does some kind of business thing in Ft. Wayne Indiana involving aluminum. He's apparently scheduled to give a speech in Canada on aluminum. He's actually much less boring than that makes him sound. The female who wasn't me is 28 and has been a professional model for a very long time. She's just now getting into acting and actually had a few lines in a big movie that's coming out and is identifiable as a girl at a bar who blows off a main character in another movie that is doing very well. It's a living. She got married at a Tom Petty concert to a guy she got engaged to after four days and married after six months. They've been together for four years now.
All in all I had a splendid time and ate whatever meal you want to call that at like 4:30.

My dog's stomach was unbelievably growly earlier. I thought about calling the vet except he was otherwise in good spirits so I've just been keeping an eye on him. Still can't figure out if he ate something weird or if maybe he's got a doggy virus or something. Might explain his last couple days of clingy weirdness. Poor puppy.

Yes I am the biggest dork ever

Today, I ran errands. Very exciting. I got my dog's nails trimmed, which was a rather intense ordeal as I had to use all four of my limbs to hold him still and keep him calm while the woman went after his paws. He's always insane and skiddish around strangers, but he also has extremely long quicks* so it's easy to hurt him with the clippers. His allergies have also been really bad lately, which I'm guessing is why he's been particularly nuts. Can't help that I'm around all day, too, and he's not used to that. But then he curls up in a little ball in my lap and I can't help but love him. Shut up, I know I'm being corny.

At Target I got a Swiss army-style knife for a dollar, as well as a dog harness, also for a dollar. Very exciting. The knife thing has a Phillips-head screwdriver that actually fits the screws on my computer, so perhaps after I'm done posting this I will take my laptop apart and see if I can clean out the CD-drive, which hasn't been working and I suspect it has something to do with dog hair. I cleaned out other portions of my laptop the other day and the sheer quantity of hair and grossness was amazing. For those of you who remember my attacking rollerball mice, you can probably imagine the excitement I get from pulling furballs out from around my memory card.

My grandfather is back in the hospital. Nothing particularly serious, but still no fun. When I get old and start falling apart, either drug me into oblivion or pull the plug. Frailty does not look like fun.

I have my improv class tomorrow. Yay.

As they say, "I'm late." Damn immaculate conception.

*I never knew what "quicks" were before, but it suddenly makes the expression "cut to the quick" a lot more logical.

awake

Took medication. Can't sleep. Surprised? Anyone? At least the dog is being snuggly.

Where I'm a Viking

Had one of my creepy sleep-through-the-world things all day today. At least I've finally figured out they're migraine-related and not just a lack of willpower or me being a lazy ass. I was dreaming my parents decided to sell their house and move to Manhattan and I was all upset because I'd always wanted to live in New York but now that I'm a grown-up I didn't like them getting rid of my childhood home and I was finally getting settled in Chicago. Weird crap. Now I'm all woozy and out of it. My brother and I had maybe plans to go to the botanic garden today, but I slept through all four of his calls. Perhaps we'll go tomorrow. I should be finishing my application to go back to school and finish my degree at Unnamed Chicago College, but I'm not sure how much sense I can make right now, and it's just the essay stuff that isn't done.

I'm seeing the weird flashy lights in my peripheral vision. At least the pain isn't showing up. I'm pretty sure that's why my body forces me to sleep: to avoid the pain. When I was little and I'd fall and hurt myself I'd go to sleep. It freaked out my parents, who would worry I had a concussion or something, but no, it was just my way of coping. I have to decide right now if I should take my heavy-duty migraine drugs. They are a pretty good guarantee that the real pain and misery won't show up, but they also contain caffine and tend to make me feel funny the next day. My other option is to let myself try to keep sleeping it off, which would leave me feeling more human tomorrow if it works, but cold also allow the migraine to take over and win. Hmm...

Just noticed the dog has camped out in a pile of what was clean, folded clothes. Oops. He freaks out when I sleep so much. Gets all weird and clingy. You know, as opposed to his usual well-adjusted self.

I'm going back to bed. I'm too out of it to do anything, and at least if I fall asleep now it's a normal-person sleep time.

This is the dawning of...

"The Age of Aquarius" is in my head, but with "Aquarium" instead of "Aquarius." Went to the aquarium today with E. I love that place. My sister makes fun of me for how excited I get. Some of those tanks I could watch for hours. I finally saw the saw shark thing that was hiding my last two visits. That tank must be absolutely enormous for something that big to be able to hide that well. The lizard exhibit continues to make me a very happy camper. I think they're cute/cool. Faust (the huge friggin' komodo dragon) had been fed earlier in the day and still had a big gross dead rodent sitting next to him and a satisfied look in his eyes. Maybe some day if I have a house with an extra room I'll get an iguana. I don't know, though...would an iguana be able to get along with a dog, and vice-versa? The two might be incompatible.

Speaking of incompatible desires, one of the teachers who is still at the school that fired me called me yesterday and another called me today. They were wonderfully nice and both said that people weren't demonizing me and were angry about what happened to me and the kids missed me. I miss the kids. I love(d) those kids. When I told the teacher who called today that I was taking this whole fiasco as a sign and going back to school for writing, she tried to talk me out of giving up on teaching, saying that I was "so good with the kids" and such, and that I should write and teach. And I'd love to, but can I really teach and still write and publish what I want? What if I put out articles that contain swear words? I do tend to swear. Or, worse still, what if the article I'm currently trying to sell actually gets picked up by someone? That thing is about phone actressing. They would burn me at the stake. And while it'd theoretically be much easier to get my teaching degree now and go into writing later, it feels a little like a homosexual getting married and having kids to then get divorced and be openly gay later. Ok, so that's a horrible analogy, but you get the idea, or at least I get the idea.

After two days of this blog I have already insulted people of color, the physically handicapped, and now homosexuals. I'm just throwing out all my "good person" points as fast as humanly possible. I should kick a kitten and punch a baby while I'm still on a roll.

My mail yesterday was awesome. I got a check from (ex)work, my latest Netflix DVD (Muppet Show Season 1 Disk 1), and a $25 gift certificate to DSW because I'm a member of their rewards program thing (not a credit card). It was like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one.

coffee and tequila

Just saw this and now I want to smoke:
Saturday I had my acting improv class. It was a lot of fun. I get into adrenalin mode and have a very hard time shutting up. They encourage letting our ids take over our egos, but my id is really obnoxious and often needs to be punched.
I had another one of my weird idiot moments about race. We had a sub teaching the class who was introducing herself and mentioned she mostly does the minority outreach programs, at which point I had the very conscious thought, "Hey, look at that, she's black." When people are educated and/or well-spoken and/or well-dressed, I tend not to notice color. I'm not sure if that's more or less racist, but it's honest and a strange thought process either way.
We spent a long time playing the game again where the person in the middle says a trait and everyone with that trait has to get up and switch seats, the person in the middle tries to take a seat, and whoever is left without a chair goes in the middle and says the next trait. Last time, I was the only person to get up on "own kinky underwear" and was quite embarrassed. This week, the best moment came when the middle person called out "If you've had sex in the last week" and of all 10 adults in the room, ages (I'm estimating here) 19 to 40-something, not one stood up. We're a sexless bunch. Also interesting to note was when we played that game where you have to close your eyes and, as a group, get through the alphabet one letter at a time without two people saying the same letter simultaneously or you go back to A. We couldn't do it the normal way by listening and feeling, so we eventually did it by going more or less around the circle in order. We found the cerebral solution to the touchy-feely game. Maybe that's why none of us are having sex. Should make for an interesting class.
I'd been ranting and bitching about the how and why I lost my jobs and one of the guys asked if I wanted to go for coffee after class. "Coffee" is one of those terribly loaded words, because sometimes it really means just being friendly and casual and sitting around drinking coffee, but sometimes it's intended as a date-that-isn't-really-a-date. I said I was meeting my friend for margaritas, which was true, just not for several hours.
"But Annabell! Why would you turn down coffee?! Even if you're not really interested in this boy, would it hurt to make a friend? He's clearly trying to be nice!" you say?
Here's the thing: he has some sort of palsy, and I'm not sure if that just makes him look older or if he actually is significantly older, but he appears mid to late 40s-ish. I can't actually tell if the palsy itself was a strike against him, but honestly in the end it's irrelevant because he is, at least after a few conversations, boring. Nice, but in that one-dimensional only-attribute sort of way. He never did or said anything of interest in class. Talking to him on break was like pulling teeth--like a bad interview with short, flat answers.
I will now share my additional thoughts on the subject which I know are sending me right to hell, but I'm Jewish, so I was downward-bound to begin with:
I've always loved the Beauty and the Beast stories. Phantom of the Opera, Shrek, Tarzan, Disney's and Jean Cocteau's versions. But they always portray the beast as a complex character, bitter and scorned by society. As Shrek would say, Ogres are like onions because they both have layers. Then into my reality wanders a beast (honestly, he's not that beastly, but I'm making a point here) but without the layers. There's just the ugly outer shell with room-temperature vanilla pudding on the inside. Perfectly nice, but boring as hell. Not the sort of person I want to spend significant amounts of one-on-one time with. I hate feeling obligated to carry on conversation, and that's how this guy makes me feel. I feel guilty because he is a nice guy and it's always flattering to be asked to coffee, whatever the motive, but I guess it would be worse if I went to coffee out of guilt and obligation. No one needs that.

What I did need came just a few hours later when I met "E" (my former co-teacher who has been absolutely awesome through this whole ordeal) for margaritas. There's a place near my apartment that she knew about with $9 margaritas as big as your head. We both got mango and they were wonderful. Pleasantly inebriated by 10 PM we wandered back to my apartment and talked and bitched for hours. Because my dog isn't exactly good with strangers (or anyone other than me, for that matter) and my apartment is still terrifyingly gross and unfriendly, we sat on the steps outside my door. It was most excellent. When we were working together 4 days a week it was hard to count her as a "friend," but now that we're both without employment (she's going to grad school in the fall so she ended her job with the school year) I can actually say I have a friend who is a girl who I can actually hang out with. Amazing! We're even going to the aquarium tomorrow. I'm a member, so I don't have to worry about spending money I'm not making.

Being unemployed isn't supposed to be this much fun. Nor will it be once my funds dry up and I'm desperately searching for a job or back under the complete financial thumb of my parents as a full-time student. But until then, partypartyparty.

SCF smells like a wrinkled monkey butt.

shifty paradigms

Why hello, new blog! Perhaps with no real names of people or companies or other identifying details, I can actually keep you without screwing up my life. That would be delightful.

I'm dealing quite well with my recent sudden unemployment. I'm actually applying to go back and finish my bachelors degree. My untimely dismissal from the world of teaching was the push I needed to decide I am first and foremost a writer and I should get myself some training and a degree in my genre. Conveniently, there is a college nearby with programs in creative non-fiction and magazine writing. I'm ready to take classes again, too, which I wasn't sure would happen ever let alone so soonish, but my brain is restless and craves more direction and stimulation than I can offer on my own.
And I'm not going back to school to make my parents happy, which is very important because it's way too easy for me to default to that as my motivation and then realize how miserable I am part way in. It's just a hard combination for me to have both an overdeveloped eagerness to please and parents who are very vocal in their opinionatedness.

Despite losing my jobs last Monday, it's actually been a surprisingly fun week. Thursday night I went out drinking with a person I've known since first grade (we'll call him "M"), his friend ("T"), his friend's girlfriend, and his friend's girlfriend's friend. M was never one of the mean evil kids, and by junior high and high school we were always friendly and ran in circles that crossed Venn diagram-like. I always assumed he was kind of shallow, maybe because when we were younger he actually was kind of shallow, but more likely because he's Model Gorgeous and obviously beautiful people have to be stupid. Obviously. Interesting to note, he is is probably the most gorgeous person I've known personally in my entire life, and yet I am not now nor have I ever been attracted to him. Not that he has an unattractive personality, either. I think it must have more to do with knowing him forever and having never thought of him "like that" that the platonicness sticks with me now.
So that's a short explanation of M. T, on the other hand, is a person I barely remember existing in high school. I think he hung out some with the girls I didn't like or the party crew or something, and he may or may not have ever been in a class with me. I feel bad forgetting people, especially since my memory is usually very good with that kind of thing. My newly 21-year-old sister has been going out to bars with her friends and having people she remembers from high school think they're meeting her for the first time. She wasn't happy to have made no impression. I at least remembered T's first name and face without having to get out the yearbook. I'd actually recently come across him on MySpace when I was looking through people from my high school class. His blog annoyed the living crap out of me. It reminded me of the stuff I would write in eighth grade when I thought I was "deep" and was starting to realize myself as a writer. I was so pleased with the ideas in my head and hyper-verbose hyper-descriptive language that everything came out like Charles Dickens with 13-year-old girl angst. I didn't like the fact that it annoyed me so much, since intellectual writer-types in the area aren't so easy to come by, but I have no patience for former versions of myself, so I had no patience with Ts blog.
That being said, I had a fabulous time. M has this incredible excitement and optimism about the world and the good things he's doing. Drunk and recently fired, I was on the argumentative nay-saying bitterbus. T joined me in my skepticism while his girlfriend was optimistic but slightly more realistic, and we debated and argued the status of existence and other fun lofty things. I kept saying how I hoped M was right and that we can change the world in the ways we want, but that I was trying to do and say the things M says now a solid 10-15 years ago and people and reality just burnt me out.
Because I was trying to effect change when I was 8. I petitioned my elementary school principal to start a student counsel in like third grade. I product-tested and wrote for Consumer Reports for Kids for five years in grade school. I was in sixth grade when I joined a youth art advocacy group. I was a rampant feminist in junior high. I organized my high school's AIDS walk team and passed out condoms starting my sophomore year. I got involved in the school paper my junior year. I created and organized every detail a benefit concert my senior year. And every step of the way people told me to shut up and that I was just being contrary for the attention and that I was annoying and full of shit. And then I went to college where a very large vocal group was just being contrary for the attention and was annoying and full of shit. They would argue over who was the most oppressed. They'd fight for things they didn't understand, get arrested at protests because they thought it was cool, and yell with the self-righteous indignation that has nothing to do with any "cause."
Is that what I looked like? Is that how I sounded? Only with the added ridiculousness of being a pipsqueak kid? So I stopped. I shut up.
I alluded to all this in my conversation with M and T and T's girlfriend. M's known me all along and was never particularly malicious or supportive of anything I did or said. And this was much of my drunken frustration: that I'd said all these things he was now saying, but nobody ever listened.
But M surprised me. He remembered. He remembered my pipsqueak self trying to change the world and yelling these things from my soap box before puberty set in. And while at the time nobody cared for my idealism and political ramblings, apparently at least one person heard, and years later, it meant something to him.
Wow. Paradigm shift.
My little kid struggles that felt (and still retrospectively feel) so big actually had an effect. It wasn't for nothing. That's amazing. I always wanted to matter (not just as a friend, but in a more huge, global, "I want to be Shakespeare" sort of way) to someone other than myself. I'd come to assume that all those things I did and wanted were immature because I was immature when I did and wanted them. But maybe they're not. Maybe I was just (un?)fortunate enough to see and understand things when I was too young to be able to do anything about them. The relativist in me knows I probably don't have the "right" answers and ideas, but anything that seems to work for the general betterment of society shouldn't hurt too much. And I'm older now; there are people who are willing to listen. I'm still not sure if there are enough people out there who are of sufficiently similar intelligence, mind, and heart, but maybe it's at least safe to poke my head out of my shell and look for them.

That was Thursday.