For the Love of Dog

The personality traits that make someone a good leader are not the same traits that make someone want to lead.
I made it to my first condo board meeting. Tonight they were going to discuss rules and regulations, and based on previous interactions with my neighbors, I felt it was important I be there to at least voice concern over excessively stringent or intrusive rule-making. I turned out to be the only one there who wasn't a board member and no huge decisions were made, but a discussion on satellite dishes made me glad I came. One board member wanted to completely outlaw satellite dishes as they are an eyesore and can be destructive to common structural elements to the building. If the dish is going to drill into the roof and cause leaks for everybody, that's a totally understandable concern. But completely banning all dishes because they "look like a trailer park" is excessive.
"They effect everybody's property values."
I didn't say it out loud but shouted in my head, "So do black people. Should we ban them, too?"
I love the Rogers Park that exists at my bar and at the beach and in my head. It's the version of this neighborhood in which everybody is a little bit quirky and has actual friends from at least three different continents, four different decades, and not more than two el stops away. Too many people in my building invested hoping to help gentrify the neighborhood and turn their condos around. Monetarily, I would do well for that to happen, but for my own personal selfish reasons I hope my happy little alcove of utopia stays eclectic and gritty until I'm ready to move on. For non-personal selfish reasons, I hope Rogers Park can maintain its multifaceted complexion for a long time. The city needs places that are neither dangerous nor bleached-out gentrification yuppievilles.

I went to the dog spa place by my house today to get my dog's nails trimmed and see if they had any good private dog trainer recommendations. My dog was extremely well-behaved for the trimming and they had a 50% off coupon for the trainer they normally recommend. Jackpot. Except the trainer is in North Plainfield. Don't be fooled by the name of this suburb, there is nothing north about it. It is near Joliet and all its ass-faraway-southliness. They do in-home training (what my dog needs, considering his worst behavior is in the home when strangers come over), but their website didn't give concrete pricing so we'll see how expensive they are even with 50% off. I found a few others on Yelp that sound good and are closer and have real listed prices. Time for puppy to stop scaring people.
Coincidentally, after I'd gotten the trainer coupon earlier today, the condo board president informed me that my upstairs neighbors (who I never see) had expressed concern that my dog might be dangerous. I should have just left it at "We're signing up for private lessons," but I took it unnecessarily personally that my neighbors didn't come talk to me themselves, so I said all sorts of extra dumb crap that made things worse. The condo board president keeps his dogs in a cage all day so they won't mess up the house. I don't know what I thought I would gain by talking. It's just hard for me. My dog isn't a thing. He means the world to me. He is also very, very difficult. I'm not going to let him attack your baby. I might let him take a little nibble out of Possible Boy's leg, but both my dog and Possible Boy are up to date on their shots.
I tried going to bed once tonight. My dog puked a huge quantity of gross on my fitted sheet and one of my sweaters. He's not usually a pukey dog. I cleaned it up and changed the sheets and felt restless and bothered by my deep and profound love for this creature no one else seems to find lovable.

Sense of Smell

I smell like my college dining cooperative: bleach, onion, and cooking oil gone cold. Add in my appropriately pruny fingers and the brand of Annoyed-At-A-Certain-Type-Of-Person I'm chewing and this is a total flashback to Nameless Liberal Arts College.
Birdie, you'll know what I mean. (Token Pakistani friend, too, if you still ever read this...)

James Spader and Neighbor Guy and a lot of the people at the coop back at Nameless (and, come to think of it, in my family...good thing I have the most recent two so I know it's not just Jews...) have been seriously, deeply, validly hurt by people close to them. We see these scars, conscious or not, and sooner or later we find one another.
But I don't think James, NG, and many many other Wounded Souls ever see beyond themselves. It's not something they do to be cruel or hurtful, their minds just don't work in a way that fully and meaningfully feel for and empathize with other people. It's like the difference between being able to translate from a foreign language and actually thinking in the foreign language. Empathy v. sympathy suggests (to me at least) that you had to have gone through the experience or something comparable in order to empathize, but not to sympathize. What I'm trying to express is different. It's for those of us who can't help but care. Maybe we get labeled "too sensitive" and we still think we're assholes because we can empathize with assholes, too.
Like most things, people come in various shades. In the Wounded Souls Club, I think the wounding process shoves members to one side or another: you can't see beyond yourself and can only relate to people in terms of yourself -or- you're hypersensitive and fear the consequences of exhaling.
I'm afraid to exhale, so I can only spend so much time with people on the other side without recouping. I used to think I had to spend time with and help those people. They are my parents, a number of Boys I've Liked and even Loved, my life-defining friendships. Punish myself for thinking of myself and being a selfish, spoiled little brat and feeling jealousy and disappointment. Find someone truly self-centered and serve them, follow them, fix them.

I get points for realizing that's exactly what Neighbor Guy is very early in our friendship. Maybe I'm being too quick to judge my most blatant current Male Suitors, but every time I tell myself I should give them another chance, spend more time with them, I'm back with the sense that they're somewhere between charity work and punishment.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:
I just want to be understood. By a person I understand. Reciprocal sharing the burden of the universe. And no being mean.
Really, as many people as possible, all within walking distance, would be great. I'm getting so much closer. Stupid non-reciprocal levels of feeling with Possible Boy. Stupid him going on all these dates and enjoying himself and still having his stupid heartstrigns get yanked by Aural Girl and me not being able to be the friend he needs because I am, alas, the stupid girl that I am.