Archive for the 'Just asking' Category

Downer

September 18, 2008 | Filed under: Growing up is optional, Just asking

“…voting. Drinking. Car rental. Death. Welcome to our side” - Mrs. Flinger

Having a bout a hypomania often means starting one thing and promptly forgetting it because something else popped up in your face. I have a mind that wanders rampantly to all things simultaneously and at the end I kind of forget what I was thinking about prior because right now, while going through the paper mill known as my office, would be an excellent time to schedule that oil change. So during one of these mind excursions I went from thinking about returning phone calls to taking a trip to Texas this spring and how I would want to rent a car while there because I’ll be visiting friends who live way the hell out underneath an oil derrick or something and lo perhaps NOW is a good time to think about MARCH. Then I realized that by spring I won’t have to save an extra $750 to rent a car for 13 hours because I won’t have to worry about extraneous fees for losing a limb or returning the car minus a mile’s worth of gas or being under the age of 25 thereby making me responsible enough to have a child and go to war but not responsible enough to drive a car 20 miles. So! In the middle of that I counted down the days until my 25th birthday (38! I would like a wide angle lens, pearls and new car insurance) and then promptly came to the conclusion that after 25 life is pretty much a downer. I mean, you get these awesome birthdays that involve voting and drinking and then you get to rent a car without Hertz coming after you with a taser and after that there’s death and awesome bills to pay and car insurance. Met life: The gift that keeps on giving.

In the middle of writing all of this, my mother stopped by to say hello. We started discussing the economy and what would happen to my assets and 401(K) and then she decided that now would be the perfect time to remind me that I don’t get to retire for another 35-40 years. And now I’m banging my head on the desk and hoping that if I run around the parking lot naked someone will miraculously hit me with their Nissan. It’s all just death and taxes from here, isn’t it?

Aaaaand to continue with this hypomania induced nonsensical rambling about how awful and horrible it is to be an adult and have to be living and breathing and healthy while your checking account is about as dry as the Sahara in July; here is the PMSbuddy (courtesy of Sweetney’s linkblog). Which might be one of the most brilliant ideas ever especially since it seems that The Universe is PMSing as we speak hence the reason for why I’m bemoaning being forced to be alive after the age of 25 and for why I saw some woman lose her shit at the grocery store yesterday.

More for their benefit than mine

June 19, 2008 | Filed under: Just asking

“The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another’s little lapses.” ~David Storey

Not only do I have the gift of ‘creative whining’ but I was also bestowed the gift of being really god damn annoying. I used to recoil and cry when my peers would announce just how fucking annoying I could be but I have since gone on to A) Not give a shit and B) Accept it as one of those quirky things about me that people will just have to deal with. I ask you now to picture an inquisitive yet precocious five year old trapped in a 24 year old’s body. That right there is what its like to be friends with me.

For the last several weeks I have been using my God given talent of annoying to ask Metalia if she’s had a baby yet*. And if she hasn’t had a baby yet, is it going to come out right now? How about now? How about maybe later today? I’m thinking that there are moments when she wishes she could throw something very hard and very heavy from her perch in Manhattan all the way Upstate. But instead of lobbing 15 lbs bricks at my head from 200 miles away, she’s sweet and kind and allows me to abuse technology by asking whether or not she is having a baby right this very second since she isn’t sitting at her computer. God forbid she go to Target or get a pedicure without sending me a missive with her daily itinerary.

Not only am I pain in the ass annoying but I seem to be a bit of a stalker. She is the first good friend of mine to have a baby. Like ever. So she bears with me and finds my awkward and TMI suggestions/questions to be endearing. Sometimes the precocious five year old can be cute! When you’re not contemplating cementing their jaw shut. Because of her, I have realized that I cannot ever have children because the waiting, my God, the waiting. I am impatient and after all that waiting I would like to be done. The other night we were discussing The Waiting and how painful it is and why the hell can’t this be over and mind you this was ME, the totally not pregnant one talking (Note: Babysitting is the best form of birth control ever), when I suddenly announced “This sucks, I’m going to find more wine” because the fucking waiting. I don’t know how you people do it over and over (and possibly over and over) again.

That said as a very childless person with 896 friends that are due to have an actual, live person come out of them this year (MIND BLOWING! by the way) I would like to know what a non-parent should do while waiting for friends or family to have that damn baby already. Though I say it much nicer than “have that damn baby already”, just so we’re all clear that I am not annoying, a stalker and rude. Thus far the only things Metalia and I have come up with are (Clearly we have a lot of free time. We’re just eating all the free time up in the world. Soon we’ll be laying around in cabanas in Cabo with all of our FREE TIME):

1) Become eminently quotable
2) Make up t-shirt slogans for your hypothetical café press shop
3) Create a virtual store where people can buy snippets of IM conversations because hoo boy! We are funny.
4) Drink (me)
5) Blog (both of us)
6) Discuss blogging about conversations about blogging (oooh meta)

*The one day that I did NOT ask if she had a baby yet, she has a baby and totally catches me off guard. I knew it would be a girl but I didn’t think about how gorgeous she would be. I’ve already purchased dresses with pockets, she will never have to experience life without them.

What do you love about your life?

June 17, 2008 | Filed under: Comes And Goes, Just asking

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I am with you kid. Let’s go.’” ~Maya Angelou

I’ve been having these daily moments of complete panic. Wherein I stop in the middle of whatever I might be doing to feel my heart race. I take a few deep breaths and sometimes text/IM/fax Susan to say that I am panicky and she, my comfort friend, tells me that I’ll be fine and perhaps now would be a good time to find that bottle of wine.

Everyday I look at the way I’ve neatly organized my wall calendar. All of the days highlighted in pink are days that I will be away. By my count I will be away for 40 days between now and September 1st. 40. The same number of days of Lent and the same number of days it rained during the flood. I’m getting all Biblical because I’m pretty sure that it will take an act of God to keep me from not losing my ever loving shit between now and September. The problem is that none of these trips are bad; some actually cause my heart to race in excitement, it’s just that they are some very big trips, with very big people and very large crowds; hence the anxiety and general abuse of psychotropic drugs.

This is how I always get though before a lot of big stuff happens. It’s just that never before has so much happened in such a short period of time that I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around two straight months of being surrounded by several hundred to several thousand people. There is also the here and the there and the normal everyday stuff that I know I will handle because I have to but that doesn’t necessarily prevent me from sitting in the middle of my living room while Simon kneads my stomach, wishing that it were fall already.

Last night I happened to be having one of those episodes. I sat in the dark holding my laptop in one hand and a coffee in the other. I had just returned from the movies and was trying to think of synonyms for ‘absurd’ (asinine, fatuous) when the panic - which I should add, mostly revolves on the sheer number of people I plan to share my personal space with over the upcoming months. Followed closely by the number of times I am going to have to strip for TSA – hit me like a Hummer on the Beltway. So I closed my eyes and began to take deep breaths when The Roommate busted in. Now if you must understand that my roommate is one of those people who believes in positive thought and life and that giving out good energy and doing good will bring good to your life. I believe that if I raise my left eyebrow and look menacing then people will listen to me.

She startled me with her bright Hello. Like we hadn’t seen each other in months and I peered over the monitor, mumbled a bleak Hi and then went back to my hand-wringing. She had been away for a few days for her Wisdom Class (don’t ask) and she proceeded to ask me what I love about my life. That it took me a solid 10 minutes to think of something that I really loved about my life is disheartening and unsettling. For surely my life isn’t that bad. And it isn’t. Really it’s just that when things become beyond overwhelming and you have to take deep breaths and medication in order to face the day, well it is hard to not develop the personality of an angry scorpion.

There is hope for me because I was able to come up with a list of things I love about my life. I am not an overly positive thinker. I prefer to be pragmatic and downright pessimistic as opposed to looking on the bright side. But I figure that if I post a few things here then I at least have a bit of a record for those days when I’m damn near pouring hot coffee on the person closest to me or when I feel like kicking things, I can at least say that there was that one time – not too long ago – when I actually did enjoy something in my life.

1) My job. I may not like the people 100% of the time but I do love the work I get to do. Like really love it. I say ‘get to do’ because it is this amazing opportunity that I have been given and so I feel honored that it has been bestowed upon me. This is what makes it hard not to throw my hands in the air when things get completely out of control and I want to hide under my desk and scream. Those days I can just take a sick day or a two hour lunch or close my office door and listen to Randy Newman for hours. I also get to go to DC whenever I damn well please and that I have a boss who doesn’t feel compelled to keep me on a leash and question my every decision.

2) I wouldn’t exactly call what I do ‘writing’ but more like ‘creative whining’ and giving my unsolicited advice on a myriad of topics. Either way, I love that I actually get money in return for incessant bitching. I love even more that people care to read it and dare I say like me because of it. It makes me get all Sally Field-like sometimes.

3) I am one of those people who can honestly admit to adoring my friends. I love them. And they are all completely different people who support me in totally different ways. These amazing people in my life who know that I am slightly crazy and over the top and petulant and neurotic and I really like my wine and yet for some equally crazy reason they like me anyway.

4) My family. Even though my mother pissed me the hell off the other day and I didn’t talk to her for like five days and had to be FORCED into going to Martha’s Vineyard for her birthday, I still love her and them. The very special people that they are. Though it’s probably genetic and I’m equally as vicious and without a filter when I’m upset. Ahem.

The worst

April 16, 2008 | Filed under: Inebriated prose, Just asking, Sucks like a vacuum

“Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.” ~Rosa Parks

I just asked this on Twitter but I figured that it was too good to limit the endless possible answers to 300 some odd people. For the record I don’t even know 300 people. I don’t even know 30 people. But if you want to hear about how I can tie a knot with a cherry stem or that cherry blossoms make me sick, then be my guest and do follow. Pull up a chair and I’ll give you every asinine detail of my life. I’M A GIVER.

So here goes: What is the worst pain you have ever felt?