Curmudgeonly

I feel curmudgeonly. Like going to a restaurant, ordering water, and complaining about the atmosphere. Shaking my hand in the traffic. Writing a very angry letter to my governor about the uneven sidewalk I came across during my morning grumble walk. Stooping, and looking down at my own hands, and getting irritated if anybody runs into me. I feel like telling each and every person I come across what’s wrong with them and exactly what they need to do to fix it. Having a spite journal where I write people’s names down and circle and star them over a set of infractions so complicated that I can only comprehend it. Complaining about everything being too loud.

I don’t want to do these things, that’s why I’m writing them. I want every loudly smacked, globbed, cudded, chomped piece of gum in the world to fall into gumchewer hair. I want places that I dislike to have distinctly uncomfortable weather. Midges. Wet spot at the small of the back. Needlerain.

I want to personally spank everybody who I have seen on television who has wasted my time in one way or other. I want every advertisement that annoys me to cause impotence.

SOUR MOODY BLECK AND BOIL! Oh goodness I am a frenzied little curse-devil tonight. Best be on my way then!!!

Introversion

I just came to a realization that was a perfect “duh” moment. For awhile I have been struggling with why I really dislike my job, which for the most part is a good gig. The people I work with are fine, I’m actually helping people, it’s in the medical field so there’s always some interesting fact that comes up sooner or later, the benefits and pay are decent. Yet, day after day, I come home fried–not “just having put in a good day’s work that I love” fried, but deep-fried, tired and depressed and frazzled.

The reason is that I’m an introvert in a super-extroverted role. I talk to more than a hundred people a day on the phone. I share an office with 6 people. For every interaction I am currently working on, there’s three or four waiting. Also a heavy amount of dealmaking and politicking–of the good sort, I mean it’s not “office politics” but it’s having long discussions figuring out the best course of action and making sure that everybody is on the same page. No wonder some days I look at my work lists and have a heavy heart. By the end of the week I’m not interested in being around people at all.

Work reminds me of the tail end of a road trip, where I’ve been in a car full of people for a long time and I’m just aching to have some time to myself, to breathe my own air, to relax. Honestly, after being around people that much, I have trouble thinking clearly–my head is a slow throb.

You might think I’m bad at my job. I’m not. I’m very good at my job. In fact, most of the people I work with think I’m an extrovert. I’m trying to find the means to move on. I need to move on, but towards something–I’ve been a starving artist before and I’m not willing to do that song and dance again. I can’t just quit. I’m thinking and planning. It will happen.

Parade

Parades are odd creatures. A thousand feet marching in unison, each person clearly assigned to their grouop. Uniforms. Movements. Soldiers marching and smiling. A parade queen with a big lipsticked grin. Toilet paper floats. Clowns who cannot change their expressions.

And the people watching. Standing, waiting for the next thing to come. Marching band songs come from the distance, raise to an ear ringing blare and fade back again. Drums. Salutes. Children weaving around the legs of adults. Balloons by the bushel. Waving. People getting excited at seeing someone they know.

A drum majorette kicks her heels up. Baton twirlers and pom pom girls. A big Clydesdale pulling a truck full of firemen. A dalmation.

And where are the book readers? The philosophers? The artists? Who chooses the members of this parade? Why does the audience cheer?

Words I Like

harbinger, chrysalis, dumpling, cherub, mannequin, debutante, scrimshaw, watusi, cheeky, smitten

barbed, whistle, crinoline, enjambment, wicket, spinster, ukulele

gastroschisis, scintillate, vibraphone, initiation, wisteria

pincushion, peek, va-va-va-voom, oyster, liniment, harridan, coconut

ink, fusion, wince, pantaloons, frizz, snazzy, turmeric

nubbin, cockleshell, periwinkle, muckraker, miasma, slumber, chemist.

These are words I like. I don’t like all these things, just the words for them.
I also think if I put them in the right order, they would make a spell.

Notes To Me a Long Time Ago

I ran into an old e-mail site of mine that I hadn’t used in years. Going through those old messages, I was reminded of how much people change. It’s sort of like being a kid, where people around you say how much you’ve grown, but you don’t really believe it until you’ve stood next to the doorway with the marks on it. I always run into my old ghosts, I don’t think they’re ever really gone, to tell you the truth. Every day I’m surprised by something yesterday-me left for today-me to find.

Here’s some things I would tell me from long ago:

College doesn’t matter; books do.

Enjoy your time with x and z, they won’t be around for long.

I know now seems like forever, but it will change very quickly, it will change before you completely know that now is now.

P will give you something wonderful and something equally horrible, it’s your call as to whether you think it will be worth it.

PLEASE never start smoking. I promise I’m not being a bossy adult, it’s completely not worth it.

I can’t tell you not to worry about what other people think about you, but I can say it also doesn’t matter.

When you have to leave, try to do it gracefully.

Gossip just stresses everybody out, even just listening to it. Somebody starts gossiping, run the other way.

The world is much safer and much nicer than you think it is.

It’s ok to be sad, mad, scared. Feel these feelings and they won’t hurt you.

Don’t do things you don’t like in your free time. If you’re bored go home.

Being wrong is wonderful. Enjoy being wrong. Aim to be wrong once or twice a day. If someone says “I think you’re wrong,” Cheer.

You are what you are. Nobody gets to decide what that means but you.

Be kind to old people. Listen to them. Yes, it’s sometimes boring, but they know wonderful things.

Don’t worry about where you’re going. There is no “figuring it out.” Enjoy today, this second, this moment. Your trajectory is beyond your control beyond that.

You’ll fight meditation and yoga tooth and nail, but you’ll love them before you’re through. You don’t believe me, but you will.

I love you.

A New Me Comes to Town

Lately I’ve had a version of myself be out that I wasn’t too comfortable with, but have been learning to love. We are all legion, multiple in the faces that we present to the world, collections of many parts which combine and separate like wax in a lava lamp.

Sometimes these new faces can be quite surprising–lately a very opinionated, vocal, somewhat impatient side of myself has been showing his face. Let me tell you, it has been a challenge, to me whose M.O. has always been being rather mellow. (Mellow M.O. a band that comes soon near you!)

This guy though, he’s zooming about, pushing, wanting his voice to be heard. Loud, louder–and the rest of me, the still-mellow-look-at-dandelions part of me, stands aside and thinks “OMG I JUST SAID THAT!”

At first it made me one very nervous cat, but I’m not saying hurtful things, I’m just saying more than I previously had, and I LOVE it. It’s like being naked, at first very vulnerable feeling, but then once people see me naked and are used to it, it’s unexpectedly wonderful.

(Not that I would be that way if I were LITERALLY naked. I’m no jaybird.)

To say the truth that I see it. To know that there are other truths. To just be, and follow the feelings within. What a wonderful gift!

Colors

In the dark I see rainbows streaking in my eyes, just floating down like feathers. Soft explosions of light. These stripes of color, the simplest of beauty. Shreds of Joseph’s robe, which was born, like all things from imagination.
Imagination is a funny thing, a good thing but not always a safe one. Imagination fills blank spaces with yourself.

Maybe, sometimes, it would be better just to see the blank spaces as they are, containers for whoever is viewing them. This exercise is not harmful. Instead, it allows me to do what I’m doing on purpose instead of having my brain go like a Jazz player out of control.

Then, maybe, I can drink the colors, and use them, and show them to the world.

Refreshment

I keep on thinking as to how I could have a refreshing life–an uncola life if you will. I have this idea of freedom, and I might be living in grass-is-greener syndrome, but freedom being where I can do what I do best, live off of it, and feel safe. Right now I’m in a lower-end office job that I find quite unsatisfying–but I have to say I’m extraordinarily grateful to have an income, benefits, and office mates who I more or less get along with.

Oh, but to get out of the bureaucracy–I have tears in my eyes about it! To not be sick in 9-5, to spend my days with things I’m passionate about! To do drudgery for me rather than a big corporation. I dream of this freedom.

Does it just take courage? Can I transition? Should I cut the cord? I don’t know–it seems to me though, being jobless and broke will be just as limiting, PLUS a lot less secure. I’m impressed by people who can live by the seat of their pants, but I do want much more. Just more, like Oliver Twist–instead of being a cog in a machine, a world that is more organic and lush and lively, to sit in confidence in myself, and to at least give it a go.

I am constantly thinking about this. I am afraid of being someone who stays in a crap job never going what he wants, just staying and staying, because it’s convenient.

…but I want to be safe.

Whiny–ain’t I. However I think this lack of faith is hardly my unique problem.

I hear the train a-comin

The train is here, belching out her black smoke in a great big plume, coming in from the horizon on her big straight rails that go on and on forever, past the green and tan land, the train is here.
This train is bringing a whole bunch of words, screaming them with her shrill whistle. She says I can always do more, that I’m a half-ass, that I don’t think enough, that sooner or later everybody will realize that I don’t know anything, that I’m pretty much clueless. This train screams and screams and the smoke fills up the small spaces, the old lady doing the dishes coughs into a laced handkerchief as the train passes her window. And shouldSHOULDshouldSHOULDshouldSHOULD on comes the train rolling through.

I try to think about other things, but I can’t. I should spend my time more wisely, I should be bigger and better, I should be able to socialize and pull in the people to get me to move forward, I should know more.

This train is NOT bound for glory, not this train, just flying through like a bullet, flying through with her black stain in the sky, not to be ignored, not to be missed.

I am looking at her right now, trying to figure her out. Standing on the tracks watching her approach. What will she do? What will she say?

Lemonsqueezer

I am always impressed by lemons–they are the perfect looking food. A little odd really with their squished-circle shape. And actually of all the fruits they are the most irritating–all the little seeds to get out, and lemon juicers never work exactly as well as they should. And don’t the squeezers look weird too? Like these perforated nipples, where you shove the lemon half on and press and press and press.
I bet professional lemon-squeezers have very few anger issues.