Habit Forming

My grandfather was a work addict.  I remember when he fell from the roof of our barn and shattered his foot.  He was in a wheelchair for almost a month while they did the surgeries and inserted the pins and then waited to see if it would heal right.

It mostly did.  He limped for the rest of his life though.

It was less than a week after his last surgery before he had figured how to get that wheelchair to the factory where he worked and then how to get around the factory in the wheelchair.  This was before the age of ADA, and I know that what he did was far from easy.  But he could not not work.  That would be insanity.

I never figured that I had that kind of work ethic.  Or addiction.  I like to lounge around and read and write and play music and think.  I like time off.  I like five hour trips to the gym and spending a day exploring trails on foot or on a bike.  I like those things so much that in the past I chose my jobs based on how much time I would have to do the things I enjoy.

Somewhere along the way things changed.  I still love all those things that are not work.  I crave them.  But now, work comes first.  Ok, so that sounds like a no-brainer.  Of course work comes first.  Bills to pay, things to get done, all that nonsense.  I’m not talking about that.  I’ve always been good about going to work every day that I was supposed to and doing all the tasks that I was supposed to do.  This is a different kind of first.  This is a first that is before everything else – before food or sleep or exercise or friends or dog or family.  It has been this all-absorbing totally consuming experience.

It has not been pleasant.

Apart from the physical manifestations of stress – hives being the prime example (it is always a joy to realize that you have once again gotten into a situation where you have become allergic to your life) – I slipped into some very self-destructive patterns.  Not exercising.  Drinking ridiculous amounts of booze.  And by ridiculous I mean much more than what I usually consider heavy drinking.  Sleeping pills.  Uppers.  Downers.  Everything else that is required to feign normalcy when nothing is normal.

I used to tell people that I don’t have an addictive personality.  That is a lie.  I do not have the kind of addictive personality that gets hooked on cigarettes or drugs or even alcohol.  But I do get hooked on behaviors.  Like exercise.  Like work.  Like picking at my fingers until they bleed when I am stressed.  And when I get hooked on a behavior that disrupts my positive addictions then I fall back on the superficial – on the chemicals and the additives and the supplements and whatever else will feed my physical ability to pursue my new addiction.

For the last several months – since June, really, I’ve been working some ridiculous hours.  And it isn’t the kind of work where you do some task, and then you wait or you take a break or you regroup and then do another task.  This is the kind of work where there are three or four tasks going on simultaneously, and any pause in the one is filled by effort on another.  Lunch is a cup of soup at the desk.  There are no breaks.  I get up to either pull something off the printer or run something upstairs.  It got to a point where my deadlines were so tight and the meetings scheduled on top of each other and my general workload was so heavy that I didn’t have time to go to the restroom.

It is a crazy feeling to need to pee but have to pass the bathroom because there is a huge group of VIPs waiting for you to come do your presentation, and you don’t see a break in your schedule for at least another 2 hours.  And I do not just mean crazy as in strange.  I mean crazy as in insane.

Two weeks ago I hit my limit.  I’d been sick on and off for over six weeks.  Two days in a row I was trying so hard to get all caught up and to not miss any deadlines that I sat in my office chair for almost 6 hours straight before I got up, raced to the bathroom, the breakroom and then back again to continue what I was doing.  And three days that week I fell asleep in my car – while it was parked – because I was so exhausted, but I couldn’t go home just yet – I had more work to do.  Two weeks ago I decided that drinking myself numb every night, going to bed at midnight, and then getting up at 5 and trying to be productive was no longer working for me and that something needed to change.

Last week I started my new habits by not drinking alone, going to be by 10 every night, making sure the dog got walked, and still getting some exercise for myself every day.  It wasn’t five hours at the gym.  There were no endorphin rushes, no sense of accomplishment.  And I still felt depressed and stressed and generally unhappy.  But I didn’t have a migraine.  I didn’t fall asleep in my car.  I was ridiculously productive.  And I had enough energy that when the weekend finally rolled around I was able to work on my thesis – good work, not just a couple of paragraphs that I know I will need to either edit or totally rewrite later.  That was enough reward for me to decide to try to do it again this week.  No drinking alone, no sleeping meds, a little exercise every day, and going to bed early.

I’m determined to not let myself be derailed again.  I want this new pattern to become an addiction.  I want to need to not drink during the week and to go to bed early and to get my exercise.  And I want to learn to step away from work a bit too.  I want to stop working through lunch and sitting for three and four and five hours straight.  I want some perspective and some balance.  And if I have to drop some of the smaller balls at my job to make that happen, then gravity can do its thing.  I doubt they will fire me for it.

And if they did, well, it isn’t my dream job anyway.  I mean, it is ok now, and I could like it if things were a little different.  But for now, it is what it is.

A paycheck.

It’s time to make some new habits.

Like the one now, where I step away from the computer and go practice my guitar for a while.

Tolerance

I curse my high alcohol tolerance.  Seriously, of all the things to have, this one is possibly the most expensive and most deceptive.  I should be in the land of fuzzy bliss right now.  Instead I’m thinking about all the things that I need to do at work tomorrow and the fact that I didn’t get jack done on my thesis tonight and yeah, I worked another 10 hours straight, but whatever – it’s an office job.  I shouldn’t be this tired.  Not from that.  I aim for fuzzy bliss because that is where the thinking stops.  And I would give just about anything to get the thinking to stop.  I’m not just talking about the job, but about the debts, the unpaid and unpayable bills, the 10 lbs that just won’t leave, the fact that I do not take good care of my dog, my house, or myself, my constant exhaustion, the panic attack that I had on Saturday, and the thesis.  Always the thesis.

The depression is worse than I remember it being in a long time – both in intensity and duration.  It exhausts me as much as anything else – more even.  Every moment that I am alone is a battle of sorts.   Either I distract myself or I fantasize about everything just being done.  Finis.  It is a very alluring fantasy, considering.  And by considering I mean the fact that I simply cannot do all the things needed to live on my current schedule.  Today, as I was getting home around 7:15 (I left for work about the same time – only AM and that was after walking the dog this morning – I never thought I’d be that person who gets up at 4:45 in the morning – every morning.  It sucks, especially since I don’t usually fall asleep until midnight or later) my neighbor stopped me to tell me that the plastic protective undercarriage to my car was dragging… again.  He offered to help me fix it, but honestly I was so tired that it just didn’t seem worth it.  So what if my car falls apart.  So what if I fall apart.  So what.  I told him I’d tie it back into place, but that next time it happens (next week) I’d get him to help me.  That may have been a lie.  I’m not sure.

Sunday this same neighbor parked his bike in my walkway and came to my door and introduced himself.  He left his business card.  I had been working at the computer and hadn’t properly dressed myself for visitors (no bra and comfy short workout shorts).  This wouldn’t have been a problem if it had been JWs or some other religious affiliate – who seem to hone in on my house like a beacon.  I like making them vaguely uncomfortable.  But this was my neighbor.  And I was wearing clothing that I would never wear outside in public.  And my hair was down.  I never wear my hair down anymore.  I try very hard to look either like an old sour spinster or a lesbian – and sometimes both, depending on the circumstances.  Sunday I looked like neither, and I realized only too late the impression I probably made.  I would have considered it a negative one.  I don’t know that he felt the same way.  He essentially asked me out – with compliments.  I’m not used to that.  Nor am I comfortable with it.

He knows where I live.

Every time I have to walk to the copier or the printer at work I wish I was invisible.  I am invisible in my cube.  Every time somebody looks over the wall and makes accidental eye contact, there is this moment of absolute awkwardness.  I wasn’t there until they looked.  And they look away quickly so as to correct the error – before the space-time continuim collapses or such like.  Not that I’m invisible (god, I really do wish) but that I am other.  Always other.  I don’t socialize.  I don’t personalize.  I don’t share.  Which is counter to everything I am – Hello, Gemini here.  It was a hard lesson to learn, but never again will my work-mates become my friends.  All will remain separate.  Always.

A big part of the problem is that I’m not getting enough exercise.  I don’t have the time or energy to work on my thesis either.  At first I thought I was just being lazy – all those weekends I’ve spent either sleeping or reading trashy comic books.  Then Saturday, after another hard week (on the tail of two months of hard weeks) I interrupted my solo time to go to a party held by some of my best friends.  I knew I was going to have a panic attack as I was getting ready.  I was shaking by the time I walked up to the door.  I knocked twice, not very loud, and then waited.  The shakes got worse and worse and finally I turned to leave.  Only somebody saw me from the window and they rushed out to open the door and call me back.  I was into my second drink before the shaking finally stopped.  And I tried so hard to keep my mouth shut.  Do not talk.  Do not talk.  Do NOT talk.

I still talked.  Too much.

The panic attacks have been worse than ever too, and they’ve kept me indoors more than ever.  I don’t remember the last time I felt comfortable enough in my own skin to go out on my own.  It’s been a while.  Italy maybe.  Which is part of why I drink.  Part of why I’m looking for that warm fuzzy feeling.  Hell, I’d even go for a cold buzzy feeling.  Anything but this here, now, this… empty.  Wish in one hand, shit in the other…

I’ll be getting up at 4:45 again tomorrow.  It is the only way I get anything done during the day.  Not to say that I am not productive at work – I am.  Incredibly so even.  But work takes up so much of my life right now that if I want clean dishes and clean clothes and a clean floor (totally bonus at this point) I have to start early.  And odds are I’ll finish late.  Because this?  This is impossible.  Doing everything to the level expected is impossible.

I’ll keep trying though.

Now I need to go fold clothes.  And do today’s dishes.  God, I wish I was drunk.

Pending Mental Refresh

I have just finished the text of my literature review.  I need to go back and read it through and edit it before I send it off, but first I need to think about something else for a bit – to cleanse my mental palate so to speak.  I’m pretty drained mentally right now.  Yesterday was a great step towards refilling the intellectual coffers a bit but it was only a start.  I’ll run through everything I accumulated yesterday before I am done tonight.

I got on the scale at the gym Friday.  I don’t know why I did.  I knew it was not a good time to weigh myself – I’m in the midst of another weight gain cycle.  I’m not particularly anxious – or at least I wasn’t until I got on the scale and it told me that I was 14lbs over my target.  Now I’ll grant that my target is 5lbs under my average.  I cannot seem to lose those last 5lbs.  And that’s fine.  At some point I’ll have to reassess the target.  Some future point, that is.  But 14?  Good grief!

There is the bit where muscle weighs more than fat.  Yeah, ok.  I’ve been lifting weights three days a week for a month now.  I haven’t seen much increase in my strength – which is to say that I’ve only gone up between 5 and 10 lbs in the amount of weight I’m lifting (barbell curls with 20lbs!  it’s a first for me) but I think that if I keep it up I might actually be able to do a pull-up by the end of the semester.  So maybe some of that 14lbs is muscle.  Maybe 3lbs of it.  Maybe.  The rest?  Stress fat – aka Booze and cookie fat.

Ok, not cookies per se.  I’m not a huge cookie fan.  Instead I eat these cardboard flavored granola bars.  I figured that if I got the ones that just tasted bad then I wouldn’t be so tempted to eat the whole box in one sitting.  Instead I’ve developed a taste for them – which is good in that it’s toned down my sweet tooth a bit and bad in that I was buying them by the Costco box.  I’m still trying to keep on the higher protein/lower processed carbs diet.  But I’m struggling a bit.  Mostly because it isn’t habit yet.  And I’m finding that I run out of my protein foods and my fresh veggies much faster than I ran out of carb based foods.  AND they’re more expensive.  So not only do I have to go to the grocery store more often (hell!) but I’m paying more when I do (depressing!).

To sum up, we’re going back on the no drink during the week pattern.  Just so I can continue to fit in my jeans, please.  I cannot afford a new wardrobe right now – especially since I want to buy some travel friendly clothes for my upcoming trip.  I am going to have to find something though that I can turn to for my after meal/pre-bed fidgets.  That is usually when my sweet tooth hits hardest, and I’m most vulnerable to eating all the dark chocolate in the freezer, drinking half a bottle of Amaretto and finishing it off with a big snifter of brandy.  Not a friendly way to end the evening, if your waistline is at risk.

I keep thinking about how things will be different when I’m not longer tied to my thesis.  I’m tempted to put some high expectations on this coming summer.  Tempted, but I’m going to resist.  It will be what it will be.  And it might take me a while to find myself again.  I was chatting with a friend Friday night.  She is one of the half-dozen or so good friends that I have made since I started grad school – only two of which are actually from school.  I told her that I thought they might be surprised to see how my personality is different when I’m not constantly struggling with too much work and too little time and way too much stress.  I told her that I was way more laid back.  That was kind of a lie.  Not to say that I’m not generally easy to get along with, but I was thinking about the last time I was unencumbered.  Hindsight being what it is and all that, I realize now that I was a bit intense.  It was not unusual for me to pick people up and carry them along with me – often farther and faster than they were ready to go.  I learned the hard way not to do that anymore, but I do wonder what will happen when I have recovered my energy.  I might need to take up a new hobby – or three.  🙂

Mile 3

I know why I over-indulge when I drink alone.  I have no base of reference for my intoxication level when I am alone.  I’m not talking or trying to follow a conversation that I might be expected to contribute to.  I’m not moving around much.  I’m not really engaged in anything that requires specific skills.  I’m sitting and reading or writing.  Sometimes also knitting.  Sometimes also picking out chords on my guitar.  But that’s about it.  I won’t realize how intoxicated I am until I stand up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom and realize that I’m swaying.

I know that right now, with things as intense as they are, I shouldn’t drink alone.  I’m so pent-up all the time – so anxious and so stressed that even the vilest of liquor goes down like water and as soon as I start to feel even a little relaxed I want to feel a lot relaxed.  My self-control goes out the window.

Until 6 am that is.

And that is over sleeping.  That means I don’t get to workout in the morning.  That means I’m going to struggle getting to work on time.

So that was today.  Last night I got done with work and the gym and hit the books and at 9 pm I realized I was clenching my teeth and my shoulders were up around my ears and I was cranky so I had a vodka.  Then another.  Then, because I was feeling alright, a third.  This morning, when the alarm went off at 4:45, which is when I’m supposed to get up if I want to make it to the gym, I turned it off.  When the second alarm (I have to have a backup system.  There are three total) went off at 5:50, I thought it was still 4:45 and turned it off too.  When the third went off at 6, I knew things were bad.  Bad bad bad.

I went to work, and it hurt.  I got stuff done, but it was not pretty or efficient.

Then I went to my noon weightlifting class (Because student loan regulations require that I remain a half time student to keep my deferral and that meant taking another class.  Only I wanted one that had no writing required and minimal reading.) and it hurt too.  Actually my wrist is hurting again, and the weights really accentuate it.  I’m not sure if it is that it is still weak from the surgery last year or if it is the fact that the growth on the tendon is back.  Hard to know.  I mostly ignore it, but sometimes it gets a little persistent.  No matter, no health insurance, no fixing it.

After weightlifting class I put on my headphones and went for a run.  This was the first time I have run without Dog is so long that I can’t actually remember.  I knew that she slowed me down.  I knew that she stressed me out on our runs because I am constantly aware of the other runners and bicyclists and squirrels around me and I have to make sure that she and they are all safe.  And she has this habit of getting distracted and looking one way while she’s running the other and running into me and tripping me up so that we end up in a literal “dog pile”.  This is not to say that I don’t like running with her, but I do not get an endorphin high when we run together.  And I’m often frustrated and irritable after our runs – partly from the extra attention I have to pay and  partly because she must Pee on Everything and the constant stopping makes me nuts.

Today, though, was different.  It was sunny and calm and about 65 degrees.  The trail in the middle of the day was almost empty.  And even though every step hurt and I could feel the alcohol leaching from my system, I kept going.  Then I hit mile 3.  I felt the last of the alcohol leave my pores.  I instantly had my first endorphin hit in a couple of weeks, and for the remaining 2 miles I didn’t think about work or about my thesis or about my sore shoulder or about the fact that I’m 3000 miles overdue for an oil change, or that I need to clean the dog poop out of the yard, or that the leaves have blocked my gutter and there are mosquitoes breeding up there, or any of it.  It was just me and the trail and the sunshine filtered through the baby leaves of the still winter bare trees and the green grass and the river and a good soundtrack.  Who knew you could run to Snoop Dogg?

I didn’t get as much work done the rest of the day as I’d hoped.  But I finished what I’d planned to finish.  Mostly though, I remembered that there is a reason that I’m not supposed to drink alone, and it is because the real relaxation is not in the bottle.  If I want it, I have to make time for it – and not at 6 in the morning or 7:30 at night or whenever I’m trying to jam in my workouts in the dark.  And most of all, I have to quit this thing were I feel guilty if I decide to run without Dog.  She is doing ok.  Skipping a 5 mile run here or there isn’t going to ruin her life.

Mile 3.  It’s the magic mile.  I’d forgotten.  I’m glad I remembered.

How to tell if you’re an Alchoholic

Well, first off, it took me three tries to get the title right.  That’s a pretty good sign.  Or not.  It is strange.  When my overall stress load is less – as in not causing spontaneous hives and mysterious flu like symptoms, my dependence on alcohol lessens considerably.  But when things are like they are now… I have a very hard time fighting the urge to drink myself into unconsciousness.  That is a really difficult word to spell.  Seriously, try it.  Without looking here.  Unconsciousness.  The total absence of conscious thought.

Tonight I talked with my best friend’s wife for a bit.  She is a good friend in her own right, but I classify her such as she is the only person who is in regular contact with the person who knows who I used to be.  That is a very vulnerable situation.  People who know who I used to be are not to be trusted.  Nor are they to be given any sort of influence over the future.  Except for this one person.  He is good.  And his wife is good.

She is also depressed.  So we talked about depression.  The thing I should have said – the thing I meant to say but never did actually say was “don’t put the whole pressure of your future on the decisions you make now.  Do things that please you and intrigue you and challenge you and worry about the next phase when it enters your sphere of influence.  You’ll know it when it happens.”  That is what I should have said.  That is not what I actually said.

I feel weak.  If there was ever an emotion that I would never want to experience again, it is weakness.  Weakness, vulnerability and pain are so tightly tied together in my experience that I cannot experience the one without the others triggering.  On top of that I am exhausted.  The push to finish what I have started… it will take me to my very limits.  I know that.  I can feel it starting to happen.  The escalation.  I will finish this.  But I’m not sure what kind of person I’ll be when I do.  And that scares me.

I told my best friend’s wife to chase the things that fascinate her – that only by sticking to the things that mean something will she be able to stick to the path she has chosen.  Yet I feel poorly even saying that.  I chose my path and I’ve fought every step of the way to get here.  There has to be an easier way.

I am not the right person to be encouraging someone who is depressed.  My co-workers have been in a veritable frenzy about their retirement plans and their benefits and how much they have saved and it takes every ounce of strength in my body to hold my tongue when they ask me about my future.  You know the movie Harold and Maude?  Maude is my plan – only without the cougar sex in the middle.  There will be no retirement for me.  First, I’ve waited too long to get my shit together.  Second, I could not be happy sitting around.  It is not my nature.  My grandfather died from the job.  His father would have died from the job too, if he hadn’t been beaten to death first.  And my father?  He too will be chasing the job to his death bed.  Not for the money or the fame, or the authority.  But for the fascination.  The “what could be” hidden in the pile of “what is”.

I’m familiar.

I’m tired.  I’ve been tired for a long time.  Four years – which is how long I’ve been chasing this degree.  I’ve had one vacation in that time – a four day trip to Bishop with friends.   I need a break.  And soon.  I can feel myself becoming more and more misanthropic as time goes on.  Today I almost smashed into a person on the freeway because he tried to cut me off.  And at the stop light, while he ranted at me and hung his arm out the window and swore and screamed, I pretended like he didn’t exist.

That is horrible.  For him, but more, for me.  I know better.  I’ve been a whole lot closer to death.  I had no right.  Except that I’m so very tired.

Once this is over I shall have to assess whether or not I have a legitimate problem.  For now, though, I take pleasure in the moments where I don’t actually consciously feel the cortisol pumping through my body – even if it is an artificial delay.  It keeps me going.  Kind of.

When this is over I’m throwing a big party.  There will be drinking.  Ya’ll are invited.  But until then, please forgive me if I am a horrid , self centered bitch.  I don’t mean it to be personal.  Right now, it’s all about survival.

Liquor is Quicker…

I’m not an alcoholic, I just…

Yeah, that phrase isn’t at all suspicious.

Dog is on a mission to lay down in every spot in the house to see which is best.  She just did her circle and flop routine in the closet.  It’s not even a big closet.  But there she is, wedged between the high-heeled sandals that I never got a chance to wear this summer, and the black satin evening gown that I’ve never worn in public.  If I didn’t know better I’d think she was making commentary on my jeans and t-shirt/slacks and button down lifestyle – the lifestyle that does not involve ever looking or acting like a girl.

Not that I’m all about the nail-polish and the designer handbag.  I have this theory about women, the more high-maintenance their hairstyle/nails/make-up, the more high-maintenance their personality.  And honestly, I don’t have the time or energy for it.

Men, on the other hand seem to feel differently.  I guess there is something to those high-maintenance girls that they find appealing.  I wouldn’t know.  I haven’t been on so much as a date in… well, if I’m being honest, it has been a very long time.  I’m all about making do, so I try to count the things that really don’t count.  I’m great at making friends.  And I’m good at fostering a certain level of intimacy.  But that is not dating.  That is hanging out with friends.  Everyone goes home alone.

I’m not complaining, or rather, I am complaining, but I don’t expect any sort of resolution.  This is my choice.  Or my sentence.  Not sure which.  Someone asked today if I love Dog.  I care about Dog.  I want Dog to be happy and to have a good life.  I want to do what I can to aid in that.  But Love?  Love is a strong word.  I feel the same way about my friends – I want them to be happy and to have good lives and in that way I love them.  But Love?  No.  Not Love.  I think about my life and there are a lot of things that I would really dislike giving up, but there is nothing here now that I could not walk away from – without looking back.

This is what I’d hoped that having Dog around would change.  I’m so emotionally detached from everything around me, I’d hoped she would help me reconnect.  And in some ways she’s been a godsend.  I like having her here.  I like having something that is happy to see me when I get home at night.  I like having something that is excited when I wake up in the morning.  It is soothing to my ego.  I feel a little less invisible – a little less expendible than I used to.

At the same time, I know that my status in her life is a matter of chance.  If not me, someone else.  Or no-one else.  It all ends up the same.  Worm-food.

In a conversation with my mother today I told her I have no expectation of making it to fifty.  She was telling me that fifty feels so young.  I do not doubt her.  I feel young now and it isn’t until I look in the mirror that I remember that I’m now counting my age by decades.  At the same time I want to be done.  So badly do I want to be done.

This is something that I didn’t want to write about here.  I’ve done the pathos thing.  I’ve gone through the therapy and the drugs and the whole deal.  I did not want another of my writing experiments to spiral down into the realm of constant-self pity.  Yet, it is self-pity or nothing at all.  It is where I live.  It is where I’ve lived for a long time now.  I comfort myself these days by promising myself that if it ever gets that bad again I have permission to check out.  To call it good.  To be done.  To die.  And then I keep adjusting the definition of that so it doesn’t include the now.  Because I’m not quite ready yet.   Not yet.  Though I’m close.  I’ve been close for a long time now.  I don’t know what to do with that.

I have the best friends in the world right now.  I have people that I care deeply for and that I know care about me.  I have shelter and intellectual stimulation and a constantly growing set of hobbies.  I do whatever I can to keep my mind occupied.  And when I know that I cannot keep it occupied, I deaden it with booze.  But I also know that I am lonely.  I’ve been lonely for so long that it is part and parcel of my self-identity.  When I dream at night, I dream about what it is like to be alone.  When I daydream about the future, there is no-one else around.  This is it.  Not even my subconscious believes that this will ever change.

The funny thing is that I watch my friends and neighbors as they navigate their relationship drama, and I want nothing to do with any of it.  I almost feel superior – with my emotional detachment and what-not.  Almost.  Then I remember how many years I’ve spent alone.  Years.

I’m living by a new policy these days – get as much life lived as I can as fast as I can.  I don’t expect to live to a ripe old age.  It would be foolish to pretend that I’ll have time to do the things I want to do later.  I won’t.  And as I’m not stuck with anyone else to worry about, there’s nothing to slow me down.  So when this life gets old – and I know it will – I’ll be in a place where I can end it without guilt or regret.

In the meantime, it is a matter of endurance.  And balance.  Liquor is indeed quicker, but just how much booze does it take to erase the lonely?  Maybe I should make a scientific study out of it.

On Being Groped

Last night, for the first time in a very long time, I went out to catch some live music.  I went to a club I’d never been to before to see a blues band.  The club was suitably dark and dated with lots of things to look at on the wall.  Overall, it was my kind of place.  A little bit dive, a little bit biker, a lot authentic.  The people there were there for the music.  There was a merciful lack of scenester-ness going on, and for that, I will be going back.

The night had two flaws.  First, the bar is set up so that if you are actually seated at the bar your back is to the door.  I have discovered that in the last few years I’ve become more and more conscious of where I am sitting and what is going on around me.  I do not like having my back to the room or my back to the door or my back to a window.  I like having my back to a wall – or at least a partition.  I like to be able to see the door or window – to see who is coming and going and what is happening around me.  Otherwise I feel vulnerable.

That is not to say that I will make a fuss and force my will on my table mates.  If my dining partner takes the seat against the wall, that’s fine.  But I will watch their face extra carefully, relying on them to catch anything out of the ordinary behind me.  Left to my own, though, you’ll almost always find me seated against the wall with a good view of the entrance.  And it isn’t a conscious decision.  It just happens.

So to sit at a bar in an unfamiliar establishment with my back to the door made me edgy.  Which is probably part of the reason I only had two drinks during the almost 3 hours I was there.

The other part had to do with the person sitting to my left.  Generally I don’t like to sit between people.  As mentioned, I like the wall.  Part of that is that it limits my approach space, which allows me to send out the “do not disturb” vibe when I’m not feeling particularly sociable.  I was not feeling particularly sociable last night, but the only bar seat left was between two guys (who were pretty obviously not there together) and I decided to chance it.  The fellow to my left took about five minutes to introduce himself and his two companions.  I was polite, but withdrawn.  He only read the polite part.

Over the course of his two beers (definitely a lightweight) he proceeded to get more and more inquisitive and friendly – trying to talk to me over the music, trying to buy me drinks, trying to get all sorts of personal information.  I answered his questions when he asked them, sometimes with a real answer and sometimes with a “I don’t want to talk about that.”  But I purposely kept my answers short and superficial.  Every social cue was that I was not interested.  That polite conversation during the breaks between sets was fine, but that I wasn’t into sharing life stories.

Yet he kept trying.  At first he would just lean close to talk to me over the music.  And he’d have to lean even closer to get my answers.  Before long he was putting his arm around me to talk in my ear – at first touching my far shoulder and then my side and then my hip.  For reference, this fellow was about the same age as my father, a good 40 lbs overweight, and was sweating pretty heavily.  So I wasn’t really keen on this physical contact.  I kept sliding farther and farther away, and he kept sliding closer and closer to maintain the conversation.

If you are wondering why I didn’t just get up and move somewhere else, well two reasons.  The club was crowded, and there were no other seats available.  I’m not big on standing and holding a drink in the middle of the room – see the wall thing – and there was no space to stand against the walls.  Second, I found the interaction with this fellow curious.  I did not feel threatened or intimidated, though I did identify his behavior and total lack of consideration of my social cues as creepy.  But I’m always a little bit fascinated by people who either fail or choose not to heed standard body language and conversational cues – when they plow right over social conventions to get what they want.  Fascinated enough that I will humor them.  Which has gotten me in trouble more than once, I’ll grant.

So I stayed put and when I couldn’t slide any farther away from him without encroaching on the next person’s space, I stayed put and stiffened my back and reinforced my social cues.  By then it was too late.  He was sliding his hand down my back every time he leaned over to say something – almost possessively, and I found myself counting the ways I could break his arm in three moves or less every time he touched me.  I tried to stay put long enough to listen to the last of the set (band did an awesome cover of Green Onions) but when he started stroking my arm with his fingertips – drawing little circles and what-not – in that intimate pre-mating sort of way I knew that he wasn’t going to catch the clue, and it was time to leave.

I realize there were a lot of things I could have done at that point.  I could have told him to mind his distance.  I should have right at the start.  But that would have required being rude.  And I generally don’t go for being rude to strangers.  I could have ignored him at that point.  But again with the rude – and I could sense that he was insecure enough to make a scene if I suddenly started ignoring him.  Plus, there is the possibility he wouldn’t have picked up on that cue either.  I could have gotten up and milled about the room – I really didn’t like leaving before the last set.  But that would have been tiring and stressful – particularly since I was already on edge.

So I left.

However I did learn something.  When I start thinking about breaking other people’s bodies, it’s past time to set some more sincere barriers.  I already knew this, but it had been so long since I last went out, I was out of practice.

There was one other thing that was odd about this encounter.  Whenever I answered one of his persistent personal questions (Wow your arms are solid, do you work out?  What do you do?  Lift weights?  You’re really strong!  Do you go to the gym?) he would turn to his buddies and repeat it to them as though it was a phenomenal fact.  “She’s a vegetarian” because I didn’t know any of the steak house restaurants he was trying to talk about.  “She runs marathons” because I was making excuses as to why I was only having two drinks (seriously HALF marathons.  I say the HALF part every time and nobody catches it.  LISTEN, PEOPLE).  “She rock climbs” when I finally got tired of the commentary about my body.  I have nothing to hide, especially, but I find that I don’t like sharing my general activities.  First, they make me sound much more interesting and exciting than I am.  Second, they make me sound like I’m trying to impress people when the reality is that I am incredibly unimpressive.  Third, they do not include TV but feature activities that are often on TV, which means that while they should be conversation stoppers, what actually happens is that I then have to listen to some recount of some episode of “Survivor of America’s Talented Dancers with Models”, which, honestly, makes my eyes glaze over and my brain shut down and sometimes even causes specific pain centers to fire.  Like the one in my neck.

This morning I woke up with a migraine.  It came on by surprise.  I was not hung over, nor had I allowed myself to become dehydrated.  I hadn’t eaten onions or lots of garlic or any of the other foods that seem to trigger the migraine.  The only possible culprits could have been the several cups of coffee I had with breakfast yesterday morning and the two very cheap shots of whiskey last night.  Still, I’ve consumed worse with less impact.  The migraine pretty much derailed all of my workout and school prep plans.  Instead I spent most of the day in a dim room with my eyes closed, lying very still.  The pain finally started to ease a bit this afternoon – enough that I could take the dog for a walk and finish my writing assignment for class tomorrow.  But even now I can still feel it hibernating behind my eyes.  Hopefully tonight will be enough to ditch it.  I do not want to start the week with a migraine.  I’ve got too many Non-TV related activities to do.

Putting the Train Back on the Track

I had a long list of things that I needed to get done this weekend.  Most of it didn’t happen.  It’s my own fault.  Two nights in a row of drinking and staying up way too late makes it difficult to fix the tax problem and debate the wrong charges with the cell phone company and get my finances in order and do the research for the new health plan that I’m going to have to find when my current one runs out at the end of the month, and still get my exercise and my housework and my studying done. In fact, I only got the housework and the exercise and a handful of errands completed.  Everything else got skipped.

It’s dangerous, letting so much stuff go by the wayside like that.  I know better.  But I really wanted to be social and spend time with my friends too.  One of the biggest sacrifices I’ve made during my efforts in this master’s program is the time spent with friends and family.  I go months without seeing people that I used to see every other week or so.  And it is not unusual for my friends to be doing something fun, something interesting or beneficial or difficult or important, while I am stuck studying or attending class or trying to catch up on all of the stuff that I should be doing otherwise.

So this weekend I shot myself in the foot.  It’s done.  Time to pick up the pieces and try to get back on track.

I’ve decided that I’m done drinking for the next three weeks – even on weekends – with one exception.  If I am able to go out (I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon – I’ve maxed my going out quota the last couple of weeks) then I might have one or two.  But no more drinking at home alone when I should be studying or working on a project or dealing with one of the dozens of problems I’ve got hovering right now.  It’s going to be difficult, especially at first, but I know I won’t miss the hangovers.

I’m going to get back to my twice a day training schedule.  First, it will make me be more regimented with my time.  Second, it will eliminate the 10 lbs I’ve packed on since the last half-marathon.  Third, it will make it easier to not drink.  Fourth, I’ll be more productive all around.  It’s the getting up in the morning part that kills me.  But I’ve been slacking for two months now.  Time to get myself in gear.  Besides, once I start the new job, I’ll have to totally rearrange my workout schedule.  Best take advantage of what I have while I have it.

Third, I’m going to really work at this sleep problem.  If I can just get 7 hours a night, I’ll be totally functional.  This 4 and 5 hour nonsense has got to stop.  Hopefully the not drinking will help it.  But the other thing I’m hoping will help is a fixed bedtime.  10:30.  No exceptions.  Which means I have about five minutes to finish this before I have to call it a night.

Fourth, I’m going to get serious about my classes.  I’ve been slacking off this semester – to the point that I’m even making myself nervous, and I never get nervous about academics.  If I don’t pull it together and soon, I’m going to have a difficult time getting the necessary grade in my difficult class.  I’m frustrated and angry about the amount of work involved, and I’m being passive aggressive by not doing it in a timely manner, but the only person I’m hurting is myself.  I just need to pull my head loose and start working harder.  My biggest problem with this class is that it isn’t the kind of work that can be done in little chunks.  If I don’t have three or four or six hours to work on stuff for this class, it almost isn’t even worth getting started.  It takes so long to get in the groove and then it takes so long to make any progress and then it takes so long to get to a point where I can stop without having to redo a bunch of work the next time I get started that it is difficult to schedule it in.  That’s one thing I’m hoping the new job will help.  It looks like I have a couple of totally free days – instead of working part time every day – so I should be able to actually make the time commitment necessary.

I’m so looking forward to this new position – for so many reasons.  It was a long time coming and I am approaching it as an opportunity to set the foundation for the next kind of person I will be.  Every five years I change profoundly.  I’ll be 34 this summer.  35 is going to be a pivotal year, and I can already tell that this year will be all about gearing up for the next phase.  I’m ready.  Mostly.

At least, I have the wardrobe for it.  Finally.

Oops.  Time!  Off to bed for me.

When Drunk…

It is amazing the things I will do when drunk that I won’t even try when sober.  Like food prep.  I’ve been on a humus kick for about a month now.  I crave it.  Whenever I go shopping I inevitably end up with a container of humus and a bag of pita chips in my basket – even when I can’t rationally afford humus and pita chips – there they are.  In my basket.

Tonight I ran out of humus.

I’d been looking forward to humus and pita chips all day.  I didn’t eat enough for lunch, at least not enough to go run 9 miles right after work.  Which I did – longest run since my half-marathon.  So when I got home I could feel the crash coming.  Actually, I felt the crash at mile 6.  Crashing when you are exercising is an interesting experience.  It is like your limbs suddenly go heavy.  Suddenly is the correct word because it happens so fast that it invariably takes me by surprise.   One moment I’m going along all active like and the next I am light headed and dizzy and wondering what the hell is happening.  I run out of fuel.  Literally.  It is a fascinating experience – except not so much when three miles from your car and 15 from your refrigerator and 25 min from anything edible.

So I ran out of humus.  I tried eating rice, but rice and whiskey does not go all that well.  Actually, most food doesn’t really complement whiskey.  It is unfortunate, really, as I go directly to the whiskey bottle at my first opportunity.

So I decided to watch a movie instead.  Once Upon A Time in Mexico – which I’ve seen a handful of times.  The film isn’t great.  But it has moments – enough of them to link together to make a reasonably entertaining couple of hours.  Especially if you have humus for your pita chips.  Which I didn’t.  Until…

I paused the movie half way through and abused the google until it coughed up a handful of humus recipes.  I then took what was common between the recipes, reconciled it with what I had in my kitchen, and threw it all in my blender.  The end result (after a lot of manipulation because blenders are nothing like food processors and the damn garbonzo beans just did not want to blend and I am/was sufficiently drunk that it was all a bit touch and go anyway) was amazingly delicious.  I put three sleeves?  bundles?  whatever the pieces of garlic that you peel away from a clove are, in the blender with a can of garbonzo beans, almost half a cup of lemon juice, a couple of teaspoons of sesame oil and who knows how much cummin.  Actually the measurements of all of it are suspect.  The only thing I actually specified was the can of garbonzo beans.  Everything else I just guessed on.

The result?  Wonderful!  Somehow I ended up with a humus that puts most of the stuff I’ve been buying in the supermarket to shame.  If I knew it was this easy…

I don’t think I’ll be buying pre-made humus again.  I also don’t think I’ll be using that much garlic again.  Good grief.  For a vegetarian I have a very hard time digesting garlic.  Even though I love the flavor.  It’s a Catch 22 (the last book that made me actually cry).  The humus is insufficient without the garlic, but makes my tummy unhappy with it.  No win.

I was going to go out tonight.  I’ve been planning on going out tonight for over two weeks.  Obviously I did not go out tonight.  I wanted to.  I just didn’t want to go by myself.  Usually it doesn’t bother me.  Tonight, as I was playing my guitar and slowly getting drunk, it bothered me.  And as this is the only night I really get to go out, I feel like I’ve wasted it.  Again.  On the up side, I did get a lot of my homework done.

I know this is my life, and I’m acutely aware that it is passing me by more quickly than I can reconcile.  I also acknowledge that I’ll likely be spending it alone, and that my window for partners is rapidly narrowing.  There are more women than men out there.  1.9 percent in most cases.  It looks like I’m in that bracket – the percentage that must be solo so as to preserve the gender balance among the reproducers.

I can deal.  Especially  now that I know how easy it is to make my own humus.  Now I just need to figure out how to make pita chips and I’ll be set.  You’ll never see me out and about again.  Except for my runs.  Because next weekend will be a 12 miler.  And while I met my 20 miles per a week running goal (does not include the 12 miles on the elliptical machine, nor the 6 miles on the stair master) it was not enough to keep me from detesting myself.  Detesting.  As in Hating.  As in Disgusted.  As in I don’t know what.  My expectations are so unrealistic, and my self-image is so completely fantastical that I spend a good amount of time wondering why I don’t look like a fitness model.

Genetics.

And I’m not even that upset by them.  For all the pouches of body fat that I’ve inherited, I also have a high alcohol tolerance, the ability to decipher complex data, even when drunk, and a complete lack of fear for my wellbeing.  Ok, maybe the last is more a product of my experience than my genetics.  But that doesn’t change anything.  I’ll take y’all on right now.  C’mon!  What are you waiting for!  Bring it already!

Or not.  That’s ok too.

I’m going to go take one of each of the sleep medications I have in my cabinet.  Hopefully it will drown out the barking of my neighbor’s dogs – who have driven me to the point that I’m fantasizing about anti-freeze and animal tranquilizers.  Wonderful fantasies.  Sleep full fantasies.

At any rate, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  My expectations are low – except for the part where I’ll be hosting band practice.  I bug bombed my studio in anticipation of band practice.  If I’m lucky it will restore my cosmic balance.

If I’m lucky…

Filmography – three movies that you’ve probably already seen

It is a fine line between accepting things the way they are and falling into the trap of self-fulfilling prophecy.  There is no way to maintain any sort of stability or functionality but to accept things the way they are.  But accepting the status quo can easily become stultifying, stunting, a committment – however unplanned or undesired – to the way things are now, which is one tiny step away from self-sabotage, from preventing yourself from exploring and taking risks and pushing away from the mooring of the known to venture on the high seas of the unknown, the unknowable.

It’s a scary world out there.

I’ve been watching movies during my spring break.  I’d planned on going out and having drinks and conversations and possibly hangovers.  Instead I’ve been predominantly sober (excepting tonight) and spending a lot of time ripping seams on thrift store clothes and imagining fascinating (to me) new ways of combining materials and gorging on movies and short stories.  While I have a constant stream of the latter running through my head, just waiting for the day that I have the patience and stamina and inspiration to write them down, the other, the films, have had me thinking.  So here is a rundown.

I saw Greenberg last Monday with a friend.  It is a wonderfully acted film.  The characters feel so incredibly real – it is like you could walk to the local coffee shop and there they are, standing in line, waiting, a little unsure about their choice, but prepared to make their order and accept the fact that they will not be exactly happy about it, that it won’t be the perfect drink, that it will not completely satisfy whatever it is they are needing, but that it will be enough.  Which is exactly how life is.  A continuous and occasionally monotonous series of enoughs.  Never more than.  Often less than.  But seldom critically insufficient.  Just the bare minimum to maintain the status quo.

This has been my experience this recession – a perpetualization of the bare minimum.  I wonder how this prolonged exposure to living at the edge (by American standards – though not that far off by many other standards either.  I mean, I have food and shelter and a computer and a car.  But I also live alone, on my own, and I’m always two weeks away from moving in with my parents or my friends or living out of my car.  I recognize that is different than starving in Ethiopia or living under a tarp in Haiti, or walking among roadside bombs in Afghanistan, but it is still unstable, still scary, still a constant source of stress.  Because, and I can officially say this from experience, living out of your is not easy.  It is similar to living in a tent, only you never get to fully stretch your legs out when you sleep.  So this edge I’m on, this edge is valid.  It may not be fatal, but it certainly is not inconsequential.) I wonder how living on this edge will change me in the long term.  I suspect that it will not be that much different than the people who survived the great depression, who in their 70’s and 80’s still hoarded canned food, and refused to buy new furniture or clothes when the old were still serviceable, and who left considerable sums of savings to their spouses and children – not because they were investing geniuses or because they somehow struck it rich, but because they lived a lifetime of frugality.  I think about what it would be like to earn enough money to cover my bills and then some and I don’t imagine the vacations I would take and the clothes I would buy and the cars I would drive, I imagine how much money I could save by living as I do now, how quickly I could pay off my student loans, how rapidly I could contribute to my retirement – only without the stress of homelessness lurking behind every paycheck.  I have a hard time imagining otherwise.

That is not what the movie is about though.  The movie is about what happens when life doesn’t live up to our expectations.  It’s about what happens when we must face that discrepancy – when we have to reconcile what is with what we thought would be.  There is a fair amount of irony in this – particularly if you take a fourth wall/metaphysical view.  I mean, here is Ben Stiller, an actor who has had the skill/karma/sheer luck of being successful in one of the handful of industries in which success guarantees wealth, portraying a character who is facing the reality that he will never be successful, at least, not in the modern cultural definition of success.  That he does it convincingly is a testament to the skill aspect of his success.  That it is impossible to forget that one is watching a movie about the reality of reality is probably the film’s main downfall.  It asks unanswerable questions, and leaves the ends untidy.  That is its charm.  It presents its characters realistically and includes their flaws and neurosis.  That is its interest. But it is a film.  An art project for the rich and famous.  And that is its challenge, and ultimately, it’s failure.

Still.  I say go and see.  It is not a bad way to spend an afternoon, and it will raise questions – the questions that we least like to have raised and most often should be asking.

Last night I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshal.  I have to confess that I have a slight crush on Jason Segel.  I try not to.  He’s exactly the kind of guy that I break.  Into itty bitty pieces.  But still, there he is, vulnerable when he should be impervious, obtuse when he should be acute, and as accessible as a Reader’s Digest abandoned in your grandmother’s bathroom.  During a funereal.  He does more damage to my perception of males (sidebar – I am a total misogynist – I freely admit this.  But I am also a misandrist – in that I am always amazed when men express sincere emotions or show any sort of real interest or appreciation for others.  This does not apply to my male friends, who never fail to surprise me with their humanity, just as my misogyny does not apply to my female friends.  Yet from everyone else, I will confess now, I expect the worst.  And sometimes I even expect it from my friends – which gives them lots of leeway when it comes to living life as it is instead of as Disney has told us it should be.) than any other public figure I can think of.  Yet he couches it in the realm of comedy.  Which is good, I guess.  I mean, without the permission to break the tension with the occasional chuckle, the strain of awkwardness would be unbearable.  And that is pretty much how the whole movie runs.  It is continuously awkward, and intentionally so.  But the comedy, the over-the-top-ishness, the behavior that is so obviously that of a character and so completely removed from any experience (I’ve had) of reality keeps the film moving – makes it worth watching.

Another tangent.  Am I the only one to notice how much of our daily interaction seems scripted these days?  Or is it simply the fact that I’m living a very stunted life right now – perpetually on a short micro managed leash?  I’m astounded when I have a conversation that steps outside the parameters set by reality TV and Fashion Magazines and Wireless commercials.  Maybe I’m just too out of touch.  Maybe I’m spending so much time hiding with my textbooks and peer-reviewed articles and thesis statements that I’m the one who isn’t holding up her end of the human interaction.  But I don’t think so.  I spend a great deal of every day out there, moving around in the world.  And the only thing that keeps me from being continually disappointed is the fact that I have such low expectations to begin with.  What do I do about that?  What can I do about that?

End Tangent.

Tonight I watched (500) Days of Summer.  Of the three films, I would most strongly recommend this one.  There are two scenes that speak to me so sincerely in this film – both of them questioning the paradigm of romance on which we build our perceptions of inter-gender relationships – that cut to my core.  I find that I have asked the same questions – not out of heartbreak or simple disillusionment, but because I can see no real evidence of the thing that our culture, our history, and our friends and family insist exists.  Love?  What is that?  A word, for sure, but what does it mean?  What does it actually stand for?  I remember before I was to get married when a younger friend of mine asked me what it felt like to be in love, and I said to her “you’ll know it when it happens” which was one of the biggest lies I’ve ever told.  I wasn’t in love then – and I knew it – I didn’t know what love did feel like, but I was pretty damn clear on what it didn’t feel like.  To have a film approach this subject head on and unflinchingly is refreshing.  In many ways it reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Both films are a juxtaposition of the expected and the remembered with the real.  Expectations are simply imagined memories, and, as a rule, fair badly against the banality that is reality.  It (life) will not go the way we expect.  It (and it doesn’t matter what it is) won’t.  That is real.

Of the three films, the acting (and the actors) are most watchable in (500) Days of Summer.  But all three deserve the time they require.  All three approach relationships from a real, but not unappealing point of view.  All three make genuine and novel contributions to the library of romantic fiction.  But they are still movies.  Still stories.  Still fiction.

Someday I would like to see a film about what happens when somebody decides to opt out – to ignore the instinctual drive to couple.  What happens to those people who live their lives alone?  Ok.  That is enough from me.  I can feel the vodka blending my brain cells together into a pastey gray mush.  Time to go be unconscious.

And tomorrow maybe I’ll see a movie.