Likeable

I’m a people pleaser.  I pretend that I’m not – that I do not care what people think.  Sometimes I even convince myself.  And sometimes I am convincing enough that it is true – that I do not care.  But really, if I know you and if I see you day to day – or even week to week, I’m going to care and I’m going to try to make you like me.  Not like like me, because that would be awkward, considering that I appear to have a phobia of human emotion, but like me enough that you enjoy having me around.  That you invite me to lunch and chat in the breakroom.  Only that much.  But that much. 

I usually have a pretty good read on this sort of like.  It involves smiling and some eye contact.  Laughing at my silly jokes is good.  I do not share the negative at work.  Or if I do, I share it in a way that incites laughter.  I do not want your pity.  Not now, not ever.  However, I do not care if you laugh at me.  I laugh at me all the time.

But recently something happened that has messed up my read.  My work crush – who is no longer my work crush – invited me out to a drink after work last week – me along with about a dozen other colleagues.  This was fine.  I have no intention of acting on any of my crushes, so a full company is good in my book.  Except nobody but he and I showed.  And he ignored me.  Not as in, ignored me at the table while he met with non-work buddies who did show, but ignored me on the sidewalk outside the bar (he went so far as to cross the street instead of walk the same sidewalk as me) and then ignored me as I sat alone at the bar and even ignored me as I walked right past his table on my way out of the restroom.  As in, made eye contact and didn’t even recognize my existence.  At the time I took this as a serious slight.  I assumed that I had showed up where I was not wanted.  I figured that this was his was of saying that I was being too pushy (I have made a conscious effort to show no extraneous interest in him – I do not need an uncomfortable workplace) and this was a lesson for me to back off.  I figured that it was all intentional and that I should make myself scarce. 

Except I was invited. 

All this week I’ve been feeling like an idiot whenever he’s around – and I’m going out of my way – way out of my way – to avoid him.  But today I started to wonder if maybe it was all in my head.  If maybe I just thought that we made eye contact, and if maybe he just didn’t recognize me outside of work.  I had let my hair out of its eternal bun.  I had even taken off my bulky sweater once I was out of the office air conditioning.  Maybe I am passing judgement too soon.  Or maybe he was trying to tell me that he does not want me sniffing around. 

Maybe he just does not like me.  As in, not like me at all.  Or maybe I’m being oversensitive.  I don’t know how to take this, and I do not want to make drama.  So I am doing what I do best – I am carrying my neurosis around like a piece of overstuffed luggage, dragging it up and down stairs and arguing with the attendants about whether or not it will fit in the overhead bin. 

I should just not care.  There is no future in it.  There is nothing that I actually want.  And I did nothing wrong – except listen to my neurosis.

I have an intern now.  I am still so stressed out that I have chest pains and stomach pains and hives all over my hips and shoulders.  I also have moments of deja vu of when I was an intern and my co-workers came and talked to me and told me about how things actually work.  I see a bit of the same stunned look on her face sometimes.  I know that feeling so well.  Some see my department’s increased capacity as an invitation to give us more work.  We are some hardcore producers in my world.  I am starting to get resentful.  It is taking all of the fun out of it.  Soon I will need to shift over to stuff that I actually enjoy, or I’m going to have an emotional breakdown.  I can feel it coming.  I want to cry most mornings on my commute in.  And I am so exhausted in the evenings and on the weekends that it takes a huge amount of effort for me to get out of my house.  I have a very distinct urge to just fade away.  It means that I am depressed. 

Again.  Still.  My foot has not healed.  I cannot run.  I cannot even walk very far before it hurts.  And I wonder why I’m even bothering.  Why not just give up and eat myself into obesity?  Why even bother with the commute and the traffic and the time cards and all that shit?  Why not just give up now and be done with it all?  I gave myself permission, after all.

I won’t do that.  It is the chemical imbalance speaking –  not really me.  But the energy I spend fighting it is the very last bit of energy I have.  The dregs.  And everything else suffers. 

I don’t know what to do about the guy at work.  I guess I’m going to pretend the whole thing never happened, and then be very careful to be absolutely neutral from here on out.  Eventually I may even quit going out of my way.  Eventually.  Right now I just feel so stupid.  So very stupid. 

Really, it’s nothing new.

Restraint

Yesterday I did what I should have done back in January.  I got the restraining order against my neighbor.  It took almost 6 hours.  And most of that was spent sitting and waiting.  It is a temporary restraining order – in a few weeks I will have to go before the Judge, face my neighbor, and explain why I believe it should be a permanent restraining order.  I will have to tell a stranger what happened in front of the person who did it.  I am not looking forward to this at all. 

Provided it happens.

Today I came home from work and there were about a dozen cops and half a dozen police cars blocking the street right in front of my stalker neighbor’s house.  The county Sheriff was going to serve him the restraining order today.  I don’t know if the cop meeting was due to my neighbor, who has priors, or if it was totally unrelated.  I can’t figure out how to calculate those odds.  But the way the officers were moving around and talking – and the lack of any other emergency personnel makes me think that they got whoever it was they came to get – without casualties. 

I’ve lived here long enough now that I can tell when they’ve got their guy and when they haven’t.  What does that mean? 

I’ve started looking for a new place to live.  Somewhere quiet.  Somewhere with the illusion of safety.  Or at least a little less overt danger.  Somewhere without stalker neighbors. 

This whole situation has been having a very negative impact on my work.  On everything, actually.  I’m exhausted.  I can’t focus.  I can’t get anything done.  I spent most of today confusing myself.  And the rest of it confusing everyone else.  And I’ve missed my thesis deadline.  Again. 

I just want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  I want a day off.  I want to stop and think without feeling like I’m forgetting something critical. 

I want to just sit and be ok with just sitting.  Maybe I’ll take a day or two off next week.    HAHAHA.  right.

Oh god.  I did this to myself.

Time Off

I should call the police.  I know this.  What just happened…  I wish it would rain.  I wish it would thunder and blow and come down in wet cold sheets.  I wish it would make the streets unwelcome.  Instead it is cool and breezy and clear and lovely out tonight.  I’d go sit outside even, if I could.  I can’t.

I remember how my gut used to clench up when my ex husband started to get violent.  I’m not talking about the beginning of our marriage.  That clench was one of fear and dread – fear of him and dread of what he was going to do.  I’m talking about the gut reaction I would have at the end of our marriage, when I was no longer afraid of him.  It was still fear and dread, but fear of myself and dread of what I was becoming.

I have that clench now.  My stomach is in so many knots I don’t know how I’ll sleep.  I’m going to start by loading my shotgun.  Of course Dog is staying inside tonight.  I’m going to set the alarm too.  And I’ll still probably lay awake most of the night.

I should have gotten the restraining order.  Before, when my stalker neighbor decided to expose himself and masturbate in front of the windows of his house that face mine – he put on quite a show and made sure I was in front of my window so I might see what he was up to – I called the police and they told me to get a restraining order.  He has felonies.  Violent felonies.  I was going to follow through and get the restraining order.  But I was so busy.  I was working so much.  I was so overwhelmed.  Depressed.  Behind on everything.  Blah Blah Blah – excuses.  It was a pain in the ass, and I thought he was done.  I really thought he was done.

He wasn’t done.

20 minutes ago he was screaming on my front porch.  Beating on my door, and yelling at me through my mail slot.  He threatened my dog.  He threatened to sexually assault me.  He made crude sexual comments – loudly.  He was obviously high on something.  Really high.

I told him to leave before I called the cops.  And he left.  Just like that.

And now I’m trying to decide whether or not I should actually call the cops.  I’m trying to decide if I should pack Dog up in the car and go sleep somewhere else tonight.  I’m trying to decide if it would be worth it to deal with the cops on this again.  I didn’t take their advice last time.  I didn’t get the restraining order.

I thought it would just go away.  I don’t make eye contact.  I don’t talk to him.  I go out of my way to avoid him – don’t drive by his house when he is outside, don’t go out into my yard when he is at my neighbor’s or across the street at the vacant lot.  I don’t do anything to encourage this.  I just didn’t get the restraining order.

He has been hanging around the neighborhood kids a lot lately.  He has a portable basketball hoop that he sets in the street and they all play.  And they help him wash his car and he helps the grandmother across the street maintain her yard.  He keeps his yard the tidiest on the street.  And he cleans things up around the neighborhood.  I respect this.

But I can’t have him threatening rape at the top of his lungs on my front porch.  That part is completely uncool.

Clench in the gut.

I made a promise to myself that I would do everything necessary to keep this from turning violent.  I will not back away from violence.  My ex husband taught me how to tolerate violence.  My martial arts instructors taught me how to protect myself.  I’m not afraid for myself.  I’m afraid that when, if the time comes that I need to defend myself, I will.  To whatever degree necessary.

I really don’t understand this.  I don’t get the logic.  I go out of my way to stay away from people – to stay off the radar.  I don’t go to bars anymore.  I don’t go out walking at night alone.  I don’t troll craigslist or any of the other relationship/sex sites.  I don’t date.  I don’t try to talk to people.  I haven’t been this isolated in years.  And this is what happens.  My fucking neighbor looses his shit and felony strikes be damned, he’s going full on psycho stalker.  I could understand this if I was out trolling for sex or partners or whatever.  I could understand this if I was a serial dater or someone who spent a lot of time trying to hook up with men.  I don’t.

I’m letting my hair go gray, for fuck’s sake.  Intentionally.  Because it makes me look 15 years older – especially with the constantly exhausted look I’m sporting most days.  Bags and wrinkles for all.  You’d think that would be enough.  That would scream “leave me alone”.

I’m not going to call the cops.  If I do, then I will have to press charges and he will go to jail tonight.  And then he will be dealing with another felony charge – the one that may put him in prison for a very long time.  I don’t want to be the one that ruins his life when he spends so much of it trying to do good.  If that stupid 3 strikes law was different – if I could press charges knowing that he wouldn’t necessarily be charged with a felony or knowing that, since he was not violent against me, that his actions wouldn’t constitute a strike, then I would already be on the phone.  But the legal here is sideways.  No balance to it.

Plus, if the cops come here now, it will be an hour before they leave – at least.  And they will say I told you so.  They will.  They should.  I deserve it.

So tomorrow I will take some time off work to go to the courthouse and file a restraining order.  I need to round up all of my paperwork.  I’ll need to run by the office and pick up my last police report.  I’ll need to stand in line and deal with someone else’s shit.  This is not my shit.  This is the result of someone else’s shit.  And there are a million other things I could do with the time.  A thousand of those actually need to be done – and soon.  I have deadlines…

I’m rattled, but I’m also ok.  I know I didn’t sound frightened when I told him to leave.  I sounded pissed.  And I am.  I really am.  Actually, I’m more pissed than anything.  But I’m also tired.  Exhausted.  And overwhelmed.  And behind on everything.  No different than back in January when this was a problem before.  Except this time I’m going to do what I should have done then.

I’m going to take the time off.

And then I’m going to start looking for a new place to live.  We’re not safe here anymore.

Promises

Three days ago I promised myself that I was going to quit drinking – except for special occasions.  As in when I am not alone.  Three days.  That is exactly how long my promises are good.  Take note now.  The window is rather limited.

I made great progress on my thesis last week.  Good, but not good enough.  And now I am stymied again.  Overwhelmed.  I worked 10 hours today.  No breaks.  Not even for lunch, which was inhaled in 7 minutes while trying to debate a point of funding.  Funding.  What a useless word.  It isn’t money because it has too many strings.  It isn’t income or revenue or anything else that might actually be spent.  It is ‘funding’, which is to be reported.  Always reported. 

My lifespan in public administration is limited.  That or I need a serious attitude change.  I do not think I have the fortitude for reform.  Right now, I don’t even have the fortitude for a second brandy.

That is a lie.  I do have the fortitude.  I just don’t want the hangover in the morning.  5 am comes way too early for heavy drinking.

I’ve had a stabbing pain behind my left eye for four days now.  It is painful to the touch – as though the thin shelf of bone behind my eyelid is bruised.  It is the pressure of the migraine that will not quite go away.  I am functioning with it – though not as well as I might.  I have two major writing assignments and I’m obviously working on neither.  Even this is a rather feeble attempt at getting the words to flow.  The are more like gel and less like liquid.  Sticky. 

What does it mean that a four day migraine doesn’t even register on the pain-O-meter?  I haven’t been bedridden from it, therefore it is not worth addressing?  I say that I will not – never again – allow myself to ignore the pain until it becomes damage.  But here I am.  Does a migraine actually damage your brain?  Do you lose cells?  Do connections become severed?  What is the physiological impact?  Because I’ve spent four days with a stabbing pain behind my left eye.  Like an old-school lobotomy.  Ice Pick style.

In five minutes I am going to go crawl into bed and pretend that today is over. 

I spent last weekend trying to recover from the week.  I’ve been really hard on myself for not being more productive during my weekends.  There is laundry to do and papers to write and people to see and so very much that needs to be done.  I should plant a garden this year.  I should clean up the dog shit in the back yard.  And it would be amazing to actually mop all of my floors.  Amazing.  Instead I’m so exhausted all weekend that all I want to do is sleep.  I sleep a lot.  I could sleep more, but I feel guilty.  But I am exhausted.  Saturday I was too exhausted to breathe.  It actually took effort.  If I could have just lie there and been totally still – no breathing, no heartbeat, no thinking – every part of my being focused on conserving energy, I would have done it in a second.  I could sleep for two days and still be tired. 

And I don’t do anything fun on the weekend.  I don’t do anything restorative, besides sleep.  I don’t have the energy.  I cannot spend this summer like I spent last – working myself to death.  Literal death as I am less and less rejuvenated and more and more exhausted after my “weekends”.  I’m astounded at my immune system, but I’m noting other issues.  Irregular heartbeats.  Hives.  And the headaches.  Oh the headaches.

I chose this, right?  I chose this. 

It is a good thing I am not having another brandy.  I can feel the pathos baying at the gate. 

Today I deleted one of the websites that I visit most – that I’ve wasted the most time on – from my favorites.  Not that that will stop me from wasting time.  But it will make it more work, and as someone for whom “Too much effort” is a very valid excuse, it might just get me to back off of the procrastinating and time wasting a bit.  Maybe.  Getting someone else to set my deadlines would also help. 

But mostly?  I need some time off.  A vacation.  An adventure even.  I need to breathe.  I’ve been going full steam on all pistons (with ample nitrous) for almost a whole year.  It has been almost a year of extreme overtime and extreme stress and extreme exhaustion.  A year of my life.  That I will not get back.  Gone. 

Yeah. 

Fuck it.  I’m going to spend some money.  Buy some music.  Get some sleep.  And do it all again tomorrow.  And maybe I’ll plan a day off next week.  Looks like I really need it.

Age Appropriate

Tonight I stayed after work for almost three hours to work on my thesis.  Combined with the 4 hours I put in yesterday, this represents significant progress.  I’m really in the very last stages.  Today I completed everything except the formatting (mostly done), the bibliography (in an external document – mostly done), and the conclusion (in outline form).  The document is currently 264 pages.  that is 264 pages of original research.  My research.  Mostly done in the hours after work and the weekends.

Yeah.  No wonder this thing has been so overwhelming.  It’s like a dissertation.  Only not quite.  I mean, it could be, I think.  I’ll know in a few years – when I go for my doctorate (the timing of which is wholly dependent on when I pay off my student loans – but my retirement plan requires a doctorate – and tenure.  eventually).

Which is to say that after another 13 hour day of solid work, I feel that it is acceptable for me to not think about work.  The three vodka & lemonades have helped.

This is about entertainment.  TV and Books to be exact.

Let’s start with the book.  I spent last week in Kansas City on a business trip.  The thing about Kansas City is it is about 5 hours of plane time from Sacramento.  Include the layover, and that is just about a full day of travel – even with the time changes.  To keep myself distracted on the flight (I don’t know if it is just me, or if everyone feels bloated and rather uncomfortable on planes, but it has gotten to the point for me that it is hard to ignore the pain in my guts/legs/hips/back/shoulders/neck/and in this case, feet unless I have something to distract myself with) I picked up a book on my layover.  Brad Thor’s Full Black.  Oh god, did that book piss me off.

First, I have to justify myself.  I purchased the book because the blurbs on the cover said it was “brilliantly paced with superb nonstop action”.  See, I like my airplane books like I like my movies – with incredibly detailed fight sequences and glorious explosions.  Mayhem is good too.  I have the entertainment tastes of a teenage boy.  But the review quote that got me to plunk down $15 for this book?  “Thor’s most fully realized work…. There is enough adrenaline-charged adventure to fill several books of its length – with explosions. mayhem and karate…. Do not miss Full Black.”  

 

Yeah.  See the part where they don’t mention all the extreme right wing propaganda?  The part where the author spends pages upon pages glorifying unregulated capitalism and demonizing anything that remotely smells of socialism.  The part where the author actually refers to Fox News as a reliable news source.  The part where TORTURE is an acceptable way to get potential terrorists to talk.  AND the part where those terrorists are MUSLIM.  Because of course they are Muslim.  I mean what else would they be?  It isn’t like most of the recent terrorist issues were less about religion and more about plain old insanity.  No, they have to be Muslim.  Gah.  Uhg.  and Bleh. 

 

The propaganda in this book was so thick that I actually caught myself gagging at 30 thousand feet – and not in a fun way.  I was constantly torn between putting the thing down, and continuing to see just what the hell made this a best seller – because it certainly wasn’t the fear-mongering… Unless it was.  I hate fear-mongering, so it doesn’t sell for me.  But then I also can’t stand Fox News, I think the extreme right are nutty in the noggin, and I have no patience for easy stereotypes. 

 

For easy anything, really.  I have high expectations.  264 page thesis, people.  264 of original research – and I haven’t even written the conclusion.  (Spoiler – It Failed.)

 

This book made me so irritated that I put it down several times – and even considered not finishing it.  Not only was its ideology blatantly hanging out in the breeze all unsupported and such (seriously, “writes like Ayn Rand” is not a compliment – unless you are Ayn Rand) but its action sequences had an overload of “movie moment” – and I’m not talking the Bourne kind of movie.  More like Seriously Contrived and Totally Predictable and Oh Yeah – Did I Mention that This Book Promotes Torture as a Means to Gather Accurate Info?  Cuz it does. 

 

But – I was trapped on a plane.  And I didn’t want to spend more money for another book.  And I kept hoping that there might be one redeemable fight scene.  Cuz when I’m daydreaming, I’m choreographing fight scenes.  And, I’m not gonna brag or anything, but my lamest fantasies were still better than the action in this book.  Nothing new to add. 

 

It made me sad.  And angry.  What the hell that this dude – who writes propaganda filled mediocre adventure stories (the interest of which totally relies on ignorant fear) should have a best selling novel career and I’m still writing my thesis.  On redevelopment.  Which is dead. 

 

Yeah.  The book sucked.  All of the male characters were the same (actually they were essentially the same person just written in different decades of his life – one in his 30’s, one in his 40’s, one in his 50’s, and a couple in their 60’s and 70’s – all suitably badass, of course but not one of them genuine or even interesting) and the two female characters were sex objects.  Even if one of them was technically a badass, she was relegated to a nurse in this story.  No female badassery allowed.

 

Sad.

 

Enough of that.  Onto the other. 

 

I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix lately – the streaming sort.  TV series actually – as I do not have cable – or even basic reception and the only TV I can access is the free Hulu and Netflix.  I’ve been drawn to a couple of older series – things I never saw the first time around.  Scrubs, Psych, and Burn Notice.  And I’ve realized something very interesting through these series. 

 

I’m attracted to age appropriate characters. 

 

That is to say that I’m not attracted to the 20 somethings – even the late 20 somethings.  I’m into the characters that are obviously in their late 30’s and 40’s.  A bit of gray at the temples?  Yes please!  A history and some baggage to go along?  Ohh Yeah!  A little bit of cantankerousness and resistance to change?  MmmmHmmm.  Don’t get me wrong.  The younger characters are nice to watch.  But I don’t find them nearly as interesting – even when they are the main characters. 

 

Also, Burn Notice?  Excellent spy drama – Brad Thor should take note.  Characters without some irony/humor/flaws are Uninteresting. 

 

I know that there is a lot of good TV out there that I haven’t watched.  I gave up TV back in 2001, and I can honestly say that I’ve never watched a “reality” show all the way through.  Except the “Real World” on MTv – cuz that is what you watched when you were in high school in the early 90’s and had your wisdom teeth pulled and got to stay home for a week while your face swelled up like a helium balloon next to a light bulb. 

 

I feel good about the fact that I’m currently attracted to guys my own age – or slightly older.  This is meaningful for me.  I spent several years dating guys who where significantly younger than me because it was my way of adopting a “risk free” relationship.  Really, a gig with a guy 6 or 7 years your junior really isn’t supposed to work when you’re in your 20’s.  (Late 20’s and I’m not talking Jail Bait here – really, give me some credit.)  I like that a bit of gray, or a bit of bald, or a bit of wizened appeals to me now. 

I just wonder what it would take to make me appealing to a bit of wizened. 

 

To Sum Up, Book was bad.  TV is good.  I’m a total hypocrite.  Yay!

 

In more personal news, back during winter I’d contemplated not dying my hair anymore.  It is going gray fast and furiously, and I’ve begun to wonder if I should just let it go.  I realized today, as I was looking in the mirror at the gym as I got ready for work – post workout – that it makes me look much older.  My face has not wrinkled as much as my hair has grayed.  It is a bit of a disconnect – for me at least – to see the two in the same frame.  I’d like to go au’naturale because, frankly, it is cheaper and I’d never have to pay for another haircut again.  BUT, I also know that I will not feel “pretty” with the grey.  I just feel “wizened”.  And I’m not all that sure that wizened is a good look for the ladies.  Maybe I should just go get it dyed again. 

 

Or maybe I should accept that I am old.  At 35.  Yeah.  I am unsure at this point.  It is a strange situation for me.  35 feels old as dirt.  But I also know that 35 is really not that old.  Technically I could still have children – if having children was something I wanted to do.  But I feel like I’m dragging my carcass around day-in day-out – just waiting for the fall that will break my hip or send me into a coma – from which I will never recover.

 

I may need more joy in my life.  Just maybe.

 

And that is that.  Except for this.  Mr. Thor?  After I complete this monster of a thesis, I’m going to finish that novel I started.  And you know what?  It’s gonna be good.  Without the propaganda.

A Master of Procrastination

I’ve reached the end of the internet for the day and it is only 8 pm.  I should re-read my Results chapter in my thesis to see if it makes sense.  But I hate it.  I hate it so much that I don’t even want to look at it.  It isn’t poorly written.  It isn’t wrong or anything.  It isn’t even that long.  I’ve cut 165 pages down to 37.  It was a lot of cutting – made much easier by the fact that I hate it.  Hate.  And I have only days to get the whole thesis done before I miss the window of this semester.  Like maybe 5.  It’s killing me.  Yesterday, as I was going to pick up Dog from the kennel, where she stayed while I was on a business trip, I realized so very clearly that the knot of constant anxiety in my gut is Thesis related.  And I wondered what it would feel like to not have that.  I’ve forgotten what it is to not have something huge that is way overdue and that is impossible to work on.  Impossible. 

I’ll finish it.  I will.  Tonight I will re-read it and do a half-ass once over and then turn whatever I come up with into my professor.  And I’ll try to format the 130 page Appendix that I had to throw all of my research data into so that it is at least readable.  I’ll try. 

Tonight, after I got home from the gym, some guy visiting his girlfriend’s apartment had parked his van in front of my garage.  I don’t even know how many times this has happened.  I find it fascinating as it is obviously a garage – with the plain white door and everything.  I cannot understand why folk do not see it for what it is.  I am going to get a no-parking sign.  Because the idiots who park in front of my garage can read… yeah.  Sarcasm.  Weak sarcasm even. 

Anybody want to finish my thesis for me?  I do trades! 

Last weekend I went to see my woo-woo lady – the one who fixes the things that I break in my body and she let me look through the clothes of her deceased friend and take whatever I wanted.  Her friend died six months ago, and her family is just now getting to her apartment and her things.  My woo-woo lady offered to help them dispose of some of her things in a responsible manner – as in they want her things to go to people who can use them.  This woman had decent taste in clothes, and apparently was perfectly willing to spend large sums on high-end labels.  The upshot is that I now have a wardrobe of clothes that I could never afford.  Not all of them fit.  But she was as tall as me, and for the first time in my life, every pair of pants that I tried on were long enough.  Every pair.  Most were a little big, but I can deal with that.  She had business suits – which is something I’ve needed as I never have the appropriate attire for the City Council meetings and what-not that I’m now expected to periodically attend.  I will need to get them tailored.  Which will still be infinitely cheaper than if I had bought them myself.  I’m actually incredibly thankful for this.  I’ve felt so self-conscious about my wardrobe for so long now that I’ve given up on even trying to be attractive.  I go for clean.  At least not bad-smelling.  Not that I’m going to suddenly going to start trying to be all “so pretty!!!” and what not.  Too much effort.  But at least I don’t have to worry that the stains on my 8 year old khakis are showing.

Thesis.  Ok.  I will do that now.  Cup of tea first.  Then Thesis.  For Reals.  When this thing is over I am going to go get so wasted.  It will be epic.

Problematic

The problem with a crush is that it is one-sided.  The benefit of a crush is that it is one-sided.  On the first hand you are isolated and alone with your feelings.  On the second hand you don’t have to deal with anyone else and their feelings. 

Perspective can be such a bitch.

What does it mean when you actively try to avoid the people you’re attracted to?  I’ll tell you.  It means that you are insecure.  You have no confidence in yourself as a person of value.  Even you find your personality grating.  Oh, and your face is breaking out. 

Today I turned down lunch with the guy at work that I’m cultivating a crush on.  I had meetings.  And people were late.  And the things I’d tried to do were under-done because I was so overwhelmed with everything else that I’ve been utterly unable to focus on the things that matter.  Like special educational presentations that I sponsored.  Like my plans to fix the problems that keep my department (which is essentially me) in a constant state of crisis.  Like going out to lunch with the guy I have a crush on.

I spend my professional days (and they are the vast majority of my waking hours) running from crisis to crisis.  I joke about how this or that other incident gave me hives and how it made me allergic to my life.  It isn’t some incident.  It is the current situation.  I have hives now.  Still.  Because the only thing that has changed is my mood.  My stress is the same.  My workload is still overwhelming.  My performance is sub-par.  Sub-par for me at least.  And I’m so tired.  Itchy and tired.

And a little drunk. 

I’m lonely too.  I still don’t see my friends at the gym.  I’m lucky if I get 10 or 15 minutes of personal conversation a week.  And I don’t have time to really build on any friendships at work.  I’m in constant crisis mode.  So every discussion focuses around what needs to be done – which is fine, but it means that I come home with a lump in my throat and the feeling of absolute isolation. 

I’ve been trying to give dog extra attention.  Yesterday I gave up and sat on the floor with her for almost 20 minutes while she tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.  She is a great dog.  But, she is a dog.

Today my boss tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention and I jumped like I’d just been touched with a taser.  Even my good friends do not touch me.  And I don’t touch them.  Touching is so amazingly powerful and so confusing.  It is interesting, what happens to people when they go without touch for a long time.  It becomes obvious that this isn’t some sort of learning or social conditioning – the craving for the touch of another person is biological – it is a need, just like food and air and water. 

We did not evolve to be solitary creatures.  We are meant to live in tribes.  Families.  Tight knit groups that, regardless of whatever drama they produce, are capable of fulfilling each-others needs. 

I had contemplated inviting a friend who is in a transitional period to come live with me.  I thought it would be good – to have someone else around.  I’ve been alone for over a decade now.  Company might help make me a little less neurotic.  But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it was a good idea.  I even shopped it to people I trust, and I could see what I was doing – offering help to others because it gave me an excuse to not focus on my own deficiencies. 

Like I need an excuse. 

I didn’t make the offer.  We each have to learn our own lessons.  I will offer my help if any of my friends ever end up in a situation where they have nothing else.  But here and now, what this friend has to face might just be what this friend needs to face, and who am I to get in the way of that?

I’m still lonely.  And the more lonely I get the more I try to avoid people.  I don’t want anyone to see me like this.  Yet this is how I am.  And only being around other people will make it better.  It is a vicious circle, and breaking it takes more courage than I have.  That or someone else’s influence. 

I’m so tired.  I work so hard at being positive and forward thinking and optimistic.  I know it doesn’t seem like it here, but I do.  Nobody who sees me at work or at the gym would every suspect the truth, because I hide it well.  But it is exhausting – keeping up both the mask and the walls.  It means I have to hide.

So I hide.  I turn down lunches.  I take the long way around to the printer.  I don’t go to the gym when I know he’ll be there.  Do not make eye contact.  Do not smile.  Do not joke.  And whatever you do, do not be real. 

Never be real.

I like my crushes.  It gets my heart beating just a little bit faster, my blood becomes just a little bit more fluid.  But I hate my self-doubt.  I hate that I do not have any control over my life.  I hate that I’m a geek and a dork and completely uncomfortable with being female.  I hate that I’ve gotten accustomed to lonely.

And I don’t know what to do about that.  Because the next crisis is just around the corner, and who knows when I’ll get to actually talk about it.

Next Chapter

My left foot is in a stabilizer boot.  It’s like a cast, only I can take it off to shower and sleep.  I did this to myself.  But, and I swear this now, this is the last time.  This is the last time that I punish myself so hard, that I push and push and ignore the pain for so long that I end up at the verge of a high risk surgery, with my foot in a stabilizer boot.  I will probably never be able to run again.  Not like I did – not miles and miles of wonderful trails.  Maybe not at all.  And I may not ever be able to do my martial arts without pain again.  I messed it up bad.  But, I did it to myself.  I think, finally, hopefully, I have learned. 

I still despair a bit to think of it though.  My poor foot – as though it doesn’t quite belong to me, as though it is something just a little bit other. 

I just want to be able to walk normally again. 

Since I don’t like to drag things out, I had my tooth pulled the first week I was in the boot.  Combine the trauma, and you can combine the benefits of the various pain pills and anti-inflamatories and antibiotics and anti-anti’s that you have to take if you want to get better.  It was a fairly easy tooth pulling.  I’d opted for a bit of gas while it happened – just to ease the anxiety, though I noticed that while my brain was concocting poetry (apparently nitrous unleashes my cheesy inner creative – what rhymes with motorcycle?) my hands were white-knuckled and every muscle down my back, from my shoulders to my ankles (one of which was in the boot) was flexed.  It would seem that my tolerance for gas is very similar to my tolerance for alcohol as I spent most of the procedure wishing for just a bit more… just a little bit… one shot… just one more really deep breath. 

But I wasn’t in much pain the day after.  And I didn’t swell up too much.  And I’ve been resisting the urge to remove my own stitches for the last three days now, so I think it went well. 

Funny thing, all that drama and anxiety about not being able to have the tooth implant that I’m eventually going to need – all that emotion spent worrying about my general toothlessness – all to waste.  Between my tax return and a little bonus from work for a very very difficult month I have the funds necessary to pay for the implant.  For this implant.  If I end up needing one on the other side of my mouth as well – and that is likely – I’m going to have to dig that up from somewhere else.  But I’ll mope along that pathos when I come to it.  For now I have a plan and the means to get a new molar.  And that feels pretty damn good. 

Technically I should be drowning in fits of anxiety and stress related depression.  Work-outs have been reduced to sessions on the recumbent bike.  Climbing stairs is frustrating.  And the drugs I’ve been on have both killed my appetite and my energy level.  But I’m ok.  I’m getting some of my shit together – like my taxes, and Believe It Or Not, my thesis.  I have a new level of confidence at work.  And even though I’m way behind and way over my head, I’m not scared.  I’ll figure it out.  I can figure it out.  And if I need to, I’ll ask for help.

This has been one of the stranger lessons that I’m learning from this current set of challenges.  Ask for help.  People will give it.  Willingly even.  And they may even enjoy it.  I do not abuse the asking.  But I’m getting better at it.  And the second lesson – sometimes I just have to let things fall/fail/be as they are.  Poor dog, she is the prime recipient of this second lesson.  I cannot walk her.  I am all there is for her now, and I cannot walk her.  So she goes unwalked.  It was a little rough at first, but she seems to be willing to wait for me to heal.  She hasn’t even torn up anything lately.  It is almost like she knows that I’m not quite right. 

And she thinks the boot is fascinating.  Probably because it smells funny – a bit of hospital with some gym sock and office carpet cleaner on the side.

I thought that while I was on my trip in Italy that I finally forgave myself – that I finally let go of all the negative bits that I’d been nursing for so long and just accepted who I am.  The boot is proof that I was not quite finished.  I am definitely done now though.  Definitely.  I have learned.  Also?  High pain tolerance is not a good thing.  Not when it allows you to tear tendons and rupture ligaments all willy nilly.  Not good. 

I think things are finally starting to stabilize in my little world.  This is a funny statement since I’ve had two fight/riots in my front yard in the last month (I even had to call the cops on one – they sent the ghetto bird with the bright lights and several canine units to break it up) and since I can’t even make eye contact with my neighbor without getting a serious case of the icks (I get flashbacks of his performance whenever I see his lights on – and not in a good way).  But I can deal with that if that is all I have to deal with – if my inner turmoil is less turmoil-ish. 

Finally, I now officially have two crushes.  Two.  That is absolutely amazing to me and makes me a little bit pleased.  It is normal.  It is a sign that I’m not quite dead yet – and that means something as I’ve spent a great deal of time lately thinking that I was on the verge of… well whatever.  On the verge.  But things are going to be ok.  They’ll seldom be great.  They’ll never be easy.  But ok is workable.  I can manage with ok. 

And if my foot actually heals, I’ll upgrade to good.  And that would be really great. 

Ongoing Sideways

Today I picked my year old laptop up from the repair shop.  It is actually a year and one month.  That is one month out of warranty.  The problem wasn’t with the laptop itself, it was with Windows 7, which somehow got so corrupted that I couldn’t even get the computer to boot.  This was a problem that, given enough time (like 5 or 6 hours) I probably could have fixed myself.  I didn’t have the time.  I put in four 12+ hour days and one 10 hour day last week.  I was so exhausted that today I spent the first half of the day sleeping.  Or half sleeping – that kind of semi-consciousness where you know where you are and kind of what is happening, but where you also fade in and out of dreams and fantasies and where you are never really asleep, but never quite awake either.  I’ve grown fond of that state.

I think that is why I haven’t gotten sick this year.  Beyond my foot (which still hurts like hell – plantar fasciitis is no picnic) I haven’t had the flu or a cold or anything worse than a migraine, which I can work through, if I have to.  Mostly, though, I spend my down days and my weekends sleeping.  Lots of sleeping.  Because I don’t get a lot during the week.

I’m slowly starting to ease into a pattern.  I have my second gym membership.  I’ve accepted that I’ll seldom see my friends, that I’ll be more lonely than I was before.  I’ve gotten used to working long days – to being one of the last people to leave the building.  I’m still depressed.  It isn’t just the part where I don’t see my friends (who are like my family, since I don’t have anyone else in my life) but it’s the part where if I’m not at work, I’m alone.  I used to go to work, and then go to the gym and spend a few hours most days talking with people and interacting and feeling real.  Now I just go to the gym in the mornings, when it is empty, and then I go to work, where I have worked hard to avoid making friends, and then I go to my second gym, where I know nobody, and then home to Dog, who is the only being happy to see me, and mostly because it is dinnertime.  I haven’t wanted to make friends at work because it has been so disastrous in the past.  I feel that work is a lot like church – a lot of people with very different backgrounds and psychological make-ups in the same place for a single reason.  It is a shallow pool from which to draw friends.  I have people who I especially like, but there are few that I want to confide in or whose company I would seek outside of the office.  And that is a friend – someone I would meet outside the official sanctioned point where we both Must Be.

I do have an emerging crush on a person at the office.  This is contiguous with the crush I have at the gym.  Very different people they are, but both attractive in their own ways.  I will act on neither.  No good thing can come from an office romance – even assuming the very unlikely chance that my ephemeral feelings were reciprocated.  And nothing will come from my crush at the gym where prettier, fitter, more interesting (and less damaged) candidates abound.  So I’m ignoring both.  It is for the best.  I’m not companion material.  My friends (if I were to actually have a chance to talk to them) would tell me that I am just ensuring my own failure.  But this is one area where they simply do now know.  None of them have been like I have.  They all (except one) have mates, and most have families.  They do not know (and some of them have never known) what it is like to be alone for as long as I have been alone, or the ways that it changes you.  I can see how things will end before they have even started.  My one friend at work chides me for this jumping ahead, she says that one must go through the steps or one cannot know how things will really turn out.  I still jump ahead.  I’m right far too often for my own good, and far too often to go back and actually retrace the steps.

It won’t work.  It just won’t.

I get my first tooth pulled on the 3rd of April.  I’ll be doing my taxes on the 4th – while under the influence of narcotics.  And this next week I’ll try to take a day off to work on my thesis.  I’m trying hard to remember that it matters, that I need to keep trying and keep working and keep positive.  It’s hard, because the depression says that none of this matters and that I’m just treading water and that I won’t be going anywhere or doing anything or achieving anything – that I’ll just tread water until I give up and die.  And why not just skip the part where I work myself to death and die now?  But I know that is the depression.  I know it.  I just don’t know how to countermand it.

The sad fact is that a relationship would probably be good for me now.  It’d force some perspective.  I had no luck with the dating site – then again, I almost immediately wished I hadn’t done it.  I’ve been ignoring it for weeks now.  A waste of money, and it is my own fault.  But I’m not the kind of person that can be matched up to a stranger.  I’m too intimidating, and I’m too much me.  I like me, but I can understand why other people might be a bit leery.

I spent a good amount of time with the heavy bag today.  I’m so out of shape that it is pathetic.  I remember when I could do 6 or 8 three-minute rounds like they were cake, and now I’m about to keel over after 2.  And I can’t run because of my foot.  So I’m kind of stuck.  I need to work out, and I need to work out a lot with the amount of stress I’ve been under lately.  But without running, my options are much more limited.  I feel a bit stir crazy from it – usually.  Today I feel calm.  Not as calm as I feel after a fight, but close.  The stir crazy will raise its head again tomorrow.

So yeah, that’s me.  Middle aged, soon to be toothless, out of shape, overworked, and lonely.  This is not how I imagined my adulthood.  Somehow, I think things went sideways.  I just don’t know where.

Toothless

Last night I watched the film “Pursuit of Happiness”.  I’d heard that it was a bit of a tearjerker – that it had emotional clout.  I generally avoid emotionally loaded films.  I prefer fight scenes and explosions and high speed chases.  Things that don’t require that I care.  But I’d also heard it was a good movie.  And good movies are something I can appreciate – especially when the quality comes from good writing and good acting and a certain amount of fidelity to the state of humanity.  The film delivered.  But it didn’t jerk any tears.  Because it represented something I understand far too well.

The main character in the movie does not seem able to get a decent break.  He spends most of the film teetering so close to the edge that the slightest breeze will send him over.  And that it doesn’t is something of a testament to his tenacity, but also a bit of simple luck.  Not destiny.  Not divinity.  Dumb luck.

I can identify.  It seems that no matter how hard I work or how much effort I put out, I’m still teetering on the edge.  Last week I found out that the $3k in dental work I had done back in 2008 was done so poorly that I now need to have those teeth pulled.  I am faced with choosing between spending $4k for a set of bridges that I already know will break, or spending $9k to get implants that may actually last.  May being the operative term.

I’ve had the surgery on my wrist twice.  I’ve had my crowns all replaced – none of them have lasted more than 5 years.  I’ve replaced all of my fillings at least once.  No injury actually heals.  It goes into remission.  My ankle?  Remission.  Ready to re-awaken the moment I think I might actually want to run again.  My heel?  I have plantar fasciaitis.  God how mundane.  And stupidly painful.  And it will be another thing that goes in and out of focus.

I do not have the money for this dental work.  I do not foresee a time when I will have the money.  My student loans are coming due.  I already live in the ghetto.  I will admit that I spent some money recently.  I bought a new coat.  I got a gym membership.  I changed the oil in my car.  And most terrifying, I already had a root canal and a crown done.  Because the filling broke, and I didn’t have insurance and I couldn’t afford to have it fixed when it just would have been a filling.

When Mitt Romney said his shit about the very poor having a safety net… I thought I would be ill.  There is no safety.  There is no net.  There are just numbers on a budget sheet – a piddly sum that can only help one out of a thousand qualified needy.  The rest of us?  We lose our teeth.

I have dental insurance now.  It will not cover the implant.  Or the bone graft necessary to make it happen.  And I cannot currently afford the implant.  I might be able to pay for the bone graft though.  But not the bone graft and the bridge.  I have to choose.  Do I want an implant someday?  Do I want a bridge that I will break in five years?  Does it matter to me if I have teeth?  What if it takes me four or five years to save enough money?  Is it worth it to have two teeth missing for five years?

I hadn’t planned on having to pay for my wrist surgery twice.  That is the catch.  Funny how something that was so critical in May of 2011 can have such resounding impacts on decisions in February of 2012.  I don’t know what I could have done differently.  Maybe not gone to Italy.  Or maybe I shouldn’t have taken the job I have now.  The job that is so close to being right and yet so very wrong at exactly the same time.  Pointless to consider I guess.

I have decided what I will do.  I decided on the way home for the dentist, when I surprised myself by crying on the freeway.  I’d thought I was immune to these sorts of twist of fate.  I’ve accepted that things just go wrong.  I really have.  I do not expect things to go right.  My friends tell me that this just means that things absolutely will go wrong, but they misunderstand.  I have no control over the quality of the seal on the crowns that the sham dentist put in.  I knew they were poorly done, but I didn’t have the money to have them re-done.  As it is, I have no control over the majority of things that go wrong in my life.  These things aren’t the result of some sort of wantonness or short sighted desire for pleasure regardless of consequences.  Most of them are beyond my control – the results of other people’s actions or the workings of time or the results of extended poverty.  They are things that just happen.  I do my best to let it roll off my back, to not allow myself to be subsumed by the almost constant barrage of “bad luck”, but seriously, it is comical the way things happen around here.  There is a crazy screen-plan in this.  Though I wonder if it has a happy ending.

I’ve decided to do the bone grafts.  And I’ll leave the spaces empty.  That means I’ll be short two molars – indefinitely.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to afford the implants.  Maybe I’ll learn not to care.  Maybe I’ll lose weight and missing two key teeth will be the best diet ever.  Or maybe I’ll get in another car wreck and it will all be moot.  Who the hell knows.  But I will not go into debt for my teeth.  Not while I’m still in debt for my education.  Not while my job title still says “assistant”.  Not while I’m still living a fucking joke of a life.  It’s not worth it.  And this is something that needs to be worth it.  I need to be worth it.  And right now?  I’m not worth $9k.  Not to me.

The more I talk to other people, the more I understand that my existence resides in the tail end of the bell curve.  I’m off the map.  A social and cultural outlier, though not necessarily in a good way.  Not a genius or a savant or really talented in any way, unless misfortune is a kind of talent.  And there I go feeling sorry for myself.  Again.  Pity is such a waste.  Particularly self-pity.

I wonder what it will feel like to have missing teeth.  I’m also playing with the idea of having the first extraction done with local anesthetic only.  It’s cheaper.  Except, I’ve never actually had a local anesthetic really work.  I always feel something – usually quite a lot.  I have a mantra that gets me through drilling and root canals (this too shall pass – nothing lasts forever – on a long enough time line…).  But maybe feeling my tooth being pulled (or chipped out, as it is a molar) will be cathartic.  Maybe it will satisfy my self-destructive urges for a while.  Or maybe it will give me a mother of a headache.  Maybe I should just pay the extra for a nice shot of laughing gas.  At least then I’d have a wee bit of euphoria for my pain.

I’ll think on it.  And tomorrow I’ll schedule the first extraction.  Might as well get on with it.  Before something else happens.