Saturday, January 30, 2010

Lone Wolf

One thing about Facebook...it really highlights how many "friends" you actually have...and for me it's precious few. Most people have upwards of 200. I have 13. That's it. And I've wracked my brain, trying to come up with names but either they are too successful for facebook (more likely to be on LinkedIn) or they just hate social media in general and don't participate.

Still, I feel rather chagrined at my paltry friend list. And at whose feet does the blame for this one lie? Mine of course. I have the profile of a hermit.

The other thing that is going on for me is that I find it rather presumptuous to ask someone who I haven't seen in a while if they'd like to friend me. It just feels kinda like begging. (remember that old saw by Groucho Marx "I'd never join any group that would have me as a member." Yeah...like that.

So most of my "friends" are family or extended family. Or 'pity-friendings' from friends of friends. And my mother.

I've tried to make up for the lack of friends by joining groups--typically writing related groups or listing myself as a fan of certain writers. I'm that weird one with no friends but lots of passionate devotion to certain organizations.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Bad-Ass Kitty

My cat, my formerly sweet tempered and intelligent black cat has morphed of late into a harpy. Whereas she was deferential and equable before, she’s now a shrew-bully who’s got it out for any four-leg within sight distance. She picks fights, both those she can and those she can never hope to win with the heedlessness of a teenage kitten, and while she’ll be sixteen in July, I had expected her to behave closer to a feline in dotage than to a homosapein sapien (yes, I mean to say sapein twice) in adolescence.

It says a lot about a creature when they change who they are so late in the game.

I’m angling for the same type of change.

I’ve been the type of person who has given herself lots of room to shirk off big goals. Instead I’ve focused on the smaller stuff, trying to get along, be appropriate and pleasant. But it hasn’t gotten my anywhere except older. And most people who think they know me consider me a very “nice and considerate” person without any major heartaches. Hmph!

Inside I’m awash in Klingon-style outrage that exists beyond the cantankerousness, treading very close to recklessness, just like my newly bad-ass cat. And just like her, I’m having a hard time concealing it anymore…discontent keeps punching its way through.

By a stroke of fate though, I’m not a cat and have more leeway in creating my own reality (nor do I have to poop in a public sandbox or wait on someone else to put the kibble on the table). I’ve no excuse to let my concealed resentment erupt onto everyone else’s landscape. Admittedly kitties are smart and have the right to be spiteful when they want to be but I’ve been given many TOOLS to be smarter about going after what I want.

So meow. Do the right thing, kiddo. Writing is a duty.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sick days

After two days of being sick (I never really got over being sick at Xmas) and my wife being sick too, I've begun to understand why a certain cadre of people who work at home stick to the ritual of getting up and getting dressed.

It's rainy and cold out and we two, stuck inside, feel stale and warmed over. Coming in and out of sleep I've had the dream that somehow, my hair is washed, cut and styled just the way I like it but without any work on my part. Likewise my eyebrows have been shaped to perfection, a peerless line etched timelessly across my forehead.

Winter sick days (or summer ones for that matter) call out for the clean, well-tended trimness of health.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Pain and no peace

I haven't been able to achieve plain old peace in a very, very long time so the question, naturally, is can I actually achieve this state? Reading over the entries of the last year or so, I'm not so sure that melancholia isn't more of a better fit than say contentment.

I've mentioned ad nauseam that I want to be writing but it does seem that an awful lot of things are happening in my life that do not include writing. When, writing, like brushing one's teeth each night and regular sex (none of which occurs consistently for me due to my own lack of constancy) isn't habitual, do I really want to write at all (or have sex or have gleaming pearly whites??)

Yes and no.

One of the little pronouncements I've been making lately is to state the obvious when someone suggests a new method for achieving better habits ("Well, what I've been doing hasn't been working so I'm willing to try something different"). This mindset-- which acknowledges that I've failed in the past because I simply wasn't up to making changes-- has helped me lose weight and become a tiny bit less disorganized. It has given me the strength to overcome my natural inertia.

As I write this my wife calls to me from the bedroom. She's watching TV and missing me. Heck I miss her. This often happens when we're not in the same room. Most of the time, I go hang with her and try to write with Grey's Anatomy or football competing for mindspace. Typically, I stop writing soon after relocating. But this time, setting aside my culpability with the practiced selfishness of a veteran hack, I say "I'm writing." And even when her small voice says "oh ok. do what you need to do" and I feel that pang of guilt, I remain committed to the keyboard, to this passage, to wanting to change my life in the face of what–has–been–before.

It's all so GD complicated.

At least I lost weight

Way back in October I started trying to lose weight and I finally have made some progress. 20 lbs worth of it. I'm back to fitting into jeans that haven't seen the light of day for 2 years. This is uplifting. A singular good in a season of low spirits. I'll take it.

Pretend

Just visited littlebrownpen. Sigh.

It's clear I've been fooling myself. I pretend I don't care about going back to Paris but I do.
I pretend I'm not all that bothered by having gotten older (and thus no longer able to achieve the fabled cool phase of my life), but when I look at the video clips of the Marais from this blog, I'm very bummed.

Gotta find a way back from bumdom.