My grandpa passed away this morning. I don't know when the funeral will be yet.
Today, I feel cornered. It's one of those lovely days when nobody wants to hear me say no, so they keep asking the same questions.
It's great being sought after, don't get me wrong, but seriously. I have more work than I can do.
And then there's this guy. He calls me constantly, and if I don't answer, he just keeps calling. (And I hate that. It's not cool. Why do guys do that?)
I find I don't want to do anything or say anything or tell anyone where I am, and yet, I want to cling to people. And I hate when I get like that. I want to be around people, but I don't want to be around people, so I go look to see if there are any people around. And I annoy all my favorite people when I'm in this kind of mood because I'm like a small child: "Look, look, I have buttons on my shirt. No, no, it's really important because they're blue buttons." I don't have anything relevant to say and I don't want to say it anyway, but I desperately need company.
So I guess it's no wonder that I feel backed against the wall. Even I want more from myself than is humanly possible to give.
Everybody knows that I am stubborn to a fault.
Yes, even you know it. Don't try to be nice and save my feelings.
So, basically, I am sitting here, sick as can be, because I am a stubborn asshole. Through a long, complicated story that I am not going to explain here, I refuse to take sick leave. The only way I am leaving this place early is in an ambulance. At least that seems to be my latest motto. This does not, however, change the fact that I am incredibly miserable and useless right now. In addition, I am slowly recovering my voice, but it's been MIA since Wednesday or Thursday night. (I can't remember which.)
And I am on here whining because everybody else is sick of me. And I want my mom. Last night, I went home from my night job (where I'm not trying to prove anything) at 7:15 instead of 8:30 and laid on my couch under a blankie and refused to answer my phone at all. I just laid there dozing and watching TV and drinking cough syrup straight from the bottle.
Bottom line? I'm really sick, and I don't want to admit it, so I am stubbornly going about my routine as if nothing is wrong. I add boo to chest congestion's total score.
Here's hoping all of you go out and celebrate for me. I am (once again) sick.
You will notice that I have closed the comments. Sorry kids, but I'm sick and tired of deleting people's online poker ads, and I won't have time to be on the internet over the weekend to police this place. If you really want to say something, feel free to email me, and I will add your stuff to the comments when I get back.
I wish you all a happy St. Pat's. Ride the free bus downtown and have a shot of Bailey's in your coffee while you think of me.
Other than that, "I'm not going to say I told you so but I am going to make the face."
Also, it is a three paycheck month, which means bonus check this week! My sister does not understand the concept of a three paycheck month, possibly because she only gets paid once a month. It's like this (for those who are also confused): I usually get two pay checks a month with which to pay a certain amount of bills. This month, I will have three paychecks to pay the same amount of bills that I would normally have in a two paycheck month. Yes, I understand that this is not the same as getting free money. I did still have to work for my extra paycheck. It is, however, like bonus money because it's money that's not part of my normal monthly budget. Yay!
Happy weekend!
Every year, I try to take away one lesson from the year. Last year, for example, I would say that my lesson could be summed up as the following, "You have to be a little pushy if you're ever going to get on the subway." It basically means that I shouldn't be so nice all the time, or I'm going to get left out, trampled, and lost.
While it's probably a little early to say for sure, I think my lesson this year (should I choose to actually learn it) will probably end up being something like, "You can't please people."
To begin with, people don't want to be pleased. We are constantly displeased with everything. If we weren't, we would die because we are not happy unless we have something to strive towards. Why should I think that I can change the entire human nature just because I want people to be happy and to like me?
I've tried to learn this lesson before. I've spent a lot of time doing what other people want me to do simply because they want it and because I seem to believe their happiness is somehow more important than my own. The problem is that then they aren't happy anyway. They move on to the next thing and the next.
In regards to friends right now, I have to say that I'm incredibly lucky. In my friendships, at least, I am surrounded by people who make me happy. I really made an effort over the last years to stop be-friending people who are cruel or controling or lazy or unreasonably cynical/selfish. And I don't really have many "acquaintences" or "fake" people around me anymore. Now, I have a group of friends that, while admittedly smaller, makes life better. By the same token, I hope that I bring these people some amount of happiness (although, I doubt I could ever give you what you've given me).
But I realize, partly through my recent reading, that I worry too much about what people who aren't my friends think about me. Not everybody in the whole world is my friend. I need to remember that sometimes. Sometimes I forget that there are lines and rules about how to interact with people. Sometimes I just think of everybody in the same dandelion, sunshine-y way.
What I want has so often been determined by the image that I want to create, not by what will make me happy. I want to be perceived as successful, so I do many things that will ensure my "success" financially. I strive towards goals that will grant me a certain amount of shine. If I can just acheive X then my parents will be proud of me, and I will feel like I have accomplished something. And sometimes, when my house is clean and I'm feeling well, I do feel an enormous sense of satisfaction in my little life. But more often than not these days, I think about who I am and realize that this is not it, and it troubles me. I may not have wanted to be "corporate," but I never really wanted to be a "helper" either.
All I've ever wanted was to say something worth saying.
Maybe it's about time I started directing some energy towards that.
I apparently have far more books and papers than I need. They're everywhere. I have piles of books and papers in my bag, at my office, scattered all over my house... Hell, I probably have books and papers at my parents' place still.
You see, whether logical or not, I have to hang onto everything because you never know when I might use it in a story. I have tried to keep such files to one drawer in my desk, but since I'm always finding more things to keep for future referece (an article about time travel theory, a picture from a magazine, a scrap of writing that I can't use right now because I'm not in the right mood), I am constantly having to find more space. This is probably because, let's be honest, I never have time to write anymore.
Oh, sure, I write on here, but this isn't exactly art in its purest form.
Then, I have books everywhere, too. I have books I own, books people have lent me, books people have given me, books that I checked out from the library and still haven't read yet. Books everywhere! And I'm about halfway through 9 or 10 of them. I never used to do that. I used to focus on a book, read it all the way through, then move to another one. Now I treat books like I treat cereal: "Let's open this one because it has marshmallows. Well, now that I've eaten that for a couple days, let's open the next one. It's chocolate. Well, now that I've had four days of sugar, I'd better eat something healthy like this one" And so forth.
It's not as bad as it's been in the past, but I think I'm noticing it because I really need to get myself a new bookshelf. I am totally out of space on my other ones. And part of me is trying to decide whether I should get a new bookshelf or sell a bunch of the books that I haven't read and am never going to read anyway.
As you may have noticed, this entry doesn't really have a point, other than that I'm started to feel burried by my hobbies.
The following is a (revised) list that I found in my bag. The list was entitled "What I Always Wanted to be when I Grew Up (And Why That Didn't Work Out.)
Ballerina: Because I have the coordination of several large bowling balls in a sack after being tossed into the air.
Daisy Duke: They make shorts that short in my size, but nobody is quite sure why.
A journalist: Turns out that I'd rather lie than make anybody else uncomfortable.
A Movie Star: I'd have to know some famous people, having no natural talent of my own, and alas, alack, none of you slackers are famous yet.
A Harvard Graduate: I'd probably have to a) be able to spell it without any help from Google in order to get in and b) sell one of my kidneys in order to pay for it.
An Elementary School Teacher: I do not consider macaroni a viable art form. I do not want to wear macaroni, paint macaroni, glue macaroni to various construction paper cut-outs, hang macaroni on the wall, or do anything else with macaroni other than cook it with cheese and eat it in the privacy of my own living room.
A High School Teacher: I do not want to deal with teenagers who grew up thinking that macaroni was a viable art form.
An Archeologist: I was originally going to say that I couldn't do the math involved, but I have since been told that there isn't much math--that this instead involves lots of brushing dirt out of holes in the ground. While I think that would be a nice vacation, I would like to refer you to the Ballerina entry and my coordination. I doubt anybody wants a sack full of bowling balls falling into their dig sites.
A Farmer: Do you know how much literal shit is involved in this job?
A Big Bird's Buddy: Sometimes, we outgrow even our biggest dreams. Especially when they involve hugging an eight foot tall imaginary bird.
Kermit the Frog's Wife: I don't know if any of you all have noticed, but pissed off pigs are mean. And Miss Piggy would be pissed off.
This was not a good month for reading. It was shorter, and I had a lot to do. I am excluding authors if I don't know them because I'm lazy, and they're pretty easy to find if you're actually interested on Amazon.
Persepolis II: This is the continuation of Persepolis, and frankly, it's not as good. I think she missed what made her first book fantastic. It wasn't neccessarily her I was interested in. It was her relationship with God, society, and family that fascinated me. This book delves into her teenage rebellion, and it's not as interesting or as soulfull.
The Last Hero by Pratchett: This is the story of the last hero of the Discworld. It's pretty fantastic. It's a larger book with pictures, and the pictures are truly amazing. It's pretty funny to see the modern heros take over by trying to save the world through a space mission. I enjoyed. Particularly, I liked The Librarian, but if you've read any Pratchett, then of course, you also like the Librarian.
The Art of Discworld: I didn't so much read this as I gaped in awe at it. I love the drawings. I'm not sure that he got the pictures quite as I pictured them. I picture Vimes as more a Chicago sort of detective than that, but I suppose they're the ones who dreampt up the characters. I tried not to spend too much time with the pics so that I can still imagine the characters the way I like to.
Plainsong by Kent Haruff: I really liked this. He gets small town old men exactly right. It's really an uplifting bit of literature (something you don't see much of in contemporary literature in the post-modern age), but not in an "I want to vomit" sort of way. If you've lived in a small town, then you will recognize the people in this book. If you haven't, then maybe it's time you tried it. Overall, it's all about lost people with few connections making a family from the people they find around them. Quality book.
How to Ruin Your Life by Ben Stein: I should start by saying that, to be fair, this is actually three books in one, and I have only finished the first of the three: How to Ruin Your Life. (I still have to read How to Ruin Your Love Life and How to Ruin Your Financial Life to be officially finished, but I couldn't resist writing about it.) I found it last weekend, and it contains about as much dry wit as I could hope for, which is saying something. It contains such wonderful adages as "Do It Your Own Way" (the first line runs somethig like, "You can do it any and every old which way you want"), "Use Drugs and Alcohol Freely," "Live Beyond Your Means" ("The fact that you earn X means that you deserve to spend 150% of X"), and "Don't Learn Any Useful Skills." It's fantastic. I stumbled across it entirely by accident on my way through B&N, and once my friend and I started reading it, I had to have it. You will, too.
That's it, kids. It's pretty sparse. If it makes you feel any better, I have about four books that I picked up and read ten pages of before continuously renewing them from the library without any (apparent) intent of reading them at all! "Whateva! I do what I want!" Enjoy the picks anyway! Share some of your own in the comments.