Where'd she go?

If you ask me really nicely, I'll tell you.

erica@monstress.org

My socially awkward moment of the day

So the quilting ladies had a holiday pot luck party. I brought cheese and crackers because I'm kinda lazy. Everybody else actually cooked. So I didn't eat dinner so I'm ready to dig in. But the quilting ladies, god love them, are of the 'Oh, I'll just have a little bit" school of thought. So I go for seconds, nobody else does. So the party winds down and everybody is packing up their leftovers (because everybody except for me ate only half a portion) and I decide to take the cheese and crackers with me. I think the polite thing to do was to leave the cheese and crackers at my host's home, but I wanted the damm cheese and nobody ate it to begin with. I realized this after I had the cheese and crackers in my bag and was walking out the door. I tend to think of these things a bit too late because by that time I couldn't take the cheese out of my bag and leave it on the counter top.

Oh well. I suppose I'll have to soothe my pangs of regret with brie.

My life is an Ugly Betty episode

Hilda, Betty's sister, is mourning the loss of her fiancee/baby's daddy so she retreats from the world by joining a quilting group. Justin goes wild, steals his mother's car, and hits a tree. Words are said, truths are realized, hugs all around. Hilda sees that she has to join the rest of the living so she kicks out the quilting ladies.

But I say no! If she wanted to live life to the fullest, be a good mom, and valuable member of the community, hang with the quilt ladies. Talk to us about color and texture, instruction and failure, inspiration and joy, giving and loss. I dare you to find one person in any quilting meeting who is falling asleep at the needle, as were the quilt ladies in Ugly Betty. We're tired, but it is from hard work, not boredom. We do not quilt to mark the time until we die.

We will not sit idly by while television executives devalue quilters, accusing us of being idle old ladies. I ain't old and I ain't idle. Quilters are people to. If we prick our fingers, do we not bleed on our nine-patches? What if the story line was Hilda drowned her sorrow by becoming a television executive? "I have seen the errors of my money-grubbing, mindless entertaining ways. I want to be a productive member of society and a role model, so I am going to banish all television from my home." That wouldn't be so funny, would it? Who's with me on starting a letter writing campaign to ABC?

That being said, I still love Ugly Betty. It is one of the few shows I watch, and not just because it is on one of the few channels I get.

Hold Steady Angst

I went to my third The Hold Steady show last week. They rocked the place, as usual. And they played two new songs. They sounded great, like themselves, only more so. But listening to these songs, I was afraid that they would suck. What if it isn't as good as Boys and Girls in America? That would be a total let down. It would just put a gray cast on their previous work, which has gotten progressively better through The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me and Seperation Sunday. What if it is like a bad movie sequel. What if this is the Rocky VVII of my musical world? What if they decide that Charlemagne, the pimp and Holly, born again Christian crack whore, decide to run away together to live happily ever after with Gideon as they wacky sidekick? Forever I'll listen to this new work and think, "Yeah, it's good, but it is not as good as Boys and Girls in America."

I'm not thinking of this as half full. This new album could be even better. But I hesitate to think that because how could it possibly be any better than Boys and Girls in America? But now that I think about it, I think some of the songs on the CD aren't spectacular. I'm not thrilled with Southtown Girls and the saving grace of Same Kooks is that it comes right before First Night. So maybe on this new CD all the songs will be as good as the best 5 songs on Boys and Girls. So it could be twice as good. Ha, I didn't think of it that way.

I kinda don't want The Hold Steady to get really popular. I kinda feel bad for having this thought. I don't want their video to be on MTV because I always want to be able to be close enough to the stage to see if Craig Finn shaved today. I want to be able to see what kind of wine Franz is drinking tonight. I want them to stay mine, mine, mine! And I think it will stay that way. Their songs are about drinking and drugs and have too many literary references to be really popular. I don't even get most of the literary references, a coworker, who is also a fan, had to clue me in on a few. Granted, I wasn't an English major, but not many of us are.

So I want them to be successful, to provide for their families and be able to create more music, but I don't want them to be really successful. I like that right now I'll tell somebody that The Hold Steady is my favorite band, and the person has never heard of them. That makes me feel cool.

Half full

As I mentioned before, the glass is always half full and if it is not, then at least it is not empty, but if it is, there's another glass that is more than half full on the way. My sister's boyfriend says that with my sister the glass is not only half full, it is cold. With my mom, if the glass is empty, she'll talk about how lovely it is that the sun can shine through such a lovely, yet empty, glass.

Your thoughts do have power. I know some people thing the whole Secret thing is kinda cultish, but it is true that how you think about the world changes how you experience it. How many people do you know that go into a party thinking she is going to have a bad time, and, what do you know, she has a bad time. Or what about someone who thinks he is going to get sick then mysteriously grows a tumor in his forehead. It is true that if you think it will happen, it probably will. So, knowing this information, don't you think it is in your best interest to think you're going to have a blast at the party and that you'll feel great?

Alterately, my "half-full and cold" sister often reminds me that although we can't control what happens to us (traffic jam, stubbed toe, sky falling), we can control how we react to it. And we can't control what we did in the past, only how we go forward. Wise words, to be sure. I find that it kinda helps focus my thinking. I try to stop obsessing about how I didn't floss enough 10 years ago is now biting me in the ass and instead focus on proper oral hygiene today. It is all easier said than done.

My mother once said to me "just think happy thoughts." I thought she was freaking nuts. I was going through some tough shit and wondering how "happy thoughts" is supposed to help me. It took me a few years, but I've realized the wisdom of my mother's ways. I won't say that I think happy thoughts, it is more like if I'm facing a situation, instead of focusing on how horrible it is that the sky is falling, I think how much easier it will be to see the stars.

I know, I know, this all sounds like a crock of Pollyanna bullshit. I hear myself saying it and think is this really me. But it works. I swear that I haven't been this contented for a very long time. And I think the reason that I'm contentened is that I think that I'm contended.

Pretty cool, don't you think?

Creating art

I spent Sunday afternoon with really cool people who wear interesting clothes and can create art. They can just say, "lets create some art" and they do. And they do it really well. I am so jealous of that. Someone says to me, "let's create art," I start to think about how are we going to produce this thing, where are we going to get the supplies, how much space do we need, not what it will be or what we're trying to say with this creation. I focus on the craft of the art, not the actual art.

I spent Sunday night with people who can just say "lets create music" and they do. And they do it well. I am so jealous of that. These lovely, creative people can just pick up instruments and do a reggae version of Green Day's "When I Come Around." They they put down their instruments and pick up somebody else's and do a hippie version of "Like a Rolling Stone." If I had any musical ability, I'd be focused on what key we were playing in and if I was on tempo. I had a cow bell at my disposal, but I was too afraid of fucking up what these other people were doing that I left it on the floor. These lovely, creative people focus on the sound and how much fun they're having making the sound.

I think this brings me back to my coolness condundrum. I am just not an arty person. I'm creative without a doubt. Give me a pile of fabric and I'll make something out of it. I wouldn't exactly call it art. There are people who do art quilts, but I'm not one of them, at least not yet. I'm still copying what other people do out of magazines.

One of the exhibits I saw was The Accumulation Project at Arthouse. For one year artists accumulate things and then display it artfully. One person collected the bar codes for everything she bought for one year. One person accumulated slivers of soap, another was candle wax, AOL CDs, dust balls, plastic bags, gum from the San Francisco subway. And I think to myself that I could collect gum from the subway and there's a whole collection of dust balls under by bed. But the thing is that I'd never even think to accumulate soap slivers for a year. And even if I did have a bunch of soap, I wouldn't have arranged it artfully. That is what being arty is.

Let me just tell you about the plastic bag project. I really loved it, thought the artist was brilliant. The artist collected plastic bags off the street every day for a year. She brought the bags home, washed, sanitized, signed, and dated each one. Then she sold them for $5 each. You could get a specific date, like your birthday. And she'd give you a certain color if she had it. After you paid your $5, she'd fold up your plastic bag and carefully put it in a free canvas tote bag stenciled with the chemical formula of plastic. So you pay $5 for a plastic bag off the street, but you get a lovely, hand decorated, tote bag for free. Seriously, I thought it was great. I bought one. I should have bought more than one. Maybe I'll go back.

Half lives

It has been two years since I became disengaged. Two years is a long time. One would think I would be over it by now, but in some ways I'm not. Going on the half life theory which states that it will take you half the time that you were together to get over a relationship, I have another six months to go.

For the most part, I was over it before it was over. I don't miss him. I don't want to go back to the ways things were. I like the way things are now. I have a lovely young man that I enjoy spending time with and I know that life in general is only going to get better. But I am still mad about some things. Let's make a list.

He loved to tell me how to do things that he himself didn't know how to do. He hadn't been behind the wheel of a car for a decade, but he told me how to drive. When I first started running, I had pretty bad shin splints. So he proceeded to tell me how my running form was off. Not that he knew this information because he ran, but because he once knew somebody who ran.

I never felt like I was OK as I was. I wasn't cool enough, not fashionable enough, not attractive enough. So I became more fashionable. I became a blonde and lost 20 pounds. I enrolled in fashion classes. I still didn't feel like enough. Granted, I have written at length about my not being cool, but since I became disengaged, I've never, not for one moment, felt that I wasn't pretty enough.

He said that I slept wrong. I tend to cocoon myself in my blankets when I sleep, which to his way of thinking meant that I didn't really love him. If I really loved him, I would want to sleep as close as possible to him, not to wrap myself up and be seperate. Therefore, I slept wrong.

He settled for me. In fact, he once said during couples therapy that when he asked me to marry him, he knew that he was settling for me, but he didn't know how much he was settling for. I kept waiting for the therapist to say something, maybe tell him that he was being an ass. I suppose that was my job.

Sometimes I think that I should talk about this, to get it out of my system. Other days I think that ranting about something that happened two freaking years ago makes me seem like a crazy person. And I feel that by speaking the words I am keeping it alive. When I talk about those five years of my life, either because somebody asks me or I'm remembering these things, I feel angry and become preoccupied. If I don't talk about it, these negative thoughts seem to pirouette into the wings. So there, I'm done. I'm letting something else take center stage.

Alright, here are a few other gripes he had about me, then I'm done, seriously:

I wore a rain coat when it wasn't raining. Aparently that is totally uncool.

I bought a car with a manual transmission. I knew that he couldn't drive a manual transmission, so I shouldn't have bought it. Remember, this is my car that we're talking about.

I liked crime drama shows. We're talking Law and Order, CSI, various forensics shows on cable, etc. This meant that I was entertained by other people's pain, which made me a masochist. This held true until he bought a $5000 television set and we were able to watch CSI in high definition, which made the show OK.

I cook with dairy. I'm from freaking Ohio, I don't know how to cook without dairy. I simply do not know how to cook without some dairy product.

This much I know is true

On any given day, you can count on a few things from me:

The glass is always half full. Even when it isn't half full, at least it's not empty. When the glass is bone dry, "Oh look, here comes another glass and it's more than half full."

Most likely, I haven't washed the dishes today. I hate washing dishes. Even when I had a dishwasher, I still hated washing the dishes.

I thought about quilting. I might not have actually quilted, but I at least thought about some future, hypothetical project, where I might get fabric I need, how to do something or other, how many steps I have to complete until I can do some other step, etc.

I miss at least one member of my family.

I want my hair to be 6 inches longer than it is, regardless of the length. And a different color would be nice.

If I did not listen to, I at least thought about The Hold Steady. I might have had one of their songs running through my head (Germans call this an ear worm). Or I said to somebody, "I ain't never been with your little hoodrat friends."

I've felt socially akward sometime in the last 24 hours. Even if I didn't really interact with anybody, I've probably said something weird, felt that people were looking at me because I tripped or stumbled, or wanted to be somewhere else where there were no people. Or I just remembered an experience involving one of the latter.

Some chocolate would be nice.

Stuffed

Comparatively speaking, I'm pretty good at not acquiring too much stuff. My closets aren't bursting with things, in fact my closets aren't even full. Neither are my cupboards. Still, I often think I have too much stuff. As we all know, the things you own eventually own you. After all, when you buy something you have to store it, clean it, maintain it, perhaps move it, then dispose of it. I've seen people start to drown under all their stuff. Increasingly we define ourselves by what we buy, not what we create or who we love. Let's remember we live in a country where the president (if we want to call him that) tells us to fulfill our patriotic duty by going shopping.

Perhaps my interest in anti stuff-ism is all a reaction to my sudden poverty due to the outrageous cost of my car insurance. I can't afford to buy anything, so I'm better off if I convince myself that I don't want it. Kinda like saying, "Yeah, well I didn't want your stupid toy anyway."

I don't like getting stuff for the sake of getting stuff. Unlike my stepfather, I don't believe that whoever dies with the most toys wins. So I shop at garage sales, reuse what I can, and often just do without. Which is really very easy. Once you stop watching cable television, you suddenly realize that you can live without all the crap that they're trying to convince you that you can't live without. But I benefit from others' stuff-ism. When others decide to get new stuff, I get their perfectly good old stuff. That's how I got a lovely armchair, a handy dandy rolling office chair for my sewing area, a metal desk I am sitting at, and even the computer that I use. I also refer to my decorating style as "late dead relative" because I have acquired quite a bit from people who died, but that doesn't count as stuff-ism because my relatives had every intention of keeping and using their kitchen table, dresser, or bed, but they died. No, a relative did not die in my bed. I have been in homes of my friends and families and coveted items, wondering when they'll decide to buy something new so I can get something old. My aunt has already tentatively promised me a sofa to replace the most uncomfortable sofa in the world (which I also got from her) when she decides to redecorate her front room. But doesn't that make me guilty of the same consumerism because I want more stuff? I just don't want to have to pay for it.

I figure if I make my own clothes, then I'm the anticonsumer, but in fact sewing garments is more expensive than getting a new skirt at Target. My one big, frivolous expendure is fabric. I justify it by saying that at least I'm doing something active with with, I'm creating something. I'm not spending my money on something passive and intransitive, like watching Tivo on a big screen television. For years, I promised myself that I would keep my fabric collection contained to two plastic bins under "the most uncomfortable sofa in the world." But recently I went to Target and bought a third bin. This means that I'm consuming stuff (fabric and plastic bins) in order to not consume stuff.

I read something somewhere about an experiment where people volunteer to not buy anything new for one year, except for underwear, food, and health care items. I think I could go a year without buying new furniture or decorative items without batting an eye. If I planned things out (perhaps made a new friend who wore my size) and found a decent thrift store, I could go without buying new clothing. Other things, I'm not too sure about. I suppose I could use a hankerchief instead of tissues or a kitchen towel instead of paper towels. Would makeup be considered a health care item? Because I'm not using old mascara. No new fabric? Forget about it.

My beloved reader, do not think that I'm advocating for ugly. Just because I don't want to have too much stuff, that does not mean that I'm adverse to beauty and creative expression. Even in austere traditions, beauty flourishes. Look at Amish quilts or Shaker furniture. It is supposed to be simple and plain, and it is, but its not. Instead of buying beauty, create it.

"Your soul suffers if you live superficially." Albert Schweitzer

Homogenous

I often joke that when I was growing up in my home town everybody looked like they were related. Which meant that it isn't very diverse. Today, just for fun, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for my hometown, Bellbrook, Ohio. According to the U.S. census, Bellbrook, Ohio is 97% white. 97%! I'm not sure how many people that would be in a town of 8,000 (math is not my strong point, thanks to Sugarcreek Local Schools), but it's not alot.

This is one of the many reasons why I love living on the East Coast.

Fuck pants

I really think that skirts are way more comfortable than pants and putting on a dress is the quickest and easiest way to get dressed. I have one pair of summer dress pants, which I think I've worn twice since Memorial Day. Seems that somebody agrees with me.

Pants never seem to fit me right. They're too short or too long in the waist or they make my thighs look big. But skirts always fit. If they're an inch too short, nobody will ever know. Skirts also are better ventilated. It's like wearing shorts to the office. And skirts offer more freedom of movement. And I know how to make a skirt in a few hours. Pants involve too much geometry to bother with. I might change my mind about all of this come February, so I'm not throwing out the pants I have.

So I've decided, I'm not buying pants. Technically, I'm not buying anything because I'm poor, but I'm especially not buying pants.

I'm becoming one of those people

I haven't used up many of my vacation days this year, mostly because I can't afford to go anywhere. But I'm thinking that I might use up a few days follow The Hold Steady around the mid-Atlantic region. Here's the schedule, boys and girls:

September 17 in New York
October 23 in Philadelphia
November 20 in Washington, DC
November 21 in New York

This video from the Brooklyn show is interesting as well. I was on the other side of the stage from the camera man.

Cleaning

I decided to clean my apartment today. And I mean a thorough cleaning when you sweep in the corners and reorganize the sock drawer. I didn't get very far, only part way through my bedroom. I was surpised at the amount of dirt I found. I knew the place was dirty or else I wouldn't have cleaned it. But I didn't know the place was that dirty.

I emptied out one box that I hadn't unpacked from my move 9 months ago. And I started on another that I didn't unpack from the previous move. One has to wonder if I haven't needed whatever was in that box for the last year and a half, then do I really need it. I did find my drill in that box.

Also in that box, I found two books: "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail" and "Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts." I found these books in a plastic bag, which reminded me that I hid them from my ex, although I couldn't tell you why I did that. Flipping through, I see how I scored myself and my ex in worksheets and quizzes. It wasn't pretty. A receipt in one book is dated six weeks before he proposed to me. What this tells me is that I tried really hard to make that relationship work, even if I didn't always tell him I was doing it. My find also reminds me that I knew there were problems before he popped the question, but I said yes anyway.

My problem is one of eternal optimism. I always think that it will be better tomorrow or next week or next year. This is why I stay in inappropriate situations for too long. Take for example my last job, I thought that sooner or later I'd learn how to do whatever it is that they wanted me to do, maybe within the next few months if I really applied myself. I even try things I don't like, such as fish or football, every once in a while because I think that something will change and suddenly I'll love it. I've even went on second dates after unpleasant first encounters because I thought that somehow he might be different in a week.

The solution is not cynicism and negativity. I don't want to squash my optimism. I think my belief that things will be better is one of the many things that make me the wonderful person that I am. For one, it makes me my mother's daughter, which is a very good thing. I just need to be able to see clearly things as they are, for good and bad.

I'll still order fish twice a year and watch the Super Bowl, just to make sure I still don't like them.

Insomnia cure continued

I was reading an article about insomnia in a medical journal today. And it was a medical journal, so we know it's true. I shall quote some important points:

"Maintain realistic expectation about the amount of sleep that you'll be able to attain."
Meaning, there's no way I'm actually going to sleep 8 to 9 hours, so why should I stress myself out if I can only sleep for 6? Go into it knowing that I'll only get 6 and if I get more, then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

"Never try to sleep."
Exactly, that's why I'm not going to bed until I'm tired.

"Minimize the importance of sleep."
Not everybody needs 8 hours. Some of us do just fine on 6.

"Do not catastrophize during or after a poor night of sleep."
So don't look at the clock thinking that if I don't fall asleap right now at this minute, that all is lost and I'll be a log at work tomorrow. Just have some coffee and move on.

This goes directly against the advice I've been getting for years about sleep. My doctor has been telling me that I absloutely have to get 8 to 9 hours of sleep in order to be healthy. Bull shit. I've been doing just fine on 6 hours for years. OK, maybe not great, but I've been getting by. And I believe that part of the reason I haven't been sleeping is because I've been spending too much time thinking about not sleeping. So if I stop thinking of myself as an insomniac, that in fact I get more than adequate sleep, then I'll probably sleep much better at night.

It is all part of my not-so-evil plan to sleep through the rest of my life.