BTW, my Blog is, apparently, totally ghetto.

No little headline "thingies" so you have to wade through the buckets o' useless prose to actually figure out what I might be saying.

Formatting is all wrong. I just discovered embedded links. No links to other blogs neatly posted along the side. No pictures. No sound. Though, even if I knew how to do it, I would not include any sound on my blog anyway. No one wants to hear "Dancing Nancies" on continual loop.

Clearly, I am running the cocktail napkin scrawling of Blogs.

Nice.

Was going to try to be surprising and change, and perhaps adopt some of these changes, but apparently you get what you pay for. My free ISP won't provide it; I as your free entertainer thus won't follow through.

Cheap.

Still feeling vile; Still hating myself more than anything else I can possibly imagine in this world; Still trying to sink into my floor so as not to have to really exist on the plain and thus feel the immensity of me. But... all that being said, I have decided that all of those complaints are boring. They also tend to make people uncomfortable and given that I should at least pretend that people read this thing, it is probably inappropriate to self-flagellate every day. So will try to limit myself to once or twice a week. Maybe I could resolve to do that for Lent? I resolve to do everthing for Lent, but mostly it is about trying to diet. Lord knows I need it this year. Also, it often seems Catholocism is about nothing more than continual self-flagellation. So actually, I am quite pious. God is pleased that I hate myself. Go red-staters!

Still, I am working on letting anger towards others, if not myself go. It occurs to me that this might entail letting people go from my life. People leave my life all the time (run is probably more like it), but never on my terms. And I never really come to grips with their departure. Never give up; hold onto the pain of rejection. Yeah, I am a party girl!

Anyway, been meaning to do this for a while. There are a couple of people I am definitely willing to let go of (though, it must be said, they both fall into that category of people who left me), and thus commemorate doing so now.

Person #1 - let's call her Desdemona (why, just because (1) I don't want to call her person number 1, and (2) I need to make use of my Othello knowlegde somewhere) basically did the unforgivable. She bailed and basically told me she purposefully bailed because she couldn't take being around me (and, to be fair to her, and the way I treat myself) anymore. At the time, I told her I understood. I thought I did. Hell, if I had the choice, I would not want to be around me either. However, being a friend entails dealing with good and bad, and sometimes a friendship has more bad than good, but you stick with it because you are friends. A tautological explanation to be sure, but that's what it is. It is what it is. You are friends and you suck it up. Not this person. She bailed. And ultimately, it is unforgivable. Moreso because of the extreme position of trust she was in. If you had asked me, I would have said she was one of my best friends. And she bailed. She bailed. Clearly I am not over it because otherwise I would be bathing in indifference rather than seething in anger. But, I really have no urge to forgive her. I just can't. She bailed because I wouldn't do the things she wanted me to do to change my life. I told her why I wouldn't do them (case in point, I will not take antidepressants because they will fuck up my metabolism - which they did) and she didn't care. She thought I was insensitive and an idiot. Maybe I am. But I was never that way towards her. Then again, this is also the person who told me I shouldn't ask for a transfer of offices that I clearly needed to make (for my mental well being) because it would jeopardize my career (which if she had been listening to me at all for the past three years, she would know that I care less than nothing about). In the end, I suppose it was her way or the highway. Highway it is then. It is just difficult when someone professes to be a close friend of yours and then eliminates you. Betrayal of friendship is more painful than betrayal of romance. I know romantic things will end, and sooner rather than later, and that they are meant to be excruciatingly painful. But friendship is not supposed to be like that. It is meant to be a buffer, a comfort, a support.

Yeah right.

Am I petty because I want to send her a rather unpleasant e-mail detailing her betrayal, how much it hurt me, and how much she sucks? (I know the answer is YES, and I know I won't send her such a letter, but I still want too. Yet another thing to add to the list of "things I need to work on in order not to be a bad person" - crap!)

Person #2 - let's call him Iago (the malevolence implied by that name actually doesn't suit him, but I need to run with my Othello theme, and like saying "Iago") - was a very good friend. Then he wasn't. Then he disappeared. I have seen him 3 times in the last year and a half for a total of about 4 minutes. The girlfriend moved in with him, but really, I don't think that was the problem. I have lost friends when they became more involved before, but this didn't feel like that. And truly, I have seen her a lot more than I have seen him in the last year and a half. So really, I have no idea. At least he didn't say that he intentionally stopped speaking to me because he couldn't stand to deal with me anymore. Fantastic. So much for that. So there it is: Here lies friendship with Iago, 2001 - 2003?/2004?. May the friendship rest in peace.

That makes me think that it might be an interesting exercise to write one's own eulogy. Isn't that a standard for most english classes these days? I never got that particular assignment, but it might be interesting in valuing how well lived one's own life has been (a real-time assessment, if you will). What might be even more interesting is having someone else you know write your eulogy.... revealing to be sure.

BTW: Eulogy v. elegy? Anyone? Anyone?

So, if I were to write my euology/elegy it would probably go something as follows:

Here lies CLC. Though hyphenated and oftentimes fragmented, she meant well.

No, no. That won't do. No apologies. Just truth.

Here lies CLC. Her time here totaled over a quarter century [NOTE: We know that much is true. Here's hoping it can eventually be changed to "over a century"] but as to life actually lived, her years were far less than those deemed by biology. She matured, on a physical level, on the same timetable as everyone else. Her emotional coming of age did not occur till after the dawning of year 25. [Damn, this is a boring eulogy.... zzzzzzz]

Okay, again...once more, with feeling:

Here lies CLC.

She was always moving. Sometime she was moving backwards, at other times she was pitching forwards. The combination of the two oftentimes left her in a crazy lateral holding pattern, which in turn presented as inertia to her and the rest of the world. It frustrated her to no end.

But truth is, as that is all that is left in the wake of death, she was always moving. Though she was always afraid, she was always moving. To new geographical locations - some challenging in their distance from home; others in their proximity to it. To new experiences - private schooling in the original Ivory Tower; graduate school keyed to a study of justice, in the end a lifelong commitment to the career of hide and seek; working, making a living which keeps one's hands soft, but makes one's soul hard, at least around the edges. To new people - blessed with friends, even in spite of herself. The friends that remained, taught her truth and the buoyancy and resiliency of love. The friends that moved on, taught her lessons, some in their presence, some in their departure. She was better for having known all of them.

She aspired.

Aspired to many things.

To a life not filled with regret. She learned the cliche is possible to achieve, in realizing that immediate regret as an impulse is inevitable; it makes you careful, which in turn makes you good. Regret as a long term descriptor is a cancer, which will pain you and continue to suffer and be consumed long after you shuffle off of this mortal coil.

Every moment of her life, as she lived it, was filled with regret; yet, surprisingly, in the end she owned it all. All of it: Blessings and curses; the happiest memories, the searing body blows; the time spent, the time passed; the time wasted; the time enjoyed.

She cheated, she lied, she calculated, she faltered, she failed, she disappointed, she dwelled; she forgot.

She did.

She laughed, she achieved, she wandered, she gazed, she gave, she tried, she meant, she considered, she played, she listened, she talked.

She loved. If not herself, then others. Always. Nothing more, nothing less.

Perhaps a life well lived after all.


Or, if you prefer the short version:

Here lies CLC. She loved Starbucks.