Well Anyway, It Is A Song About Old Friends

The year-end Festivusapallooza always lends itself to making retrospective itemized and categorical lists to put The Year That Was into a neat and security-screening travel safe format so that we can make it a convenient carry-on along with us in our travels towards the Year That Will Be. Likewise, it is also a time for accumulating resolutions, gum and magazines to use during the Year That Will Be, for setting out the rough outlines of the sweeping life-altering revolution that inspires a great deal of fervor as champagne continues to pour, but which somehow loses much support amongst the commoners when the hangover has set in and surviving the winter becomes a greater immediate priority.

Sardonic references to year-end lists and new year's resolutions aside, the concept they encompass is a temptation towards which I truthfully offer very little resistance. I seek itemized meaning as much as the next person. I even admit that I have taken to surreptitiously haunting the self help sections of my local bookstores (apparently this is the late twenties/early thirties female precursor to forties phenomenon of botoxing and sperm bank withdrawals and the fifties/sixties lifestyle choice that is buying twelve cats and a shotgun). As such, I think I can be helped by these retrospective and prospective looking lists. However, this year, in my heart of hearts and my steady march towards 30, I do not want them to be simply aspirational. I want them to be reasonable and effective guideposts for actually moving forward.

Revolution is not necessary. Recalibration is acceptable. Forward movement, imperative.

So I decided to attack the lists from a slightly different angle. If there is one thing in my life I have generally been good at it is learning. I have been a school geek for as long as I can remember, and I think the peanut gallery would agree that, but for my occasional bouts with lawyering-onset dementia, I am still generally happiest when I am geeking out about something I learned or am learning from someone else. So, without further ado, my lists - what I learned in 2006, and what I strive to learn in 2007:

What I learned in 2006
Note to reader(s?): I know the audacious title of this section of my post simply begs the question, or perhaps the rhetorical sigh of exasperation "She learned something in 2006?" Maybe it is revisionist wishful thinking, but even amongst my moaning and groaning, I think I managed to stop, look and listen long enough to pick up a couple of things.

* I am Captain Jack Sparrow. I am quirky, I am odd, and, at times, I may uncannily be appearing to channel Keith Richards while wearing too much eye liner. But I am also, when given the opportunity, actually able to act as captain to a crew, and to steer the ship in a sensible direction. That is not to say that there are not challenges along the way - mutiny is always a possibility when you tend to be a soft-touch who is, when all is said and done, also concerned with people liking you - but generally, I found, much to my surprise, that when given the authority I can be decision maker and I can generally be an effective leader of people - simply by listening and treating them with respect. This seems intuitive, but I also learned (the hard way) that this is not the way many people lead (read: scream, demand, rant). Which leads me to the corollary lesson here - you become whom you are surrounded by. I started my job working under people who were flawed, to be sure, but who genuinely cared about both the quality of my work and my welfare as a person. I carry this lesson by example with me as I go, and it is gift. Others do not have such positive images to emulate, and though they are good people, they lead with flashes of tyranny which has become situationally acquired habit.

* I am not a very open person. I have always considered myself to be forthright with details of myself nearly to the point of near transparency, and likely well beyond the realm of TMI. However, this concept must be added, along with "I am a great mentor" and "I am very sensitive to other people's needs", to my list of things that cannot be true if you have to say them about yourself. True, I do offer forth voluntarily and without trepidation many of the facts of my life, as I know them be. On the other hand, what I never recognized, at least not consciously, until now, is that there is a hard-stop to my revelations. Facts and events and occurrences and even, for the most part, opinions, are offered forth without second thought. But anything that implicates my feelings or my inability to control them is feverishly squirreled away, to be hidden from sight of anyone who might see, judge, be disgusted. That is not to say that these feeling-related thoughts/actions are not ever seen by others. Inevitably, they make their appearances known. The crying jag. The hyperventilating phone call. The ADD-like pacing. The absolute worst poker-face in the world that I always accessorize every outfit with. They all continually leak my secret life of imperfection. And so I live under the very odd (and irreconcilable) impression that everyone knows everything about me and that I can (and must) prove to them I am perfect (though I am not).

Weird.

But it isn't being open, when you aren't voluntarily sharing it, in the same way that paying your taxes (part of which eventually pay for social programs etc.) is not the same as being philanthropic, let alone truly altruistic. What emotions do leak out from me, are enough to let others (especially romantic partner others) know that there is more beneath the surface, but that is it. A sense of contempt radiates from the opacity that are my secreted-away feelings. The contempt is clearly (to me) aimed at myself. But to someone on the other side, it is easy to confuse the contempt as being aimed at them, because if you are involved - truly involved - you will share, or try to share, all of yourself.

I guess I have never thought it appropriate to offer parts of me that I thought were lesser and lacking to someone I wanted to impress, whom I wanted to love me. But it is hard to have a lasting relationship without naked feelings being involved. It is, in fact, impossible. I guess that that is what all the people (including several fairly self righteous and sanctimonious ex'es - though I guess begrudgingly I must accept they were right... about this) have been telling me all these years - that in order to find love, I must learn to love myself first. Well, maybe love isn't necessary, as much as simple acceptance of those parts I see as "lesser" and "lacking."

Having feelings does not make me horrible. Seemingly intuitive, but a concept which took me nearly 30 years to recognize. Wow, I am quick on the uptake.

* I love them. I am addicted to them. I will never give them up. But in the end, they are just Words, Words, Words. As this year draws to a close, I realize that the great bulk of my emotional energy is no longer spent on grand concepts, but rather on people, and though the feelings are oftentimes difficult and otherwise uncomfortable, I am pleased because it seems like a much more worthwhile expenditure of resources. Or, to be less wordy, I am no longer lonely, I just miss specific people. Some because they are now far away, some because I am always too far away, others because I happened, if only mistakenly, to have pushed them away. I do not just want to be involved and/or married for the sake of being involved and/or marries, I want to be involved with someone who is right for me, so being single does not gall me the way it once did. No one I have chosen up to this point in my life has ever been close to right for me. Two have been close - at least I think so - but one is now married and the other may or may not be speaking to me.

* The Weight of Water. Blood is an amazingly strong bond, and it allows one to surmount so many seemingly insurmountable offenses, from insanity, eccentricity to outright cruelty - but the closest family is that which you choose for yourself - not simply because you like them and so you choose them as part of the population of the landscape of your life - but because you must keep on choosing them. Neither genetics nor legal concepts bind you to the family you choose, rather it is the strength of love and affection alone which hold you fast during the trials and tribulations and travesties and train wrecks that life may present. It is tested in different ways, changes in population and geography and circumstance and temperament, but because it is true, it endures. My urban family is bigger and more bountiful, and more spread out now. But while the boundaries of our little circle have expanded to accommodate circumstance and the passage of time, the inner sanctum remains a warm refuge from the storms of life, a place characterized by its infinite supply of love - for everyone - from those members of the circle who are infants to those who act like they are. A metaphysical place of safety and total acceptance. Though miles and circumstance may separate us, our hearts remain conspicuously connected.

* I know more and I see less than I think I do. If I trusted my heart to lead me, I would have seen that I have been in love with him for years. And I would have put the plates, the drinks, and all of the third party preconceived notions down, and picked the phone up, stayed that morning, flown that summer, or just crossed that room and gone for broke. But I really didn't see. I really didn't see.


What I strive to learn in 2007
* How to knit
* How to share a bed with someone.
* How to use my digital camera
* How to hang pictures
* How to effectively keep a calendar
* How to start and conversation without complaining and how to end it without saying that I am sorry.
* How to do yoga
* How to count to 60 without automatically dividing by 6.
* How to tie a tie
* How to throw a dinner party
* How to follow through on good advice
* How to listen
* How to Write
* How to speak seventeen-year old
* How to breathe
* How to stack plates

Just so we are all clear

Contrary to popular (and seemingly prescient and certainly uncontroverted) opinion, I do not actually enjoy complaining. Elevating misery to a refined verb, an art form of the highest caliber, a sinful treat to be savored, ravaged, devoured. Nope, none of these things are either goal or means to an end for me.

Yet I cannot stop. Why?

My complaints ring hollow even to me. Wheezy, dusty remnants of what perhaps may have been, at one time or another, intelligent and interesting conversation. Once realeased into the air, their pervasive veil of sooty bitterness simply hangs in the air. Sucking the vitality and vibrance out of everything around them.

All of that being said, it cannot be denied that (1) I complain. A LOT. and (2) that given the pervasive role that I allow misery to take in my life, I must have some sort of strange affinity for it.

And that is where I get stuck, because I truly do not believe that I enjoy being unhappy. It cannot be true, if only because, well, I refuse to believe it.

I do not want to be miserable.

I do not want to be unhappy.

I do not want to be THAT girl, that girl, or that girl.

Recently it occurred to me that the human condition is one which, though complex, is ultimately geared towards one thing - survival. Success, as a species, is not based on happy, successful, or satisfied, it is based on simply living and outliving those around you. As such, both the body and the psyche are geared towards simply keeping one alive. It is therefore the blessing and the curse of the human condition that the psyche can get used to just about anything. A blessing because it allows one to endure hardship - physical and/or mental - to endure until that time when endurance is no longer necessary. A curse because it allows one to endure hardship - physical and/or mental - to endure until that time when endurance is no longer necessary. But since the mind and body do not know when that time will be, they both simply get used to the circumstances, however trying, amongst which they have been placed.

I have no coordination. Never have. My only physical gift has ever been endurance. The ability to continually put one foot in front of the other, generally for longer than most people around me. Mentally, it must be the same. I put one foot in front of the other, continuing on, no strategy but to muster forth. There is no strategy in it. There never has been. Any change has simply been fortuitous, due to the passage of time and the inevitable varying of the backdrops, but the path has always been the same.

I complain because I like avoiding the question. I complain because then I never have to come up with the answer. I complain because I am used to it. I complain because it makes standing in one place easy and less shameful. It allows me to trick myself, to obscure my vision to the fact that I am not moving forward. That I am making the same errors over and over and over again.

That is not wisdom. That is not caution. At best that is ignorance. At worst masochism.

Likely, it is fear.

I am scared of what my life could be if I were to define it. I would have to accept my own opinions as correct. I would have to be my own measuring stick.

I do not know how to do this.

I have never done it.

I don't express opinions well. Being well liked is so important to me, that I fear that it has in fact overshadowed what is most important - being well respected.

Respect is bestowed on those who know themselves.

I am nearly thirty years old and I do not know myself. I have inklings, but I have never really explored who I am.

I don't listen.

If I did, I would hear my own complaints, and my heart would break or my anger would come to a violent boil, but either way, I would be spurred to take action. To save myself or to teach myself a lesson, either way, to extricate myself from that which is clearly wrong, and set myself down on a path which may not be right, but which at least holds the promise, the possibility of right.

I have always said, and I continue to believe, that there is not a lot that I want in this world. When I close my eyes and I think about what I would like, more than anything, I can easily distill it down to one word - one which has always been constant, and one which will never change - comfort.

I simply want to be comfortable. My vision of comfort - perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not - has very little to do with designer labels or with bright flashbulbs or newsprint paeans. It never has. When I close my eyes and I think of comfort, I see something that looks like an ad for laundry detergent. White sheets softly flapping in the breeze, their crisp brightness illuminated against the lush green grass, the sun warm, the distance a frame of shoreline, the sound of water, the erratic yet rythmic movement of water humming in the background. Of course I never actually see myself in this place, but I know that I am there because I feel it. And I do not see anyone else (not even the Snuggle bear) but I know I am not alone, because I feel that too. I feel those around me, their strength and their support. I am marinated in love. There is no reason to worry because I am marinating in love.

But when I close my eyes and I envision this marinating state, I am imagining what it must be like, as I have never really felt loved in my entire life. That is not to say that people have not/do not love me - they have/they do (at least in accordance with what they chose to tell me) - but I don't think I have ever felt it. I think I may have felt beginnings of it, and then I realize how safe and warm I feel, and I get scared and inside I push it away. To enjoy being loved is to lose it. One must worry and be vigilant to be loved. Look at how well that has worked out so far.

Those that love me just want me to be who I am. If they believe I am someone worth loving, someone distinct must be in there. She must not be as undiscovered as I believe her to be.

How do I find her? If not for me, then for the people in my life that I love - so that I may be less onerous, more giving, more complete and more present?

Either I stop complaining. Or I start actually listening.

Comfortably Numb

Apparently, I have either become more courageous or exceedingly indifferent during my recent trials and tribulations.

On the approach towards landing this afternoon, my (commercial) flight (landing in LA, not Iraq, though it is a fine difference) had to perform, according to the Captain (who had been previously been introduced to the passengers in classic info-doc format - "And manning the plane this morning is Captain Rick, assisted by First Officer Josh". Inspiring) what were referred to as "evasive maneuvers" in order to avoid a private plane that was "out of control."

Again, inspiring.

But as Captain Rick noted, "There was no need to worry. That's why we have all those buttons and gadgets up here, so we can avoid making an unplanned splat."

Wonderful.

I will certainly take that bit of comforting information into consideration as I board my second flight of the day this evening.

LifeBerry

To prove, without doubt, that I can in fact perform nearly all essential life functions via my BlackBerry (TM), this latest post is brought to you from my trusty wireless handheld.

My fancy uber-shiny ultra-speedy brand new portable slice of cutting edge technology is my favorite part of my job. Well not the leash like aspects of it, but rather the actual gadget itself. Pretty cool. Resilient too (having withstood the rather catastrophic introduction I insisted on making, Hot Coffee please meet BlackBerry (TM)...oops.)

Am getting a BlackBerry (TM) for myself when I resume life as a private citizen once again. Whenever that may be.

I really feel it will have to be soon. Or at least sooner rather than later.

It is 6 am on a Tuesday and, of course, I am at the airport because, clearly, where else would I be? Sleeping? Bitch, please. Who would want to be doing that. This is SO much cooler.

I already know it is going to be a very, very, very long day, and I wish that I could have reached Acceptance about it, or, alternatively, remained comfortably rooted in Denial or Shock, or perhaps more constructively, still endeavor to Bargain or be Angry.

But no.

As always, I can't seem to get past Depression about it. Maybe that is simply the state that requires the least energy at this point. Everything is about the lowest common denominator it seems.

I know it isn't prudent to take a vacation - that I should hoard all my vacation time as personal severance package - but I can't imagine making it another few months without taking some stretch of time. I need to heal. Get some sleep, make the nosebleeds stop, not let clumps of hair fall out etc. Not to be so friggin blase about symptoms that sound like side effects to chemo - that would be a good goal.

And to have better topics to write on. The holidays are just around the corner and I just love them.

Veritas

The unvarnished truth, as (best) as I can see (or be even vaguely aware) of it:

- I am tired because of my workhours, but I am also tired because I do not sleep well. I slept fitfully before this all began. Lately, I have taken to waking up in a panic, cold sweat and all, at 3:30 in the morning.

- My dreams are about work and/or work people in work derivative situations.

- I was in Boston last week. At my alma mater. Sort of. (One of its grad schools). It was for work, not for pleasure. Yet, the familiarity was a welcome feeling. One I was surprised by, as I thought I had little or no sentimentality for that chapter of my life.

- On my way to Boston, I wrote a very long (and unfinished, because my batteries - both laptop and internal - gave out on me,) post. It is flowery and very varnished. It attempts to get at some truths. I am simply afraid to post it. If I do, then I have to admit them.

- My dear, dear friends are moving away. I know why they are doing it. I understand it. I support it as I know it is best for them. And yet, everything in me wishes that they weren't going, that they would stay, and stay and stay. I do not want to have to miss them. Selfishly, I always want them convenient and accessible to me. I want my urban family frozen in time, I s'pose. *Sigh*

- I need to make changes. That much is clear. I do not know how to make changes. I am terrified. Something drastic (i.e. giving notice w/o alternate plans already being set in place) might be called for, but I am not sure I have the courage for that.

- I should be qualified to do something else, but I am afraid that I have no skills.

- I really want to go back to school, but I can't afford to pay for any more fancy letters after my name. I am still paying off the first four.

- I tried to make some claims yesterday that I am not a drama queen. Yes, I did so with a straight face. No, I did not get struck by lightning (though I am sure it was a very close call). Needless to say, I had been drinking.

- Generally, I am indeed a drama queen.

- When I have been drinking, I am Drama Empress of the Universe. Usually this manifests itself in uncontrollable weepiness, or simply getting myself into inappropriate intimate situations. Every once in a while (okay, probably 20% of the time) it manifests itself in a full out scene.

- In Vino Veritas. I enjoy having a drink because it allows me a space in which I do not worry. I just am. But when I do drink, I like that non-worrying state so much, that I have no concept of where to draw the line. And ultimately fun and games, and happy hour jovialness give way to all of the things I have been bottling up during the day, that my consummate plate spinning is supposed to distract from. And I cry. And I cry. And, I wish that was all that I did. But sometimes, I actually talk (read: rant) a fair amount too. All without a social screen. And I am still crying. And the result is a weepy, incoherent attention (and not the good kind) drawing mess. I am lucky that, in my life, I am usually forgiven my indiscretions.

But not always.

When she was fourteen, in front of a majority of the cool kids who populated the senior class, the weepy drunken attention-calling mess forever lost her reputation, her inherent trust in others, and her ability to perceive her own self worth in a quarter-hour eternity on the cold, hard tile of a bathroom floor.

When she was twenty-eight, a whole lifetime later (but apparently none the wiser), on a cool starry night standing on a dimly lit sidewalk, the weepy drunken attention-calling mess irretrievably lost her dignity and, it seems, the respect of someone very important to her. More important than she had ever realized. It was only when it was too late that she realized she had been blind. That in wine there was in fact no truth, there was only exaggeration, innunendo, bravado and conflagration. An inability to see things as they really were, and as they could be.

And she pays dearly for those two episodes every day of her life. They have made her the unwitting guarantor of a karmic debt which no amount of repayment can seem to settle.

It is a weight I must bear. I must accept it and move on. To "learn a lesson" from them and thereby "be a better person" for it. But it makes me sad. A profound heavy-limbed sadness when I think about it too much. And it seems unfair to me the sacrifices I must make for the halting wisdom that is these "life lessons." The price is too high.

I am an apt pupil. I can learn in many ways. Wasn't there another way?

Did I have to learn that having sex with someone has serious consequences by way of my rape?

Did I have to learn that people will always assume the worst about you because everyone who witnessed it did nothing to stop it and spent the next few years doing nothing but talk about it?

Did I have to learn that the really painful things are best left ignored because no one believes you were the injured party anyway, so why bring them up, so best to be bright and happy and bottle them away?

Did I have to learn that I have no concept of my own behavior and how others perceive it by way of losing the one person with whom I have had a serious non-platonic connection with over the last three years?

Did I have learn that, for as much navel gazing as I do, that I cannot correctly recognize my own feelings for someone because they terrify me so much?

Did I have to learn that I am unable to really open up and to trust that someone actually feels something for me?

There is no use in lamenting what could have been. There is only the now. But in the quiet moments, I think it is okay to be a little sad.

And even if it's not, that is the way you survive so that you can do all of this learning.

I learned that too.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (or Here We Go Again) - depending on how you look at it

As I sit here, typing away, at the office, at 12:11 am on a Sunday morning, I find myself with time to reflect. If only because I cannot leave till I charge my blackberry a bit, so I can access my work accounts from home first thing in the morning (because, really, God forbid that I spend more than six hours at a stretch not working).

Things have gotten so harried, everything on such an as needed basis, that I can't even keep my electronics charged. They have to sputter and die before I pay them any mind. My cell phone was dead for 2 days because I kept not remembering to charge it. So much the better, one less way for the office to reach me (yes, I get cell phone calls from work people while I am sitting in my office). The blackberry holds a charge pretty well, so like the cheapskate who hates buying gas and thinks they can make it to the next filling station just a few miles away, I tempt fate and see how far I can stretch the battery. And when it dies, well, again, so much the better. One less way for the office to reach me, because yes, even when I am in the office, I am told I should carry my blackberry around in case someone needs to get a hold of me while I am in a meeting, or happen to flagrantly be eating lunch or some other such nefarious activity.

It is really pretty breathtaking to survey to ruins of my life. In two and a half short months, my schedule has divorced me from everything that I know and even remotely care about. I have nothing to look forward to. Nothing makes me happy. I am a shell (a big, and getting bigger, shell) that is simply moved from home to work to travel for work as is necessary. I have always alluded to being tired. I am fairly certain that that is to be a lifelong condition for me, but the degree of weariness I feel is indescribable. I am so tired it hurts. My head throbs in the morning, my limbs feeling like they are filled with sand and water. I keep hoping that my bodily pain will translate into some actual ailment such that I might be saved, if only for a couple days, from the horror.

I was informed today that what I am doing means that, after taxes, I am making 24 bucks an hour. This is, of course, a good wage. But it flies in the face of the convention that it is okay to do this because you are handsomely compensated. Basically, I am selling my soul and my personal wellbeing on the cheap.

It makes me sad that I do not look forward to tomorrow. I have always thought that tomorrow could bring a new development and turn things around, even in the darkest of times. But now, I dread tomorrow, because it is just to be more of today.

Yesterday, for the first time in the five years that constitute my working life, I got yelled at. Well, to be accurate there was no "yelling" per se. There was simply a raised voice and a dressing down for "fucking questioning" the partner. Indeed, I don't deserve to take up space in his presence. Yeah, whatever. Fuck him. My life is a cesspool, he is still taking 2 hour lunches. He can kiss my ass.

Lucky me, I get to share a plane ride with him this week.

I am trying to recall ever feeling this level of desperation before. I suppose it was only during the trial that comes closest to this. I just have fear about making it through the day, let alone the week. I don't know how long I can keep doing this. But I will keep doing this till something gives. I am just that stupid.

ProActiv

You know how when you will yourself to ignore something it becomes impossible not to think about it? Mysteriously, attempting to pay no mind to a tiny zit on your nose makes it impossible to eradicate its ever-growing presence from your peripheral vision. In somewhat the same vein, trying to quash and cram one's complaints about this, that and the other into a dark, invisible and unfrequented place always fails and the petty gripes and their gaudy abauble studded Liberace-evoking soap box always end up taking centerstage.

I am a complainer. I admit it. Not that there would be much use in denying it. Plausible deniability went out the window about three years worth of blog posts and 100,000 dollars worth of higher education ago.

I do not like being the complainer. I am always cognizant that it is my way, and it makes me feel ashamed. Guilty. Contrite. Overwrought. Weak. Consequently, I am the squeaky wheel, quick with the all-purpose diminishing return apology, who therefore never gets the grease. And thus, I continue to squeak.

If I am going to bitch, I may as well bitch effectively. And yet, I want to be a well-liked complainer. So I moan and groan, and tack on a smile and a wink and a nod just often enough.

Just often enough.

Just often enough that it ensures that I am tolerated, or even, on good days, well liked. But this is the secret to why no one can love me.

My complaints, if they do not make me outright unlovable, at the very least make me unpleasant. Who would want to spend their life hitched to the female equivalent of Gilbert Gottfried (without the lucrative Aflac endorsement deal nonetheless)?

I have, as of late, decided to make some vain attempts at being pleasant. To pretend that everything is perfect, if only for the day. Every time I fail miserably. I don't know why.

My pretending muscles must be fatigued.

Again, I have failed. I was going to write a pleasant post.

Oh dear.

Problem is that there isn't too much that is pleasant to write about. Life is tough lately, at least in my little narcissistic world. Hoping for some good news to come my way. Yes, I gripe too much. Yes, I don't deserve it. But I would still really appreciate it nonetheless.

The Simple Life

A simple list from a complex (or so she believes) and tired (tiresome?) girl:

- I took the afternoon off. Not enough, but it is something.
- My fatigue is unshakeable, it hangs over me and leaves my limbs feeling heavy. It is beyond tired. It is Tired.
- Had doubling over cramps this afternoon, but treated them with Advil, Diet Vanilla Black Cherry Diet Coke and Law & Order re-runs. Worked pretty well. Maybe I can patent that.
- I went to the grocery store, and bought actual food to put in my long-bare refrigerator. It was lovely.
- Went to the gym, pushed through the Tired and crampiosity and despite the chest pains I was having last night, and found the oft-discussed zone for the first time in a long, long time. It was a pleasant sign that, even through all of this, my body is not yet completely decimated and can achieve some normal function. Also lovely.
- Was all psyched to do laundry, but my change cup full of pennies made that a no-go. Ah well, hopefully, I have enough underwear and socks to get through the next couple weeks (at least).
- I have breathtaking views from three directions from my house. I took a moment to enjoy each of them today, in dazzling sunlight and splendor.
- I know that my most important task at this point is to get my life together, to find a path that I can travel safely and productively for the long run. Something other than what I am doing. And I understand that till I do this, I am not in a position to be trying to hitch my life in any way, shape or form to anyone else's. And, truth be told, I really have no desire for anything romantic at all at this moment. I think my psyche has jettisoned loneliness from its lexicon, for now, because there is too much else to worry about.
- Despite the above, I do miss him. All of the time. Not the idea of him, or what he might represent. Just him.
- iPod was on shuffle. Last three songs - More Than A Feeling (Boston); Kiss From A Rose (Seal); Won't Back Down (Tom Petty & The Heart Breakers). What is the Pod trying to tell me?
- I am afraid to go to sleep, because then it will be tomorrow.

324.35

Ummmm, yeah.

Growing Up is Hard to Do

So I wonder aloud, as Jack Nicholson once did: Is this as good as it gets?

No one is handing me an Oscar for my pseudo-metaphysical philosophizing, but you get the idea. In the last few weeks, I have spent so much time wildly swinging from abject misery and hoping to be struck by errant lightning which just happened to veer into my 7th floor office from the little rain cloud that always seems to be above my head to feeling generally satisfied with life as it is and being unwilling to own up to my former despair.

It leads me to think that I am perhaps bipolar, or developing multiple personality disorder, or selective amnesia. It would not be beyond the pale to consider early onset dementia either. (This discussion of the gamut of hypochondria-induced mental illnesses may seem odd and troubling at first, but I assure you it is an upgrade from my physical illness hypochondria which once led me to believe, while living in Boston nonetheless, that I had contracted ebola. Seriously.)

Overall, I do not feel well (once again, the functional equivalent of the car door being open, but not visibly ajar, so the only indicator is the buzzing signal made by the car itself to alert the driver). Well, there are some visible signs. My growing second chin. The star map of ugly red acne in my T-zone. Does anyone know morse code? Maybe my dermis is trying to signal for "HELP." The inability to complete sentences and overuse of the phrase, "Well, you know... that thing...."

My social life is starting to fall away, slowly but surely, but one could make the argument that it really would have anyway. As such, this way I am suffering less because I don't realize that I no longer have friends because they do not care for my company, but rather choose to believe that I have no friends because of my workaholic tendencies. Honestly, if I had free time, I am not sure what I would do with it anyway. So much of my former social life revolved around my former workplace, and, well, it is now my former workplace and I have been disavowed. (Without my knowledge, apparently I left in disgrace.) In any event, I am in one of those states again where I am not exactly thrilled to be seen publicly, at all, so really, what am I griping about as to overwork and lack of work/life balance? Balance is something I have never had (either physically - see my bruised knees - or mentally - see my bruised psyche).

I guess I just miss sleep. Good sleep. The lack of worry, stress free sleep. But then again, when was the last time I slept like that? Elementary school? Again, why complain?

It is just a very disconcerting feeling to walk around feeling so uncomfortable all the time and feel like a fraud and to be tired of hearing/thinking/contemplating my own complaints. It makes me sad that I write the same thing over and over on this blog. I would like to think that I am learning from my mistakes in this life and therefore improving, if only be endeavoring to just make completely novel ones. But I don't seem to be able to move past the old ones, falling into the same old well worn crevasses, floundering there, working my way out, and then shortly, falling right back in. How dumb is that?

This life could be so good. I just know it could. But I can't seem to get there. I suppose that that deep seated belief that it could be good must count for something. It must mean I haven't given up hope. But I just can't get past the feeling that my life, as I have lived it, is just a waste of time. What is worse, it is a waste of time intentionally. I am so unhappy in this time, that I endeavor to waste it, waste it all away, in some backwards belief that some time out there in the future will be better. I just need to get to it. And I get so desperate and unhappy and overwhelmed and cynical and forlorn at times, that I will just do anything to get there. Including checking out of my life entirely and doing all I can to hide from it.

What a loser maneuver. But there it is.

I really do not know what to do. I really am at a complete impasse. I have no idea what to change or how to make things better. It seems everything I have tried in the past has come up short. How do I make things better this time around? What is new that I haven't tried? There must be something.

There must be something.

There. Must. Be. Something. Right?

Country Road, Take Me Home....

To say that I have been all over the map lately, is both a literal as well as a figurative truth. (And let us just assume for the moment, if only to indulge the jetlagged and insomnia plagued auteur, that there really is such a thing as a "figurative truth").

Given the general context of my life, I write this entry from the most unlikely of locations: West Virginia. The last two weeks of piteous cyber-outcries have been posted from L.A. and places in between.

There were a lot of things prior to embraking on this seemingly endless business trip which had indicated to me that I would never be a salesperson. Primary among them, that I hate strong-arming people into anything. (As such, clearly, lawyering was the next best career alternative.) Now I have another reason to add to my list: I really do not enjoy extended amounts of business travel. I am a creature of habit and have a hard enough time creating even a faux-sense of stability when I am at home. On the road, all sense - stable, common, or otherwise - goes out the window. Rootless, my mind begins to wander, my body is continually playing catch up and always in the process of adjustng to its surrounding. Fatigue is constant.

But this isn't what I wanted to write about. Well, I did. I wanted to write about a lot of things, but clarity is not forthcoming at this point, and so I ramble. Typing out garbled and incoherent stream of consciousness sentences mucked up with a peanut butter like mental haze.

It is unclear whether I am even writing in english (let alone any other known language) at this point.

Errata: Oops, I did it again

Taking a moment to actually read the posting I just threw up (one might say literally, given its relative quality) on my blog just now, I realize that in the four months that have passed since I initially drafted it, there have in fact been some changes:

(74) Insert new subpart (a): I have in fact broken a bone. This fact of my life actually took place in January of this year, so I have no excuse for having drafted words to the contrary. Well, actually I have two excuses: First, the allegedly broken bone was my big toe on my left foot, but I never went to the doctor to get x-rays, so I can neither confirm nor deny whether it was actually broken. I can, however, with absolute certainty confirm that it hurt like an absolute mother-fucker for about three weeks, and I could not bend the beleaguered digit in question, so make of that what you will. Second, the only person who saw and recalls with absolute clarity the incident leading up to the alleged bone breaking was one Mr. Jose Cuervo, and he is has fled and not been seen 'round these parts ever since. So really, any and all assertions of toe-breakage that you might hear - either from me or others - is nothing more than hearsay. Probably admissible hearsay, but hearsay nonetheless.

(70) Insert new subpart (a): I can now accurately refer to "my brothers and sisters" as my brother - temporally the eldest, tempermentally the youngest - up and got hitched in June. The circumstances surrounding the blessed nuptials are many, the most prominent of which is due to make his appearance in this world on Oct 15. So now I do in fact have two sisters, and am quite pleased that it had nothing to do with my parents jumping on the procreation bandwagon once again.

Awesome! I Fucking Shot That!

FOR THE PURPOSES OF FULL DISCLOSURE IN POSTING, I ACTUALLY STARTED THIS POST 4 MONTHS AGO, BUT I AM CHANGING THE DATE SO AS TO MOVE IT TO THE TOP OF THE QUEUE. IN EVEN FULLER FULL DISCLOSURE, "STARTED" IS A MISNOMER IN THAT I AM POSTING THIS WITHOUT MAKING ANY CHANGES TO IT WHATSOEVER FROM ITS LONG LINGERING DRAFT STATUS.

Inspiration, once again, comes to me in the form of three-middle aged Jewish guys from Brooklyn. Love the Beastie Boys. Reading the recent reviews of their above titled fan-filmed performance-art piece, I was duly inspired to get back to the list I started and abandoned so long ago. More from the list of 100 things you ever wanted to know about CLC but were afraid to ask (and, honestly, don't want to imagine):

(75) Every time I have to answer the age old question of "what is your favorite color?" I always feel like I am making something up so as not to fail to have an answer to quite possible the easiest question in the world. ("Ummm, so what exactly do you mean by 'color'?"). But in reality, I don't think I have ever given an answer to that query that I have been happy with. There are colors that I really enjoy, and that I wear often - for instance, I am not afraid of a dash of red or a splash of pink (though I will have nothing whatsoever to do with blush or bashful); I find green soothing, and blue is similarly to my liking; likewise, I firmly believe that black with always be the new black and that is that - and there are colors I am less fond of - most shades of yellow don't do too much for me, as yellow makes olive skin look, well, like the skin on a raw Thanksgiving turkey (yum), but I don't dislike it. But there is no color that I see that instantly screams: "CLC" I am a one woman rainbow coalition, and therefore I refuse to play favorites amongst the crayolas.

(74) I have never broken a bone. My mother claims it is because of all the tortillas I ate as a child (calcium, apparently) which apparently have given me the equivalent of an adamantium muscoloskeletal structure. However, I think it is more likely because most of my serious falls in life have happened far enough into a college saturday night that I was, let us say, a lot more flexible and didn't put up much resistance to the stairs as I fell down them. "Nothing to see here folks. I am oooookkayyy!"

(73) I do not like beer.

(72) I love to read, but I prefer bookstores to libraries because I need to own books so that I can write in them. Even if I have not intention of (not to mention, no need for) taking notes, to this day, I will hold a pen or highlighter in my right hand as I read a book.

(71) I had my first kiss when I was a sophomore in high school. I was 14.

(70) I have three brothers and a sister, and I was an english major in college, and yet I cannot stop myself from using the phrase "my brothers and sisters." Guess I just can't let go of the idea of an extra female sibling.

(69) My youngest brother turned 16 this Thanksgiving. The day he was born my father insisted on dropping the rest of us kids off at school before taking my mother (who remained at home) to the hospital. He did so, but despite his denials about it in subsequent years, though he slowed the car, he did fail to come to a complete stop. It was my first and last time jumping out of a moving vehicle.

(68) I pouted for a full five minutes at a wedding I attended a couple years ago where the DJ was taking requests but where I was soon informed that the bride and groom had specifically "banned the playing of Britney Spears in any way, shape or form"

(67) In college, I told everyone I wanted to have five kids, just like in my family. In law school, when I realized the inherent disadvantage (economic, emotional and spatial) of being outnumbered by your kids more than 2 to 1, and as such, I revised this figure to two. Today, I do not think that I want have kids at all, but I don't entirely rule out the idea that someday I might.

(66) Even if I decide I want kids, I have a distinct feeling that I am not going to be able to have them.

(65) My favorite movies: Field of Dreams, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men. No surprises there.

Waving the White Flag

I make stupid decisions. I ruin everything. I hate my life. I hate myself. I don't know if I deserve to be happy, but I am fairly certain I am incapable of that state of being. I am tired. My stomach hurts. My head aches.

I give up.

Work/life Balance And Other Little Lies We Tell Ourselves...

I am neither sure of the length nor the eloquence of this post. It is overdue, simply because I have been so remiss in my posting duties for months now.

So am I singing the same old tune? Is the woe-is-me-aria fundamentally unchanged, if only perhaps an octave or two higher?

Hard to tell.

Early reports are fuzzy, and colored by sheer exhaustion.

So much so, that I don't even have the energy to make this post even remotely eloquent or original. I have no energy to do anything. But eat, of course. Always that.

I am excited by the new job; it is an evil I didn't know, and, without doubt, it is evil; but it wears a new and more pleasant face, and I find myself a lot more interested in what it has to offer me. What it has to offer me is primarily an avalanche of work. Interesting work, but an avalanche nonetheless. Hard to make scintillating cocktail party conversation when buried under approximately eighty-seven metric tons of snow.

But the days do go by more quickly when both busy and engaged. But herein lies the problem. My heart's desire has never been to be engaged to my work. I need to find some dupe of a man willing to have me for that (still looking for just the right pigeon).

But here I molder in the office.

I have a date this week, but with my father. Not helpful.

Traveling for work next week. Then back again. Moldering in the office again I am sure.

A boy moratorium was recommended to me recently. I decided it was a good idea, then proceeded to have every fleeting thought of that morning dedicated to a particular young man. Subconsciously, I believe I have decided that the only way to actually effectively impose this moratorium (and increase my work face time/productivity) is to just continue eating relentlessly till they are going to require Richard Simmons, a camera crew, a wrecking ball and the jaws of life to come pry me from my office. Wonder if the plastic surgeon who has to surgically remove me from my Herman Miller aeron chair will be as cute as Julian McMahon? (See, even extreme obesity and workplace construction interventions are not enough to preserve the moratorium. This is hopeless.

For all the random kvetching about a little bit of this and perhaps some more of that, my biggest worry is this: in about 6 months, I am going to have no friends at all. Not in the "we are shunning you because you are an asshole" type way, or the "wow, you are odd. Go away" way. But more because I am working so much, my current friends lives don't lend themselves to very much flexibility either, and my new workplace colleagues (who I suppose I unfairly expected to become friends) are all rather far removed from me. They are busy, and, for those who haven't seen it first hand, there is a certain amount of hierarchy at a law firm. To some extent it goes out the window, but it is always there and present nonetheless. Especially when one is senior (read: me - the lawyer older than dirt, practicing since there were only 10 laws and they were all chiseled into stone tablets. Thou shalt not copiously overhire. Thou shalt not buy a flashy car that will thus put you on the first to be laid off list. etc.) and everyone is a fresh newbie (2001? That's a movie, right?)

The best part about starting a new job for me is also that I happen to have a hypenated last name. Thus, in any new social context once you get to a particular age, there is an assumption you are married. So much so that people simply inquire "What does your husband do?", "What did your husband think about you coming here?" or my favorite, "So when do we get to meet your husband?"

How about when I do?

My parents are married. I am not. Get with the program.

Then there are the sad looks. All accompanied by that head cocked to the side (alluded to so eloquently years ago on Friends), and the little sigh, "Oh that is too bad. Don't worry it will happen for you someday." And what has become the omnipresent follow up, which is also my favorite: "Well, I guess you are just very focused on your career."

Today my secretary asked me if I was concerned about whether I was going to be able to have babies since I was waiting so long.

I told her that I figured if I waited long enough, my babies would be teenagers by the time I got around to having them and then I would not have to worry about potty training them.

I am not sure that was witty or even remotely funny. In fact I am sure that it wasn't. But I figured it was just a victory not to remain slackjawed and dumbfounded in the face of such a statement.

Seriously, what is it about me that screams: "Come make comments on the ruins of my lovelife and your perceived waning of my reproductive years." Is the thought of my uterus turning to dust before their very eyes really reason to send people into a plastic-sheeting-and-duct-tape panic?

Why?

You would think people would be grateful that I wasn't reproducing. Like a bad virus, the world will ultimately be better off if I just run my course and inflict misery on the fewest amount of people possible.

As to the marriage/dating thing. Well, they are right on that count. My life is pretty useless otherwise. Very lather, rinse, repeat.

No, I do not need to be a strong independent woman. Yes, I do need a man to be a happy one, though.

Yes, I realize Gloria Steinem is sending out a posse to retrieve my head at this point.

Then again, apparently fish do need bicycles. Ms. Steinem has been married for a number of years now, I do believe.

My problem (because really there is only one.... ummm, that I care to discuss right now) is that I have a hard time drawing boundaries, anywhere, anytime, in any aspect of my life. It is all or nothing, all of the time. I am into him... well, then I am way into him, so much so that thoughts of him governs the tides of my moods. I am working... well, then I am working crazy-balls-out all the time, or I sit at work being completely useless because I absolutely am so exhausted/cannot concentrate. I am social and going to most everything I am invited to, or else I am hiding in my house hoping deciding how I can go about my life without having to actually be seen by anyone.

I am overwhelmed. I am tired. I do not have any answers.

That makes me sad. And it pisses me off.

If I had the energy to really care.

Caffeinated Delusion...

Yes, my Starbucks cup is talking to me again. And, as it is talking baseball, I am certainly listening.

Tumult, sudden unwarranted busts of piety, and a drunken episode of kicking and screaming worthy of rockstar proportions, all melt away in the face of some pithy baseball wisdom.

Today's caffeinated quote comes to us via Rob Neyer, an ESPN columnist whom many are devoted to, but whom I can typically take or leave. Sir, you are no Peter Gammons. Of course, neither is he Joe Morgan, hence I quoteth (quoth?) him here:

THE WAY I SEE IT #97

It's often said that baseball is life,

or is like life, or that going to a

baseball game is like going to

church. Piffle. Baseball is like

baseball, and that's plenty good

enough because nothing else is

quite like baseball.

True enough, though my sappy little heart would also add the following Roger Angell quote to the mix:

Hold a baseball in your hand ...

Feel the ball, turn it over in your hand;

hold it across the seam or the other way,

with the seam just to the side of your middle finger.

Speculation stirs.

You want to get outdoors and throw this spare and sensual object to somebody

or, at the very least,

watch somebody else throw it.

The game has begun."

A Million Little Pieces

My heart is breaking.

Would that I were making it up.

Forced March With Cocktails

Well, if ever a march were forced to be taken, I suppose that it is best taken with cocktails, but regardless it is a forced march nonetheless (and too many cocktails make one walk crookedly and talk funny).

Lame attempts at humor aside, I am not sure how breakups in this brave new adult world are generally supposed to go - maybe they are supposed to involve a lot of screaming and hurling of objects, or perhaps just quiet whimpering and lots of loud nose-blowing, or multiple trips to various strip clubs and other such exciting establishments - but I am fairly certain that, like most everything else that you and I do together, our way is atypical. And, as such, like everything I do, it is certainly not marked by its brevity. But imperfect as our process may be, I think it is one that is uniquely ours and it will get us to where we need to be, and for that I am grateful.

Perhaps one cocktail too deep (begrudgingly, I neither admit nor deny that you were right ;)), I lost my focus (and quite a bit of saline) last night trying to say what I wanted to say. But I appreciate having been given the time to say it (or blurt it, as the case may be). It was a lot to take in at one time, and, without question, so much of it should have been shared so much sooner.

It is to my absolute horror that it was only yesterday that you learned that I was, if nothing else, self-aware. As is obvious, I am not quick to claim any positive qualities as uniquely my own, but "self-aware" definitely would have been one of them. It is a phrase that I hear very often from many of my friends in describing me to myself. In fact, as irony would have it, a friend used it in conversation in such a way just yesterday afternoon. It makes me realize that I was only letting you date part of me, and that I was presumptuous in assuming (1) that part of me would be sufficient, and (2) that I knew which part was the "better" part. My personal flaws/the baggage I carry with me through this life gall me because of some misguided sense I have that people expect me to be perfect. More precisely, that anyone who is to love me needs to believe me perfect. But it is quickly dawning on me, a day late and a dollar short, that this monogrammed emotional luggage of mine is exactly what makes me who I am. The wry wit, the expressiveness, the empathy of which I am capable - all of the things within me which make me proud - all come from the difficult and not so perfect things in my background. Intimacy is a package deal, not an a la carte option. I failed to see it.

A few cocktails in, and feeling sorry for myself, I paint the picture as to my attitude towards myself as rather bleak, but the cold light of morning (and the wicked hangover... should've eaten something. Oops.) make me realize I was perhaps a little bit melodramatic. I still have a long road ahead of me in learning to be kinder to myself and open with others, but it is one upon which I am an eager traveler, and eventually, when told things twenty or thirty thousand times, I do begin to get certain things through my thick head.

Even in this cold sober light of morning, I hurt. There is really no way around it. Would that there were a palliative I could take to make it all immediately go away. (Ah, better living through chemistry.) I am filled with regrets and hopes and wishes and angst and sadness and all the rest of the usual suspects, and they weigh heavily. But with the light of morning, also comes my renewed belief that, if your offer is still open, given patience, and with support and effort, we can continue to be friends.

You are important to me. That will never change.

Though it comes perilously close to sounding like a poor hip-hop channeling of a cheesy Carly Simon song, it is nonethless true that whether caught in the rain on a lonely street corner late at night, or just in need of bail money, I will always come get you.

besos, c

Of Hoping, Wishing, Praying... And Stockholm Syndrome

Day 11 of the life of leisure I have longed for four and a half years. Day 11 of that most magical of phrases: "unstructured time." Day 11 of freedom from the oppression that was my job.

And the truth is, in so many ways, I miss it.

Stockholm syndrome? A flat out refusal to be happy? Complete insanity? Perhaps all three.

Truth of the matter is that, here, on Day 11, I am incredibly lonely. Searingly so. And I am hard pressed to find anything that comforts me.

I have various obligations during that day, which I can and should take care of, but what little I do is merely moving through the motions. I feel tremendously boring. I should be off on some exciting european vacation, or I should be indulging wholeheartedly in a leisurely bohemian lifestyle of a woman around town living for the moment and doing whatever she wants whenever the mood strikes and loving it. But I am just boring, and alone.

Summer vacation when everyone else is working is not all that it is cut out to be. In truth, I would like to travel a bit, but I have no desire to do so alone.

I am lost. I fear the need to start working again in order to "find myself" again, and exactly what such a thing implies about me and who I am.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

I quit my job today. (Well, I gave notice. I will be leaving said job and going to a place where the grass is not necessarily greener, but where, well, there is definitely more grass. Yes, I quit my heinous soul sucking law firm job for, wait for it, another heinous soul sucking law firm job. Wisdom is elusive in my old age, apparently. I do, however, get a guaranteed change of scenery and over a month off. Summer vacation, here I come!)

I am dating a Cubs fan. ("Dating" and "seeing" are all appropriate words for my relation in the world to this man, a fan of the Chicago Northsiders. "Boyfriend" and/or "significant other" not quite yet. When - or if - the "yet" will be, I do not know. I am, however, compiling a lot of information on what constitutea an exclusive full-blown relationship to people. Every person has a different answer. Literally. The overarching truth then - "relationship" is a fact specific inquiry. The Cubs Fan is not a Yankees Fan, and I think this bodes well for me. Romantic relationships with Yankees Fans have proven insurmountable differences in the past. As we are conducting a bi-League romance, this may actually have some staying power. I hope. I really, really, really like this one. Man, am I in trouble.)

Placeholder

A placeholder for the "real" post that is forthcoming. Baseball season started over a week ago, there have been 40 days and 40 nights of rain, Gwyneth had another weirdly named child, things are happening on a local life basis too - much to report, much to make up for. Soon.

But for now, here is something interesting (that had been on a related site). I took the Meyers-Briggs test for the first time a few weeks back, the results were so accurate it is rather eerie:

INFJs are distinguished by both their complexity of character and the unusual range and depth of their talents. Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn.INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." While instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which they are so susceptible as inherent "givers." As a pattern of behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often misunderstood -- particularly by those who have little experience with this rare type.Due in part to the unique perspective produced by this alternation between detachment and involvement in the lives of the people around them, INFJs may well have the clearest insights of all the types into the motivations of others, for good and for evil. The most important contributing factor to this uncanny gift, however, are the empathic abilities often found in Fs, which seem to be especially heightened in the INFJ type (possibly by the dominance of the introverted N function).This empathy can serve as a classic example of the two-edged nature of certain INFJ talents, as it can be strong enough to cause discomfort or pain in negative or stressful situations. More explicit inner conflicts are also not uncommon in INFJs; it is possible to speculate that the causes for some of these may lie in the specific combinations of preferences which define this complex type. For instance, there can sometimes be a "tug-of-war" between NF vision and idealism and the J practicality that urges compromise for the sake of achieving the highest priority goals. And the I and J combination, while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings.Usually self-expression comes more easily to INFJs on paper, as they tend to have strong writing skills. Since in addition they often possess a strong personal charisma, INFJs are generally well-suited to the "inspirational" professions such as teaching (especially in higher education) and religious leadership. Psychology and counseling are other obvious choices, but overall, INFJs can be exceptionally difficult to pigeonhole by their career paths. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in the technical fields. Many INFJs perceive themselves at a disadvantage when dealing with the mystique and formality of "hard logic", and in academic terms this may cause a tendency to gravitate towards the liberal arts rather than the sciences. However, the significant minority of INFJs who do pursue studies and careers in the latter areas tend to be as successful as their T counterparts, as it is *iNtuition* -- the dominant function for the INFJ type -- which governs the ability to understand abstract theory and implement it creatively.In their own way, INFJs are just as much "systems builders" as are INTJs; the difference lies in that most INFJ "systems" are founded on human beings and human values, rather than information and technology. Their systems may for these reasons be conceptually "blurrier" than analogous NT ones, harder to measure in strict numerical terms, and easier to take for granted -- yet it is these same underlying reasons which make the resulting contributions to society so vital and profound.

Feliz Cumpleanos: A Day Late and A Dollar Short

It occurred to me that, having turned the ripe old age of two yesterday, this blog has officially, if not dramatically, entered toddlerdom .

Two years since my first post. Entering its terrible-twos, it appears that not all that much has changed. The parent-auteur has gotten older, the baby-blog still retains its irreverant, if ever morose disposition. A raging case of colicky personality disorder.

Re-reading this blog's tender beginnings, I was struck. Dumbstruck? Awestruck? No, just plain taking-a-fast-one-right-between-the-eyes struck. Not all that much has changed is an understatement. Nothing has changed. I have gotten more comfortable and less self conscious in this forum. However, the quality and tone of the complaints remain unwaivering.

Perhaps I need to focus on bringing different topics to the table. My baby needs to be more well rounded (always knew my progeny would have a liberal arts bent) - but more precisely the Baby Momma needs to get off her ass. Dude, status quo must give way, if only to new surroundings and fodder for new and ever-more creative complaints.

Love's Labour Lost

In a brilliant essay entitled "Why I Write," Joan Didion once noted that writing was what enabled her very thought process at its most fundamental level: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

Indeed.

Clearly, I need to write again with some sort of regularity. I was born with no perspective of myself - physically, spiritually, emotionally. I had long though that a facility with words, an ability to write (if one is to be particularly kind about it) was a gift, a blessing from some organizing principle of the universe that needed to ensure that the fact that I was fundamentally unable to perform even the most basic math equation without breaking into a sweat was balanced out in some way. But it isn't a gift. It is like the external protrusion of some part of my internal psychic make-up which is lacking. It is my internal sense of perspective toward myself that long ago succumbed to some sort of failure to thrive and withered away. Or maybe it was never there at all, leaving an air bubble in my psychic self. A hollow that I always feel and am continually trying to make up for. But just as the blind person's sense of hearing and of touch become more acute, and the deaf person's depth perception is readily increased, my lack of internal perspective has caused my writing knack to overdevelop.

My long sentences add a semblance of structure to the anxieties which come fast and furious. My big words protect me from the pain of things - of people - who might get too close. My halting punctuation as means of throwing artificial yet meaningful pauses into life as I know it so that I may catch my breath, if only for a moment.

When I write I can rationalize and I can ruminate. I can luxuriate in the depths of my own narcissism - swimming deep into the dark waters of all that remains unspoken; all that I wish to say when asked, "how are you?" but for which I feel guilty for thinking, let alone saying. I can work on trying to make the logical connections of mind, body and soul that seem to elude me on a daily basis. Trying to understand how I can remain so tortured, when there is no flame to my feet, no knife to my throat, no perpretrator of verbal abuse upon my ears. The answer as of late has been that I must love misery. I embrace a perpetual state of unhappiness. Truth is, I don't really know what happiness is. So happiness is the unknown, and I readily admit, I fear the unknown.

What is clear to me is that I have been in a state of hypervigilance for as long as I can remember. Trying to protect those around me from the unhappiness, the misery, the conflict, the pain that all rush over me in an unstoppable set of following waves. I think that long ago I gave up on trying to protect myself. Somehow, as a child, I must have agreed to the fact that I was a lost cause, and set about relieving at least some of my burden by keeping others from feeling any of it. I have carried every one of my family members with me in this way for years and years. It is no wonder that our relationships have frayed, and I am left feeling alone. I am trying to conduct both sides of my relationship - with my parents, with my siblings. Rushing in, doing what is expected and more, asking for nothing, resenting them for not giving, hating myself for not asking. And to a certain extent, I have carried this behavior out to every relationship I have in life. And the all around effort, of trying to make everything seem alright, or at least like it is not alright, but manageable nonetheless, is absolutely exhausting. It is why I can sleep and sleep and sleep and still wake up weary. I have wedged the weight of the world of protecting the world on my shoulders, and I think, the last year and a half has been about my mind and my body trying to force me to put it down. But putting down the weight isn't enough. There is more to be done after that. A process.

Because just putting down the weight would be a relief, but it is not happiness. "Relief" is the approximation of happiness with which I am quite familiar. Every time I discover fears to be unfounded or an act of supreme generosity or kindness comes my way, I am overcome with a sense of relief washing over me. I can literally feel it. I am so relieved to not be the focus of one's ire or to be remembered or included. But relief is just a loosening of a knot of fear. Happiness is the proactive step that comes afterwards, when the knot of fear has completely dissipated. I cannot include a description here because I am not entirely sure what it is. I guess I have never fully allowed that knot of fear to dissolve. I never get past the loosening.

I keep saying that what I need is time - to collect my thoughts and recalibrate my sense of self - and I used to think this was a cop out. I made the statement simply because I could not think of anything better to say. However, I can think of a lot of things that I would like to do on a personal sabbatical - of ways to effectively and richly fill my time - to learn the lost art of happiness. To no longer be weary.

To that end, I need to find my own way - apart from the "practical" considerations and apart from what I consider to be my obligations to others. The road I walk is my own, and I have to do what is right for me. I know what that is. I just need to act on it. A life of ramen noodles and matinee movies might not be all that bad.

Still Waters Run Deep

I cannot shake off the pervasive feeling that I am slowly drowning. Drowning in myself.

Strides through a preternaturally strong undertoe are progressively more futile. Very little ground is gained. The goal, simply - an action in the negative - not to drown. To remain, bobbing above the water's edge, just often enough. Or just to remain. A lifestyle one step removed from persistent vegetative state. A consciousness softened and, resultantly, bloated and misshapen by the ever-accumulating pool of standing water in my head.

In Loco Parentis

In literal translation from the latin, the phrase "in loco parentis" means "in place of the parent." In real life, it seems to me that there is little coincidence that the word "loco" is used so often and in such close proximity to the word "parentis."

Does being a parent make you crazy or is being crazy a prerequisite to assuming the mantle of parenthood? It is quite the chicken-egg problem for the ages. I would actually be inclined to think it is the former as my parents seem to have slipped farther and farther into the realm of eccentricity and audaciousness as the years (and the children they begat) multiplied. Maybe there is an inherent weightiness, an unyielding pressure, in the role that slowly presses down upon and little by little completely subsumes one's sanity. Everyone starts off feeling that they are "in place of the parent" regardless of certain biological truths. All hoping to shed the "in loco" prefix as time and experience accumulate. Perhaps some are successful. Others, in my experience, just become entrenched. Frustrated by the futility of it all, they give in to the "in loco"'s inevitability and give up on the "parentis."

My parents have given up. Or more specifically, my mother has given up. Even more precisely, she has given up on me. We have not spoken in 2 months and 10 days. We do not live in the same zip code, but while it is a toll call, it is not long distance. Point of fact, she is physically located 22 minutes from my workplace via train, roughly 30 minutes via car depending on traffic and time of day. It would probably take a couple of days walking, but unless the Big One hit all of a sudden such drastic means would hardly be necessary.

True, as easily as she could access me in these ways, I could access her. So this is equally my fault, and perhaps my choice, in that I am sure that I dedicate far more time to ruminating about her, than she deigns to think about me. At least it was my fault and my choice, till I actually did call her. Twice, over the past two weeks.

I am a drama queen. No one knows this better than my family does. They have had to live with that shit for upwards of 28 years. But as emotionally leaching and whiningly pathetic as I have ever been, I cannot recall a time when they have not returned my phone calls. Till now.

I called my mother 10 days ago and left her a voicemail, voice waivering, pleading for her to call me back to help me sort things out as I was wishing for a lightning bolt to strike me dead in my office so that I no longer had to deal with the monstrousness of my job. (Again, drama queen.) Whatever the content of the message, the inescapable theme was that I was upset. Given that I don't actually call my mother that often, even under the best of circumstances, my reaching out to her was something that was at least noteworthy. One would think.

But she did not call me back. She still has not called me back. And so it seems, she will not ever call me back.

As such, I have decided that as of today, I give up.

Today is the day that I have learn to be my own parent. I have been angry and upset and overwraught at not being able to get what I wanted and/or needed from my parents for years. I have bent over backwards trying to please them for the entirety of conscious life - I made school choices in accordance to what would let them brag most, I pciked a law school that they would not have to pay a dime for, I went to law school because they said it was a good idea, I have handed money over in vast amounts because they said it was the right thing to do. I even take my mother on dates with me - figuratively, but devastatingly nonetheless. She is the little figure perched on my shoulder throughout, jabbing her finger in the air and imploring "Ah, ah, ah, no man likes a woman who is desperate." Just as she kept telling me over and over in high school when I would lament that I didn't have a boyfriend. Maybe the statement is true, but my female "parentis" "in loco" never taught me what "desperate" meant. As such, I now seem to believe that any show of emotion or request for any kind of accomodation or consideration from another party, and need or desire to be prioritized even occasionally is "desperate." The only relationship I can have which is not "desperate" is one in which I make no demands whatsoever - one where I am still desperate, increasingly so, but feverishly attempting to hide it from my "partner."

Yeah, as one particular lout (who I happen to work with) told me after a drunken discussion in a bar (the content of which I do not remember, but the ending of which I will never forget): "Wow, your parents really fucked you up. And good."

I would like to say I threw a drink in his face and stormed out, but given the time in the evening and the amount imbibed, I am pretty sure I spilled my drink in his lap and stumbled away. A little less flair, but still a mustered amount of flourish.

I do not want to hold my parents responsible for the way I am today. When I am more rational, I recognize that I am and entirely fucked up individual by my own making and at my own volition. But in my less thoughtful states, I am just filled with quiet yet overwhelming rage. I spent so much of my time growing up trying to make their lives easier, to make them a little less uphappy, to get them to hate each other a little less, to love my brothers and sisters a little more. To love me a little more. I never wanted to ask for anything from them for fear of the cost that came later. Requests for goods meant someone else had to do with less or without, and all of us would have to pay the price for the bad moods that resultant stress brought about. There were no physical repercussions, there was just having to live with the increased stress, misery and unhappiness that would pervade the house.. Requests for emotional things - well, those were unimaginable. We had no language for such requests.

The word "love" was not used in my household growing up. My parents did not tell each other they loved each other. As if. Certainly they did not tell us they loved us. Emotion is weakness. I was always the weak one. I still am. My mother is baffled by me, and the crying and the attempts at self analysis and my over-sensitivity. At least she was baffled. Now, clearly, she is repulsed.

I have spent hours upon hours in recent years trying to explain her why I feel the way I feel about things. Trying to share with her things that I learned in therapy. Things that I thought were useful. Different perspectives that I had never considered. Foolishly, I had always thought that in a second-hand way, they might help her grow too. Or grow with me. I always thought that because she was listening that she was actually hearing me.

I truly am a fool.

I am a wasteful and ignorant and unappreciative fool.

I have misspent enough time and resources on trying to get my parents to change, to understand. To be my parents.

I have gotten down on my knees and begged my mother to hear me, to be there for me because I needed her. Tears streaming down my face. Begging. The only time in my life I have ever actually begged for anything.

And yet here sit - 2 months and 10 days later. Or just 10 days later. Either way. Alone.

I need all of my energy to fix my life which I have broken and have refused for the last two years to mend. I need to put away childish things. I need to accept my life as one that is whole without need of a mother.

Oh no.

Always one of the good guys. You will be missed.

Egads! Fat (Head) Tuesday

I have no words for this, other than the fact that it may cast some doubt on his protests to the contrary as to potential side effects of "flax seed oil," and if not to the effects directly on him, then to the years taken off of my life or potential damage done to my reproductive system in having to see such a thing. My eyes! They buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurnnnnnnnnn!

Methinks the alleged, ahem, juice-ed slugger doth protest too much....

Practicing Attorney, Lapsed Catholic

Both of the titular states of being - though diametrically opposite action words - connote the same inherent cynicism. Neither tells the whole story. Shades of grey, whispers of nuance and the like.

Most of my life I have been a C&E Catholic - though usually without the C, or if the C, then not the E. Too many letters before a title and I am left weary and confused - one letter and I get my mom off my back for an entire year. So there you have it, my assigned faith in a peppercorn description.

In college I made the command decision that I believed in God, but it was also at that very moment, dissatisfied with the cold, sterile and unyielding institution that is the Catholic church, that I set off in search of a belief system - high and low, querying everyone and anyone as to what they believe and why, and what such belief adds or brings to their lives. It has been a very interesting decade-long exercise, but I have found no established belief structure that encompasses everything that I would like religion, and more importantly faith, to bring me. I guess maybe that is what I am looking for - a religion I could believe in so much that the terms "religion" and "faith" were, in fact, synonymous. But I am a cynic, and my adult life has been built upon querying and corralling facts and making arguments only when there are numerous layers of citation and proof to prop them up. Faith is a long way away from my world. And yet, I still, to this day, stand by my original premise that I believe in God. More recently, I have come to refer to God as the Organizing Principle of the Universe, as the varying knots and circles of my life appear to become further and further interconnected, it is hard to believe that anything is coincidence anymore.

Why all the incoherent philosophizing all of a sudden? Well, the one thing my patchwork quilt of beliefs and accompanying rituals has actually carried forth from my Catholic beginnings is a supreme devotion to the saint Jude, or as he was known around my spanglish-inclined house growing up, San Judas - the patron saint of lost causes. My mother, schooled by nuns and actually more savvy in Catholic dogma than I had ever realized, never made much of religion around the house (but for either the C or the E time of year) but the one thing she always insisted upon was staunch faith in San Judas. Whenever a situation looks to be at its most desperate and impossible, ask San Judas for help and guidance, and he comes through, without need for thanks. Every one of my siblings, including the two who are vehement atheists, have San Judas figurines (given to them by my mother) which they carry around with them. San Judas accompanies me on all my plane travel. My sister - atheist #1 - had him sitting in the library with her as she studied for her dreaded financial accounting exam. San Judas has gone with my younger brother - atheist #2 - on job interviews. Without reservation, we all reject Catholic dogma, yet, without reservation, we believe in San Judas. And so, today, petty and weak, as is my nature, I made a plea to my patron saint for help. What did I ask for? I asked him for help in settling a case at work. Not exactly the high level issue one would think would be worth the time of elevating to a busy saint. (There are a lot of lost/hopeless causes out there). However, I am desperate. I admit it. I am in no position to go through preparing for and participating in another trial, as last year's debacle clearly showed. I need divine intervention to make sure that such a thing does not come to pass - in litigation emotions run high and oftentimes reason is elusive and has a hard time prevailing. A little divine intervention never hurt any settlement talks to be sure.

So fingers crossed and San Judas figurine in hand, I have fervent hopes for Friday.

(Settle, settle, settle. Thx SJ.)

So sayeth Haddaway...

Okay, one more thing:

I take this debate to an even broader forum: What is love? Or rather, what is the basis of love? It is enough to build a relationship on mutual respect, intellectual endearment, the ability to inspire fits of laughter and a plain of patience, but with seemingly no physical attraction to be found? Will it develop later? Would a later-developed attraction ever be sufficient?

More to the point - how important is chemistry? Deal-breaker, perk, or a wait-and-see condition? And is it something you can develop or is it something you have?

Peanut gallery: Any and all opinions welcome. Please!

Guess Who's Back? Back Again....

I am remiss. In so many things. But especially here. I have been gone too long.

I would love to say that I just got carried away, swept up in the business that pervades everyday life, looked around one day, yawning and stretching, and realized I had neglected this forum - my forum - for what amounts too far too long. But it wasn't that inadvertent.

I did not write for a long time. And I did so on purpose.

There are always moments when my voice seems unreachable and I feel I have nothing to say. I fight through the malaise, and for good or bad, something, some footprint of my written existence, always reveals itself.

I gave up reaching. I went mute and I accepted it.

More than having nothing to say, I had too much to say and nowhere to begin. It all just came at me in a tidal wave of tongue twisting words and overwrought tangled emotion.

I made a decision - that it was time to get back in the game. If I am going to be anxious and worried and worked up about life, it may as well be about all of the real things that go on within it, rather than all the things I imagine could/might/or would happen.

So I have made some proactive steps. Done a few crazy things. Don't know if they are right or the best things, but, if nothing else, they definitely make good stories. So there is a lot to catch up on and a lot to share. But not tonight, the wine from dinner had made me sleepy.

Tomorrow....

Don't Defend The Shoe: Just Make It Work

In the past four years, pretty much since Day 1 of this odyssey I call My So Called Grown Up Life (which was kicked off, in no small part because after over 2 decades of higher and not-so-high education, I was finally taking on a 9-to-whenever job), I have often had conversations that always go something like this:

Conversation Buddy ("CB"): What do you want to do with your life? Is this really what you want to do? You are good at what you do, but you don't seem very happy. If this isn't what you want to do, you should figure out what is. Life is too short not to be happy.

Me: Stammerings of semi-coherent statements that all I want to do is do a good job and be happy, interspersed with confessionals that "things have been hard" and "I feel like nothing I ever do is good enough" and "I just don't want to be a burden or let anyone down." And then the inevitable: *Tears welling up in eyes*; *One tear trickling down cheek*, *The levee then broken, the ensuing downpour begins.*

The tear ducts thus in full effect, the conversation is over.

Typically, at this point, I would then get a hug from the Conversation Buddy - as they are usually a supportive friend or sympathetic family member - and reassurances that I will find myself someday and that it will all be fine.

I had another version of that conversation today, but instead of a supportive friend or family member, insert a partner (or rather 2 - one in person and the other on speakerphone) and after the tears, subtract the hug but insert a kindly, if somewhat uncomfortable, smile, and thus, what you have before you is an exact re-enactment of my yearly performance review.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would be in the position of having to explain my inner-turmoil to my bosses, but what else is there to do when they come to you with one question: "Do you really want to be here? You don't seem happy. What do you want to do?" Okay, that is three statements, but they were pretty much asked/stated/posed in succession over and over again, as I hedged and spluttered in search of the appropriate response.

I don't think I ever came up with one. I just started to cry.

This was probably the kindest work review/intervention to ever take place, in that every question was followed with a very nice compliment of my work. The issue is primarily my attitude, or lack of one. Seniority brings privileges, perks, and pay-raises, but it also brings increased scrutiny and new levels of assessment, so now, in a sort of bizarro America's Next Top Litigator, the panel of judging partners want to know if I really want to reach for the brass ring of partnership. And now, at long last, the herd of folks around me having considerably thinned over the years and the stress having mounted and accumulated, it is apparent to everyone that as the ring bobs and weaves above myself and all of my colleagues, I am no longer jumping for it. No reach. No grasp. Nothing.

The truth I have always told myself is that I was never jumping for it. I never wanted the brass ring, that I never actively participated in the farcical race towards parthnership that I once read described as, "An ice cream eating contest, where the prize for winning is more ice cream." The truth as it really stands is probably somewhat more obscure than that. I live to please, ever the junkie for the approval of others, and the only thing in this world that has ever garnered me any attention has been my academic, and by extension, my workplace success. All the while that I railed against the "oppression" and "outrageousness" of my job, deep down, I believe I thought, or even hoped, that if I stuck it out long enough, I would rise to the occasion and learn to embrace it, if not love it. I could be the partner at 31, a wunderkind of the legal world. Even if love continued to elude me, people would still certainly be impressed with me. And somehow, I must believe that this would be enough.

But I know better than that. People are "impressed" by me now - high-powered job, high-powered education, all on a high-powered, fast-forward pace - but how happy has that made me? Time has sped up on me with each passing year. This is apparently common; most people ascribing the increasing temporal warp speed as a function of getting older. But I think there is something else to it: If you are unhappy, it is nearly impossible to lay claim to your present. The minutes and hours of every day slip through your fingers like some opalescent viscous fluid, and, rather than trying to cup your hands and hold as much of the fluid so as to revel in its magnificence before it inevitably slips away, you simply open your fingers wider - at best indifferent to the powerful trickle between your fingers, at worst, actively willing the trickle to become a waterfall.

This is how I lost 2005. I spent the entire year, willing each day to go by, simply to get to the next. I forgot to take hold of some of that time, to bathe myself in the euphoric and simple joy that certain minutes of inevitably life hold. As it stands now, my job is not to blame for this state of affairs. It has, however, become an indellible symptom of a greater issue. I must claim my life.

Life is more than impressing people, more than seeking approval of others, more than "doing the right thing." Life is about about people, about love, about smiling eyes, about deep-seated mourning. Life is about experiences.

I have the option to continue on the track that I am, but it will require much more of an active investment by me. I must choose it.

No matter what I do, I must now choose my life.

"What do you want to do?"

I still don't know. But a choice must be made.

Channeling My Inner Fortune Cookie

And my outer mother, of course...

Her favorite expression in life is "Everything in excess is bad." Or rather, more accurately, "Todo en exceso es malo." Either way, she uses the expression too much. The irony of which is completely lost on her, or maybe it isn't, and she is just conserving her energy for continual invocation of her second favorite platitide, "Be careful - you might get what you wish for." For some reason this one is only ever uttered in english. Not sure why. Given that I am nearly positive she picked this up from a fortune cookie, I think she may be angling to save the bilingual approach on this one for the day she figures out how to say it in chinese. I won't even get into "Cuando la vida te da limones as limonada" and "Por el roto siempre hay un descido." It is a little too much to take on in one day. What I had really wanted to focus on was the second asian cuisine-ish phrase: Be careful. You might get what you wish for.

Lola, over at Bitter With Baggage, has kindly invited her readership to delurk, and the friendly bunch that they are, they have responded in kind. If you haven't been over there yet, I highly recommend dropping in for a visit. You will enjoy yourself. Supremely. Promise. Lacking in originality as I am these days, I contemplated following her move and inviting those in the blogosphere that happen to skitter by here from time to time to sit awhile and chat and tell me a little about themselves. Admittedly, I am curious. However, I realized I am also scared. A little scared that there is no one to delurkify and reveal themselves to me. Completely terrified that there are many (read: more than none) out there waiting to stand up and be counted. I know people come by here - some dear friends to begin with, some whom I have developed friendships with through the magic that is this blog (heh), and, of course, the random fun spammers that want me to subscribe to their magazine or buy their penis enhancing vitamins - but it still feels like an intimate stage upon which I am merely a player. If I were aware that there were more people that are reading my rambling rantings of insanity, would I lose my voice, my point of view? Would I get blog-stage fright?

After a little thought and a deep breath, the answer is "unlikely." The one thing I do, and I do well, is entertain. Well, at least when I am trying. I am a spinner of plates, a battler against silences. A raconteuse extraordinaire. Well, at least in my own mind. More importantly, I apparently have a very high threshold for embarrassing myself. This is not to say that I am not easily embarassed - which I am, both early and often - but I think it has become such a fact of life that I simply incorporate the fact that I will continually be blushing - both literally and metaphorically - into the reality of my everyday life. I am sure that no matter how many people ever read my polemics against Darth-Damon or my "woe-is-me" soliloquys about, well, everything or my inordinate love for all men of the military, I would probably keep on writing them, just because I can. It's who I am.

Funny, I started this blog with the intention of never having anyone read it. Who does that? Apparently I do. I had a great internal debate over whether to set this blog to the "public" function. It seemed like such a grand move at the time. Funny how things change.

I realize I sound very - stop.start.stilted.yes.no.maybe.Iguess.sure.ifyousayso. tonight - I think I have a frog in my throat (my head?), it has made my writing voice hoarse and scratchy, my expressions disjointed, my exclamations infrequent.

So, the only fix? One thing at a time.

It occurs to me that maybe I present very differently here than I do in real life, thus begging the question: How do I (think I) present in real life?

In real life, I am quiet... in situations where I am uncomfortable. However, if I know you well or if I don't know you at all, I am expressive (put nicely) verging on chatter box (more accurate). I love a good story - both told to me and told by me. More dramatic, than mellow - but the two words in concert are quite appropos. As I alluded to before, I am the plate spinner (though I am also often the walrus, though never the egg man. Never the egg man.) I often answer the question, "How are you?" with a sigh. I always immediately regret it. I love when people laugh. I love that my life gives me plenty of material to make that happen. I am comfortable being on my own; the only times in my life I have ever felt lonely is in big groups. I am very emotional - I cry pretty easily - less so than before, but still more than is wise and more than I care to admit. I am a substantial person - I take up a fair amount of space in a room - I am tall with a penchant for four inch heels. Try as I might when I am feeling bad, I think the world is forced to notice me. Alternately channeling fashionista and lawschool grunge, my choice in wardrobe is my sartorial mood ring. My face is my corporeal one. I will never be a poker player - not only because the inherent mathematics involved with card games causes me to involuntarily tune out - but because every emotion I have, every thought I have got, flickers across my visage. Look closely enough, you can read me like a book. I often fidget, but only during uncomfortable silences or when I am stressed. I walk fast to get where I am going, but mostly out of habit (my father - a pragmatic man, always in a hurry made a big impression on me when I was young "Kids, parking at the far edge of the parking lot means we will always get out of here first.") I alternately remember silly details and forget important dates. I used to always be, to the point of fanaticism, on time. Since I started working, I am always late. In the end, I think I fill out a group pretty well. I may not be the first person on an invitation list, but usually, I am probably not the last person tacked on out of a sense of obligation either.

Then again, I also think I am funny, and along with "I am a good mentor" and "I am a sensitive person" (in the sense of being sensitive to the needs of others), that is a statement that, when said about oneself, can never be true.