i have been experimenting with badassery.

I don't know exactly what's been happening to me over the last couple of years, but I'm starting to... uh... speak my mind a bit more. It's the strangest thing. I don't know if it's just a general surge in confidence, or a growing awareness of mortality that makes me a little ballsier, or a fluctuation in hormones that has put a fritz in my filter, or what... But I've become less apologetic about my opinions and also: less and less tolerant of disrespectful, dismissive, and socially harmful behavior. I mean, like it's really lodged into my craw, and I can't get this seedy little bastard out.

So, I've started calling people on their shit. I've become that person!

[I would like to state that I think I accept people calling me on my shit pretty damn well, too, for the record.]

A few weeks ago, I drove around the block to confront some teenage boys who threw a snowball at my car. Not yelling. I just wanted them to explain their decision to lodge a snowball at an innocent stranger's moving vehicle. They could not. So I suggested they reconsider their choices if they can't come up with intelligent explanations for them.

I've been doing LONG overdue pushing and prodding and pointing, in my professional world. (In fact, the pushing and prodding and pointing have started to exhaust my resources, and I'm noticing physical stress responses, which is why today I am at home tending to those.)

But my biggest moment so far came Tuesday.

Due to the professional pushing and prodding and pointing, and the subsequent appearance of some physical stress responses, I have been working on "letting go of that which I cannot control." (Do I need to explain what a really f'ing difficult feat this is?) I've had this glitch in my character for as long as I can remember. And for several years now "Learn to like yoga" has been on my to-do list.

I do not like yoga.

I have a strange reaction to yoga. It makes me mad. Every time I do yoga, I just feel pissed off and annoyed. I don't understand why others thing it's so calming and centering. What is WRONG WITH ME? (Which reminds me of when I tried to like pot when I was 20, just like the rest of my hippie friends. Oh, it looked like such a grand beautiful giggly great time. Peace and love, Dude! But me? Nope. It just made me paranoid and morose.) I've blamed it before on how friggin' slow everything is. And I hate being talked to in soothing tones. Gaw, just spit it out, lady! I'm not a mother truckin' tulip! Holy J(H)esus!

But someone recently (I don't remember who, but it may have been my friend, Maggie), said, "That's probably a sign that you need to do more yoga." Yes, I suppose so. Yoga reminds me of how much anger and irritation I repress on a daily basis.

So, last weekend I bought 3 books of yoga. I don't want to go to a class. I like to do things alone. Tuesday mornings, the group fitness room at the gym is empty. So I took one of my books, grabbed a mat, and practiced some poses, went through a basic "energizing morning sequence."

Salutations to the sun, Chipper Sprite.

I finished feeling... I don't know. Not really relaxed, but my body was definitely responding to a new and much slower morning workout. I cleaned off my mat thinking this was really the start of something. I would push through the discomfort, and I would be changed. I would be Peace, incarnate.

It was too early to shower and leave. Plus, one of my books said you should wait about 30 minutes to shower, so you don't wash off, uh... Prana? I don't know. Like yoga puts you in a sleepy dream suit and if you take a shower, it'll get wet and lose all its sleepy magical dream powers. Whatever. You don't have to tell me twice.

So I hopped on a treadmill and set it to a nice, slow, relaxing 2.0. Immediately, who should enter and take the treadmill in front of me?

ROD, THE GYM PERV.

I wrote about a very nasty and horrible experience with him: HERE. Oops. Nope. It appears I deleted that post. To summarize: he took the treadmill next to me, and kept looking over at my boobs while I was running. Then when he was finished looking at my boobs, he walked behind my treadmill, stopped, and stared pointedly at my ass for an uncomfortable few seconds. It felt horrible. Diminishing. Violating. Whore-ish. And I wanted to leave immediately. Instead, I kept running and watched him for 30 minutes do the EXACT same thing to every woman there. It's WAYYYY beyond the normal checking-people-out behavior. Being checked out normally by someone at the gym doesn't bother me (because I've probably already done it to them.).

Allow me to reiterate that I have not overdramatized that experience and the absolutely sickening SICKENING energy that emanates from his presence. What he does to women at my gym is despicable and far beyond anything decent. I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

So, fresh from my "quiet the raging storm" yoga, I see F'ING ROD. He NEVER comes to the gym that early. NEVER!

I actually said, aloud to the universe, "Are you testing me? Seriously?"

Because I do think the universe needles with me, as I stated in my LAST POST about the orgasmic grunters. I think I have extra sensitive receptors when it comes to the world. And I truly have days where I feel, physically, like the entire universe is being amplified straight into my head. I can't describe it, exactly, but I know I'm not the only one who experiences it, so I'll just leave it up to you to make the connections. Relatedly, I think one of my life missions is how to reconcile the vast injustice and grotesqueness, and generally very bad and harmful energy that I soak up, and still cast light and remain peaceful.

Hence: Do yoga. Be IMMEDIATELY put to the test.

So... I'm walking. Rod is walking. Rod is craning his neck around the man next to him to watch the woman next to him. He is leaning around the front of the man to look at her boobs while she runs. He is leaning around the back of the man to watch her ass while she runs (literally, he had to bend at the knees and contort to stare very directly and blatantly at her ass). He is ogling the boobs of the women leaving spin class and heading back to the locker rooms. He is turning around to watch their asses while they enter the locker rooms.

I had enough.

I got off my treadmill and felt myself starting to tremble. I squeezed in beside his treadmill, to the front, looked up at him, pointed, and said:

"I see what you do, and it's not okay.
They way you look at women is not okay.
You've done it to me, and I see you do it to everyone else.
On the woman's part, it feels like shit to be looked at like that, and you need to stop or not come here."

He mumbled something then said, "I thought I knew her."

To that I said, "Bullshit." and walked back to the locker room. Still trembling.

I debriefed to a gym friend, and she high-fived me. Then I washed off the magical sleepy yoga dream suit (clearly mine is broken), and left for work. Within a block, I honked at a man who was texting instead of driving forward at the GREEN LIGHT in front of me. Then, I got to work and pushed and prodded and pointed.

Yes, clearly, I need to do more yoga.

Dear world, I cannot solve your problems today. Please leave a message.

i don't have much to say, but i sure said a lot.

i thought i had something to say today. seems like i should. i have decided that i don't, but still feel compelled to at least say this.

i have wondered, as i do periodically, at my polarity. not in a DSM-IV sense. but that i can be such a gentle spirit so much of the time, and yet have such psychically violent tendencies. particularly as they relate to other people not doing what i think they should be doing or doing what i don't think they should be doing or doing things wrong. how can i be so floaty and such a control freak all at the same time? so "live and let live" but so irritable? or is it 'ible?

these are things i do not know. i want to just eat a bunch of donuts and forget to have conversations with myself. i do know that.

i think the universe needles at me, much the way my sisters do. i think the universe is a real jokey jokester. take my sensitivity to sound:

i lack the ability to filter out peevish sounds. snorting. chewing. mouth breathing. gum chomping. slurping. gurgly catches in throats. coughing. throat clearing. faucets leaking. feet shuffling. bowl clinking. yogurt cup scraping. radio garbling. microphone bumping. and when i say these things bother me, please let me clarify: i have to leave the room. my head feels like it will explode, and i get anxious. and inexplicably angry. i hear lots of people say, "oh, what an annoying sound!" as they pleasantly carry out their business. dear friends, this is not what i am saying. i am saying that as long as the peevish sound continues, i will not be able to concentrate on one single other thing, to the point that i will actually appear clinically insane in the membrane and will probably have a lot of apologizing to do later. (incidentally, the place where i work is very noisy. i spend a large part of my day trying not to appear insane. gum smackers. sinus problem snorters. candy crunchers. i work in my own private mine field of sounds.)

i am sure this nudges me up the autism spectrum. (you know we're all on it, right? just in varying degrees.)

i do not like a lot of grunting at the gym. audible exhaling is fine. i hiss a bit when I'm really exerting myself. but there are 2 "orgasmic grunters" in the 5 a.m. crowd. one is a short, stout, white lady with curly hair who wears knee wraps. i'll call her "Carol." the other is a short, super extraordinarily chiseled black man with a porn 'stache who wears head to toe spandex and walks on the balls of his feet. i'll call him "Lance." what these characters have in common is loud, orgasmic grunting with lots of vowels.

i was hissing through my abs on one side of the gym today when Lance settled in nearby and began to work very hard. His first set, I put one hand over an ear and said, "Oh my god. Dude!" The second set, traumatized, annoyed, disgusted, I grabbed my stuff and my mat and hurried to the other side of the gym where I repositioned myself and continued. Seconds later, Carol settled in next to me.

that is how i know the universe needles me. it surrounds me with orgasmic gym grunters.

without the benefit of mortal fear, i am an extraordinarily slow runner.

i don't understand nervousness.

physical nervousness, i mean.

i understand facing mortal danger and experiencing a surge of adrenaline that makes your heart race and your pulse quicken and your eyes dilate. when i was a kid, and we lived in the country in southeastern kansas, i was once prancing around in the backyard and stepped on a snake. evolution kicked in, and i sprinted superhero-like through the yard, to the back deck, and in through the sliding glass door.

without the benefit of mortal fear, i am an extraordinarily slow runner.

i do not understand heart race, pulse quicken, eyes dilating, when... singing in front of people. what is the evolutionary connection? did my ancestors have to sing and dance for survival? when they encountered a hungry t-rex (only dinosaur coming to mind. were they vegetarians?), did the t-rex say, "You! Sing! Dance! Here, play this guitar! Do it!"

no. that did not happen.

therefore, i do not understand the fight-or-flight response to singing songs in front of people. there is no evolutionary basis.

i only understand that it makes me feel like fainting and pooping and barfing. which, really makes for an unpleasant thursday evening, if you don't mind me saying.

sister blister

Today, I experienced the following character blips:

1. I spent too much time this morning at the gym trying to figure out if a woman's boobs were fake. Sister Blister, P! Sister Blister.

2. A woman was barfing in a 5th floor bathroom stall. Just me and the barfer. I should have asked her if she was okay and offered to bring her a glass of water.

Instead, I plugged my ears,

I peed, washed my hands very thoroughly, and then exited hastily, using my elbow to turn the door handle.

[Seriously, this is the 3rd time in 1.5 years that I have witnessed someone barfing in the 5th floor bathroom. I hold firm to my assertion that there is something in this building that makes people sick. Don't even get me started on the weird crap in the cafeteria food.]

3. I allowed the door to fall closed behind me, even though a woman was within door-holding range. She was moving too damn slow. Geez, Lady, pick up your feet.

I blame it on my narcissistic crazy gym nemesis. Last night my narcissistic crazy gym nemesis (Fountain Pony; not Are-Those-Boobs-Fake?-Lady) popped in my dream. I woke up really mad. I don't remember what she was doing in my dream; it was the fact that she was allowed to infiltrate my dream. Clearly, it shook a stick at my relatively good nature. I shake my fist at you, Narcissistic Crazy Gym Nemesis Fountain Pony Lady. No "Sister Blister" here. This lady is batshiz nutters.

singing in front of people even though i don't know what kind of cereal they ate when they were kids.

My COFFEE post isn't due for another 10 days. I've just enjoyed a victory. I will share: Immediately.

Per my COFFEE project, I hiked up my drawers and played my music in front of people--real people. I didn't even know all their names or what kind of cereal they ate when they were kids. Long standing fear here (of playing in front of people--not of cereal). Totally dumb, irrational fear. 'Twas time to rid the stink of the stink.

So I did. Thursday, I ridded stink of stink, more or less.

I had Chrispy ...

[A few days ago, I saw the word, the adjective, "crispy," used in a sentence, and I thought, "Oops, they forgot the h." I'd forgotten it was actually a word before it was Chris's moniker.]

Focus, P! …I had C(h)rispy video some of it for COFFEE. Afterwards, I deeply regretted this. That night, and all of Friday, I would not touch the camera. Aside from a few shaky wedding songs and some very safe back-up singing for Wendy, it has been well over a decade since Music and I went out in public together. Fifteen years ago I would have watched that video and become hyper-critical and violently negative. I would have completely shredded myself, disassembled my soul, and spit loogies straight into the face of my very existence. Then I would have locked my guitar in its case for another fifteen years.

Then picked the wings off a butterfly and kicked an old lady.

(Too much?)

(Yes.)

I like butterflies and old ladies very much, so I avoided the camera with its naked footage of my naked reunion with Music. My music.

This morning I was thinking, you know, I've done some growing in the past 15 years. I can control this now. So I downloaded the videos, said, "Be kind, Dear," and watched. And…

It's not that I was some kind of spectacular shooting star, because I wasn't. I sang wrong lyrics and mis-chorded, and stood kind of awkwardly and in an awkward part of the stage. But the fact that I watched start to finish, and I didn't say a single unkind thing to myself is AMAZING. And heartening! And makes me feel really awesome. I am 36 years old, and I have finally learned how to be nice to myself. Amen.

So now I can break this experience down into 3 triumphs:

1. I played. It scared the poop out of me (literally), and I did it anyway.

2. The playing went exactly as I'd expected; I will explain.

Expectations are a nasty beast. I am happiest (and I would guess this is true for most) when I genuinely appreciate and fully embrace: Here, Now, This, and With These People (hereupon: HNTWTP). Expectation for me has generally meant being constantly 10 years ahead of myself--the anticipation of This will become This which will become This and then This and then This will happen--which causes either total impatience with HNTWTP, total disconnection with HNTWTP, total invalidation of HNTWTP, and/or fear and anxiety, trepidation and subsequent paralysis about F (Future).

And butterflies lose wings and old ladies get kicked in the craw.

I didn't have those kinds of expectations this time around. I expected it to be imperfect, and it was. I expected it to not be a disaster, and it was not a disaster. I expected to not barf or shat myself, and I did not barf or shat myself (I understand that is not proper conjugation of -to shit.). I expected some things to go well, and they did. I expected some things to be clumsy, and they were… And every bit of it was just fine.

None of this was in the spirit of self-sabotaging pessimism. It wasn't negative self talk. It was actually the opposite. It was gloriously positive and uplifting. Hey, Puddin' Pie, you're not perfect. And that's a-okay.

3. I reflected, watched myself, heard myself, and was kind to myself. (Additionally, I would like to thank the sound guy for keeping my clumsy guitar at a mercifully low level. And no, recognizing that I'm a clumsy guitarist is not self-bashing. It's simply having ears.)

Winner!

I'll save the video for the COFFEE post.

No butterflies or old ladies were harmed in the creation of this blog post.

shaking out the nonsense

I was going to write something today about how yesterday I decided that if things keep going in the direction they appear to be going, the best option would be to move off grid, go communal. because if chris and i ever have kids, the thought of them growing up in the middle of such malice breaks my ever-loving heart.

I was going to write about how I wasn't really joking, and how Chris was going to be really excited when I told him we were unplugging and moving to the field (Lord help us if that field sits over oil or catches the eye of someone with an itch to build a strip mall, SuperWalmart, or parking lot.)

And then I was going to talk a little bit about the idea of a big Collective Soul transformation coming (not the end of the world, just the end of the currently accepted reality of it), and how maybe right now is just the Beloved, shaking out the nonsense. And maybe once all the nonsense is out, we'll have found ourselves in an idyllic, agrarian society, where we eat fresh fruits and veggies grown in big communal gardens, where we spend lots of time with our hands in the dirt, so we understand and love the earth better, where capitalism is trading beets with the neighbors, where marriage is about love and commitment and partnership and spiritual growth and not about legislation and legal contracts signed by notaries and approved or disapproved by judges we don't know and who don't know us, and where there is no such thing as picketing and screaming with veiny necks about something that is just as true and untrue as the thing being protested is true and untrue, because obviously if we all just got back to core and got back to center and went inward, we would be so much cooler about everything, extremism wouldn't exist, and the whole world would be so much better, and our bodies would be balanced, and our minds, and our emotions, and the earth, and puppies and kittens and fish and bunnies and tulips and clouds and fun music and laughing and no 40-hour work weeks, and all the frightening and malicious people will have vanished, because there would be no imbalance to nourish them, so they couldn't survive in such a world, nothing to feed on, because if all the nonsense got shaken out, that's probably where we'd be left: core and center and clear and sturdy and growing herbs in the back yard, and by herbs, i mean herbs, not "herbs," because when life is that balanced and awesome, there's just no need to alter consciousness.

I was going to write about that, but it was too much for a Saturday morning, and I couldn't get it to come out in a way that didn't make me sound crazy.

every little thing is gonna be alright

i am going to distract myself with senseless blog writing.

i have been a ball of anxiety today.

1. as part of the COFFEE Project (wherein, 9 of us have committed to doing something that scares/challenges us), i have committed to performing at an open mic next Thursday. me + guitar + some songs i made up = Little P needs a Big B-is-for-Barf Bag.

this morning i opened my calendar to record a February meeting, and boom: There it was. "OPEN MIC"-- in ink, no less-- no longer a theoretical event i would talk about indefinitely (without ever actually doing it). IMMEDIATELY, my hands got sweaty, and i started to tremble, and i had to go to the bathroom 85 times in the next 30 minutes.

what IS that?

i tried to tend to work and couldn't focus my brain. couldn't focus my eyes. couldn't get my hands to go still.

you know what i did to calm down? i ran data. i pulled up the database, and i ran data. converted it into an Excel spreadsheet. nice and tidy numbers in rows and columns. observable, quantifiable, linear representatives of completely measurable behavior. adding and subtracting chaos with a calculator.

this is why i like math. i find it calming. being alive is so hair-raising. i hate not being able to control my own body's reactions. sometimes it's nice to step out of myself and study my codes like line-items. if only i could find a way to do this without turning into a complete nut job.

2.  we get "daily headlines" at work. i read them. this was a mistake.

first i read about the bill to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage and its variations. this makes me so quivering sick in my soul. it does. it absolutely does. i don't have words. except that i wish so very hard that people would not use the gentle and loving God i believe in to further this cruel campaign.

3.  next i read about the bright idea to just fire everybody hired since November.

i don't know if it's bad professional form to comment on such things. and so i will simply reflect what i hear in my head:

"In order to fix a broken system, you should keep the same people around forever. Because the system is in such disarray, they have obviously been performing very well.  To fix things that are broken, you must not change anything. You must do exactly as you have done forever and ever and ever, amen."

…
…
…

but i'm sure everything is going to be just fine.

colonization of p

we're getting a new coffee table today. we are very excited about this. unreasonably excited. it complements the new couch and chair and ottoman and end table delivered a few weeks ago. if we are unreasonably excited about the new coffee table, we were absolutely batshit crazy irrational about that couch and chair and ottoman and end table.

a few months ago, we replaced the dishwasher. i still get a little zing in my soul when i pour in soap and push the start buttons. so many buttons on this new model. it's obviously a very important machine.

new curtains. i have new curtains for the purple room. they're not up, yet. The hardware to hang them, i mean, has not been wall anchored and screwed and junk; but i have the curtains. sometimes i pull them out of the bag and touch them. i fantasize about what they will look like hanging over my grandmother's old laundry bench with the flashy pillows.

i'm really excited about making split pea soup tonight. i've never made split pea soup. i think i'm going to throw in some spinach and kale, and this makes my heart speed a bit.

don't even get me started about how frothy i am in anticipation of my teeth cleaning in february.

these are the things that excite me lately. i have been colonized and domesticated. this is an outrage. an OUTRAGE!

person x, you are not an a-hole.

yesterday i ate 3 donuts and accidentally called someone of authority, Person X, an "a-hole." for the record, it was a total misunderstanding. i was not calling Person X an a-hole. i actually really like Person X a lot. it was a sentence in an email taken out of context, and there was over-the-shoulder reading and… dammit. i didn't call Person X an a-hole! i didn't!

the donuts: these were deliciously circular baked evidence that the universe is a snide and tricky little bastard sometimes. over the past few years, my body has been pushing me with increasing urgency to clean up and clean out my system. my physical reactions to anything processed, anything bread-y, anything sugary, anything the human body was not actually designed to consume, have become more and more UpInMyGrill. my guts, my skin, my mood, everything starts screaming. my right knee has been shitsville for weeks, and i think that's even linked to my nutrition (and possibly the 5-8 pounds i've gained since the marathon).

since Christmas, i've been shoving as much processed sugary crap into my facehole as i can. and my body is revolting. yesterday morning, after skipping the gym for the 2nd time this week (i actually skipped 3 times, but 1 time i stayed home to shovel the driveway, so i count that as a workout), i had a sit-down meeting with my body, and we agreed, "For the love of all that is holy: Pull it together, Woman!" i left for work with steel resolve. i could not continue to treat my body with disregard.

i arrived to work to find: 1 large iced cookie and 1 small bag of candy on my desk. i said to the universe, "WHAT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" i sat down and immediately put the goodies in a drawer.

i logged into my email and read, "Hey, everybody! I brought donuts for So-and-So's birthday!"

DONUTS! i can't say no to DONUTS! i shook my fist at the ceiling.

and so, on my day of renewed steel resolve to get back on the body track, i skipped the gym and ate:

• 3 donuts
• 1 iced cookie
• 2 fun-sized chocolate candy bars

and i inadvertently called someone of authority an a-hole.

this morning, i have eaten an apple. next i will eat a mostly egg-white (2 egg-whites, 1 whole egg) omelette with kale. and i will not call anybody an a-hole. not on purpose anyway.

the hot dentist.

Sugar makes me intolerant. I've been eating entirely too much lately. Leaving work for the day, I pretended not to see a woman hustling toward the elevator. I let it close. I left her behind. Sorry, Lady. I was just really tired of people. It doesn't matter how much I like you, how cool you are, how attractive you may be; at some point, I'm just really so sick of you I could barf.

I'm intolerant of elevator conversation. "Boy, sure is cold out there!"

"Sure is."

"Boy, just look at all that snow!"

"Yep. I saw it."

"Boy!"

One day last week I had the elevator to myself when a man boarded on the 2nd floor. He stood in the corner. Seriously. It was just him and me, and he stood in the corner with his nose about 1 inch from the emergency buttons. It was pretty weird, but I liked that he was as uninterested in talking to me as I was to him. Too much pretending makes me tired.

And it's Tunnel Time. Underground tunnels (Is there such a thing as an above-ground tunnel?) connect the parking lots and all the buildings. When it's snowing and bitterly cold (Boy! Can you believe this cold?!) I hike the 3 blocks in the dank underbelly of Iowa's capitol. Some people use them all year long. I don't understand this. They bring their tennies and sweat pants and hike back and forth next to the leaky water pipes and strange murals (One mural has 3 black crows flying in such a pattern, with wings at such angles, that it looks like a witch flying on a broom.). I bet there are a lot of body parts cemented in those walls. That's not pleasant.

I'm having weird dreams again. Last night I was chasing a rodent and washing the word "Studwater" off a window. I like knowing when I've popped up in someone's dream. But, I've recently decided to stop telling others when they're in my dreams. Some people really get weirded out about that. I mean, seriously. I think that's ridiculous. I can't be held responsible for what my brain does when I'm sleeping. Just because you're in my dream doesn't mean I'm going to stalk you and leave dead stuff in your yard. I don't have a room in my house lined with sliced newsprint that spells out your name 35 million times.

Or do I? Sleep with one eye open.

I went to the dentist today. I am debating whether or not to publicly confess that I hadn't been to a dentist in well over 10 years. I guess I just resolved my debate. But look: I brush; I floss; I mouthwash; I don't drink pop or weird, sugary juice drinks; I don't eat a bunch of candy. Nothing hurts. Nothing is wiggly and falling out. So, I don't think about going. If it ain't broke…

I went to Chris's dentist. He calls her the "hot dentist." She's pretty, but I wouldn't say she's "hot." Maybe she's just not my type. I don't know. But I lost a filling a while back and let it go too long, and I might need a root canal. I figure root canals probably aren't really all that bad. It's probably just something people say--something that wormed its way into our scripts. Most of our scripts are dumb. So I'm optimistic.

One question on the intake form asked, "Do you plan to keep your teeth for the rest of your life?" Seriously? What kind of question is this? I circled NO.

The hot dentist poked at my gums and scraped at my teeth, and then she took off her mask and told me that other than the missing filling, I had a healthy mouth. She said that: "You have a healthy mouth." She looked disappointed--defeated--when she said it. "You've been really lucky to get away with not going to the dentist." Like I was cheating. Like I'd skipped class all semester and then aced the final. All that flossing and brushing and no-pop-drinking. You sneaky little sneak.

I scheduled a cleaning, too. Tonight I'm drinking red wine just to get a little more bang for my buck.

juicy fruits

by wednesday i start to run out of steam. steamless. seamless. seamstress. my grandma hartman was a seamstress after they sold the farm and moved to town. grandpa was a machine mechanic in a bread factory. my grandparents worked their asses off--farms and factories and dress shops--, and i bet they never complained about it. and then my parents--in schools and offices. and now, me here, i just flit around and enjoy the juicy fruits of their labors. (sometimes progress looks like regress depending on your tilt.)

i need to pack my gym bag before it gets too late. woe is me.

i had another psychotic dream last night. i was having my back surgically reshaped. they could only do half at a time. they did one half, and it hurt like hell, and i suddenly realized it was a mistake. but i couldn't just leave my back hacked in half. i was devastated at my decision to do it in the first place. full of such overwhelming regret.

the moral of that story is leave your backs alone.

that's all.

this might be marriage.

i packed my gym bag, took it downstairs, set it by the bathroom, and then i climbed the stairs and went to bed.

just before achieving sleep, i realized i hadn't put a bra in my gym bag.
i muttered something to the effect of "goddammit" into my pillow.
wondered briefly if i would remember to get it in the morning.
recalled all the times i did not. (nor my underpants, nor socks, nor shoes).

i got up.
fished a bra out of the drawer.
thought about all the time and energy it would take to walk all the way down the stairs, put it in my bag, and then walk all the way back up.
so, i threw it down the stairs
and went back to bed.

i lay in bed thinking about what a classy lady i am
and about what chris will do when he is on his way to bed and finds a bra sprawled across the bottom step.

then i realized this image would no longer faze him.
6 years ago, maybe he would have thought, "huh? what's this doing here?"
but now… he would think nothing of it.

chris will no more wonder why my bra is sprawled across the bottom step
than i wonder at the sight of his boxers on top of my piano.

this might be marriage.

alyssa milano never wrote me back.

I've thought about writing a million times. And then I didn't, and now I don't remember what I had to say in the first place (So it probably wasn't important.). Thoughts are like that. They just float in and out; I bet 3/4 of them aren't even mine--just remnants of some universal thought bank, wafting, passing through our membranes like smoke through clothes. I wish we had a way to track that (cross-country thought traveling). I guess we do. I guess it's called stories and art and music and dance and stuff. You know, expressive stuff. Maybe that's why the arts are so important--they connect us--maybe more so than banking does.

Although, that's not fair to say. I once had a pretty interesting connection with a lady who worked at a bank. Many many years ago I lived alone in a tiny apartment on the ground floor of an old house. The Mormons came a-knocking: a young woman about my age, and her mother. There was something about the young woman that I instantly liked (I think it's pretty easy to tell if someone is bringing you light.); plus it really interests me how people develop such strong convictions. I mean, it doesn't really matter what you think about Mormons: knocking on people's doors uninvited because you feel like you have a very important thing to tell them is a pretty ballsy thing to do.

Wait. Not Mormons. She wasn't a Mormon. Mormons are young men in black slacks and white button-downs. She was… I don't remember. But there was a kid in elementary school in Kansas who was this, too, and he had red hair and wasn't allowed to participate in any Christmas stuff.

It doesn't matter. Balls.

So, this young woman, I said, "Sure, come on in." And we talked for a while, and I learned that she had really explored different faiths extensively--traveled, read, experienced--and arrived at these convictions thoughtfully. I was impressed by that. She asked if she could come back, and I said "Sure" to that, too. So, for several weeks, she would come over, usually just by herself after that, and we'd hang out and talk about God and her faith. It wasn't a debate. I didn't agree with her, and I wasn't going to convert, but I liked hearing her talk about it. I think we just both kind of enjoyed the shared time. Then she left for a year-long mission trip.

Anyway, all that to say she worked at a bank. So you can work at a bank and still connect with humanity in meaningful ways. Actually, one thing my mom always told me, which I understand more and more, is that it really doesn't matter what you do for a living--that you always always always have an opportunity to make a difference to someone. (Relatedly, my dad always says it doesn't matter what you do for a living as long as you do it well and with integrity: doctor, attorney, barista, garbage collector, cable man, pizza delivery dude… whatever) I think that's why it's important that no matter how you earn your paycheck, you should try really hard not be an asshole while you do it.

[I don't know where this crap comes from. Sometimes I sit down to write, and I have no idea what I want to say until it starts coming out, and then I think, "What? What's that doing in there?"]

My body feels gross. It needs to get back to the gym. It needs me to stop putting so much garbage in it. It needs me to cut back on the wine. Really, I've been drinking too much wine. It needs me to rein it in, for crying out loud. It needs several days of fruit and veggies and water. It needs me to not stop at Walgreens on the way home from Chrispy's gig at midnight because I have a sudden overpowering urge for Milanos.

Which reminds me that I once wrote a letter to Alyssa Milano asking for advice about becoming an actress, and she never wrote back.

Jehovah's Witness. That's it. Man, I'm glad we got that squared away.

mr. wednesday and the poop filled sock

I feel like writing, but I don't feel like connecting any of my thoughts. Poor you.

My workout this morning was pitiful. The only way it could have been any more pathetic was if I had curled up on a weight bench with a bucket of fried chicken and a pillow. But you know, I went and all that.

I've had a lot of delightful moments this week. I say "delightful moments" because they were relatively insignificant blips in the day that made me happy. The first was when I was stuck behind a school bus on the way to work. We stopped at an apartment complex, where a group of elementary school kids lined up to board. Then, other kids came running out of buildings. Right in the middle of a flashback to my own school bus days, the very last kid busted out of a door, half the coat on, half the coat flapping at her side, hair a mess, and papers popping out of her unzipped backpack. And then I thought, "Ah, yes. There I am." And then I laughed loudly in my car for at least another 5 blocks.

I've been painting this week. I've been painting instead of practicing guitar and trying to write songs for the COFFEE project. (I've decided to call it "resting" instead of "avoiding.") I am not a good painter by any stretch. I don't paint things that look like other things. I just like to play with colors and brushes and see what happens. Yesterday, Chris compared my painting to "a sock filled with poop." He will deny this. But here is exactly what happened:

Chris: [Stands above painting, which is lying flat and in-progress, on the kitchen table.] Huh. Is it finished? [He smirks.]

Patresa: [Laughs.] What, can't you tell?

Chris: [Laughs.] Sure. [He continues to stare at the painting.]

Patresa: Do you love it? Is it your favorite? I think you love it. I'm going to hang it from the ceiling above your side of the bed, face down. So, you can look at it every morning and every night.

Chris: Oh yeah? Well, I'll fill a sock with poop and put it on your side of the bed.

Incidentally, no, it isn't finished; and I have no idea what it is, but it might turn into a bird. Note: Chris is actually my biggest fan and super supportive. He is also very honest.

We got a new dishwasher this week. The delivery/installation guy called me to set up a time to deliver/install. He left a message. Listening to his message, I jotted down some notes:

TIM          WEDNESDAY
555-5555
DISHWASHER

Chris saw the note and said, "Who's Tim Wednesday?" No, he wants to come over Wednesday. That's not his name. But we referred to him as "Mr. Wednesday" for the remainder. Tim came over on Wednesday and installed the dishwasher. He handed me his business card before he left, and I had a moment of genuine confusion when the last name printed on the card was not "Wednesday."

In anticipation of Mr. Wednesday's arrival, I told Chris, "I hope he has a nice crack."

Chris replied, "Nobody has a nice crack." I thought that was quotable and true. Nobody has a nice crack. It's not a remotely sexy part of the body. Butts are weird.

I wish grocery store produce aisles would label the produce more clearly. I had a recipe for sauteed parsnips and turnips. Standing in front of the produce, I didn't know which was which, only that they were one and the other. So I took one of each and figured, well, they'll both go in the pan. Covered. But they didn't have stickers, and the cashier asked me what they were. I said, "I don't really know," which I'm sure she found strange.

a pair of items

items:

1. Mr. Ebu Pants got into a fight last night and came home with swollen puncture wounds in his neck and poop on his drawers.

He's all better now. He's stretched out atop the length of my legs, and I feel his pudgy kitty belly rising and falling against my shins. A trip to the vet, some antibiotics, and he'll be right as rain. His neck is still swollen. But I think, if I may speak for Mr. Ebu, it would be shatting oneself while fighting that is the biggest injury.

Incidentally, I don't really appreciate it when I get bombarded with "cats should stay indoors" messages. Cats should stay indoors? Really? Why? Because they are descendants of… tupperware and sofas, and so it is their nature to lay around, clawless, on rugs? Maybe some cats are content to live that way, and maybe there are neighborhoods where a cat really can't (or shouldn't) go out… but Ebu isn't one of them, and this neighborhood is fine. He goes absolutely batpoop crazy locked inside. Batpoop. If I kept him inside, maybe he would live longer, but he certainly wouldn't be happier. There is something to be said for joy in the place of longevity. I have never seen a cat more joyful than one laying in the grass eating bugs. 

While I'm at it, I don't like this declawing business. I do not like it at all. Please stop doing that.

We have a 2nd cat, Smokey, who is Chris's cat. Smokey is declawed. Smokey does not go outside. Smokey is neurotic, annoying, and psychically twitchy. And if you think I am being too harsh, I invite you to come live with us for a week.

2. My insurance company has refused to pay the last 2 months of orthopedic related medical visits. Why? Because for some reason, they thought it was a work-related injury. They thought the torn tendon in my ankle and my fudged up knees was a result of my job analyzing data and monitoring contracts. What? No, I wasn't sitting at my desk too vigorously. I RAN A F***ING MARATHON! 

Seriously? Why in the world would they think this was work-related? That makes no sense.

I was a lot nicer than this when I called the insurance company, by the way.

3. I lost a filling while eating an Andes mint many months ago. I ignored it. Now, it is starting to hurt.

4. I had an excellent massage today.

The end.

spinach enchiladas.

taking note.

i don't know if this will make any sense. i'm in a hotel room in Waterloo. more travel. the last of the road trips. one more air trip (to D.C.). then december will end, and i intend to go home and stay home for a very long time. possibly forever. you may never see me leave my house again. ever. except to buy bananas. because i love bananas, and chris is not very good at picking out produce.

sidenote: my jeans are fitting more snuggly. this is concerning. end of sidenote.

today is World AIDS Day. prior to my current job, my only related experience with HIV/AIDS was to tell the students i worked with to use a frickin' condom, for God's sakes (but then i was really only thinking about how horrifying it would be if they brought children into their chaos. admittedly, i wasn't thinking about HIV. i wasn't even thinking about herpes. i just didn't want them procreating.). without detailing every nook and cranny, i have landed in this position within HIV Prevention through a strange and not-coincidental series of universe-nudges. at the risk of sounding like a total corndog, i was led here, and i wasn't exactly sure why. i'm still not exactly sure why (i still can't talk about s-e-x without blushing), but i always assume divine guidance happens because one has both something to offer and something to learn. when you feel the hand of God poking you in the ribcage, you should shut your big fat mouth and listen close.

and i have learned a lot in the past 1.25 years. HIV is so deeply embedded in context and complexity. so many large, dinosaur human systems at play, layered, and shifting (yet unmovable, oddly)-- so much overlap (spirit, economics, education, faith, culture, cognition…). roots incomprehensibly deep. HIV preventable, behaviorally based. but what's below that? and what's below that? and under that? and then still, go deeper. good god, the undercurrents of us… can't you feel them? how do we ever get to the root of why we do as we do?

i can't begin to articulate this…whatever... just yet (it's still forming. it's still a fetus of a notion assuming shape in my melon.), but i really feel like a large part of my cosmic purpose (maybe everyone's, because i don't think i'm unique) is connection. find and form. people, ideas, institutions, movements. there is no them, no there, no other. only us, here, this. nothing is separate. everything is related. everything. i cannot think of a single exception. and the fetus of a notion in my melon is whispering that there is a critical lesson in this connectivity-- an evolutionary, revolutionary lesson. to embrace it (universal connectivity) would be to permanently and profoundly change the way we "do business." we would be kinder, healthier, smarter, sexier, more efficient, awesomer, handsomer, and peacefuller.

foolish that i'm trying to write a paragraph about it. i don't even know what it is. but it makes me want to be very quiet. like if i could get quiet enough, i would understand connectivity as more than just a concept, and then i would live better. i do so want to understand. and i do so want us to be better.

sometimes things just feel too big for words. 

i'm babbling because i'm tired, and i am in a hotel room, and i feel full of ideas bigger than my available vocabulary. sometimes i feel so full of ideas that i worry i will never get them all out, and they will die with me and be lost to the cosmos. 

i am also full of spinach enchiladas. they were delicious. good job, Chapala. 

pull it together, p

It's Pull It Together, P Day at my house. I'm not sure 1 day is enough, so thankfully tomorrow is Sunday. My shiz scatters to the 4 winds so easily, so regularly. I don't know where anything is. C is patient, but last night, while cursing everything solid as I hunted for lost things (things I needed in order to complete a project I should have finished at least 4 months ago), I realized my mess had kind of buried him, too. I don't understand exactly how my piles get so disorderly; they just do. I am some kind of human hurricane, bumbling bermuda triangle, two-legged typhoon. I am, from time-to-time, a natural disaster. At least I'm nice. And I make good cheesecake.

Surprisingly, I'm really good at setting up organizational systems. I even like doing it. I have color-coded files at work and a "directory" indicating what goes in each color. I don't actually put anything in those files, however. The intended contents are dog-earred and busting out of off-colored folders on my desk.

Yesterday I had lunch with Katie MacDaddy (who isn't "MacDaddy" anymore, but I can't let go), and we discussed our dual personalities -- that likely everyone has multiple personalities; it only becomes disorderly if they start talking with accents and making important life decisions. For instance, I house both an introvert and an extrovert. Sometimes my introvert wakes up and finds that the extrovert has abandoned our person in the middle of a party. That's bad news. Sometimes my anal retentive librarian takes over the wheel to discover that the Bohemian Baton Twirler has filled all the labeled accordion files with leaves and doodles during her shift.

I see a cobweb by the TV. Gross.

And so, today, on local (very local) Pull It Together, P Day I will dig through my crap and organize my crap, and find my lost crap, and throw out some old crap, and crap like that, so that C will not be tempted to go out and find himself a nice, tidy librarian.

pants.

I'm in Sioux City. I had raw onions on my salad tonight. Bad choice. I wish I'd brought a book; I feel mindless--like my brain is drooling on itself and short-wiring. I brought work, but I don't have the focus to do it. I don't work well in the evenings. Intellectual fatigue. At a certain point every day, I'm done, all finished, zeroed out. I get up at 4:30 a.m. to run around and lift things in repetitive patterns; I expire early. Is this age? I remember "all-nighters" when I was 20. I don't think I could pull an all-nighter if I tried. I would need invasive surgery to keep my eyes open that long.

I dressed badly today. Some days I'd like a redo. Relatedly, I lost a pair of pants. Not today. I don't know when I lost them--a couple of months ago, maybe. I also don't know how I lost them. I don't take my pants off in strange places, so where could they possibly be? I could see losing a pair of socks. But pants? No. Pants seem like something you'd keep track of.

This morning I was running late, and I pulled up to a red light behind another car. I was turning right. The car in front of me was not turning right. It was a long light, and I noticed how mad I was that the Toyota in front of me was not turning right. Who goes straight at red lights? Ridiculous. We could have been moving by then--right on red, let's go! Then, I thought, that's a pretty funny thing to be mad about. So I let it go. Then the light turned green, and the Toyota…. turned right.

starchy pellets

I'm hungry.
The house is a pit.
Bills are stacked.
I hate the tedium of paying them (stamps and envelopes and logging into accounts and looking up amounts and… gah, just shoot me right in the soul.)
And my guitar needs restringing.
(Because I busted my very first string, which made me feel kind of badass until I told C and he made fun of me for thinking that was badass.)
The printer has stopped communicating with my laptop again.
I don't know why these 2 fuss so much.
And I need to trim and install some fancy new insoles for my running shoes.
Because my back and knees hurt.
I don't know why they fuss so much, either.
The dishwasher is busted.
I've been eating horribly.
And my workout routine is all zoinked up.
My body is complaining (and getting mushy).
More travel this week.
And the week after.
And then that weekend.
And the weekend after that one.
And then it's Christmas.
I'll like that.
I love cookies and cider.
Also, my family is awesome.
C and I haven't seen much of each other since our vacation in October.
Last night we went to dinner.
It felt like a first date, like we needed to reintroduce ourselves and talk about the weather.
Until C started talking about music and music theory and how much he loves guitar.
I like it when C talks about music.
It wakes up his inner-mystic.
Inner-mystics are my favorites (My guess is we all have one. But we get embarrassed when they do the talking.).
I think if we let our inner-mystics steer our big dumb ships, we'd be happier.
We'd be weirder.
But we'd be happier.

I just listed a lot of complaints.
My complaints always make me feel self-conscious and apologetic, because they are about such small things.
My grievances are small potatoes.
Tiny potatoes.
They are basically little birdseed-sized starchy pellets.
It's ridiculous to have them.
But I do.
I feel tired and rushed.
I was built for leisure.
I know this about myself--that I was designed for solitary wandering and musing.
So when I don't have time to solitarily wander and muse, my soul gets sick.
This week, someone gave me an assignment, and I almost cried.
Literally.
I had to quick smile and make a joke so that I wouldn't cry.
I cry when I feel stress-bally.
It's embarrassing.
I cried at the gym once.
It was pretty lame.

undershorts and mortar attacks: a veteran's story

My dad, Paul, enlisted in the Army in the late 60s. He led convoys through Vietnam. I think that's right. I know "muleskinner" and "48th Transport" are significant to him, although I don't know exactly what they mean. My dad didn't talk about his experiences in Vietnam until much later. I don't remember hearing stories until high school in the late 80s. (Maybe he talked about it sooner, and I just wasn't paying attention, but I don't think so.). Here is one of my favorite stories:

Fresh on the ground, my dad was awoken early one morning to sirens for an air attack. He heard doors slamming and men yelling and running. He yelled to his hooch buddy, a guy named John from California, "John! Here we go!" John's response: "Zzzzzzzzzzzz."

My dad grabbed his flak jacket and a steel pot, crawled into the fetal position under the bunk, and wondered what in the hell he was doing there. John slept peacefully until the all clear signal. When the rest returned, my dad learned that no, running to the bunker was NOT just a suggestion; and no, hiding under your bunk in your underpants was NOT okay. "From that point on, I ran like hell."

They were bombed again two days later while my dad was standing in his skivvies at the piss tube. The sirens went off, and he cleared the 40 yards between the tube and the bunker in approximately 3 steps. "I didn't have to pee anymore. I'll tell you that," he said.

For the rest of his time in Vietnam it would seem that "every time they tried to blow us up, I was in my skivvies." I forgot to ask if John ever stopped sleeping through mortar attacks.

I love my dad a lot. I've said this before about my parents--the strangeness of suddenly realizing they are actual PEOPLE who existed before me, who experienced things outside of parenting me. It's strange to think of my dad as some scrawny young 20-something hiding from bombs under a bunk bed. Charming almost, if I am allowed to say something so naive about war. It's strange to know there is so much I don't know about his time there and how that's shaped his life. He has said on more than one occasion that he can't not notice small things--trained to pick out inconsistencies in others dress or speech or behavior. I know he feels deep respect for the new generation of veterans.

He was in the car listening to the radio in 1990 when they announced F-15s taking off for Saudi Arabia at the start of Desert Storm. "The entire car filled with the smell of cordite. All I could smell was cordite. It was the weirdest experience, and it never happened again."