I Ate A Piece of Pizza

I ate a piece of pizza
earlier today
It took me 20 minutes
in the car
on the way
back home
But I got full
I had all I'd want to eat
Before the slice was gone
Being sated was a treat.

Things to Tell Donnie

1. Ithaca realtor

2. Tina

3. @ your library

4. circumcision

5. credit cards

6. toilet paper

I Has LOLs!

I made captions for two pictures. Go me.


moar funny pictures

and


moar funny pictures

Neither one features a cat or a cheeseburger (or a bucket - I still don't get what that's about), so I figure I get bonus points for that.

But You Gotta Have Friends

I've kept people at arm's length. I haven't allowed for the possibility of anybody changing my life. I've tried to project to the world that I am calm, cool, and collected; but it's to my own detriment. I've been pretending to have it all together, as if graduation from college meant I knew who I was and where I was going. As if my diploma magically erased all the mess -- my depression and self-confidence issues and helplessness. As if my being a few years older meant I had to be more in control than anybody.

I always felt I had to make up for those lost years, but one doesn't simply skip over the crucial steps that happen at that age. The show Friends moves me because it is all about the mid-20s that I never allowed myself to live. As Monica said in the pilot episode, "It sucks. You're gonna love it." Being lost, and frantic, and having crazy relationships, and making stupid decisions, working at crappy jobs in a wobbly career trajectory, and most importantly having friends who make me somebody better than I was without them. In that way, I've allowed television to live the life I should have been out living instead of inside and watching. Damn you, Must See TV!

I get that it's an unfair comparison, considering that real life isn't scripted or filled with quite so many beautiful people. But getting back to the friendship thing...I miss being friends with my friends, like in college. We affected each other's lives. We did stuff together; we didn't just report back.

Plus, I miss when we could all be nuts all the time.

Come to think of it, I really didn't do much of that myself until after college. The Manhattan years. I was just getting to the part where I could do something nutty and not have to apologize or feel shameful for it, when I moved to back to my hometown and moved in with my parents. Simon Says take one giant step backward. So, okay, fine, I did live my mid-20s a little before then. But not enough to kick it out of my system. I still want to drink and smoke and eat junk food and date guys who are bad for me.

I think that's just how it is. Rather than wait it out, I might as well live it up, right? I made a decision just after 9/11, and I can't reverse it now. We're coming up on seven years now. Seven years and I'm still just as immature and afraid and annoying as I ever was. I don't remember how I got to feeling good, so I feel like I've been flailing about, hoping it's floating somewhere nearby and I can grab onto it again. What I failed to realize was Willy Wonka was right -- the only way to go back is to go forward. Better press on.

But getting back to the friendship thing...I hope it's not too late. I'd like to be friends with my friends again, not just narrating my life to them over the phone like a Leno interview, talking to people about my episode du jour and/or the latest lesson learned. This installment of the Tales From Fel.

I'd like to allow for new friends, even. What's wrong with finding a new life-changing friend along the way? A coworker, perhaps.

My friends would have been there for me, if I'd chosen to live more recklessly. They wouldn't have minded so much if I called on them more through the bad times instead of hiding away until I felt better. They probably wouldn't have minded at all if I'd stopped quantifying all the ways I was a bad friend to them. They might not even mind if I'd let down some guard and got a little snippy with them sometimes, instead of being so afraid to offend them that I censor my Tales. PJ thinks my life could do with a lot less self-censoring, and I think she's right. She, for instance, would have continued to like me, even if I'd been more real with her about my choices and even if she disapproved. I was so afraid of turning out to be that friend of yours who pisses you off and need to be dropped. And maybe I would. But it needn't be the disaster that I've imagined; sometimes people just grow apart and it need not be a crying, wailing heartbreak. But this drifting along thing I've been doing is stupid. I need to live with purpose.

Here's what it is, what I keep coming back to -- being so afraid of what MIGHT happen, I haven't done much of anything. Don't rock the boat. Don't make waves. Have you ever swirled your arms in the water to make waves? It's kind of exhilarating. And so it's time. I'm resolving to try to be more genuine, even if it's not pretty. I think it'll give me confidence to do that and have people like me anyway. (I hope they like me anyway!)

Flaws in the Diamond

I've taken to snort laughing. At home, at least. I kind of like doing it. It makes me laugh harder to hear myself laugh so goofily.

It's certainly a better flaw than picking through my hair and biting off the wiry ones. I do that too, sometimes.

Unhealthily, I've forgotten to embrace my humanness. I don't mean my humanity -- I mean my limitations, bad habits, and imperfections. I'd much rather be perfect; short of that, I'd much rather hide them and pretend I don't have any. "If they knew, they might be disgusted or offended." My Virgo brain has heard the saying that you can't please all the people all the time, but it still tries. All the time.

There's a downside, beyond the facade of flawlessness being something short of honest. Without any allowance for being less than perfect, I am stifled. I always feel guilty. Bad. Not deserving of affection, praise, kindness or love. Because my household and grooming falls short? Feh. I'd rather accept and move on. And, you know, breathe a little easier. Like Phoebe on Friends needing to live in a world where she can spill, I need to live in a world where I can be imperfect.

So, yes, I pick at my cuticles and I'm a little lax in the body hair management department sometimes. I have more stuff than I need or have room for, and there's cat fur on my curtains from where Jasper likes to look out the window.

And I don't care who knows it.

Mother's Day

I called my mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. I thanked her for being my maaam. She thanked me for being her daughter. I think she meant it, and I can't imagine why. What have I done to be thanked for? I'm holding my full potential hostage.

Oh dear. I really do think in terms of deserving love. If I were my mom, I would be sad about the full potential not yet being reached, but I would still love my girl, the perfect blend of me and my husband, who I love. She's our firstborn, and so our hopes will always be higher for her, but we don't want to interfere. We don't want to meddle, and so we don't ask many questions. Also we want to remain blameless. She doesn't want to resent me either, which I have to appreciate. But it's this same remarkable self-awareness which is her tragic flaw. She knows herself but it's as if she doesn't understand all of the features of a new electronic device and I have the earlier model so my manual won't work for her. All I can do is get on with my own life and hope that she figures it out before her model is obsolete.

And that's how time doesn't exist in space.

Because I'm too often preoccupied with my own universe, I forget that everybody is the center of their own universe. I'm still learning how to manage mine, and being the center and all, I forget that everybody else has to learn the exact same thing. With all of our universes bumping into each other's all the time, it does get confusing sometimes.

I forget that learning, that everything in essence, is a progression, building on itself, and that it doesn't ever finish, for anybody. Oh, plenty try to stop change from happening, from time passing; even so, they're never as static as they think they are. Like I said, it's easy to forget this stuff among all the distractions.

*

EmYa always strikes me as done. She seems at peace, I mean - not that she's closed-minded, not at all. There's a contentedness to EmYa. I've been so in awe of that, in awe of her really, and also we're only now starting to be friends outside of work, that I didn't see she might be a lot like Kate was. EmYa, like Kate, is able to move around North America at will. Kate, too, was contented to live alone and pursue her career. Kate was a tall plus-size girl, who everybody liked because of her sunny personality. But Kate was somewhat emotionally stunted. Over the years since I've seen Kate last, she's lost some of her giddiness but gained a serenity.

Much like Friends, I'd like to point out. Post-911, with Monica and Chandler's wedding and the seamless transition into the new season's storyline (Rachel having a child alone), the Friends were past the quarterlife crisis, which was the original concept for the show (as I see it - I don't know if the producers/creators ever said that). It's all very Grosse Point Blank.

Anyway, Kate got herself in shape, she got herself a home, and she built a real life for herself. Somewhere in there, she was ready to and so did have fall in love and have a relationship. EmYa is a couple of years younger, and obviously not everybody grows up at the same rate (I'm on the slow end of the learning curve on this one, myself). I don't know a thing about EmYa's relationship with her boyfriend, but she very well may not be done. That's all I meant.

The Balance of Solemtye: The Glint of Day

Fantasy novel, wha?

Ok, check this out:

Feldom is obvious: the realm of Fel.

Solemtye is short for 'soul empty'. I realized today that I need to keep a balance between my soul being full, or 'soulful', and my soul being empty. I think of it like my car's gas tank, where the limit is (or should be) a quarter tank. When it gets down that low, it's time to refill. My soul is the same.

Glint - it's that sparkle, or twinkle, that some people have. Real people. Interesting, creative people.

It's impossible to talk about sparkle without talking about Trixie. Trixie changed my life. Quick history lesson about me: August 24, 1992 is the day that changed my life forever; it's where Book One begins. Trixie was an enormous part of that day. Because she was my sparkle. And she saw mine. Trixie is my soulmate, in the truest sense of that word. She's my fairy godmother, and my guardian angel, and even sometimes my evanescent muse.

You might think the Day part is obvious too, but it's not, quite. My success to date has been as a Day person, not a Night person. My feminine wiles, such that they might be, are day. I can't really describe what that means yet, but it's a term that makes sense to me somehow. It's like how I think the numbers four and eight are green and the number nine is orange. It's not exactly logical; it just is.

So that's why Book One of the Feldom series will be called "The Balance of Solemtye: The Glint of Day". It's loosely based on my quest. The quest that I'm hopefully, going to conquer sometime soon.

Get it?

The Pick Up Artist

Did I ever mention how much I loved this show on VH-1?

Welcome to the Feldome

I have decided. If I ever write a fantasy novel series, it will be set in the realm of Feldom. The first quest/novel? "The Balance of Solemtye: the Glint of Day"

Trust me!