Category: Words

My aim is true
–Elvis Costello

My aim is askew
–me

We all know people like me. The ones who don’t ever quite know what to say. The ones who try not to say anything, because when we do it is sure to be all wrong. Those ones. I’ve already confessed to being socially awkward beyond belief. Not good at small talk. Let’s just put it that way. It sounds better than calling myself a numb-mouthed freak. Oh, I’m not supposed to talk trash about myself. Sorry. Self, you’re a fucking freak of nature, and I mean that in a good way.

Of course, not saying anything comes with issues of its own, but talking? Talking is hard. It’s a good thing that I am not too prone to fighting, because when I am angry I am not the nicest person on the planet. Even when I don’t mean to be. I don’t get really angry very often, and I like to think it’s usually more or less deserved. There are some victims of my ire who would undoubtedly dispute that, but clearly they did SOMETHING to set me off, right?

Which is not to say that I am not wrong sometimes. I think I can admit it, most of the time.

Can I? Who have I been really mad at lately who can vouch for me?

The upside is that in person I find it pretty difficult to stay mad at someone I care about, especially once a situation I am upset about is clarified. In a text/email situation it is much more fraught. At work I have taught myself to sit on any email that I write when I am at all annoyed until I can look at it calmly. At home…well…I’ll just keep getting more and more angry while I am trying not to write anything. I’ll just fire off what I think is a perfectly calm and rational email only to re-read it later and discover that somehow I turned into the literary equivalent of Charles Manson.

I’m a messaging mass murderer.

What’s worse, I can’t even blame the heat of passion. At work? Oh, I’ll get mad and ranty, but it’s not like I’m all that emotionally invested in work. It’s work. They pay me to do a job. It’d be nice if all of the other people being paid to do jobs would do them properly, but how mad can I really get? Not very.

When I really care about something or someone the angrier I get, the colder I get. I get freezing cold mad. Freezing cold mad is not a good thing. When I write angry, I can’t say that I was carried away and didn’t mean it. When I write angry, I am very focused and very calm. If only I could be that focused all the time without the cold angry part. When I write angry, I mean every word I say. I want the person I am mad at to be as wounded as I am. I’m guessing that it shows.

My aim is true enough to hit the target. Askew enough to only wound the people I love the most. I don’t even pick up a weapon unless I love you. How messed up is that?

I wish I could be as eloquent about everything as I am about being angry. I come up with some really good lines when I am writing angry. Lines which I can never use again. It sucks.

Right, yeah. For the person on the other end of the message it maybe sucks, too. That’s OK, though. I’m mad at them. Right? Shit. No?

The worst thing about being freezing cold mad is that it doesn’t burn off quickly the way a hot anger does. A freezing cold rage will hang around. It has to be thawed out. Most people want nothing to do with that process.

Freezing cold mad has made me stop talking to people I love. For years. When you have two people who are equally emotionally moronic, it is not a good combination in a fight. I’ve…mostly…gotten over putting people in the deep freeze like that, but it is a response that I always have to sort of look out for in myself.

Not that I won’t stop talking to people who are toxic to me in some way, but that’s a different thing. Also hard. So hard.

In my next life, I’m coming back as one of those light-hearted charming rogues who don’t give a shit about anything but themselves.

Oh. Right.

I don’t believe in reincarnation.

Damn.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
–the Beatles/Blackbird

Well who hasn’t been there before?
I come round, around the hard way
Bring you comics in bed, scrape the mold off the bread
And serve you french toast again

Well, o.k. I still get stoned
I’m not the kind of girl you’d take home
–Sheryl Crow/If It Makes You Happy

Going over boring, depressing financial stuff, and it is started to sink in that keeping the house might be more money than I can easily afford. I knew that, in theory, but it is starting to actually really hit me. Oh, I could give up extras and do it. But should I?

Logically?
Probably not.

Do I want to? Kind of. Sort of. I really like my house, but I know it is probably not a good idea in the long term. What if I decide I want to move to Montana or Italy? Not that I’m planning on it, particularly Montana, but there are obvious reasons that I might want to be more rather than less liquid right now.

Like most things, it’s not all good or all bad news. The reason I can’t afford to keep the house is because it is worth more money than I thought it might be. The higher the assessed value, the higher the buyout. Simple math. Conversely, the higher the assessed value, the more cash there will be after it sells.

It’s only money. It’s only a roof. I can be happy anywhere. I CAN be happy anywhere. I can be happy ANYWHERE. More importantly, whatever I choose to do, I will be financially better off than the vast majority of people in the world. So, once again, perspective is everything.

From a purely rational look at it, which the best way to look at anything as purely..objective..as money, it will probably be best to sell and split the money rather than trying to love here. (Typo..that should obviously say “live here” but it is really spectacularly Freudian, so it stays)

I don’t really need to own a house. There are practical reasons why it is simpler for a woman living alone to rent. Or any person in a period of transition, I suppose.

But…it’s my house. It’s home, as much as a building can be. I like it here. My books are all here.

What does my emotion about possibly leaving it behind mean, really? It only means that I am used to it here. Being in a comfort zone isn’t necessarily the best thing, but it is hard to move out of. It’s a comfort zone. A place where you want to stay, because IT’S COMFORTABLE. Sometimes things are comfortable because they are right for you. Other times being comfortable means your life has become stagnant. So how do you know which is which?

Don’t ask me. I have no answers, only questions.

I don’t know much about anything, I have learned.
I just keep trying to figure things out and grow.

Sometimes learning to fly means letting go of the things holding you down.
It always means a lot of falling down.
It hopefully will mean a lot of getting back up again.

Not hopefully. I know I’ll get back up. I always do. Call it stubborn. Call it resilient. Call it persistent. I can’t even give up on a book I don’t like.

Give up on something as important as living life?
Not fucking likely.

For one thing, i can’t give up because I haven’t tried that vodka that comes in a skull yet.

Hey, if it keeps me getting back up, it doesn’t have to be profound.

The first time I saw “To Be, Or Not To Be” was in the mid-80’s when I was living in Paris. I was a little bit lost, and ran into a small theater that specialized in classic cinema. Since I was just wandering around as a bit of an adventure, I decided to go in and see whatever movie was playing. By the time I left, I was in love with both Carole Lombard and the director Ernst Lubitsch. He managed to make a film about the German invasion of Poland filmed during the occupation funny.

It was Lombard’s last film, released just a few months after her death.
Because of lingering sadness over her death, and the subject matter, it did not do well at the box office.

That day I also saw “Ninotchka” and “the Shop Around The Corner” and learned about the Lubitsch Touch. Every once in awhile, I have to re watch them.

They still make me laugh.

No writing tonight. I have an old movie to watch…