Category: Words

Getting behind in my reading

This is something I hate.
Getting behind in my reading.

On the one hand, I love having unread books.
On the other…ugh….err….unread! Danger, danger!
Must…read…
But…

Life gets in the way.

It’s been well documented that I have had a very very fuzzy several months, intellectually. Personal upheaval will do that to a person. Insomnia will do that to a person. Excessive introspection, perhaps.

I know WHY I am reading less. It’s the same reason I am having so much trouble writing coherently. No, it isn’t your imagination. I am frequently not particularly clear.

It has gotten a little bit better. I am reading again, just not as voraciously as usual, not as intelligently as usual either. Do I just need to be patient with myself? Like that’s ever going to happen!

There are only so many trashy novels I can stand reading.

I have, in the “unread” folder on my Kindle, 41 books.
That is a lot, even for me.
And reading is pretty important to me, so when people who are interested in my well being indicate to me that I need to get out more and meet people…well…it’s a conflict.

I work full time.
I write about 2 hours a night.
I cook and eat dinner.
I’d like to have an hour to read and decompress.
Maybe get some exercise.

I don’t have time to meet people. I am too busy exercising my brain.

What?

It’s true.

Maybe I can go out and meet people after football season. And yes, I can hear a certain person pointing out that I only watch college football, and my team doesn’t have a game until January 1st which leaves me plenty of weekend time for meeting people.

I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna.

Couldn’t I just put up a sign or something that says “if you’re nice, stop by and have a beer with me?”

No?

I suppose it wouldn’t be very safe. Or likely to result in my meeting the best quality of people.

Speed dating? I could meet 15 people in a few hours and get rejected by a bunch of guys at once! That would be super fantastic. Yes, I am assuming it would go badly. I am not someone who is immediately appealing. Still, it seems like such a bizarre idea, that I feel compelled to do it. Maybe when I am single next month.

An escort service? Can’t afford it.

Online dating? The idea of doing it again makes me whimper. On the other hand, I did meet a lot of people. Some pretty awesome ones, like Mark.

Church? Atheist.

Meet Ups? An option. There doesn’t appear to be one specifically for women with a thing for Northern Italians though. Seems like kind of a big flaw.

Full of excuses? Absolutely. Meeting new people is outside my comfort zone. Which means I have to fucking force myself to do it. And I will.

Grumble grumble grumble.

You know what I need? I need a host. Someone to go places with me and introduce me to people. Like they used to have in the public rooms in places like Bath.

This is going nowhere at an impressive clip.

It might be time to bail out.

Sleepy. Scatterbrained.
Signing off..
Sorry for the mess.

What is real?

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
–Margery Williams/The Velveteen Rabbit

This is a calling card
Maybe it will be a farewell note
The poison fountain pen now requires the antidote
–Elvis Costello/My Little Blue Window

I no longer see these things as risk. I see them as acts of trust. I think the real risk is the choice to disconnect. To be afraid of one another.
–Amanda Palmer/The Art of Asking

Once, a long time ago, I knew this boy.

He was smart, funny, kind, athletic and all things good to me.
I loved him.
He was real, but sometimes he tended to veer away into a sort of alter ego.
A mask of a personality.
A bit like a politician.
Forcing himself to laugh and smile.

But with me, on our own, he was real.

He worked hard to be successful.
At everything.
The more he worked at it, the less real he seemed to become.
Most people get more real with time, at least the ones I consider friends. It’s been the other way around with him. Or so it seems to me.

Eventually I could only find the tiniest spark of a real person inside of him.
He said women always left him. Even some of his own family. He felt like there was no one in the world who would stand up for him. No one who he could trust, no one who had his back.

I think he has some really good reasons for wanting to be impervious. I think he has a lot of good reasons not to trust people. Don’t we all, though?
I don’t think he has ever really understood that in order for people to trust you, you have to trust them. I don’t think he knows that if you can’t trust some people, it doesn’t mean that all people suck.

I am not sure he really understands that in order for people to love you, you have to show them who you really are. You have to be real. He knows it on an intellectual level, I just don’t think he really understands it on an emotional one.

He says the right things about being genuine. About being kind.
But when it comes to actions, he can be callous. He makes excuses for casual cruelty. It is always someone else’s fault when he is doesn’t show up for something, or is mean-spirited. He quick to assume he is being attacked when it comes to hearing what effect his actions have on other people. Everything is a reason to withdraw.

I am not sure if that is because he is un empathetic in the extreme, or if he simply believes so strongly that people are responsible for their own feelings that he thinks it doesn’t matter what he does.

He is not a bad person, he says, and I believe him.

He is becoming something worse.
He is becoming a shell.

He tries to compensate.
He reaches for shiny things and shiny people.
He drinks too much.
He laughs and smiles a lot, but the laughter and smiles never reach his eyes.
He keeps himself very busy.
He makes sure he is always entertained and entertaining.
He doesn’t think about what he is doing to himself or to other people.

He seems to want someone easy. Someone pretty. Someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking. Someone who will laugh at his jokes and not ask hard questions about the things he does. Maybe be impressed with financial big gestures. Someone who won’t pester him to share. Someone who is willing to settle for the shell or not even notice that maybe that’s all there is left.

He pushes away the few people who still love him. The real ones. The ones who really care about him.

Me, finally.
And it took a lot for it to happen. I will love the person he is forever, but I can’t be around someone who not only isn’t real but thinks he already is.

If he were ever to read this, he might think I am completely wrong.
He might feel like I am attacking him.
He might not understand or believe how much I hope that he finds happiness.
But isn’t really about that boy.

It’s really about me.
It’s about how I feel.
How his actions have effected me.
It’s about what I want.

I am not shiny.
I am not easy.
I am not willing to let things slide.
I want to share thoughts, ideas, emotions, shenanigans, laughter and tears.

I want everything.

And I want someone who is real, even if most of his hair has been loved off, his joints have gotten loose and he is very shabby. After all, I’ve got scars of my own from becoming real. We all do. We just have to keep trying to stay real as much as we can, even when it hurts.

Being impervious?

The only reward is that it keeps out some of the pain.
We have to learn that it keeps out most of the good stuff, too.
It keeps out everything that is real, or that helps us be real.

Being real isn’t optional, it’s mandatory. For me. For the people I have in my life.

At this point in my life, if I were to select my own personal toast, it would go something like this:

Here’s to the chinks in our armor.
The only things that keep us real.

Cheers!

Connecting things together

Artists connect the dots— we don’t need to interpret the lines between them. We just draw them and then present our connections to the world as a gift, to be taken or left. This IS the artistic act, and it’s done every day by many people who don’t even think to call themselves artists.
–Amanda Palmer/The Art of Asking

A lot of the time, I will start writing a post because of something I read, or a song I hear. Something I see out living my life. Something will stick out. I like it. I don’t like it. Whatever. I see it. It is interesting in some way, like a semi truck with rainbows shooting out of its tire wells.

So I jot it down.

Then later, something happens that links me back to it, and I can complete the connection. This post isn’t like that at all. This post is just because I just read a book I pretty much highlighted in its entirety and I want to ramble on about it. I could probably just copy and paste the whole book into the blog and just write:

This. What she said.

It is a thought provoking book. A tear provoking book. You should read it. It’s called The Art of Asking and it was written by performer Amanda Palmer.

I don’t think of myself as an artist, although I am probably someone who would be defined as creative if you were the sort of person who liked applying labels. To use a dreaded phrase from school days, I don’t apply myself to any one thing enough to consider anything I do worthy of being called artistry.

Or maybe I am playing down my talent. That has been known to happen.

Or it could be false modesty. The infamous humble brag.

Or…
Or…
Or.

Anyway.

The book was full of “yes, yes, exactly, YES” moments for me. It seems like all I have done since reading it is send quotes from it to my friends or put them in my blog posts.

What resonated with me?

The essential human need to be seen and understood, even if we don’t want to be looked at. The importance of connecting people as well as ideas together. The importance of giving and receiving. The importance of just DOING something even if it scares the shit out of you. Being yourself. Living the life you want to live even if it means a lifestyle others would find uncomfortable. Asking for help when you need it. Accepting it when offered. Accepting that sometimes the answer is no. Radical trust, unconditional love and the challenges of living your life with those as a base.

And then there was all of the interweaving of the thread of trust, love and connection that lies over and above all the hurt in life that ran through the whole book.

That thread of connection has been on my mind a lot lately.

Things have been unraveling. Some I knew about, some I didn’t. The connections in my life that are genuine will never unravel entirely. Maybe they will. I guess I don’t really know–I like to think they won’t. I like to think that there are some people who are permanent. Everything is in a constant state of change and growth in life, including relationships. Hard as it is, those are good things. Change keeps us from stagnating. People come in and out of our lives, with positive and negative impacts.

There is a certain amount of natural ebb and flow to relationships, romantic or friendly, that has always been a little hard for me. I am not good at reaching out. If I don’t hear from someone, my immediate assumption is that I have done something to cause the silence. In trying to work on reaching out, I have been maybe too grabby. Balance hasn’t ever really been my thing, right?

So things have gotten a bit frayed around the edges. A lot frayed.

Reaching out to people is hard, but sometimes you have to.
Letting go of people you love is hard, but sometimes you have to.
Like in the book, you do it when it hurts enough.

Answers, you wonder?
No, not really.

What I wish for is to get to a place where reaching out is something I do because I can. Because I want to. To offer help as well as ask for it, and not only when it hurts.

Will I ever be that evolved?