{"id":2895,"date":"2013-12-10T06:05:41","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T14:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2895"},"modified":"2013-12-09T22:07:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T06:07:04","slug":"poor-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2895","title":{"rendered":"So hard to explain"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Poor little girl<br \/>\nRan away for good<br \/>\nI try to explain<br \/>\nWhy she won&#8217;t say a thing<\/p>\n<p>Sad, sad thing<br \/>\nI&#8217;m so far away now<br \/>\nHow can I say<br \/>\nWhy she won&#8217;t talk at all<br \/>\n&#8211;X\/Poor Little Girl<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have always been fond of explanations. Because I tend to go from zero to wild ass speculation in some situations, I end up needing to explain myself on a semi-regular basis.  Maybe &#8220;fond of&#8221;  isn&#8217;t exactly what I mean. &#8220;Required to&#8221; might be a more apt description.<\/p>\n<p>I have also been known to put myself in situations where I need to explain myself because I&#8217;ve been an insane dumbass. (Aaaaand, so much for the positive self affirmations!)  That&#8217;s slightly different from wild ass speculation, because it involves being a lunatic. With wild ass speculation, I am being rational but imaginative. When I&#8217;m an insane dumbass, there&#8217;s no pretense that I&#8217;m sane. Still, points for being imaginative, right? <\/p>\n<p>Positive self affirmation: I am imaginative and only occasionally a dumbass and some people like me!<br \/>\nThat needs a little work.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of the time, though, I find myself explaining myself for no reason at all. Justifying a feeling. Over-documenting something I did at work. Offering a rationalization for my behavior when no one has asked. Why is that?<\/p>\n<p>Self confidence? Well, since I don&#8217;t have any of that, I doubt that&#8217;s the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Oh.<\/p>\n<p>For someone who is as bright as I am, and I am pretty bright, I am seriously lacking in anything like self confidence in some areas of my life.  Work? Mostly OK.  Anything that involves academic work. Mostly fine.  Wander over into the areas of feelings? So not OK. For a long time I even worried about whether or not my female friends liked me. If I don&#8217;t hear from someone for a few days, I am still very prone to thinking it must mean that they don&#8217;t want to talk to me. Maybe they&#8217;re mad? Maybe they&#8217;re offended by something I said! Maybe I did something stupid? <\/p>\n<p>Maybe I&#8217;m being irrational?<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s likely.<\/p>\n<p>But, hey&#8211;I&#8217;m imaginative about it.<\/p>\n<p>The alternative is that I not talk at all when I&#8217;m irrational. If I&#8217;m talking to you, and I&#8217;m acting like a crazy person about something I imagined that I said or that I think you meant, it means I love you and am trying really hard not to REALLY be irrational and stop talking to you  entirely.<\/p>\n<p>Except when I do elements of both.  Once a good friend and I stopped talking to each other for a very long time because we each thought the other was made about something each of us had completely imagined. That takes a certain about of creative insanity, don&#8217;t you think? <\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;m a little saner than that now. Maybe. Mostly.  I try really hard to talk about things instead of. Sigh.<\/p>\n<p>Well.<\/p>\n<p>Work in progress.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll explain later.<\/p>\n<p>P.S.<br \/>\nYou know what? I really meant to talk about how I like it when people actually tell me what they are thinking so I don&#8217;t have to guess, because guessing makes me crazy due to my over active imagination. It didn&#8217;t work out quite that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poor little girl Ran away for good I try to explain Why she won&#8217;t say a thing Sad, sad thing I&#8217;m so far away now How can I say Why she won&#8217;t talk at all &#8211;X\/Poor Little Girl I have always been fond of explanations. Because I tend to go from zero to wild ass &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2895\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">So hard to explain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-KH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2877,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2877","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":0},"title":"I&#8217;m positive I&#8217;m a dumbass, OK?","author":"Michelle","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been talking to the wall and it's been answering me Oh darling how I miss you I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness --Elvis Costello\/Human Hands Oh, don't worry. My selfishness level is at a perfectly normal operating level. Sometimes the walls answer me though, but never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7233,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7233","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":1},"title":"An imaginary chat about being an advice columnist","author":"Michelle","date":"August 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I love talking to you. It's just like having a journal. Except I talk back. Yes you do. Am I nice? Not always. I try to be. Intentions don't count. That is what I would say if I was giving advice. I don't think so. Well. Hmm. Don't assume that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4411,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4411","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":2},"title":"Positive affirmations&#8211;hey, this will be easy!","author":"Michelle","date":"March 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"They gave us some super easy homework in fat camp last week. The assignment? Come up with a personal mantra. A positive affirmation. Something you can live with even if most positive affirmations make you want to puke. (Yes, that particular clarification was mine. One of my hobbies is arguing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/20140311-105827.jpg?fit=420%2C294&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6589,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6589","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":3},"title":"Judge not lest you be&#8230;WRONG!","author":"Michelle","date":"July 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a story about what a bad judge I am of how people feel about me. Oh, sometimes it's obvious. A guy who asks you out every day for two weeks is clearly interested. A guy who sits in front of the table where people are voting for Prom\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3953,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3953","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":4},"title":"Automatic writing?","author":"Michelle","date":"February 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What goes up must come down Spinning wheel got to go round --Blood, Sweat and Tears\/Spinning Wheel Recently I was trying to describe how my brain works to someone whose brain is apparently much tidier than mine. My thought processes, I am sure you have noticed, are pretty disordered. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Words&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11102,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11102","url_meta":{"origin":2895,"position":5},"title":"Choices","author":"Michelle","date":"February 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Life is full of choices. Every minute, you have to decide on something. What to eat. If you should go to the bathroom now or at the commercial. If you should wear the red shoes or the black ones. Food is tricky though, especially if you are prone to making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Random thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}