Michelle's House of Horrors

E se davvero tu vuoi vivere una vita luminosa e più fragrante,
cancella col coraggio quella supplica dagli occhi.
Troppo spesso la saggezza è solamente la prudenza più stagnante,
e quasi sempre dietro la collina è il sole.
–Mogol-Battisti/La Collina Dei Ciliegi

For the vast majority of you, this will be even harder to understand than it usually is. Apologies. Think of it as an exercise in seeing things the way the rest of the world does with our all-American linguistic domination. If the Roman Empire had lasted another millennium….maybe you’d read me like this every day.

È chiaro che non voglio dire tutti quelli che non capiscono. Non capisce nessuno, e non è perché scrivo in Inglese, Italiano o Cinese. È perché sono un essere umano, e gli esseri umani non capiscono mai niente d’importante.

In questi lunghi giorni, con una vita che…beh..non funziona più benissimo..penso molto a quello che voglio. La vita che vorrei vivere. Una vita semplice. Una vita piena. Ma quello che voglio?

Non so proprio.

Riesco a definire quelli che NON voglio, ma non so se è una cosa che voglio fare, determinare la mia vita per punti negativi. Preferirei trovare i positivi.

E mi spiego male.

Non so più l’Italiano. Peccato, no, quando lo scrivevo così bene? (E si, non saper scrivere è una scusa..mi spiego male in tutte le lingue)

E poi non è mica complicata quello che voglio. L’ha già detto Battisti lassù: una vita luminosa.

Che faccio per viverla?

Cancello col coraggio quella supplica dagli occhi…
Ok ok ok

Cerco di fare le cose che mi fanno paura. Essere chi sono, invece di essere quella che piace agli altri. Quella finta Michelle? Se non piaceva a nessuno, non m’importava. Non ero io. Se non piace a nessuno quella vera? Ahhh…ma ecco il trucco: quella vera? Quella con le idee strane? Quella taciturna? Piace molto di più alla gente. Che meraviglia.

Poi cerco di parlare un po’ di più. Non riesco sempre. Se non riesco a dire le mie parole, le scrivo qui. Esco più spesso in vece di stare sempre sola. Mi piace stare sola, ma stare sempre sola perché ho paura di…di che, poi? Ecco. Esco. Vedo gli amici. Non mi nascondo.

La saggezza? Non è fatta per me.

Scrivere in Italiano ė difficile. Come ci riesci ogni giorno, voi Italiani?

And now I feel like I need to go back to Italy for a little sumpin’…
I wish I could take Chelle. It’s her birthday. Happy birthday!

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 Queen and tells every one who walks up that they should vote for his girlfriend who is the most beautiful girl in school is obviously smitten. Someone who says: “bring your leftovers over and we can mix them with my leftovers and a couple of glasses of wine and it will be a real dinner” is clearly someone who loves you.

Most of the time, it is not that clear.

A few years ago, while the company I worked for was going through some layoffs, my then-new boss referred to a several of us with the phrase “people who don’t bring value to the team” and mentioned that such people might be likely to be traded to other teams or let go entirely.

Later, when I asked her to explain why she thought one of her top performing employees didn’t bring value to the team, she wondered why I was upset. You know, when you mention terms like “no value” and “layoff” in the same sentence, people will jump to conclusions. Mine was that she didn’t like me, and I should probably hurry up and get my Epic certification, polish up my resume and clear off my desk.

No one was more surprised than I was when I didn’t get a pink slip. I was even more surprised when she started actually acting like she liked me. Turns out, having to lay off a bunch of people who she didn’t even know had her a little inside out and having to keep professional secrets didn’t agree with her.

In my annual review the other day, she said: “over the years, there are not very many people who I have felt like I would have a hard time replacing. A lot of people make me sad when they leave, but you? It makes me totally twitch to think of you leaving. You anchor your whole team and save me a shit ton of work.”

Awwwww. And she put in writing, too. Well, not the part about twitching. Or the shit ton part.

The thing is, I was totally wrong about how much she valued me, but I wouldn’t say that the conclusion I came to based on how she was acting was unsound. It turned out to be incorrect…but any logical person would have reached the same conclusion that I did. I simply took her at face value.

Sometimes you can be completely logical and still be incorrect.
Sometimes, most of the time, the logical conclusion is the correct one.
Sometimes, there is not a correct answer at all.

A lot of the time, I am kind of bad at the process.

In the case of my boss, both my gut feeling and logic were wrong. That’s unusual. Normally both are in sync, and then a decision is simple. It’s when the brain and the gut are at odds that it gets complicated.

With me? If it’s a tie, I’ll listen to my gut. If it’s my brain that’s winning and not by very much, I will probably listen to my gut. If my brain is screaming WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG at my gut?

Well.

Sometimes I still listen to my gut.

I don’t know why people think I’m smart either.

Oh, but I am not allowed to refer to myself as a dumbass.
Damn.