In lieu of a decision

I can't settle. Indecision seems inevitable. Whether I'm contemplating a career or the day's outfit, a name for my blog or a name for my business, I'm wracked by indecisiveness. A wavering, a buzzing, a sense of regret, or a projection of regret. Is it possible to feel regret for decisions we haven't made?

At the center is my self-consciousness. I don't want to be obvious, but I don't want to appear to be trying too hard to be oblique. I want to be authentic, above all, but how can I commit to a self that is constantly in flux?

There is a distrust of identity, in that question. Rooted in my life's quest for a solution to existential angst. A desire to fix what was broken when my brain turned against itself, if we're looking at things from a biological perspective. Which I rarely do, but it's easier than trying to explain trauma in emotional or experiential terms.

Trauma. I don't feel entitled to the word. Technically, medically, even, it applies. But it feels disrespectful to those who have suffered trauma at the hands of another, whereas I was merely the victim of bad brain chemistry, a combination of nature and nurture that will inspire no pity in those who have suffered true hardship.

I was sheltered, provided for, loved, given opportunities in education and emotional development. In other words, I was privileged. So to talk about mental illness as a handicap in any terms other than clinical - well, it's something I've done. Again and again. So what, if, in this moment, I happen to feel conflicted about my self-pity, the seriousness with which I regard my own suffering?

In another frame of mind, another mood, I would chastise myself for minimizing my own pain. Suffering is relative, after all. It is not exclusive to the economically disadvantaged. It's important to validate my experience as difficult, as traumatic, just as it is important to acknowledge that, in terms of trauma, I could have it a lot worse. At least I was privy to resources. If I had to choose between battling demons that exist in my own mind and the horrors of poverty, hunger, abuse or war, I'd choose my fucked-up mind every time.

No matter how deeply I delve into the philosophical meaning of my experience, or how hard I try to quantify, negate, or justify my suffering, I get no closer to comfort or enlightenment (the latter being a euphemism for the former). It's an exercise in futility, one I find pretentious in others. I am embarrassed about my predilections toward melodrama and grandiosity, and even moreso about the position of privilege from which I write about hardship.

This is a diary entry, not an essay. It is a way of approaching the page again, after an absence. It's been too long since I demonstrated any consistency in writing. I fear it. I dread opening my laptop or journal (one of a half dozen notebooks half-filled with intermittent to-do lists, lazy poetry and anxiety-fueled word vomit tied together with hangdog declarations of optimism). But then I read books or listen to podcasts or attend readings by artistic heroes, and I get that old familiar ache of the benched athlete. I've never been a cheerleader. I'm lousy at spectatorship. It fills me with either the sting of envy, the urgency of inspiration, the euphoria of delusional aspirations or the ego's irresistible impulses to destroy ambition. Usually, it's a combination of feelings that is uncomfortable even at its most exhilarating.

There is no cure except the doing. No way to start but by beginning. So this is another beginning, another chink in the armor of that self-sabotaging ego. Or maybe it's just a bunch of gunk that needed purging. Whatever it is, it's done now.

False Start

I didn't plan well, and now I have a headache and a disturbing lack of focus at 10 in the morning. It's Monday, obviously. There is a couple to my 10 o'clock who are enjoying an intimate moment in a public coffee house. On a bench, no less. It's really unsettling my nerves. I mean, my nerves are already sensitive due to the series of inconsequential failures that has been my morning, but there's something about two human beings cuddling on a bench in a coffee shop AT 10AM ON A MONDAY MORNING. That is not a time for intimate cuddles in public. What kind of life are they leading that makes them so relaxed on a Monday morning? They are adults. Maybe students? They're gazing into each other's eyes and I can't even handle it. Go to work! Go to class!

Oh good. They left. I must have powers.

Speaking of being generous towards my fellow humans and other ways in which I'm falling short this morning, I should be working right now. But I left the necessary documents at home (though I brought plenty of unnecessary ones), and I'm clearly too emotionally fragile to cope with this catastrophe. Plus I ordered coffee, and I paid $4 for it with tip, so I'm not going anywhere until I drink it. It's some fancy pour-over, I don't even know. I wasn't unsatisfied with my coffee until I discovered there are fancier ways to make it, and now I'm ruined for drip coffee. Which I think is what you call coffee that's made in a coffee machine. You know, the regular way.

My theory is that people who have enough money to not worry about starving create these complicated and time-intensive methods of making coffee because we need to maximize our enjoyment of consumables while minimizing the effect on our waistlines. Instead of fearing starvation, we fear obesity, which isn't a judgment of our vanity so much as a matter of fact. We want to enjoy food, but we also want to preserve our health - or, if we're being really honest, our figures.

So we find ways to make healthy (or in the case of coffee, calorie-free) food more satisfying. The ritual of preparing coffee enhances its enjoyment. I learned that by listening to the Hidden Brain podcast (episode 1), and also through personal experience as a Buddhist and a one-time imbiber of The Marijuana and other recreational consumables (praise be and fear not, for I am now reformed).

I think it's okay that we trick ourselves into enjoying what we consume. Even if it is bougie AF. I'm trying really hard to come to terms with my own bougie-ness. My foodie impulses. But I'm such a crab about it. I just find it really annoying that I have qualities that are un-interesting and ordinary, because my favorite delusion is that I am a snowflake. Vulgar is another way of saying ordinary, isn't that interesting? And apt? What's another word for snob...

At least I'm self-aware. Just kidding, that's the most annoying thing of all. It's such a bother, knowing my motives. But hey, it's 10:30 and my coffee's almost drunk (go home, coffee...). So I better pull myself together and hit restart. Bye for now.

Me being conflicted about my bougie coffee.

Notes from the Beige Cage (A Winter Reflection)

I kind of like these brutally cold days, because no one expects me to wear heels or have perfect hair. Bundling up and looking cute is an easy art form to master. Moreover, the biting cold is a wonderful excuse to avoid exercise and social obligations, opting instead for hot tea, fatty carbs, and book after glorious book.

It is only when I have occasion to wear a dress that I regret these weeks of hibernation. Tights are the brainchild of Satan, and no amount of self-delusion can persuade me that my skin is porcelain-like, not pasty.

I Did It My Way

The Original Assignment: Write a blog post about the history of Christmas ornaments.
The Status: I've spent 6 hours researching, writing, and revising. I now hate writing.
The New Assignment: Write it again, only this time in my own voice, with no concern for my audience.

The Outcome:

Evergreens were used by ancient people to symbolize eternal life. Then a British dude named Saint Boniface went to Germany to convert the pagans to his religion. The pagans wanted to either A. chop down an oak tree or B. kill a boy, and His Holiness stopped them by splitting the oak tree in half, obviously. Then a fir tree either A. grew up from the middle of the oak tree fully formed, because God, or B. was nearby. So Boniface told the heathens that the fir tree was a symbol of the Holy Trinity because it was a triangle shape, and then his buddies put candles in the tree so he could keep preaching at the heathens after sunset.

Apparently the Germans loved this new idea and became fervent Christians who put on Church plays with fir trees in them. They decorated the trees with apples because of the "Tree of Paradise" (you know, the one from which treacherous Eve made perfect Adam eat, and it made them ashamed of their bodies). Some of them may have hung the trees upside down from the ceiling. I don't know why, but I will probably adopt this tradition because its awesome.

Ok, then Martin Luther took a walk in the forest and may or may not have eaten some hallucinogenic mushrooms (none of my research indicates that he did, but I'm pretty sure of it), so he was looking at the sky and it was so beautiful with the twinkling stars and evergreen branches. When he got home, instead of using words to describe what he saw, he brought a fir tree inside and attached candles to it and was all "take these mushrooms and then look at this tree with me, wife!" Or maybe he had kids and told them it reminded him of Jesus. Either way, they saw the tree and it was good.

Then everyone in Europe had Christmas trees. The Germans loved Christmas trees most of all and made ornaments out of lead and glass, then they immigrated to America, where all the Puritans were like "NO." One dude even outlawed decorations and singing and stuff, because Baby Jesus was super insulted by people having fun in his honor, I guess. But then someone sketched Queen Victoria standing in front of a Christmas tree and published it in an illustrated London newspaper, and everyone in America was like, "I NEED THAT."

So then ornaments were a thing in America. Mostly Germans made them, and then the Japanese exported them to us, and also Czechoslovakia. Then an American was like "the war is coming, how will my glass making company stay in business?" And the answer was to use a light bulb-making machine to make a whole butt load of ornaments at once. So that happened, and now everyone makes and sells and buys ornaments, even Jews and Buddhists and stuff.

Merry Christmas the end.

The Heavy Sad / No Cheer Found Here Today

This winter has been hard. Dark, cold, wet and relentless. Every year, it steals my joy. Just sucks the life right out of me, and all I want to do is get under the covers and sleep the sad away. Most days, I'm able to fight back. Muster some courage, keep the candle lit, force a smile until it finds something to latch on to. Most days I'll even laugh. The darkness is there, tugging at me, but most days, it's not all there is.

Then there are days like today. My body weighs a millions pounds, like my veins are filled with wet cement. I stare at nothing, and hope no one comes looking for me, because a single question can take minutes to reach my brain. And finding the answer is an underwater sprint, and halfway to the finish line I forget where I'm going or why. My face is frozen in a downward turn, and I'm aware of how unattractive this must make me, but I just. Don't. Fucking. Care.

I think of all the things I'm supposed to be grateful for, and the things that are supposed to bring me joy. But my broken brain and my aching heart won't let light enter. Closed for business. In the periphery, I'm vaguely aware of my "toolbox" of spiritual resources, but I don't bother. They're useless without the energy or drive to wield them. When the sad is heavy like this, I don't want to feel better. Because the heavy sad magnifies obstacles, and at the same time it puts a buffer between me and them. It tells me that if I feel better, I'll have to deal with all those problems I can't possibly manage, so I might as well stay in bed where its warm and no one can find me and ask me to do things. So many things to do, and none of them seem to fucking matter. Not a damn bit.

I don't usually write about this shit publicly. Because it's bleak, and I want my writing to give hope. But it's also honest, and maybe someone out there needs that honesty. We live our lives trying to hide this shit, thinking we are protecting ourselves or protecting others or both. Sadness is inconvenient, unpleasant, impolite. But it's real and it's human, and I've never much cared for polite conversation anyway. So here it is, my great big heavy sadness. And I'm not going to apologize for it, or justify it, or dress it up in false hope I don't really feel. I'm not even going to to reassure you that I'm sure it will pass and tomorrow will be a better day, as well-meaning friends will tell me, but I don't feel that way either. I just feel shitty. And that's all I wanted to say.

Let's Get Domestic! Now with Recipes!

It's the New Year, which means time for new pursuits. Step Two: Bitch is getting domestic up in this piece! (Step One was - obviously - Be a gangsta!)

You see, dear reader, for as long as I can remember, I've prided myself on my lack of domestic skills. Or at least, I've adopted an attitude of pride in order to mask my ineptitude at cooking, cleaning, home decorating, and responsible pet ownership. It is an attitude that has served me well, much like growing an elaborately-styled mustache and smothering one's enthusiasm in irony has helped many a hipster escape the discomfort of vulnerability.

But, as a woman recently indoctrinated in the ways of 30-Something Sophisticates, standing as I am on the very brink of self-actualization, I have decided that this is the year in which I expose myself... as an embarrassingly amateur homemaker. So, it begins.

Confession #1: I have slow cooker recipes. Two of them. I will share them with you now, to show you that I'm for reals.

Thanksgiving Turkey Meat! 

1. Buy a frozen turkey breast from the store

2. Figure out how to get the wrapper off without getting frostbit fingers

3. Put the frozen meat in the slow cooker

4. Add a can of cranberry sauce (sans can) and a packet of Italian salad dressing mix

5. Set to low and wait 6-8 hours. Maybe do something domestic to pass the time, like knit a scarf.

Hawaiian Pork Meat! 

1. Buy a big lump of pork roast meat

2. Stab it all over with a fork

3. Put liquid smoke and sea salt on it

4. Rub it in! Or lightly dab at it with a napkin, if you're a Puritan.

5. Set to low and wait 6-8 hours

That's it! Try them now, please, and tell me how it went.

P.S. The cookbook will be coming out soon. I've entitled it, "Making Food To Eat!" and it contains all two of my slow cooker recipes, plus classic favorites like "Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich," "Two Kinds of Cereal in One Bowl!" and "Anything Microwavable from Trader Joe's!"

A Nap Time Conversation About Royalty, In Which I Meet My Match While Tiny Brains Conspire Against Us

This is a recent conversation/battle of wit that my boyfriend and I recently had. Most of it is accurate, according to my memory. I think.

Me: Sometimes I wish I was a pretty pretty Princess.
Boyfriend: You are a pretty pretty Princess.
Me: I don't have any subjects.
Boyfriend: Don't be ridiculous, you have Norm and Tilly*
Me: Oh! Yes! I rule them with an iron fist!
<raises iron fist triumphantly, then, turning to him with an inexplicably demonic grin>
Me: And you are my Prince.
Boyfriend: Yes.
<momentarily satisfied, there is a brief silence>
Me: My Prince?
Boyfriend: Yes, my sweet?
Me: How many, um… <searching for word>
Boyfriend <helpfully>: ...Princes do you get?
<in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, I respectfully concede defeat; Boyfriend raises iron fist in victory; fade to blackout..>


*My subjects, who may or may not be hatching a coup in their tiny, tiny brains: