Caterwauling

In amazing news, I found Inspiration at a coffee shop, and I wrote till my brains fell out I ran out of pages and my ink-stained hands destroyed my new (totally on-sale) white Nine West purse with the snakeskin strap. But that doesn’t matter — my beloved black-and-pink dream journal, themed “Letting Dreams Run Their Course,” is now officially jam-packed with nothing but.

Now to muster up the courage to read it. Else put the damned thing away and not ruminate over its contents and start a new one already, themed “Turning Dreams into Reality.”

And while the madness shall stay firmly between the pages of the journal that will ultimately be buried in the box in my closet marked “Bondage Materials,” I still get a giggle when I read this passage (written today) when somebody said something surprising to me as we were eating ribs:

*takes a bow*

That was the only funny thing written, I assure you. The rest is this weird mixture of reality and delirium, expectations and wishes, disillusionment and hope. Lots of roundabouts inspired by my observations but nothing fully quantified. Like a handwritten version of this blog, truth be told.

And while I still truly believe I need some tangible beauty and color and inspiration in my world, I’ve found that I’m perfectly capable of creating my own in the interim. And even regenerating it when all else seems lost and barren and otherwise impossible to swallow. (Heh.)

In any event, until I get wherever I need to go — in every sense — I’ll just keep searching for it in my own mind so that I will know my Utopia when I finally reach it. Till then, I — we — all need to keep believing that such a place exists, else we’ll rush right past it and not even recognize it if it reached out to trip us. And maybe, if I’m right, we’re already more than halfway there, and each experience brings us closer to the “better days” that we’ve been promised.

On iTunes: Martina McBride, “Anything’s Better than Feeling the Blues”

I had plans on escaping to a local beach this weekend to do some writing and people-watching. It was a beautiful, temperate and sunny week, so GOD FORBID that kind of weather should carry over into the weekend. It’s pouring. Scattered T-storms on the horizon today and tomorrow. Whee.

Seems sort of pointless to travel in these conditions, especially because I am in high need of relaxation and things of beauty surrounding me — not amped-up Virginia drivers and mini panic attacks and CERTAINLY not more drab walls closing in on me.

Suggestions for overcoming burnout otherwise? If I don’t experience some measure of inspiration and freedom and color and escape and time outdoors SOON, my head is going to explode. Or maybe it already has exploded and I’m just trying to fix what’s broken before it outright dies inside me.

On iTunes: Emiliana Torrini, “Dead Things”

As seen at Liv’s and Neil’s and Lachlan’s.

Presenting … (just) Five Personal Idiosyncrasies. Or, as I like to say, IdioTsyncracies. That, and …

Gimme an O! Gimme a C! Gimme a D!

Ahem.

1. Straw wrapper bows. When I get a beverage that happens to be accompanied by a straw with a wrapper, I MUST tie the paper into a bow. I’ve totally picked this up from my Mom. In fact, I have a straw wrapper bow in my purse from the last time I saw her a few weeks ago.

2. American manicures. That’s what my manicurist calls them — they’re like French manicures, only it’s a soft white paint on the tips, not chalk-white. It looks more natural, like you didn’t just pay to have your nails done. I just got a French manicure and, while I love it, it is so odd to look down and actually see bright white on my nails.

3. Denim skirts. I don’t mean, gee denim is comfy sometimes. I mean, when I worked in casual work environments, I had a different denim skirt for every day of a fiscal quarter. I *~*heart*~* denim — denim purses, denim shirts (only cute ones, not workshirt-types), denim dresses. Everybody always knew me by my wardrobe. But jeans? Don’t like ‘em. I hate pants in general on me.

4. Bathroom items “just so.” I have an unnatural (and possibly unhealthy) obsession with order, perhaps because the rest of my life is CHAOS. Like, toilet paper and paper towel rolls MUST be installed properly (i.e., paper coming up and over the roll — none of this backward shit, because even if it’s at your house, I WILL make it hang correctly).

Gimme an O! Gimme a C! Gimme a D!

And shower curtain? Out of the tub. Toilet lid DOWN, preferably before flushing begins — not a girl thing, but a sanitary thing. Also, my younger cat likes to jump in the toilet when it’s full of piss, so you’ve got to be REAL quick when flushing and such.

And let’s not talk about things that go on in the bathroom. Some things are better done in your own home and NOT in public areas. People need to pinch their cheeks and not pollute areas that are already overpopulated and claustrophobic. Don’t eat things that make you root and toot if you’re not close enough to hope to release them into your local portion of the river, k? Some of us have highly overfunctioning olfactory nerves (and are already stir-crazy without the fumes).

And related, hoo boy, you get your bang for your buck with THIS portion of the entry. I do NOT understand how, if there are five or seven stalls in a particular ladies’ room and the place is empty and I choose the stall at the end of the line, the next person who walks in MUST OCCUPY THE STALL NEXT TO ME. Look, I know there’s a partition between us, but for GOD’S SAKE, would it KILL you leave a “courtesy stall” between our bare asses? PLEASE?!?!

Gimme an O! Gimme a C! Gimme a D!

5. Must talk things out. With myself. As the best listener I know, I often play therapist, editor, psychic, parent and best friend to … well, myself. This usually takes place within my head, but the occasional outburst has confounded many people into thinking I’m on the phone or have a visitor. Look, I’m an only child and I play with by myself very well even now. Although my ramblings are very reminiscent of “Milton Waddams” in “Office Space.” Where’s my stapler?

BONUS QUIRK

You just KNOW I’m going to be adding to this list till the end of time right?

Anyway, I read things backward. I start on the last page of magazines and catalogs. I start in the middle of books. When my boss gives the team stuff to edit, I start on the last page or the last section because I figure everyone else will be tired by that point and I can give it my full attention and editorial goddessry.

I also eat dessert first. Yeah, yeah, it might give me a heart attack and it will be the last thing I ever ate. And who wants to die choking down vegetables?

No kids, that’s not my first, middle and last names, although I can’t say those don’t fit right now.

But first, tunage!

Is it possible to feel anchorless and yet like you’re carrying the weight of a thousand worlds on your weary shoulders?

I’ve spent the last year not feeling like I am entitled to any of my feelings — good or bad — and I am feeling an insane need to emote, even though I know better. No matter how valid I believe my feelings are (and how desperately I need someone, anyone to validate them), conventional wisdom dictates that this has never done me any good, so why start (again) now?

I’m just speaking generically, by the way. I am rather adamant that one should do something splendidly bitchy like leaving meat and fruit in the vents of an apartment she is being unceremoniously forced to vacate. Because, fuck, why act civilized when, say, your management company is telling you your car will be towed on Sept. 1 if you don’t get a new parking sticker from them even though you’re getting an eviction notice 30 days later?!?!

There was a moment when I had too much time alone with my dark thoughts today (I believe it was on the Beltway. LOL), and I almost started to believe this fucked-up little voice in the back of my noggin that told me that I worry about everything because I don’t have any real problems — or, at least, I feel like my problems don’t *count.* (Yes, holy shit, PITY PARTY.)

I was reading some old blog entries and just doing my usual manic processing of a million unrelated events (hello Deep Thought!), and I spit out one correllating factor — I don’t always emote when I need to because I’m always absorbing what everyone else around me, near and far, is outputting. And I end up turning it all inward and otherwise DRIVING MYSELF INSANE.

What a revelation! It sucks now that I see it (theoretically) on paper, but dude — I get it now. And I’m not special in this, mind you — we all do it. When all others are losing their heads, someone’s gotta keep it together, no? Problem is, it’s like the commercial with the raft that springs a leak and, while the guy is scrambling for an idea of how to save his girlfriend from drowning, she plugs it with a Tampax Pearl and the world is right again.

But I hate those screwy-shaped tampons just as much as I hate BEING an emotional tampon, to borrow a phrase from a male friend who always seems to attract hormonal females who just want to dump their problems on him because he happens to be one of those good guys who listens and dispenses useful advice, just so long as you can accept the truth.

In any event, I guess I’m just hormonal now and I just want to feel like I’m actually contributing something to this world and making the most of my time in it and not just waiting. And waiting is a loaded word in this use, but I don’t know that I have enough server space to talk about all the things we’re waiting for (Godot?) and all the things we could/should be doing in the meantime.

Is it guilt that drives us to this feeling of absolute inadequacy if we cannot list 20 things at the end of every day that we’ve conquered? And even if we do, people like me might multitask like madwomen but, while we seemingly accomplish a lot, we can’t give anything or anyone the real level of attention that they deserve. Except for the one itty-bitty thing that makes our right eyes start to twitch uncontrollably — and people probably think we can’t handle anything, if something that ridiculously MINOR sets us off.

Ah, what goes unsaid behind what IS said — talk about the real books and movies and plays that are inside all of us. But will we ever find people who will listen and not judge, who will encourage and not discourage, who will make sure you cast away that weight on your shoulders and not allow you to acquire another layer of worry and regret?

And so we drift from person to person, thing to thing, looking for some level of trust that can be turned into longevity.

But that scares people like me, too — was it Groucho Marx who said he’d never want to a club that would actually want him as a member? I don’t believe it’s that we think we can do better in a different environment — we’re just terrified that this restless feeling will haunt us for eternity and we’d have to suffer with it. Not that we wouldn’t be restless elsewhere, of course, but that doesn’t occur to us at the time.

Yet nobody wants a home more than we do. Ponder the dichotomy — I do it every day. I fear being real because I am terrified of the repercussions. Yet, it sure would be nice to feel safe enough to drop our anchors and not worry about being seen with our guard down.

Maybe that would encourage us to learn how to swim, for those of us who don’t know how already. If, of course, we can get up the courage to let others see us in our uncertainty and be truthful in admitting that we don’t have the faintest idea how.

It’s almost like some of us treat life like a series of motel stays — and maybe that’s just the way it has unfolded thus far and that’s why we’re in that cruise-control mode — in that we’re constantly shuffling groups of friends, relationships, cities and surroundings. If we get too comfortable, maybe we’ll wear out our welcome, so we should go before they *don’t* miss us. Perhaps it’s also like dating and flirting and all that crap — we’ve been taught to put a cork in it and not reveal too much, because people will call us back and want to take us out again to keep learning incrementally more.

And so, we are rewarded for holding back, for being enigmatic, for hiding our whole selves. I find that so difficult — I want to be 100% me, well, 100% of the time. Yet when I am, I always walk away from the situation, wondering if I’d done the right thing.

Perhaps I need to pop more Midol — this is way too deep for me right now.

But I don’t want to imply that I’m fake in any way, either. I hate confrontation in a big way, but when asked for honesty, I don’t hold back. It’s just deciding how to serve it up otherwise, in palatable, dainty little petit-four-sized bites that’s the challenge. Like, I tend to bring up certain issues when it’s really something else (usually ridiculously minor) that’s chafing my cha-cha.

In these small ways are how I test the waters, so to speak. It takes a lot for me to feel safe.

Because that means I’m trusting them with me — with my heart, my memories, my mistakes, my lessons, my evolution. And also with the one thing I cherish more than anything: my soul. Some people save their virginity for someone special. For those of us whom it’s, well, WAY too late for that, our soul is the one thing of precious value that we’ve been protecting in our hope chests.

And when we’re ready to open those hope chests, perhaps that’s the land-walker’s equivalent of tossing out the anchor at the spot with the greatest view of the sunrise. It’ll be good to see what’s inside and how well it was preserved for the perfect time and place, where it could be most appreciated. And, god, won’t it feel good to bob along the waves instead of fighting against them?!?!

On iTunes: Black Lab, “Keep Myself Awake”