Nothing is Mundane

How strange, she thought, that the sky is blue.

She lived for moments like this, few and far between, when she found herself surprised by the seemingly mundane. Her work forgotten, the spaghetti Bolognese growing cold on her desk, she sat, turned defiantly toward the tall window and considered the view from the third floor. An ugly, crumbling brick building with a rusted fire escape stood in stark comparison to the flawlessly cerulean winter sky.

Often, she marveled at the surplus of hatred, evil, and ugliness in the world. She belabored the injustice that permeated her life and the lives of everyone she loved. She looked upon those more fortunate than herself with contempt and those less fortunate with a confusing concoction of pity and disdain. Even as she was compelled to help those she could with what little she had, she found herself often expecting much in return despite her altruistic intentions.

Yet, on occasion she found herself in moments similar to this, rediscovering a part of life constantly overlooked and taken for granted. When it happened, she found that a calm comfort settled over her. The monsters and pressures that surrounded her, threatening suffocation with their deafening demands, faded away and she observed the world in all its staggering clarity.

How strange, indeed, that the sky should wind up blue. Of all the hues in all the world, blue. Intellectually, she knew that the combination of myriad atmospheric conditions and gases were responsible for the brilliance before her. Yet, she understood, inherently, that it is right; the sky could never have inspired so much love and poetry in green or orange. It had to be blue, from the very beginning. It was the same innate sense of place and precision that still dumbfounded her, that the world seemed to know that she needed to be reminded of another fact: that everything is unfolding exactly as it should. Everywhere. Even when she had forgotten, or simply couldn’t see.

Strange

By the time I wake up tomorrow, all of my best friends will be on different continents.

Amanda – Europe

Jennifer – Central America

Autumn – Australia

It’s okay, guys. I’ll be fine here in North America on my own. Don’t worry about me. I’ll make it somehow.

*twitch*

*sniffle*

Different Drum

I’ve always loved and noticed this song when I hear it on the radio, but tonight I actually listened to the lyrics for the first time in a long while. I was surprised to find that it is uncannily, eerily, *exactly* the way I feel about life right now. It was a little strange, really.

Different Drum

written by Mike Nesmith

You and I travel to the beat of a different drum
Ah can’t you tell by the way I run
Every time you make eyes at me
Wo-oh

You cry and moan and say it will work out
But honey child I’ve got my doubts
You can’t see the forest for the trees

Oh don’t get me wrong
It’s not that I knock it
It’s just that I am not in the market
For a boy who wants to love only me

Yes, and I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty
All I’m saying is I’m not ready
For any person place or thing
To try and pull the reins in on me

So good-bye I’ll be leaving
I see no sense in this crying and grieving
We’ll both live a lot longer
If you live without me

Oh don’t get me wrong
It’s not that I knock it
It’s just that I am not in the market
For a boy who wants to love only me

Yes, and I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty
All I’m saying is I’m not ready
For any person place or thing
To try and pull the reins in on me

So good-bye I’ll be leaving
I see no sense in this crying and grieving
We’ll both live a lot longer
If you live without me

The Mist

Just got home from seeing Stephen King’s The Mist. Perhaps it would have been scarier if there hadn’t been three hundred idiots in the theater yelling at the screen, but it struck me less as a horror movie and more as a statement on the human condition. I’m usually not a big fan of King’s novels or movies, but this was bloody brilliant. And just plain bloody, too. Turns out, we humans are the monsters.

And this didn’t strike me until I was on my way home: he turns it around on us. The movie illustrates the ways that humans become so evil and hateful as to turn on one another, and you find yourself rooting for the “good” guys when the “bad” ones become a bloodthirsty mob bent on human sacrifice. But are we really any less evil than they when we cheer at their deaths?

Not an Oscar winner, but worth the ticket. A real experience.

Protected: Lonely Thanksgiving

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Difficult Confessions – Nature or Nurture?

With five grown children between the two of them, I wonder if my parents feel like failures that only one of us has ever had a real relationship?

Friday Five – Nauseating Celebrities

Not Friday, but since I haven’t done one in a very long time, I figure it’s okay to sneak one in here.

So here are the five celebrities I’m most sick and tired of hearing about in the media.

5. Britney Spears – Obvious. Okay, she’s the epitome of the euphemism “white trash.” We get it. How about some news?

4. Oprah – As mentioned before, I’m tired of her and her sickening photo opportunities.

3. Amy Winehouse – Who is this bitch? Why did I never hear about her until she started snorting coke onstage?

2. Lindsay Lohan – Please. Just… no.

1. Carrie Underwood – She clucked like a chicken during her American Idol audition. I’ve never seen someone come so far on so little talent. My god, can she SCREECH just a little louder, please? Yes, she’s cute, but please… move on.

This Will Only Make Sense to Two People

The bump was not my twin. Was a zit. It’s gone now. Hal-le-frickin’-lu-jah.

Confused

I feel like I’m losing all the people who are closest to me. What am I doing that is so wrong?

On Respect

Now, I’m not saying, nor have I ever said, that Hillary Clinton will or should be elected to the office of El Presidente. I have, however, always acknowledged that it is damn refreshing to see a woman running for the office, and you have to admit, it’s been an interesting campaign so far, and we have a whole year to go before it’s over. Think of all the fun things that could happen in that year.

I just read an article about the most recent Democratic debate in Vegas. My respect for Clinton has grown a wee bit. I’m STILL NOT SAYING I think she’s the next President. I’m just sayin’ she’s probably got a bigger set on her than most of her opponents. The following quotes for your perusal:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her closest rivals Thursday night of slinging mud “right out of the Republican playbook”. . .

In a word: Ouch!

“People are not attacking me because I’m a woman, they’re attacking me because I’m ahead,” Clinton said.

This is true.

Asked whether she was guilty of playing the “gender card” in her drive to become the first female president, she said she had not.  “I’m not playing the gender card here in Las Vegas,” a magnet for gamblers. “I’m trying to play the winning card,” she said.

Oooh-ha! Wow.

Okay, if she gets in, she’s going to destroy our healthcare system and tax the shit out of us to pay for it, but damn, that’s a strong woman. I must say I admire her for the way she has stood up to the men in this campaign. Women in a boy’s club have to work a hundred times harder to compete and she has done so with aplomb.

I’m still not voting, but I admire her.

Public Service Announcement

I’m sure this goes without saying to most folks who read this blog, but just in case there’s a troubled pre-teen out there just looking for something to do, I’ll just say this: Dude, don’t do meth.

Good News

I just hung up the calendar that contains all my MBA classes, professional development days, and orientation on the fridge. I used my primary-colored alphabet magnets to hang it and they spell “IM F N CRAZY.”

Protected: Pictures

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Praise

Dear God:

THANK YOU!!

Sincerely,

Leslie

Bargaining

Dear God:

Yeah, it’s me again. I know you and I have had some serious issues over the years, and I doubt you even still. Yet I continue to acknowledge your presence even as I entertain doubts of it. Over the past year I’ve made a conscious effort to give you credit when things are going well rather than only blaming you when they are not. You know as well as I do how many nights I’ve engaged in some really heavy ceiling staring, ponder you, questioning you, talking to you. . .

And I try not to make too many requests. This is mainly because I figure whatever it is I’m asking for, I can probably work out on my own at some point, and also because it feels a bit presumptuous to beg favors from you when there’s so much animosity between the two of us. I wouldn’t just walk up to someone I’ve just sucker-punched, or who has just spat on me, and ask for a helping hand.

So of course, as luck would have it, I find myself smack dab in the middle of a predicament and I have nowhere else to turn. So here’s the deal:

Don’t take her away. Please, whatever else you have going on up there, just please don’t take her. I simply cannot believe that after everything you’ve brought her through, and as much faith as she puts in you, that you wouldn’t bring her through this. She has so much left to give, so many laughs and tears left. She has survived so many horrible, horrible things; this can’t be her undoing.

Whatever odds you and I have been at over the years, she has never doubted you. I ask for nothing except for her.  And what do you get in return?

I wish I knew. I wish I had something to offer. Could I promise never to doubt you again? To be good for the rest of my life? Never to ask for anything again? Sure I could. But we’d both know (you more than me) that it would be a lie. I can only say that it would serve to re-energize that little hamster spinning the wheel of faith in my brain.

She needs you. I need to believe that  you’re there with her. Maybe it’s postponing the inevitable, but as long as she has love and life to give, I will postpone it indefinitely.

Maybe this isn’t how this works. I have before been accused of using you like a credit card. That is not my intent. But it’s all I have right now.  It’s all she has.

Sincerely,

Leslie

The Greatest Promise Anyone Has Ever Made to Me

From Jenn: “I promise, I will never leave you alone with my children.”

I don’t know if this is more for my benefit or theirs, but either way, I like this idea, and I will hold you to it, lady!

Brain Dump

It occurs to me that I have not made any posts of any substantial value (not that any of them really are to begin with) in a very long while. So I decided to do a brain dump about some things that have been on my mind lately.

<brain dump>

First: If I read, see, or hear one more thing entitled “Oprah Admits Crying Over Abuse in Her South Africa School,” I’m going to vomit. Projectile vomit, with large chunks of half-chewed burrito. So she cried. Big. Fucking. Deal. I cry when I see a Snuggle Bear commercial on television, but I don’t go typing up press releases about it. I’m so glad she can eke out a few tears for South African kids half a world away when there are plenty of poverty-stricken, starving, abused, homeless crack babies here in America. You’re a real frickin’ philanthropist there, O.

Second: I’ve been reading an interesting book, purely for recreational reading, with no relevance at all to my actual, real, personal life, called Having an Affair?: A Handbook for the “Other Woman.” It’s written by a British author whom I swear has got to be the thickest most confused woman on the planet. And she doesn’t even live in America, if that tells you anything. Some things she has really, really right. My main complaint is her incessant insistence as to the reason men cheat on their wives: because the wives don’t work at making their men happy, because wives get fat and stop wearing makeup, and because wives let them get away with it. So basically, wives of the world, your man is required to do nothing to keep you happy for the rest of your life, but you are expected – nay, *required* – to maintain your slender physique, even post-children, smear on the war paint even if you’re staying home watching the kids, and to do whatever it takes, whenever it takes it, to make sure that your man is satisfied sexually, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically. Seriously. Read the book. But get it from the library; don’t spend money on it. A man’s happiness is everyone’s responsibility except his own. A woman’s is no one’s responsibility, not even her own. I shall now quote an actual passage from the book: “If you’re reading this and you’re a wife who suspects that her husband may be having an affair, your time would be better spent if you put this book down and started making your husband happy.” *blinkblink* BULLSHIT!

My other complaint about the book is that the author implicates that even with the aforementioned safeguards, that all married men will cheat on their wives. Without exception. Now, part of me actually believes this is probably true, but contrary to that overgeneralization, there *have* been married men I’ve known who absolutely would never cheat on their wives, regardless of circumstance. So why butcher that hope for us women? Seriously, reading this book makes me more and more depressed every time I open it. Hence why it’s taken me three weeks to read three chapters. I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but holy shit, this woman is the most anti-feminist author I’ve ever read. Anyway. . . enough on that topic. I feel my blood pressure rising with every letter I type.

Next: I have gotten to a point where the very concept of dating turns my stomach. I actually had a date a couple of nights ago. Not a bad guy, in fact I actually like him a little, but the thought of calling, or emailing, or arranging a second date, or getting dressed up, leaving the house to see him again, absolutely repulses me. It’s not him. I just don’t want to be bothered. I simply enjoy my solitude more than I enjoy the company of someone I barely know. And I do not have the stamina for this; I do not want to spend hours upon hours “dating,” getting to know someone, only to find out that, once again, I’m not interested, or he’s not interested, or he’s interested but only if I’ll lose weight, or he’s interested but only in sex, or I’m interested only to find out he has an abnormal fixation with dead things or explosives or he’s interested but wants to take me to a porn theater on our second date or I’m interested but then he sends me text photos of himself naked. You laugh, but every single one of those scenarios has happened to me. In. Real. Life.t

Also: I’m ready to start exercising again. I ditched my diet during my vacation in July and haven’t had any luck starting up again since. Luckily, I’ve only gained three pounds back. I’m eager to start swimming again, but I think Panda and I both are getting bored with it. So I’m hoping this one-mile swim goal will motivate me a little, but I’m also looking for some new stuff to throw into the mix, especially since winter is coming on and wet hair = cold walk to the car after a swim. So, I’m thinking kickboxing looks fun, and also thinking of signing up for Weight Watcher’s meetings. Never been to the meetings before. I always just tracked everything myself. I figure I might meet some new people and it might motivate me.

Speaking loosely of vacation: only two weeks until my Thanksgiving vacation! Woot! I desperately need some time to myself. I intend to spend the entire week (except Turkey Day) in my pajamas, watching old movies and petting my cat. I don’t even intend to shower from Friday, November 16th until Thursday, November 22nd. Try me. I’ll so do it.

Random thought: I wore makeup for the SECOND day in a row today. This has got to be a record. I can’t remember the last time I wore makeup twice straight like that.

I bit a fingernail today for the first time in five weeks. It was the pinkie nail. Now my left pinkie looks so short and stubby.

</brain dump>

Difficult Confessions: Hygiene

Unless I work up a considerable sweat or have something super-important going on I rarely shower between Friday morning and Monday morning. I will, however, wash the four key areas. This suits me just fine, thank you.

I feel incredibly restless tonight. I can’t sit still long enough to watch a movie, can’t focus long enough to complete one task before moving to another, and can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that’s making me this way. It’s a feeling like something is wrong somewhere and I just haven’t found out what it is yet.

Sleep, always an evasive luxury, shall prove doubly intrepid tonight.