Having a beer

It's really my fault for playing the do-gooder role with other people's possessions. I fervently wanted my spouse to give his old computer to my friend who just had her appendix out. I overheard he'd transferred all the data from the old computer to the new one. I heard wrong. I must have seemed appallingly eager to take away his "box" that still had allegedly important e-mails on it. I put the pressure on. He got irritated. I got irritated. He left for a while, and in the interim I had to have a beer to calm down. It was only 5 pm, too early for a beer, according to MY rules (my rules are only for me, and I never expect others to obey them). Having the beer led to making chicken soup, which negated our plans for going out to dinner. See how out-of-control I can get on ONE BEER? By the time my spouse got back I'd calmed down and had a basic dinner to offer him. Things seemed peaceful. However, I soon found another source of irritation. I had promised to send an "estranged" friend a copy of some writing I'd done (about her) 30 years ago. I knew it was in my file cabinet somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Leo, the good (and still wonderfully alive) cat, tried to help me, but was only a hindrance, and I became agitated, once again, to the point of using bad language audible to my spouse, who was in another room, trying to "chill." At this point, I craved a second beer. But my "rules" said, "No!" These rules have waxed more stringent lately by the Buddhist influence, the idea of allowing oneself to FEEL COMPLETELY what is going on at the time, not smothering the opportunity to learn by distractions like alcohol, drugs, or television. Oh, I felt it completely. I was ready to smoosh up all the papers I've carefully saved (for whatever pitiful reason) and make a trashy bonfire on the front lawn, just as I often wish my spouse would do with HIS papers. Ranting, I drank an entire bottle of flavored club soda (about as expensive as one beer) trying to avoid the additional alcohol which would have provided the dulling sensation, the RELIEF. But relief did come as soon as I located the elusive materials in a red folder inside the cabinet. Looking at these papers gave me pause. I'd always been a writer. Here I had been fictionalizing a "breakup" between friends, using poetry and film scripting. Perhaps the person I'm sending it to will say, "What the HELL was she thinking?" But I'm fearless. I'll launch it off in the mail, thus bringing full circle one of the mysteries of my life: my obsession with abandonment by various women whose wishes I've "obeyed," thinking I was "pleasing" them by doing so. This one woman's response is not as important as the fact that I've made a tentative reconnection with her. But if I DON'T get an answer in a few days, I reserve the right to have at least TWO BEERS!

Learning from the boob tube

Watching good television (namely, the last season of “Six Feet Under” episodes) is like dreaming. It feels as if it’s coming from your own mind. You know those people; you are with them in their kitchen, mourning a death or eating yogurt or chasing a bird out the window, and it’s all so deliciously angst-filled, like a tragic pastry. The few minutes after watching an episode are necessarily a streaming of that dream into your life. You haven’t woken up quite yet, and the phone call from your girlfriend who’s having an emergency appendectomy seems like a continuation of the show. Fortunately, you’ve just learned how to behave like a well-written amiga or family member should; you’ve seen many interesting examples in the last hour or two. These examples, combined with short-term memories of emphatic things your girlfriend has said to you when you’ve momentarily let her down in the past, guide you in your speech and behavior, and you want to serve. There would be exhilaration in venturing out into the night on an errand of mercy, whether it would be to feed her dog or to park yourself in a hospital corridor to tenderly greet her when she’s wheeled out, groggy and grateful. As it turns out, you get to do none of these things. Still, you were willing, and you think maybe she knows that, though others have taken the available positions. You go to sleep wondering, for the fourth or fifth time in about twenty years, what exactly the appendix is for.

Complacency, procrastination, identity

I am way too comfortable at my desk at work. It leads to a false view of the world for hours at a time. The situation is extraordinarily forgiving. When I think of jobs I've had in the past, I'm amazed I have landed here. Students and callers-in seem to think I actually have power to help them. My boss is two hallways away and rarely bothers me with requests. People stop by to chat. My tasks are relatively easy (if sometimes tedious). I don't have to think about "teamwork" or group projects. I can indulge in personal e-mail and postings like this. I am respected and get regular raises. Something's terribly WRONG here! I don't deserve this! That's why it's convenient to have a failure-in-the-offing, such as my un-done thesis. THAT's what I've done with the old Marylyn; I've wrapped her up in the guilt and worry of a nearly-complete master's degree, and I can take her with me wherever I go. If I'm feeling uncomfortably satisfied, I just unwrap the psychic bundle of un-done thesis, and there she is, babbling incoherently from the middle of a pile of books about Calamity Jane and the Western novel.

The horror of not being horrified

I'm wondering about my lack of aghast-ness upon finding out about the suicide of an acquaintance, a woman in her forties who was part of my "ladies who lunch" group. I was not close to her; she was not part of my daily life. I liked her. She seemed very cheerful, almost too cheerful. She loved dogs and children. She was unmarried; had never found "the one," and may have been "gay," but never made an admission of such (to me, anyway). Other friends from the group are quite distraught. I am more worried about them at this time than I am horrified by this person shooting herself through the heart with a 22. Is it possible it has not fully penetrated me, this news? It has been three days. Am I really so unenlightened as to care only about family, spouse, and very close friends? Or is the emotion I feel I'm lacking simply an unproductive panic that I've blessedly lost the capacity for? Even still, I asked the Wednesday-night Buddhist group to meditate on/around/about her for a few minutes. Like our now-deceased cat, Shadow, I must need an example of normal behavior to imitate, because tears came to my eyes only when I heard the sorrow in someone else's voice over the phone. Either Shadow was (in retrospect) guru-calm and free of kitty "samsara," or I am psychologically damaged, as we thought Shadow was. Or, none of the above.